“The second prototype unit was seized?”
“…That’s right.”
I’d been about to drop the unit off at the hangar to have the engineers run maintenance checks on it and assess its growth when Mogami broke the news, looking like he’d bitten into something rotten.
“Why are you telling me this? It’s not like I can do anything about it.”
Whatever had happened, this was between Mogami Heavy Industries and the military. I was just a student and a test pilot, so it wasn’t like I had a say.
Now, if it had been my unit, that would’ve been a different story. But this was the second prototype unit. It didn’t even have a designated pilot yet. I had no business getting involved in something like this.
Heck, part of me wanted to congratulate Mogami. “Hey, good for you. This means someone wants it even without a pilot.” Not that I actually said that to him.
But Mogami didn’t look pleased at all. I was having a hard time figuring out why, so I asked him.
“They don’t have a pilot,” he grunted. “And they’re not even letting us do the maintenance. You get it now? They’re taking away a mech that no one can pilot to use for something we never designed it for. They’ll take it apart, probably break it in the process, then reverse engineer it so they can reproduce it themselves behind our backs. How the hell am I supposed to be okay with that?”
“…Yeah, fair enough.”
I couldn’t argue with him there.
Even someone like Isotani, who otherwise came across as a thoughtful, refined young lady, had called the hybrid unit a freak show. Or rather, that was the only way she could describe it.
It didn’t bother me too much, but apparently, the more you knew about piloting, the harder the hybrid mech was to handle. There was even talk about splitting up the controls and putting one person in charge of maneuvering and another on the weapons systems.
That made it sound like a tank, honestly. But then again, if you thought of mechs purely as weapons instead of something the pilot synced with as an extension of their own body, that idea might not have been completely off base.
Apparently, some military folks were arguing that since fighter planes and tanks already had split controls, it only made sense to do it for mechs, which were more complex.
But that was the naive thinking of someone who didn’t know these machines.
Sure, if you split responsibilities, one person could focus on dodging and the other on shooting. But these units weren’t just mechanical. They were biological weapons made from monster corpses.
They required a magicite link to function. If those links got crossed, the unit wouldn’t even start. Heck, even putting a person without a magicite crystal in the cockpit would shut the whole system down, meaning no third-party ride-alongs. That was how delicate they were.
Even if you tried to clearly split the neural connections—for example, by giving one person control over the legs and the other over the arms—you’d just end up with two miserable pilots. The pilot for the top half would inevitably get frustrated because they couldn’t control the legs, while the other would be freaking out at having something moving independently on their back. A two-person system would simply hinder both pilots.
And that wasn’t even getting into the issue of storage or growth. If you weren’t expecting the mech to evolve, then maybe a dual setup might work. After all, standard weapons didn’t grow. But these units were supposed to update to become more efficient monster killers. If you couldn’t store them, they couldn’t grow. That was a problem.
In that case, what about mounting a standard-type unit on a beast type like a rider? Unfortunately, that was also a no go. A ten-tonne beast-type mech wouldn’t move well with a fifteen-tonne standard-type unit on its back. Plus, splitting them into separate units meant they couldn’t absorb the recoil of heavy cannons together, making the configuration pointless.
Now, there was what the military called “mounted style,” where you transported a standard type on the back of a beast-type mech until deployment—but that was just a tactic used with beast types, not a specific hybrid unit.
In any event, the key takeaways were that no one had been able to pilot the second hybrid unit since I’d come back from Kyushu, and that the military had taken it anyway despite nobody being able to pilot it.
“Of course, they’re not going to use it as is,” Mogami continued. “They’ll tear it apart and try to mass-produce it. The performance will be downgraded, but technically, they could replicate it.”
“Really?”
That seemed like a huge hassle for a “freak-show” experimental unit.
“They have pros of their own, you know. And the construction is relatively simple—just slap a standard unit on top of a beast type, then link them up with artificial nerves and muscles. It isn’t complicated on a technical level. Sure, the makeup and composition of the nerves and muscles are trade secrets, but they don’t need to replicate that perfectly.”
“I see…”
If the basic tech was already there, any decent engineer could break it down and figure it out. And once they’d done that, they could easily pump out downgraded copies.
That would be in line with what the army wanted, too. They’d rather have something they could mass-produce than try to upgrade a unit no one else could operate.
Having heard all this, I could see why they had taken the prototype. It was the logical move.
I could also understand why Mogami was so upset. He was obsessed with building the perfect mech, yet there was a line where compromises were made for the sake of mass production.
Normally, mass-produced models ended up better than the prototypes. However, that wasn’t the goal here.
The army wanted something usable, not incredible. For someone like Mogami, who had always insisted on learning to use the unit properly, that must have felt like a slap in the face.
“But you didn’t hand it over for free, right?”
“Of course not.”
That’s right. Even if they had technically requisitioned it, the military couldn’t just confiscate it without paying. We might have been in a state of war, and Mogami Heavy Industries might not be some huge conglomerate, but if the army double-crossed a defense contractor like that, it would escalate into a scandal that could cost people their jobs.
“So from a company standpoint, it’s good news?”
From a business perspective, it was great PR if the military was taking an interest in your products—proof that they were in demand. At least, that was how it seemed to me, looking in from the outside.
“Sure, it’s great for the company. You could even say the unit just went to the organization that ordered it. It’s their attitude I can’t stand.”
“Right…”
I knew how frustrating it could be when things didn’t work out the way you wanted, but there was no need to take it out on me. I wasn’t calling the shots in the military.
“By the way, it was the Third Division that took it. Seemed to me like they’re in full-on panic mode. They might even come after you.”
“Me? Why?”
“Because with you out of the picture, they won’t have to worry about you getting all the accolades.”
“It’s not even theirs to begin with…”
There were plenty of monsters out in the sea near Kyushu and the Chugoku region, so I wondered why they couldn’t just go take care of them.
“If they were that clever, they wouldn’t have gone on that rampage of theirs.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
“Do you mind if I tell the Boss and Isotani about this?” I asked Mogami. “You know, my homeroom teacher and my classmate from the Sixth Division?”
I could trade intel for protection—a little quid pro quo. I didn’t have many contacts, but those two would give me something, at least.
“Go ahead. We’ll handle the unit. You focus on keeping yourself safe.”
“Roger that.”
If the Third Division’s engineers could mass-produce the hybrid unit, great.
If they found people who could use all those mechs, even better.
Worst-case scenario, they’d fail on both fronts. But that wasn’t my problem.
If they wanted the accolades, that was fine by me.
So long as they didn’t drag me into it.
Of course, I had no idea at the time just how naive that mindset of mine really was.