It was just when the man was elegantly sipping away at his afternoon tea.
“Reporting in, m’lord! We’ve yet again failed to receive any of the scheduled contact from the dispatched Centurion today!”
“No word, hmm? Thank you.”
Thanking the subordinate who’d come to give his report before sending him away, the man sighed as he laid down his cup. The gentle aroma that wafted up from the tea alongside the steam boldly declared that now was the prime time to drink it, but the man simply couldn’t find it in himself to accept the invitation.
“Er, well, then... And what did he say when he last got in touch?”
“Yessir! He said that he would bring the Tyrant Rhino into Front-Edge City. That was the last message we received from him.”
“Hmm. So that means they’ve made a terrible blunder of things, then.”
The man’s aide nodded. The fact that they hadn’t even made contact meant that they’d either died or been captured. Either way, that meant they’d given their opponent information that they didn’t need to have. It wasn’t the sort of situation that could be washed away with a single sigh.
The Tyrant Rhino was one of the next generation of state-of-the art, officially mass-produced Mechsteels that had been in development. Development was coming to a close, and the first batch had just been delivered, so he’d forcefully pulled them aside for use in the current operation. The man had taken a bit of a look himself just to see, but their capabilities for charging through the battlefield were no joke. They were exquisite Mechsteels that could transform even the most inept of Steelriders into dauntless warriors.
“It’s truly an unbecoming failure,” the aide said, “especially after they were given such a powerful Mechsteel.”
“It doesn’t matter how amazing their Mechsteel might have been. That just means it wasn’t enough to bridge the gap of their own incompetence.”
The tea that the man had left untouched as he focused on the conversation had grown disappointingly lukewarm. The prime time to drink tea was, like everything else in life, surprisingly short.
“We’ve no choice if our attempts to handle this peacefully won’t work,” the man said. “I’m afraid we might have to be a bit rough, but we can’t afford to come back empty-handed either, after all.”
The man stood up. Following his aide’s signal, the forest suddenly filled with noise.
Enormous, human-esque shadows stood up alongside howls of machine exhaust echoing out. Bursts of steam rose up from all over, transforming into a haze that covered the forest.
“You always were such a bothersome nephew,” the man said. “That stubbornness of yours has left me with no choice now but to level a city or two!”
The footsteps of destruction rang loud and clear as they marched toward the city.