The Mech Touch

Not everyone achieved results as great as Taon Melin!

Most Hunters of Ylvaine required dozens of chances before they managed to score a hit on a drone carrying a sandman admiral!

This was still a great result! A typical Holy Soldier or other ranged mech might have to take down hundreds of not thousands of sandman drones in order to score a lucky hit against a hidden sandman admiral!

After an explosive week where the infamous sandman swarms were systematically dismantled, the Ylvainans became completely convinced that the prophet rewarded their faith!

Almost every Hunter of Ylvaine managed to take out a sandman admiral before their swarms were close to being consumed!

It was immediately obvious when they achieved a fruitful result. The mechs only had to fire a certain amount of times before a portion of the sandman swarm abruptly fell apart and lost coordination!

Without a higher intelligence doing all of the thinking, the disconnected sandman drones were extremely lethargic as they floated around without aim!

The defense forces didn't even bother attacking these sitting ducks. This was because the drones no longer released any attacks! The defenders could easily mop them up after taking care of the remaining threats!

While the Ylvaine Protectorate was still in the same situation as before, the constant miracles produced by the Eye of Ylvaine practically transformed the state overnight!

This was because the Protectorate did everything to publicize this turning point! The news uplifted every Ylvainan, causing them to become more hopeful and optimistic about the survival of their state!

The wondrous performance of the Deliverer even caused the civilians to strengthen their faiths! Church attendance soared as many Ylvainans became inspired by the incredible results achieved by the Deliverer!

This news did not immediately attract the attention of the Bright Republic and other foreign states.

None of them took their claims seriously. How could a mech that ostensibly channeled the will of a deceased prophet be able to defeat the indomitable sandmen?

Ever since the Sand War took off, a lot of mech designers offered various fantasy solutions that supposedly promised to end the crisis.

Nothing worked! No matter what kind of belief supported their claims, the mechs never delivered upon their promises!

Therefore, hardly any foreigner believed in the claim that the Deliverer was able to succeed where every other mech had failed!

Even the fact that the designer of the fantastic Desolate Soldier was responsible did not change their preconceptions.

It was very common for mech designers to fail after achieving success! Ves hadn't been designing mechs long enough to inspire too much confidence. This was especially so when the claims of the Deliverer were too ludicrous!

How could a mech that did not incorporate any sophisticated sensor systems be able to identify a sandman drone hiding within a vast and confusing swarm?

No amount of conventional science could explain how the Deliverer would be able to succeed where thousands of mech models had failed!

"Are we supposed to rely on a god to achieve victory against the sandmen?!"

"I would rather die than convert to a different faith!"

"Gods are outdated! How can humans keep falling for superstition?"

The Bright Republic, which possessed a better understanding of the Ylvaine Protectorate than most, suspected other motives behind the promotion of the Deliverers!

"Is this some kind of ploy to boost the reputation of that kidnapped mech designer?"

"Ves Larkinson is a Brighter! How can he possibly design a religious mech?"

"Haven't you heard about the Transcendent Messenger and Holy Soldier? Ves already managed to seduce the Ylvainans! Doing it a third time shouldn't be any problem!"

"That's different! From what I've heard, those two mech models are mainly valuable because they are very effective in hypnotizing gullible believers. The Deliverer is different because the Ylvainans are claiming that it can impact a battle more directly than affecting their moods!"

While the Bright Republic was aware of the peculiarities of the Transcendent Messengers and Holy Soldiers, its agents never experienced anything special about the mechs.

Just like the Desolate Soldier, the value of these mechs lay in their ability to increase the morale of the mech pilots and inspire confidence in the bystanders affected by their glows.

It was a little far-fetched to state that these glows were capable of doing what their best sensors failed to accomplish!

"How come these Deliverers keep assassinating the sandman admirals?"

"Maybe the Ylvainans have implemented some secret new sensor technology! It must be something built into their ships instead of their mechs!"

As the Deliverers continued to produce excellent results, foreign agents kept investigating the forces involved in the battles.

No other mech or ship stood out! None of them released any powerful emissions that denoted some active scanning system at work!

"Can it be.. That their claims are true? Are the Deliverers truly guided by their prophet?"

"Don't speak any nonsense! Ylvaine died hundreds of years ago! His entire dynasty perished as well!"

Before accepting the claims of the Ylvainans, the agents and investigators dispatched by foreign states tried to exhaust every other possible explanation!

They refused to accept that the Ylvainan Faith had an actual basis in reality!

Yet no matter how much the Brighters, Vesians, Reinaldans and such tried to pierce the truth, all of their conclusions came down to the Deliverer mechs themselves!

Each Ylvainan defense force that fielded a Deliverer mech almost always achieved better results.

Without the sandman swarms tearing apart the cannon fodder, the starfighter pilots became immensely grateful to the Eye of Ylvaine!

The introduction of the Deliverers paired with the elite Hunters of Ylvaine drastically affected their chances of survival! Casualties dropped by as much as seventy percent!

Such an achievement was too great to be dismissed! The Bright Republic and other skeptical states had no choice but to take the claims of the Ylvainans more seriously after a couple of weeks!

"How can this be? Is the supposed 'Bright Martyr' truly so blessed?"

"The Deliverers are too miraculous! We need to try them for ourselves!"

Not even the MTA could explain how the Deliverers were able to defy the odds and consistently target the sandman admirals over and over again!

When their own evaluators validated the mech design, they did not have much good to say about its design! While its offensive ability was excellent, its mobility and armor dragged down its overall performance!

The Mech Corps, the Mech Legion, the Honored Ones and many other organizations started to experiment with the Deliverers.

Yet when they licensed the mech and produced some copies to verify their amazing abilities, the foreigners completely failed to elicit anything notable!

Because the Deliverers had been produced by non-believers, their glows weren't as strong and pure as those produced by Ylvainans.

The foreign mech pilots assigned to test the Deliverers all experienced varying degrees of rejection! None of the third eyes lit up as the glow of the machines intensely rejected the pilots who dismissed or looked down on the Ylvainan Faith!

"How can this be? Why doesn't the Deliverer work for us? Did we produce a counterfeit or something?"

"It can't be! Our Deliverers are exactly the same as the ones fielded by the Eye of Ylvaine!"

"Maybe the warning that comes with this mech is actually true. Only those who are sincere believers in the Ylvainan Faith can unlock the full capabilities of this model!"

The Deliverer was too enigmatic. Not even the Seniors assigned to study the mechs could figure out its secrets! They studied the schematics over and over again and failed to figure out what made them special aside from the faint glow they exuded!

Plenty of mech designers wanted to scratch their heads until they turned bald! Each mech design from Ves Larkinson was too inexplicable! Whatever mystery he imparted to the mech designs was not something that they could understand!

Whenever the befuddled mech designers questioned the Ylvainans, they only received answers in the form of religious dogma!

"The Great Prophet is watching over us from above! He loves us all and will never abandon his faithful!"

"The past, present and future is fully in Prophet Ylvaine's grasp! You cannot imagine the vision he possesses!"

"Do you have a moment to talk about our lord and savior, Prophet Ylvaine?"

Not even the most intellectual Ylvainan mech designer provided a straight answer! Each and every Ylvainan kept praising the Great Prophet as if they were competing to be the most devout believer!

"There's no way we can hold a normal conversation with these religious nuts! Let's approach the LMC instead! At least it's a sensible mech company!"

Yet the lead designer of the Deliverer recently fell victim to a conspiracy! Ves Larkinson just happened to be missing just before the Deliverers began to make their mark in Protectorate space!

Fortunately, Ves was not the only mech designer involved in the design project.

Another Journeyman Mech Designer contributed materially to the Deliverer design, while a small design team made up of Apprentices assisted on the side.

While Gloriana was busy with supervising the evacuation of Ves' property from Cloudy Curtain, her comm suddenly became engulfed with inquiries by various different parties!

"Huh? They finally took notice of our Deliverer? It's about time!"

Since she didn't have much to do right now, she replied to some of the inquiries.

[...The Deliverer is not just a mech, but also a god in the making! Every Deliverer is a vessel that carries the touch of a proto-god, which in this case is Prophet Ylvaine himself! By relying on the power and generosity of this male god, the believers of his faith will be able to receive some blessings that will aid them in performing some miracles!...]

The questioners all received answers like these from Gloriana, which drove all of the mech designers completely mad!

"This is complete nonsense! It turns out that Miss Gloriana Wodin is an even greater religious nut than the Ylvainans!"

"How can a Brighter possibly tolerate a girlfriend like her? He must be the greatest nut of them all!"

In desperation, the mech designers approached the Tovar mech designers with the LMC's permission.

While Miles Tovar and his cousins at least answered normally, they were just in the dark as everyone else! Ves Larkinson never shared his trade secrets to them! None of them figured out the mechanics behind Ves' characteristic glows or the secrets behind the Deliverer's extraordinary capabilities!

"Dammit! Where the hell is Ves Larkinson?! Only he should be able to give a reasonable explanation! All these other helpers of his are either useless or crazy!"

All of the professionals and officials with an interest in the Deliverer became frustrated by the answers they received.

It seemed that anyone other than a devout Ylvainan mech pilot could make full use of the Deliverer!

Any foreign mech pilot, even those who had been encouraged to convert to the Ylvainan Faith, were unable to tame the picky mechs!

It was as if they had a mind of their own!

After much experimentation, each mech designer and investigation team concluded that only sincere believers could make effective use of the Deliverer!

"Since we can't field the Deliverers on our own, what about borrowing them from the Ylvainans?"

Many governments started to approach the Ylvaine Protectorate. Could they borrow some Hunters of Ylvaine?

The Ylvainan government did not acquiesce immediately. As if aware of their bargaining power, the Ylvainans set forth some demands!

While the negotiations took place behind closed doors, some of the conditions soon became common knowledge!

The Ylvainans, despite not being able to field enough Hunters of Ylvaine to cover all of their territory, expressed some willingness to assist in the defense of other states.

However, the price for their assistance was considerable!

Aside from receiving hefty remuneration in the form of money and resources, the Ylvainans wanted to spread their faith in their respective states!

Wanted the right to proselytize among the foreigners without encountering any hindrances!

So long as a foreign state rejected this demand, the negotiations instantly stalled!