The Mech Touch novel Chapter 4690

Chapter 4690 The Life of a Merc

As Ves kept interviewing Captain Salica Yontrus of Giorno's Ridebashers, he kept getting personal and insightful answers on the uses of different LMC mechs.

The woman knew how to tell a good story. The presence of children in the room also caused her to modulate her words and tailor her narrative to make her units sound cooler and more awesome in action.

"So you managed to achieve a 7.3 to 1 takedown ratio for your Monster Slayer mechs?!" Andraste said with astonishment in her childish voice.

"That's right." The mercenary captain bemusedly replied. "It is mainly due to how this mech fits into our system. We know of other outfits that like to use their Monster Slayers as maneuverable frontal battle units. That allows them to take down a lot of enemy mechs by storm and cause a lot of morale damage to the enemy. However, these mechs also tend to get damaged and destroyed more often, so their kill ratios are a lot lower as a consequence."

"How difficult was it for your mech pilots to get good at fighting with the Monster Slayer?"

"It's a mech that is surprisingly easy to learn for our melee mech specialists. Anyone with a good foundation in swordsmanship can get started on learning how to wield oversized bladed weapons easily enough. It is mastering it that is the real challenge. The Monster Slayer somehow helps with that, but it is ultimately up to the individual pilots themselves to do the hard work. The further they go, the more they need to rely on their own practice and talent to excel. Only our best melee performers have the right to pilot this model. Others are better off piloting knight mechs or other regular machines."

The Monster Slayer's status within Giorno's Ridebashers was similar to the Second Sword within the Swordmaidens. Both machines served as highly effective elite machines that stood out for their amazing potential and high skill ceiling. The more skilled the mech pilot, the more drastic the performance!

This aligned with how Ketis always envisioned her mechs to be used. She explicitly designed the Monster Slayer as a duelist machine where trained and experienced mech athletes could best utilize its advanced movement and attack capabilities on solid ground.

Ves was happy to hear that the Ridebashers managed to make good use of the Monster Slayer model in the field as opposed to a controlled mech arena.

Although this forced the mercenaries to work around several limitations such as its thin and lightweight armor system, the benefits were absolutely worthwhile as long as the mech pilots liked to live dangerously.

From the way that Andraste constantly expressed excitement at the stories about the Monster Slayer, she looked as if she was ready to hop into the cockpit as soon as she became 10 years old and tested her genetic aptitude!

Ves patted the girl that was resting in his arms. "Calm down, pumpkin. The Monster Slayer is a great mech, but it is a more commercial and budget-focused machine. It performs well relative to its production cost and material requirements, but it is not exactly a machine that can easily keep up against the elite mechs deployed by professional military organizations. The Ridebashers mostly fight against other mercenaries and the like, so the opposition is not as fierce."

Captain Yontrus readily admitted this fact. "That is true. We know our limits. I think we will soon be leaving Davute because once total war breaks out, outfits like ours will get thrown to the meat grinder. No amount of compensation and pensions promised by the government will ever make up for our deaths and material losses."

Mercenaries weren't stupid. Their noses for death were extremely sensitive. Employers needed to offer vastly greater sums of money and other benefits in order to persuade them to put their lives at risk.

It was quite interesting to hear an ordinary mercenary's insights about the upcoming war between Davute and Karlach. Captain Yontrus already fought with the soldiers fighting on the opposite side so she possessed a much more grounded perspective towards this escalating conflict than the usual people that Ves talked to these days.

Aurelia recognized this as well and already began to ask questions to satisfy her own curiosity.

"Are there any differences between the mercenaries hired by Davute and the mercenaries hired by Karlach?"

"We are all the same, so it is hard to see any differences that apply to us both." The mercenary captain replied. "Davute and Karlach have slight differences in how they treat and manage the mercenaries they hire. Davute doesn't pay much in cash, but they offer compensation in different forms such as mechs, phasewater and even land, especially if you sign long-term contracts. A lot of smaller outfits signed up in Davute. As long as they survive, they stand to earn a massive profit."

"What about Karlach?"

"Karlach prefers to work with a smaller number of strong mercenary organizations to ease coordination and limit the chaos. What is special about Karlach is that it is much more willing to promise land, cities, planets or entire provinces depending on how much you are worth. The catch is that much of those territories are currently based in Davute. Only by winning the war will the Karlach mercenaries be able to become the new aristocrats of their colonial state."

Aurelia widened her eyes until they became saucers.

"How... how devious!"

It was an excellent way to motivate mercenary organizations that always wished to start their own colonies but never had the means to do so. By making these promises, the cooperating mercenaries would definitely fight tooth and nail in order to fulfill their dreams!

"Doesn't Davute make these promises as well?" Ves asked.

Captain Yontrus tentatively nodded. "They are available to us as well, but we all get the impression that Davute isn't so eager to pass on so much future territory to mere mercs. I think those snobs have already carved out Karlach's star systems for themselves."

That sounded plausible, though the Davutan rulers would truly regret it if their stinginess caused their side to lose the war!

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