[201-400] THE MECH'S TOUCH

Chapter 399: Three Problems

Ves returned to his penthouse office after finishing his discussions on expanding the Avatars of Myth. Considering the vast nature of their current expansion, it wasn't possible to expand their fighting strength to forty mechs within six months.

"It will probably take a year, if not more." He guessed. "These things take time."

If he wanted to, he could hire a mercenary corps instead, but that would be a huge mistake. They only ever cared about themselves. By establishing his own outfit, Ves would be certain that its power belonged to him and no one.

He threw himself back to his work. With the prototype still undergoing tests at the nearby testing grounds, Ves wanted to take care of any other matters that he neglected as of late. He turned on his terminal and went through the recent reports sent in his direction.

"Local politics, bah."

The self-bombing incident of Orinoco provoked an enormous amount of outrange. If the citizens of Cloudy Curtain seemed mad, then the rest of the Republic were absolutely head-over-heels about this incident. If not for the valiant defense at the Mech Nursery, the reputation of the entire planet would have already plummeted to the bottom.

Ves briefly skimmed the recent events. The investigators from Bentheim hadn't found any proof that led to the ones responsible for the devastation, but that didn't help the White Doves very much. Everyone pretty much assumed they did it because it fit their ideology the best.

Naturally, the spokespersons of the pacifists vehemently denied the accusations, but even their strongest supporters started to waver. The White Doves went into full crisis mode in order to stem the bleeding. Whether they would survive at the end of the day or not, nobody knew.

"They survived this far without any problem. I don't believe they can be felled by a single crisis."

Many citizens still wanted nothing to do with the war and the wider galaxy. The recent horrors taught some people that they couldn't bury their heads in the sand, but it prompted even more people to bury their heads even deeper.

In her report, Calsie predicted that the White Doves would eventually find their footing with the radicals among their circle.

What this meant for Cloudy Curtain as a whole, neither Ves nor Calsie didn't dare to make any predictions. One thing was for sure. The LMC's influence had reached new heights. On both an economic and societal level, the company became a steady fixture in the minds of everyone who lived on the rural planet.

That wasn't too shabby for a company founded around two years ago.

Ves turned back to his paperwork and went through all the other reports. The company's financial picture looked better than before. All of the recent spending put the company's financial health in a dangerous position for a time, but the LMC quickly climbed out of the hole with the help of increased demand for bronze label Blackbeaks.

People bought them because they admired the battle footage of the two gold label Blackbeaks. The Marketing Department's excessive promotion seemed to be in poor taste to Ves, but the public couldn't get enough.

Since gold and silver label Blackbeaks were hard to get, buyers turned instead to the third-party manufacturers to get a quick fix. EME even instituted a waiting list again as they received an unanticipated influx of orders.

Vaun Industrial also enjoyed a small boost in sales, though the effect was much less pronounced. Foreigners didn't care too much about the Bright-Vesia Wars. Anyone watching the generational conflict from the sidelines thought that nothing substantial happened during these wars because the border between the two states never shifted very much after the end of each war.