Humanoid Mech

Stacker Pentecost was a tall man, dressed in the crisp marshal's uniform of the Pacific Rim Joint Defense Force.

He stood outside a treatment room with a transparent glass wall, opened the medicine case he carried, took out a pill for radiation treatment, placed it against his thick black lips, rolled it into his mouth, and swallowed.

After taking the medicine, Marshal Stacker looked through the glass wall at He-El, who lay on the metal table, a strange glint passing through his eyes.

A meteorite falling from the sky had been a person.

"Falling from the sky..."

Marshal Stacker's face darkened slightly as he muttered to himself.

He still could not forget how, when he had ordered his men to pull He-El out of the crater, five people had been unable to move him. Several soldiers had been left drenched in sweat and gasping for breath, calling him a monster.

In the end, they had brought in a crane and hoisted him up. Only after much trouble had they gotten him into the treatment room.

A human body weighing over a thousand kilograms was truly terrifying.

Not long after Marshal Stacker stood outside the glass wall, Dr. Ciri, the physician in charge of the treatment room, emerged. She had a graceful face and delicate brows, bright eyes and white teeth, and cool red lips. A tight sweater outlined her full figure, while a retro red leather skirt, black stockings around her long legs, and black platform heels completed the look. Beneath her white lab coat, her old-fashioned yet naturally gorgeous attire had somehow reached the dead end of fashion.

Holding a thick stack of test reports, Dr. Ciri approached Marshal Stacker from the treatment room. Her cool, beautiful face was flushed red, her eyes alight with excitement as she reported eagerly.

"Marshal Stacker, this is simply incredible. It's hard to imagine that a person could weigh 1,700 kilograms—1.7 tons..." Dr. Ciri's cool face was flushed an abnormal crimson from excitement, her eyes shining as though they emitted light, her racing heart seemingly about to burst from her chest.

Krypton's gravity had originally been more than ten times stronger than Earth's. Though He-El had worked at the Science and Technology Institute, he had been able to fight Zod on equal terms. How could he possibly have been a scrawny bookworm?

He was tall and powerfully built. On Krypton, he had already weighed one hundred kilograms. After being exposed to sunlight and unlocking a Kryptonian's true genes, his cellular density had increased dramatically.

Even Superman Clark Kent, despite growing up on Earth, could not have weighed a mere 107 kilograms.

The reason for all this was the biological magnetic field.

In truth, if Kryptonian cells lacked the regulation of a biological magnetic field, they would theoretically continue absorbing solar energy. Their physical mass and energy would become increasingly compact and increasingly heavy.

It was the Kryptonian biological magnetic field that regulated the body.

Otherwise, with Superman's bodily energy, he would generate gravity and absorb all nearby matter like a star evolving. Eventually, his own overwhelming energy would collapse, trigger thermonuclear reactions, and finally explode into a nebula—or reach a delicate equilibrium and become the core of an enormous star.

Kryptonians could remain humanoid and unharmed only because of the biological magnetic field that regulated their bodies, a balance bestowed upon them from the very foundation of their genes.

"I know, Dr. Ciri. I was the one who had people use a crane to bring him in. Tell me something I don't know." Marshal Stacker interrupted Ciri's unfocused excitement. Ever since Dr. Ciri had been transferred to Anchorage Base, he had never seen this cool, aloof physician—usually so sparing with words—speak this much.

"His physical condition, his strength, how much destruction he can cause, and when he'll wake up!" Marshal Stacker reminded her.

Marshal Stacker found it hard to imagine a humanoid person weighing 1,700 kilograms. That meant the man possessed at least 2,000 kilograms of strength, though that was insignificant compared to any mech.

But a person of such weight would have nerves capable of withstanding more than ten times the strain of an ordinary human.

In other words, he could pilot a mech by himself, more easily than any other pilot. He might even be able to dance a tango while doing it.

It meant he could become a Jaeger pilot and the nightmare of every kaiju.

He could become the strongest Jaeger pilot.

If he was willing, Marshal Stacker could pour all their future funding into building an extraordinarily powerful mech just for him and drive those kaiju back into that stinking trench.

Marshal Stacker was wholly focused on driving the kaiju back through the trench's wormhole. He never imagined that the man he believed could become the strongest Jaeger pilot was far beyond anything he had imagined.

"Hm? ...Hm!" Dr. Ciri shot Marshal Stacker a disdainful look. She knew Stacker had devoted his entire heart to exterminating kaiju, so she stopped talking about things that did not interest him.

"Stacker, the person lying inside has a body that surgical scalpels cannot cut and bullets cannot penetrate. I suspect even missiles might not be able to blow apart his body. He possesses a body of steel." Ciri breathed heavily as she turned toward the perfect body beyond the glass. Her slender, pale fingers pressed against the glass wall, her nails whitening with force, her face flushed crimson.

This was a perfect creation.

Dr. Ciri was certain of it.

"Missiles can't blow him apart...?" Marshal Stacker nodded slightly as he considered it, but did not agree with what Ciri had said.

A body with a mass density of 1,700 kilograms being immune to scalpels seemed normal to him, and perhaps bullets could not penetrate it either. But if even missiles could not destroy it, that was simply absurd.

Marshal Stacker could only conclude that Ciri was merely a medical doctor and did not understand the power of modern weaponry.

Ciri's expression was extremely unnatural. A half-smile curled at her lips, and even her eyes seemed to breathe. "Ordinary instruments cannot accurately measure his body's data."

"I used a magnetic spectrum detector and made an astonishing discovery."

"His body is changing. Every moment, it is brewing even more powerful changes. He is simply... like... like... yes, like a star undergoing astonishing change."

"It is unimaginable that cells can move at such an intense degree."

"His body's magnetic field is too shocking."

Marshal Stacker frowned as he watched the fanatical Ciri, feeling a headache coming on.

He had heard rumors before that Dr. Ciri had a nickname—Pervert Ciri. Stacker had originally doubted it. Since arriving at Anchorage Base, apart from looking down on everyone else in medical matters, being exceedingly cold and beautiful, and dressing at fashion's dead end, Dr. Ciri had shown no other abnormalities. Now it seemed they simply had not reached the trigger point for her perversion...

Stacker coughed softly, cutting off Dr. Ciri's descent into perversion. "Dr. Ciri, just tell me about his health, when he will wake up, and how strong he is."

Marshal Stacker did not expect this man who had fallen from the sky to be kind, but his human appearance gave him a favorable impression. Still, he needed to know the man's strength and destructive capacity in order to restrict his movements after he woke up.

He could not let this inexplicable man turn Anchorage Base into a complete mess.

The losses he had already caused were enormous. He had smashed off one of Gipsy Danger's legs. Repairs and reattaching it would alone cost nearly several billion dollars.

"I don't know. His body is changing, and his magnetic field is adapting. Once his body's magnetic field has adapted, he should choose to wake up. I think he has been awake all along, conscious. He may even be able to sense the outside world and hear us talking." Dr. Ciri's fanatical expression did not change in the slightest. The smile on her cool, flushed face looked as though she wanted to embrace someone, crush them deeply in her arms, and merge them into herself.

Marshal Stacker did not dare look at Dr. Ciri anymore. Dr. Ciri truly was abnormal; there was something wrong with her mind. Those people at Harvard had been right. Dr. Ciri was very likely a pervert.

How he wished Dr. Ciri would direct that perversion toward researching kaiju. What a pity—she was only interested in the human body.

Marshal Stacker turned to look at He-El behind the glass wall. "Then... I hope you really are awake, and that we can speak peacefully once you awaken."

"Stacker, as for his strength data..."

As she spoke, Ciri pressed both hands to the glass wall. The documents slipped down from her ample chest, which trembled like pudding. Her ten fingernails whitened against the glass, where her blood-red, cool face was reflected, even her eyes breathing heavily.

"Based on the data I detected from his body, he possesses at least 8,000 tons of strength!"

When Marshal Stacker first heard that figure, his large eyes bulged wide with shock. Still unable to believe it, he asked, "8,000 kilograms?"

He had originally wanted to say 8,000 pounds. But 8,000 pounds was only about 3.6 tons, and that would be far too low an estimate for someone weighing 1,700 kilograms.

Then he instinctively blurted out 8,000 kilograms.

He had completely forgotten the basic relationship between kilograms and pounds.

He was so shocked that his eyes nearly popped out.

"It is 8,000 tons! I believe that is only his base strength, like the force we use when casually throwing a punch." Dr. Ciri pressed against the glass, her face close to it. Her eyes remained fixed on that perfect body, gleaming with dreamy longing.

At first, she too had thought she had calculated it wrong.

But mathematics did not lie. There had been a large amount of blood in the meteor crater. She had examined the cells, then used every medical instrument available here for more detailed tests, including instruments for detecting thermonuclear electromagnetic waves and equipment for examining mechs. She had used everything she could.

After testing and calculation, according to the theoretical values, his minimum base strength was indeed 8,000 tons.

The instant she had learned that figure, she had nearly gone mad.

Every discovery from his cells was enough to win a Nobel Prize. No, what was a Nobel Prize worth? How could it compare to this beloved body!

Every aspect of his existence shattered the very concept of cells.

This was a perfect man.

This was a perfect existence.

This was the beloved child of heaven, earth, and all things.

This was an entire civilization.

This was a god!

Ciri was a doctor. She understood that 8,000 tons of strength was indeed formidable, enough to effortlessly lift an eighty-meter-tall mech.

But the deeper implications within that 8,000 tons of strength, within his body and cells, were far more meaningful than the strength itself.

The man lying on the steel table was a treasury within a body, the direction of humanity's future evolution, humanity's road forward, a treasure of human civilization. He was a superman, and even more, a god capable of leading humanity!

Marshal Stacker stared with his large eyes bulging, his mouth wide enough to swallow an egg. The shock was so immense that his thoughts seemed to have stopped.

If he truly possessed that kind of strength...

What need would he have for a mech?

He alone was a mech.

He alone was a mech built with over a trillion dollars.

Marshal Stacker did not recover for a long time. His mind was a complete mess, and he could no longer think of how to face such a humanoid mech.

Only when Tendo, the chief technical advisor, came looking for him did he snap out of it. "Marshal Stacker, all the Pacific Rim Joint Defense Force nations have suddenly called a meeting. Please head to the conference room immediately."

Marshal Stacker instantly calmed down and came to his senses, his gaze sharpening.