The Missing Condition

"Seventeen seconds! The entire battle lasted just seventeen seconds, and the Orca has once again won by an overwhelming margin!"

Inside the Upper League venue, the host led the audience in cheering. Meanwhile, the Orca, having easily crushed its opponent, calmly returned to the maintenance bay. A hiss of degassing sounded, and the cockpit hatch opened. Feng Xue swung himself around, used the mech's knee for support, and landed smoothly on the ground.

"Looks like you've gotten along pretty well with the new equipment. Any problems?" Mang Ke asked as soon as she hurried back from the coaching platform. Feng Xue shook his head.

"Nothing major with the controls. The change in weight isn't much, and it feels fine to use. But it requires a fairly precise angle of approach. That's manageable in a one-on-one fight, but in a many-on-many or one-on-many, it could get caught up. And the weakness of the wire-controlled system is still too obvious. It's fine for arena matches, but we'll need to find a way to optimize it for actual combat."

"Got it. The issue is the amount of material we have. We only managed to get so much, after all. But the lab in Parlin has already made progress on a method for producing it experimentally. It shouldn't be long before we can try making it in bulk. Then we won't have to be so stingy."

Mang Ke noted each of the problems Feng Xue mentioned in her notebook, while also considering ways to make the controls easier to use.

It had been more than three months since they arrived in Bailin Country, and they had competed in nearly ten Upper League matches. As Mang Ke encountered a wealth of technologies from every corner of the world, she saw many engineering approaches that would