The Mech Touch

pete with me for this knight mech, feel free to do so if you think you can bear the consequences.”

That left three other mech designers and Ves competing over the frontline mech and the rifleman mech.
None of them wanted to compete against the two mech designers.
Just their background was alone to suppress them.
Rather than offend mech designers who already earned at least a hundred times more than themselves, they would rather pick on someone their own size.

Ves found it funny that the three of them automatically dismissed Ves.
They put all of their attention on each other, completely missing the fact that Ves stopped pretending that he was exhausted from lifting all of those parts.

As much as he wanted to sit back and let the remaining three mech designers decide who needed to go, their pathetic standoff kept dragging on.
None of them had the guts to make a move!

Ves looked at the two women and the sole man before deciding on his target.
He didn't want to catch any flack from Goza, so Ves began to approach the man.

The mech designer noticed Ves' approached and frowned.
“Why are you coming here? Stay back!”

Ves ignored the man's blabbering as the other mech designers looked on from the sides.

“Hey! I don't like your approach! Can you please back off! You're already out of contention! No one will give you a mech!”

The distance between the two quickly shrank as Ves adopted a slightly faster pace.
Although he didn't put on any airs, his confident demeanor already shook the other mech designer's courage.

“Stay back, you loser! Your specialty is garbage! You contributed the least to our restoration efforts!”

Even though the mewling mech designers stepped backwards, his back quickly bumped against the leg of the frontline mech.

With his target's retreat blocked, Ves sped up his pace into a brisk jog that quickly closed the remaining distance!

Once the other mech designer came within reach, Ves quickly overpowered the man's pathetic slaps and punched him in the gut!

Although he didn't put his full strength into it, the punch nevertheless caused the other mech designer to heave!

Ves had thought of multiple ways to incapacitate his target.
He didn't want to give his opponent any opportunity to make a comeback, but neither did he want to leave any dangerous or permanent injuries.

For this reason, Ves ruled out knocking out the man by punching his head.
If he wasn't careful, he could kill the Journeyman!

“I'll just have to immobilize you, then.” Ves whispered as he pushed his opponent onto the ground.

The mech designer still hadn't recovered from the punch from earlier.
Despite any enhancements that he might have received, none had augmented his body!

Ves faced no hindrance when he lifted up his leg and firmly stomped the mech designer's knee!

“AAAAHHH!”

The scream that escaped the victim's mouth rang throughout the entire chamber! Everyone else who initially felt dismissive about Ves had never expected that he would resort to such a brutish action!

Was he even a mech designer?!

Ves wasn't sure whether he broke the knee or not, so he stomped a few times more.
Each stomp elicited another pained cry from the victim.

When he was sure he broke the limb, he did the same thing with the other knee in order to be certain.
Who knew if the mech designer tried to support himself on one leg and tried to fight back! Plenty of mechs continued to fight back even when one of their legs no longer worked!

Sufficed to say, by the time Ves completely incapacitated the other mech designer, the victim turned into a broken mess.
It became so bad that the floor underneath his body parted away, revealing a portal that swallowed up the injured man.

That was one mech designer out of contention!

Ves watched his victim disappear and turned back to the others with a gentle smile.
“Sorry about that unpleasantness.
That guy was in my way.
In any case, I'll be claiming this frontline mech, if you don't mind.
If you happen to object, I'm certain we can talk it out like civilized mech designers.”

The two women who hadn't claimed a mech both shuddered.
There was no way they were going to compete against this wolf in mech designer's clothing!

The two of them were the only mech designers left who hadn't claimed a mech.
Three lithic mechs had already been claimed, leaving only the rifleman mech to themselves.

To everyone's surprise, the women didn't get into a catfight or anything.
Having been cowed by Ves' brutal display, neither of them wanted to lower themselves to his level.

Instead, they calmly if tersely negotiated for ownership of the remaining mech.
A lot of heavy concessions were being thrown around.
While the opportunity to grow closer to the Rim Guardians was valuable, it was not an indispensable prize.

This was especially the case when both Tristan and Goz appear to be the most likely ones to win the trials! Rather than face near-certain defeat, one of the women looked much more amenable to cash out some of her winnings now rather than risk returning home without any gains.

In order to give the deal more weight, the women solicited both Tristan and Goz as witnesses to their verbal contract.

“Alright.
It's agreed.
You promise to give me all of these concessions in exchange for my withdrawal.”

The two women shook hands and cordially parted.
As soon as they concluded their deal, the woman who accepted the concessions fell into a portal that formed underneath her feet.

Only four of them remained.

Suddenly, the entire floor started to shake and rumble! Everyone tried to balance themselves as their footing became unstable!

“Look at the walls! The torches are getting lower!”

“The floor is rising! We're moving up!”

The floor slowly rose from ground level.
The ceiling slowly parted to make way for the rising floor.

Complete darkness greeted them above! No one had any idea what was in store in those unknown depths! Tristan, Goz, Ves and the remaining female mech designer all prepared themselves for whatever was to come.

The next trial would likely be their last one!