Chapter 2881: Singular Representative (1/2)

Over several weeks, the Swordmaidens gradually began to stand out from the immense crowd of foreign competitors.

Plenty of strong and powerful swordsmen and mech pilots from different states managed to attract an abundance of attention during the boisterous festival. The allure and benefits of performing well in the Great Omanderie Festival were so great that a lot of foreign delegations trained just as hard as the seeded participants from the Heavensword Association!

Hundreds of notable competitors turned into stars overnight. Hundreds more faded into obscurity as soon as they faced defeat.

As the Swordmaiden competitors progressed through the tournament, the weakest amongst them already began to drop off. In the face of a huge number of well-trained and well-prepared competitors, the shortcomings of the Swordmaidens became increasingly more obvious.

Though the greatsword-wielding women always attracted a lot of attention due to the characteristic weapons they wielded, there were still adversaries who exerted enough control when facing such intimidating weapons.

The disparity became especially obvious during the mech combat matches. The Swordmaidens were still just getting started with the Diligent Mark XXIV while many other competitors had already mastered the ins and outs of this basic swordsman mech model.

Aside from standout mech pilots such as Commander Sendra and the rest of her five-woman team, every other Swordmaiden mech pilot ended their runs in the individual and group tournaments.

”These damn mechs are restraining us too much! It's too hard to swing a large sword with these weak-armed Diligents!”

”We still have Sendra to carry us forth in the mech combat tournaments.”

”Don't count on her to go much further. She barely overcame her last opponent in the individual mech combat tournament. Her last group match was even more tragic. Only her own Diligent remained standing at the end of the match, and it had lost an arm and nearly its entire frontal armor in the process.”

While the tournaments were about to reach their middle stages, the Swordmaidens already lost hope of reaching it for the mech combat tournaments.

If the Swordmaidens prepared for them a year in advance, then they might have been able to make it further. Even if they did not choose to wield shorter and more nimble swords, they could have still mastered the Diligent Mark XXIV's to a much greater degree!

”We came too late.” Venerable Dise said to the glum Swordmaidens after the end of another disappointing day. ”A year ago, none of us thought we would be taking part in the greatest swordsmanship tournaments in Majestic Teal. We were still piloting third-class mechs back then while either hanging out in Cinach VI or struggling to defeat Nyxian pirates. We have come far since then. This is our true victory. As for the Greater Omanderie Festival, this is just a recruiting venue to us. Let the Heavensworders obsess about reaching the finals. We have no need to earn supreme glory.”

The Swordmaidens slowly cheered up after hearing this. Over the past few weeks, everyone slowly became immersed in the competitive atmosphere of the Omanderie System. The planet they were on along with the rest of the state had seemingly transformed into a huge celebration. No matter where people traveled, there was no way to escape all the news and gossip about the tournaments!

Venerable Dise looked expectantly at Sendra, Ketis and the rest of the elite personal combat team.

”That said, we still need to work harder in order to attract promising recruits. So far, the quality of swordswomen who applied to join our sisterhood is still on the low end. If we want to attract a greater quantity of promising mech pilots and infantry soldiers, we need to stand out from the crowd of other notable foreign competitors. At this point, we can only place our hopes on reaching the middle stages of the personal combat tournaments.”

Ketis looked up at that. ”Will you finally grant us permission to carry our Unending greatswords in the field?”

Several other Swordmaidens showed eager looks. While they understood the need for discretion, they long yearned to prove to the Heavensworders that they could compete on them on an equal basis!

The women had much greater hopes for their performance in the personal combat tournaments. While the Swordmaidens primarily centered around piloting swordsman mechs, they never slacked off when it came to pushing every single sister into becoming a great swordswoman in their own right!

The drop-out rate of their grueling training program was horrendous for that reason, but this was the only way to ensure that every woman that remained was fully qualified to fight side-by-side with other sisters.

This was also why it was so important to recruit a lot of swordswomen during the festival. If the Swordmaidens missed this opportunity, then there was no way to replenish their depleted numbers in a short amount of time.

With the other mech forces of the Larkinson Clan such as the Flagrant Vandals and the Penitent Sisters planning to bolster their ranks by adding at least a thousand mech pilots each, the Swordmaidens feared they would become completely irrelevant if they continued to be restricted to fielding a single mech company!

Venerable Dise exchanged glances with Commander Sendra. It was clear that they had already discussed their options beforehand.

Sendra took a deep breath. ”After weighing our options, I believe it is best to keep our Unending armaments under wraps. There are two reasons for this. First, the Larkinson Clan is not on solid footing at the moment. That might make it seem we are vulnerable. I don't want to tempt fate even if the Heavensworders are doing a good job in maintaining order. We have already seen how that can go wrong in the Life Research Association.”

”We have the backing of Miss Harcourt.” Another Swordmaiden noted. ”Won't she be able to cover for us even if we pull out weapons made with first-class materials? We are not the only competitors who have brought remarkable weapons to the arena grounds.”

She was right. One of the reasons the seeded competitors managed to overcome many opponents with ease was because they relied on the power of their weapons to achieve crushing victories.