Chapter 73 - Hidden Treasure (1/2)
Princess Bang-gwi climbed into the cockpit of the Footman Knight-class Mk I mech. Seeing the controls for the first time was a bit different than reading about them. Quickly she strapped her feet to the pedals, buckled herself into the seat, slipped the combat helmet with HUD display on, and then slipped her hands into the gauntlets. This first generation mech was designed to be controlled easily thus starting it involved merely taking out a key card given to all soldiers and slipping it in to the dashboard.
Once started, the Princess experimented with moving around just the arms and found that it had virtually no lag in the controls. The legs and feet were controlled in an almost stupidly simple fashion. Various movements were programmed to occur with the legs and feet. For example, to move forward, press the right-pedal down and to move-backward you pull the pedal back, which is also why the feet are strapped into it. The left pedal controls the turning of the mech by pushing the left pedal to turn right and pulling it to turn left. This is a very crude method, but because of how low-tech it is the ease of training new pilots is significantly improved.
When the Princess turned her head, the head of the mech would turn as well due to the primary sensor suite being housed in it. Looking around, she saw the other pilots also doing the same thing as her except for the mech that Xiǎng Pigu. She saw that her mech was still standing straight up and had yet to be turned on even.
A moment later, Xiǎng Pigu came back down the loading ramp crying and the next person in her group ran up to hop in the mech she came out of.
The Princess saw Xiǎng Pigu run over to the Marquis while holding back her tears and say something to him. In response to what Xiǎng Pigu said to the Marquis, he thumped her on the head with a physical copy of the operator's manual and then opened it up and pointed to a section of it for Xiǎng Pigu. This seemed to make Xiǎng Pigu feel better as she immediately ran back to her group no longer crying.
"Wonder what that was about" the Princess thought to herself. "I'll ask her later, time to go play!"
The Princess found that it was very easy to control and move around in, but she had a hard time coordinating her hands and feet sometimes since the pedal controls felt very unnatural but the arms had a very natural feel.
The Princess picked up a giant baton using the mech's hands, which was about the size of a baseball bat to the mech she was in but was probably around 7 or 8 meters long she guessed. She was surprised that when she swung the bat around, her gauntlets would restrict her arm motions when she tried to move faster than the mech. Swinging the bat at one of the dummy targets felt weird since she would hear the sound of the bat connecting with the target through the mech and then a split second later the gauntlets would almost freeze her swing to show that she had connected with something.
After a few more minutes of feeling it out, the Princess brought the mech back to the loading ramp, powered it down, and climbed out of the cockpit so the others could try to.
After messing around with it, she now understood some of the design choices with the mech itself. Compared to a person, the mech was not exactly proportional to the human body. The legs were slightly shorter and very thick, the torso and arms were fairly close to a normal proportion, but the head looked more like a capsule and the neck was not visible from the outside unless stood under the mech at just the right angle. The Princess guessed they called it a 'Footman' because it resembled a basic soldier wearing charcoal plate armor and a steel helmet.
"I bet if I just add a feather plume, a shiny kite shield, and a sword and it really will look like Black Knight instead of just a Footman." the Princess mused.
The Princess remembered that Xiǎng Pigu was upset earlier so she wandered over to her group and asked her what was wrong.
Xiǎng Pigu blushed and said "It was my fault... I cried because I couldn't reach the pedals and wear the gauntlets at the same time. The Marquis pointed out the part in the manual where you can adjust the pedal and seat height and then hit me with the manual saying something about beating the knowledge into me."
"Pfftt..." the Princess struggled to stifle her laughter and said "That's silly! Why would that make you cry though?"
"...B... Because I want to serve our empire and I know I'm not strong enough to make it as a soldier so being a pilot is my only option." Xiǎng Pigu said.
"Oh, well, even if you couldn't, why not just take like a clerk or office position or something?"
"Heck no, I don't want to be stuck behind a desk! I want to see the world! What about you, Ban? You could've taken any position probably yet you are a pilot instead of being safe at the back."
The Princess looked down and said "Originally, yes, that is what I wanted, but now... I don't know. I want to help you and everyone else here, but I don't want to fight. I know that is naive of me, but there has to be a better way."
Xiǎng Pigu thought for a moment and then said "I do agree with you, but I will fight to protect our empire because it is all I have and where my family and friends live."
The Princess couldn't exactly disagree with her when she put it like that, so she bid Xiǎng Pigu luck when it was her turn to pilot the mech and went back over to her group.
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Gray made his way back to the military base through the east gate and saw that it was a little after 10 am. He was deciding where to hang until they met up in a little less than an hour when Gray heard the notification that a voice message came through to him.
Opening up the message he saw that it was from Felicia and he felt a little giddy remembering the kiss from before. Gray opened the message while he was walking and listened to it.