The Mech Touch novel Chapter 1500

After he processed the unpleasantness surrounding his Gavin, Ves did his best to move on from what he learned.

His daily interactions with Gavin hadn’t changed at all. While he guarded his words a little more carefully around him, he still leaned heavily on his gatekeeper’s advice and suggestions.

The reason why Ves trusted Gavin to do his job faithfully was because Crindon constantly kept an eye on communications. If Gavin ever twisted his orders, acted on his own accord or performed anything detrimental, Ves would know.

As for trying to screw around with Flashlight, Ves instantly threw away this childish notion.

Just because they riddled the LMC with spies and informers didn’t mean that they held any hostile intentions towards him. For now, the intelligence agency probably just wanted to keep an eye on his activities.

Ves smirked. "Let them look. Everything I really care about is beyond their reach."

With Nitaa and Crindon by his side, Ves could rely on at least two absolutely loyal pillars. Even so, he knew better than to rely on Kinners for everything.

Everytime he felt tempted to return to the Kinner Tribe to buy out hundreds of absolutely loyal staffers, he thought back on the other leaders he encountered over the course of his career.

People such as Senator Tovar, Major Verle and Commander Lydia all exuded authority in such a fashion that their subordinates unquestionably obeyed their commands. Ves looked upon them as role models as their force of leadership constantly inspired loyalty and obedience.

"What they each have in common is their emphasis on shared values and common identity."

He envied their leadership style and had tried to model himself after them, though he didn’t have many opportunities to exercise his authority these days. Ves heavily preferred to delegate his non-mech design responsibilities to others, so he rarely issued orders directly to the thousands of people on the LMC’s payroll.

"It doesn’t matter though. The true secret behind authority is that it works best if people don’t question it. They just need to be conditioned to obey."

This was the most important lesson he drew from observing the Flagrant Vandals and Lydia’s Swordmaidens over a lengthy period of time. While they were probably not the best role models around, Ves truly admired how strongly they aligned with each other.

He tried to instill the same kind of camaraderie and brotherhood within the LMC and the Avatars of Myth as best as possible. Ever since he instituted reforms within the LMC to build up a strong corporate culture, he believed he could indoctrinate his employees into becoming unflinchingly loyal to him and his company.

Of course, building up a common identity could not be done in a single day. Ves looked forward to returning to the Bright Republic in order to see how the LMC had progressed on this end. Enough time had passed for his initial efforts to sink into the mentalities of every worker of the LMC.

This was why Ves didn’t care too much about spies and troublemakers within his company. Not only were they unable to do any serious damage to his core interests, but there were enough people around who would guard against any mischief.

He wanted to make sure that the LMC did not make the same mistakes as the former Kadar-Neyvis Group. Due to the actions of a couple of saboteurs aligned with the Bentheim Liberation Movement within that company, the hard work of two successful Journeymen had gone up in smoke!

"Shenanigans like that won’t fly in my company!"

This was why Ves also prioritized rigorous control, though he didn’t go overboard on this end. He knew very well that every monitoring and security system was fallible and could be circumvented in many different ways.

To Ves, the best security system was to insure that there were plenty of loyal people in place. As long as they identified themselves with the LMC, they wouldn’t allow anything bad to happen to the company!

"It’s like a tribe!"

That was the best way for him to describe his aspiration. He wanted his workers to be so loyal to his company that they valued it more than the Bright Republic.

Perhaps secretly within his heart, Ves hoped that he could make Gavin care more about him than his other master. While Flashlight still needed to be appeased, Gavin could still choose to withhold more damaging information.

In any case, life went on and Gavin kept in touch with the company.

"The LMC has already licensed a ballistic rifleman mech design and started fabricating it en masse." He reported. "The quality of our copies is higher than most of the competition, so we aren’t having trouble in selling them. It’s just..." _{freeweɓnovel.cøm}

"Our margins are low." Ves guessed.

"Right. The mech design we’ve licensed is a budget mech, so the money we can make is already limited. Add the licensing fees on top of all of our expenses, the profit we make is not as impressive as before."

"We’re still above water, right?"

"Yes, but that’s not necessarily good news. While we’re earning just enough money to pay the bills, we don’t have much left over to spend on upgrades, expansions and other activities that foster growth. We’ve had to stall a lot of plans, including the construction of a second manufacturing complex in the outskirts of Haston on Bentheim."

Ves paid a lot of attention to the latter.

Despite his reluctance towards expanding the LMC’s footprint, they couldn’t avoid the biggest nexus of mech production in the local area, especially if they wanted to start producing cheaper mechs. It simply made too much sense from a logistical and distribution standpoint.

"How much money does the LMC need to finish the manufacturing complex, Benny?"

"Even if we cut back on the planned production lines of the second complex, we still need at least twelve billion bright credits to cover the basics."

Ves winced. Though he could still cover this amount with his personal fortune, he wasn’t stupid enough to reinvest his own money back into the company.