The Mech Touch novel Chapter 592

Many people caught up to Harkensen III in the past few days. All of the hype surrounding the honor duel between Captain Orfan and Avid Serpent attracted lots of mech fanatics.

The underground arena made a killing by selling tickets at inflated prices. The demand for a seat was so huge that the arena decided to add floating stands to the arena in order to stuff as much people in their venue as possible. They intended to make the best use of the open space above the arena!

Part of the reason why tickets became hot was that underground arenas prohibited any broadcasts and recordings. Even though the authorities didn’t care about shutting them down, the underground still needed to remain out of sight from the public. The underground arena utilized loads of jamming and interference technology to uphold this custom.

This basically meant that the honor duel was an event that someone might only experience once in their lives! Ves could imagine how many people wanted to catch up to the duel.

"When something hot becomes rare, its value spikes."

Ticket prices shot into space, crowding out the regular folk who could only spare a thousand marks at most. Last Ves had heard, the cheapest tickets sold for 20,000 marks!

Though it seemed that the entire Harkensen System went crazy, in actual fact only a small proportion of visitors and locals were caught up in the hype. Many tourists never heard about the Flagrant Vandals and didn’t particularly care about the honor the Vesia Kingdom.

Still, many Vesians and Brighters attached a lot of importance to the outcome of this duel. Citizens of the Republic and the Kingdom practically felt duty-bound to attend, though the extreme ticket prices scared many of them away.

The underground arena already made a killing by selling inflated ticket prices, but their appetite hungered for more. They opened up betting stations in many places in the Harkensen System.

In this, they failed to grab the lion’s share of the market. This was because the more established betting companies moved first. With their existing infrastructure, they held a definite advantage over the underground arena that had to keep most of its operations in the shadows.

No matter how Ves looked at it, the Reinaldans brazenly profited from the honor duel. "It’s like they can’t let off any attempts at earning money."

All of the betting elevated a sober duel between two mech pilots from different states into a match with billions of marks at stake. Ves was worried that some might seek to pressure one of the duelists to throw the match. He wasn’t naive to think such cheating never happened, particularly in the underground circles where enforcement was lax.

"Well, it probably won’t work this time."

The Flagrant Vandals backed Captain Orfan, so anyone wishing to coerce her into throwing the match would have to face the fury of an entire mech regiment.

As for Avid Serpent, she wouldn’t initiate an honor duel if she didn’t value her principles. To some people, honor was everything. To others, honor was something that they couldn’t touch or sell. How could they value something that didn’t really exist?

"Well, even if Avid Serpent is only for show, the worst she can do is tarnish the Vesia Kingdom’s honor. Any sabotage from her side won’t affect the honor of the Vandals."

While Ves didn’t concern himself too much about foul play, he still made some precautions of his own. Ever since the New Sentinel came into being, he never let it out of his sight. Anyone who wanted to tamper with the mech had to overcome his vigilance first.

Fortunately, as the time of the duel arrived, nothing went wrong. By the time Captain Orfan returned and entered the cockpit for the upcoming show, Ves felt reassured that nothing would go wrong from now on. He followed an arena attendant out of the workshop and sat down at a seat reserved for him at the very front.

He looked around and saw only strangers. It was too bad that Chief Haine and the mech technicians declined to attend. Sleep haunted them for days. They deserved their rest.

Right now, the final pre-show ritual came to an end. Due to the honor duel, the regular duelling schedule had been ditched. Nothing was allowed to upstage the honor duel.

"Ladies and gentlemen, Vesians and Brighters, Reinaldans and Roppongans, wherever you hail from, welcome to the main event!"

Anticipatory music pumped through the entire arena, affecting the moods of two-million attendees. Ves looked up as a massive floating stand of seats hovered over his head. Above those floating stands was another set of floating stands, and so on. If their antigrav modules ever suffered a malfunction, hundreds of thousands of people would crash into the people sitting below.

"Damn, is this even safe?"

It wasn’t as if the underground arena was required to adhere to any safety rules.

He forced himself out of his worries and turned his attention back to the stage.

"There is no greater rivalry in this corner the battle for supremacy between the Bright Republic and the Vesia Kingdom! Two different states with two very different ideals have clashed for several hundred years without a winner in sight! Has anyone heard of a conflict that lasted so long?! Only the rivalry between the Terrans and the Rubarthans comes close!"

Many audience members laughed and jeered at the Vesians and the Brighters. Their constant warring had become something of a joke in the Komodo Star Sector.

The Vesians were portrayed as mule-headed dunces for their repetitive wars of aggression that never seemed to win them anything at the end.

The Bright Republic on the other hand gained a reputation for being punching bags for the Vesians.

They were like a dysfunctional couple where an abusive husband kept hitting his wife.

Ves glowered a little as the Reinaldans amused themselves into thinking they were better. "Without the Frozen Leaf Alliance, would you still be able to make fun of the Vesians?"

After a few minutes of blathering, the announcer finally moved on to the duelists.

There was one aspect in which the New Sentinel surpassed the Rogue Breaker. Though Avid Serpent had attracted a lot of attention, her mech didn’t appear to be too special despite the external additions. _{freewebnovel.cσ๓}