Chapitre 73: Hidden Treasure
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.
__________
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.
"Gray, I am sorry again about last time, I just can't handle Ginro. What I am messaging you about though is that I hope you join the military officially. If you'd like, I can mention you to my superior, General Elise Bellerose, and can hopefully have you, and even your team, transferred to one of our divisions. Not only that, but you'd be in the same base as me, although if that Caleb is still on your team I might have to reconsider that."
Gray laughed "Hmmm... so if I want to join her camp, I'll need to get rid of Caleb... Caleb, you will be missed." is what Gray almost thought about saying to Caleb, but he wasn't going to just drop him over a chance to live at the same base as Felicia... at least not yet.
Gray wasn't sure how serious Felicia was about... well... anything. He had to admit she was absolutely gorgeous but that started to blind him somewhat and he had started to realize that he really didn't know anything about her since she always kept in control of the conversations, leaving him to do a lot of answering and virtually no questioning.
"It could be she's just playing hard to get... or maybe doesn't like to talk about herself. Well, let's discuss it later tonight as a team. I never fancied myself a dictator after all." Gray thought to himself.
Gray made his way back towards the cafeteria where he remembered Caleb was left alone, but he was no longer there. Gray then returned to the Pilot's quarters and didn't see any of the team in their rooms so he returned to his since it was still 30 minutes until they were set to meet by the simulators.
As Gray got closer to his room he could hear the sound of things being moved around in his room and became nervous that someone was looking through his stuff. He didn't have much, but it was still his stuff!
Gray burst into his own room and saw Geoff, Paul, and Yurika looking around through all of his drawers and things and yelled "Hey! What are you guys doing!?!"
Stacia, Xyra, and Caleb just sat on his couch without saying a word, Paul looked at Gray and said "Uhhh, we're looking for it.."
"Looking for what?" Gray asked.
A voice came from his closet belonging to Geoff that said "We're looking for it! We know you got it!"
"I still don't know what you're talking about." Gray said and rolled his eyes.
From under his bed came Yurika's voice "I found it!"
Yurika climbed out from under Gray's bed and held up what looked like a book or magazine proudly over her head like she had just found a treasure.
"Really?" Gray said with an unamused expression. "You could've just asked and I would've let you guys borrow it had I know what you were looking for!"
"Yeah, but we didn't want to wait..." Yurika then flopped on to Gray's bed like it was her own room and turned the book to a certain section and started staring at each page with an envious expression. "I wish mine were that big..." Yurika added plainly
Stacia and Xyra got up to see what Yurika was looking at and then Stacia said plainly "Maybe, but they'd be hard to carry and all of that weight in the shoulders would make it a pain."
Xyra added "Mine are... almost that big..."
Paul looked at what they were looking at and added "Yeah, you're right, but that big really would be hard to hold."
Gray suddenly remembered what he had left under his bed and said "Oh, I totally forgot about that! How'd you guys know about it?"
"I found it when you kicked me off the bed and meant to ask you about it when we got a chance." Geoff said.
"Well, everyone, how about we splurge a little bit then and pick some stuff out from the weapon and mech catalog I stole... I mean, borrowed, from the armory." Gray said while also looking at the book that Yurika was looking at on his bed and admiring the over-sized chain gun she was drooling over.
"Sweet! Let's do it!" Geoff said "Flip to the mech section first, I think that is where we're lacking most!"
Yurika flipped to the mech section of the weapon and mech catalog and everyone chattered like kids in a toy store over what to get before they went out to more matchmaking.
L’AVIS DES CRÉATEURS 
LordSputnik
LordSputnik What kinda book or magazine did you think it was? Pervs...
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
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