CH 22

“I… did not,” Lotus answered.

“You didn’t sense anything?” he asked again.

“I did. That’s why it’s strange that you say he was healed. From what I sensed, he shattered into pieces and fell to the ground. Then something like sparks erupted from his body, and all the pieces of the armor lifted into the air. That’s all I know. The next thing I sensed was you running, then I heard the cannon being fired,” she said.

Ren frowned as he listened.

She sensed sparks? That has to be Mechanic Force. I was correct to think that our enemy is a Mechanic. But how did he survive the hit which caused the entire armor to shatter?

No matter how hard he tried to think, he couldn’t find an answer. A Mechanic that had not gone through their First Class Evolution would not be strong enough to tank that attack. Even with specialized armor, the damage he had dealt should have ended the fight. The entire armor had shattered. There should not have been any chances for him to survive, let alone repair the entire armor so quickly.

A sudden thought came to Ren, and it made his expression stiffen slightly.

What… what if he didn’t survive the attack? How am I so sure that there is someone inside the armor? Maybe it’s an automaton?

The idea sounded extreme, even to him. The possibility of the armor being an automaton—a robot—and the Mechanic controlling it from a remote location were low.

The reasons were two the limitations of the Mechanic Class before they completed their First Class Evolution. One, the Mechanic cannot control more than one “device” with their Mechanic Force. Second, the farther the device is from the Mechanic, the worse their control becomes.

The first one was a fundamental law, and it couldn’t be changed. Though what counted as “one” device was debatable, and no set parameters for it had been discovered yet. For example, even Freya’s saw-sword had several mechanic components, but it was counted as “one” device, thus it could be controlled by Freya’s Mechanic Force. The internal mechanisms did not matter as long as they were integrated into a single structure that functioned as one unit.

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