It's Not Easy to Be a Man After Travelling to the Future - Chapter 236

Chapter 236: Newcomer Matchups!

“If the other really escorted [No Mecha Unrepaired] to Suncreed City, those trainee mecha operators may not be able to handle him,” reminded the person reporting, somewhat hesitantly.

“Even many of our intermediate mecha warriors had died on the road to Suncreed, do you think they managed to get to the city alive?” barked the other side in response, “Idiot! It goes without thinking that they failed. That’s why that damn rabbit would think to go to the arena fights to gain battle experience …”

“Yes, yes, yes, I’m overthinking it.” The contacting person dabbed at the cold sweat on his forehead, regretting his big mouth, as he shut his communicator. He then immediately sent the head’s orders out. Subsequently, a considerable number of mecha ported back to enter the mecha combat arena fights …

********

The moment Ling Lan entered the mecha combat hall, the system delivered an alert, asking her to decide whether to remain anonymous or to make her name public. After some thought, Ling Lan still decided to remain anonymous. It was better to be cautious — even if they really would have to go up against the Thunder King in the end, she wanted to leave enough preparation time for herself.

As Ling Lan was still considered a trainee mecha operator, she could not join the real arena fights yet. In other words, the official arena fights and cross-level challenge fights had nothing to do with her. She could only take things one step at a time, so the ones she would be facing, would be those at the same level as her, the other trainee mecha operator newbies[1].

The arena fights at Ling Lan’s level were called the newcomer matchups. The points awarded for each match were not much, just 1000 points, and there were no additional betting awards. Of course, if she lost, Ling Lan would be deducted 1000 points, once again becoming the penniless pauper she had been at the beginning.

Ling Lan did not think she would lose — this was not blind arrogance, but informed confidence. Of course, she also did not mind that each match would only net her 1000 points — compared to those time-consuming missions earlier, the points she could get here were incomparably greater. Ling Lan was very satisfied with this. Thus, without giving the matter further thought, she instantly submitted a request for a match.

Very soon, the system’s voice rang out by Ling Lan’s ear, “[Lingtian First-String], welcome to the Mecha World’s arena fights. As you are still a trainee mecha, you can only take part in the newcomer matchups (a tournament exclusively for trainee mecha). Entering you into the newcomer matchups’ matchmaking system now. Please wait!”

Ling Lan thought that she would have to wait a long time, but surprisingly, it had only been a few seconds when she heard a ‘ding!’ and the system spoke up again, “Please note, your opponent has been randomly selected by the system — trainee mecha [Dream Butterfly Dance]. Three seconds later, you will be transported to the match arena. There will be 10 seconds of invulnerable protection time. Once the protection disappears, the match officially begins!”

[Dream Butterfly Dance]? Ling Lan’s first thought was that the other was a girl, though of course it could also be a more effeminate young man … As Ling Lan was wondering, her mecha’s screen suddenly turned dark before lighting up again, and she found herself in a flat plain, endless to the eye, but there were no places to conceal oneself. This meant that this match would be a clash of sheer strength.

The opponent’s choice was a flying transformer type mecha — this meant the other was extremely confident in their control skills. Otherwise, they would not have chosen the flying transformer mecha, which had the highest control difficulty coefficient among all the basic mecha. This made Ling Lan’s heart sink as she grew serious. If the other was truly a control prodigy, she needed to make sure she would not capsize her boat in a ditch here.

The 10 seconds of protection time went by quickly. Ling Lan was curious about the opponent, and so decided not to attack first. She wanted to see the other’s attack — as long as the other made a move, she would be able to tell how strong the opponent was.

The opponent’s first decision was to transform, and then piloting their mecha to fly into the air, they chose to launch a long-range attack. This was the most basic strategy of flying transformer mecha. A flying transformer mecha’s main advantage was that its long-range attacks were the strongest among all the three basic mecha. Thus, this decision of the opponent was undoubtedly extremely accurate.

With a “bam”, Ling Lan operated her mecha to leap away. A light beam exploded at the spot where she had just been standing, sending countless amounts of dust and dirt into the air. As she leapt, Ling Lan was already on the lookout for the opponent’s following attacks, but unexpectedly, after failing in their first attack, the other chose to retreat once more, pulling a distance away from her. This caused Ling Lan to become rather disappointed.

Just in that last attack alone, the opponent had already made three mistakes. One, during the flying transformer mecha’s first long-range attack, they should not have aimed at where she had been standing; instead, they should have considered where she would dodge to — this was called prediction. Of course, if one did not have enough confidence in one’s predictive ability, one could fire multiple shots towards several potential areas where she could dodge to. This was one of the requisite abilities of a long-range attacker. However, the opponent had not done so, only using a common mecha operator’s most basic shooting skill, firing some beams and calling it a day.

Two, even if the flying mecha did not have any predictive ability, they could have watched where she was dodging to and followed up by firing consecutive attacks after her. This would pressure the opponent, giving the opponent no chance to counterattack, only able to dodge reactively.

Three, an experienced flying transformer mecha would know to maintain distance with their target during attacks. However, when she had dodged, she had caused the distance between the two of them to already be very far. The rabbit mecha’s long-range weapons were completely incapable of striking the opponent, so it was completely unnecessary for the other to be so cautious and give up on attacking to put even more distance between them.

Without question, whether in terms of basic control, or in terms of decision-making, the opponent was green beyond green. It could be said that, based on the other’s control skills, they were not at all qualified to operate a flying transformer mecha with its high difficulty coefficient. If Ling Lan was asked to advise, she would say that the other should obediently stick to operating bestial mecha, mastering the basic controls before choosing other types of mecha.

Ling Lan had been able to tell the opponent’s base line from just one attack. Initially somewhat interested, Ling Lan instantly lost the mood to continue dragging things out with the other. And so, Ling Lan activated all the engines of the rabbit mecha — the rabbit leapt and ran as if it were airborne, like an arrow; the opponent’s attacks had no way of keeping up with this speed. Seeing the other coming closer and closer, the opponent started to panic, actually turning to run away desperately … but in the next second, they suddenly found that they could no longer see the rabbit’s figure in their mecha’s screen. What in the world was this?

The opponent did not dare to move recklessly, quickly stopping the mecha and carefully scanning for signs of the rabbit mecha. But before they could look closely, the mainframe of their mecha began blaring a warning, “Danger!”

They only managed to hear this one warning, and then they immediately felt their mecha being struck by a tremendous force — they were almost rattled unconscious by the collision, and then their mecha’s screen turned black. Closely following that was a notification from the system’s voice, “Your vital point was struck by the opponent, causing your mecha to explode instantly resulting in your death. Please choose whether to continue to the next round or to leave …”

They had actually died? How the heck did they die? The flying mecha chose to continue to the next match, but selected the option for a temporary rest to reorganise. They then immediately looked up the battle feed of the fight between the rabbit mecha and them, and finally found out how they had died.

Apparently, the rabbit mecha had already ducked below him, going into the blind spot of their mecha. Then, with a powerful leap, the other had charged into the air from below, using that extremely characteristic red carrot to violate their chrysanthemum[2] …

“How despicable!” [Dream Butterfly Dance] could not help but slam their hand onto the control panel. That image of violating her chrysanthemum was really too sleazy and revolting. As a girl, she really could not accept this. At this moment, hatred towards the rabbit surged within her heart — the other’s attack was just so humiliating …

An angry woman often could not be reasoned with!

Ling Lan did not know that due to her desire for efficiency, she had actually incited the hatred of a girl. Right now, she was waiting for her next match — even though she had already obtained 1000 points from her first fight, she would need at least 100,000 points to redeem the worst lower mecha. This was just the first step of her long journey — she needed to win at least 100 consecutive matches to obtain these 100,000 points.

Very soon, the system notified her that a new challenger had been found — the trainee mecha operator [All-Rounded Expert[3]]. As before, she would be transported to the battlefield three seconds later.

[All-Rounded Expert]? It looked like this person was very confident, actually daring to pick such a name. Ling Lan looked at the name and began to deduce the other’s personality.

This was a habit she had picked up from Instructor Number Five. Number Five liked to manipulate the opponent, so would often approach from unexpected angles to dig out some secrets. For example, words or phrases the opponent liked to use, or perhaps some pet names or nicknames they gave themselves — oftentimes, these fine details would be a surprisingly accurate reflection of their inner heart. Of course, this did not exclude the possibility of there being some masters of deception who were good at pretending, purposefully spouting some nonsense or naming themselves based on completely irrelevant things. For those people, one needed to use reverse psychology to figure them out.

The battlefield she was transported to was still an endless plain, exactly the same as in the previous match. This made Ling Lan suspect whether this was the only battlefield for the newcomer matchups. If her suspicions were correct, then the system probably did not think highly of the combat between newcomers. The system must have reckoned that newcomers would not be able to use their environment to do anything, and so had set this unchanging flat plain as the battlefield.

“Haha, who knew I’d be so lucky! Actually running into the rabbit mecha the team had sent out an alert telling us to target!” Taunting laughter rang out by Ling Lan’s ears, extremely wild and uninhibited.

Ling Lan frowned and looked over to see a humanoid mecha standing conspicuously not too far away from her. Slung casually over its shoulder was a huge metal cleaver, and the mecha just stood there relaxed, not at all vigilant, no sign at all of the tension of someone here to participate in a match.

Ling Lan could not help but snort softly. This fellow was really asking for death — being so loose and careless in front of an opponent, pretty much no combat standards at all.

In Ling Lan’s eyes, the other’s entire body was full of openings. It could be said that, if she attacked, Ling Lan could definitely kill the other in one second without breaking a sweat. She had initially thought she would encounter a mecha operator of a better standard, but it was unexpectedly another weakling-fodder … this made Ling Lan rather disappointed once again. Although Ling Lan wanted to gather points as fast as she could, she also wanted to find an opponent worthy of a fight, and not these trash who had not even passed the mecha control basics.

These past few years, she had trained long and hard. Whether in terms of physical combat skills or mecha combat, Ling Lan had always harboured a deep respect for all combat arts in her heart. Seeing the opponent being so flippant and irreverent, she was filled with extreme dislike.

[1] T/C: God rest your souls, you poor, poor fellows.

[2] It is literally a flower, but metaphorically a common Chinese euphemism/slang for the anus. As such, please note that it is generally not polite nor a compliment to say someone’s face is like a chrysanthemum.

[3] Fun fact: the name of this opponent is actually the novel title of ‘The King’s Avatar’, which made me so tempted to just plug that in. However, this translation here is the more faithful meaning, while the other is a creatively loose interpretation that only really makes sense for that novel.