An accident!

Vemido Kingdom, Philadelphus District…

Around 4:45pm, there was an accident.

There was an unexpected clash between the mech pilots of the Philadelphus Police and pirates, a skirmish that dragged innocent civilians into the chaos.

"Arghhh…!"

"Nooo…, my son!"

"Help…!"

The code of mech pilots was taking civilian lives as a priority.

Despite the elite contingent of mech pilots, preoccupied with rescuing the civilians and evacuating them, the pirates who had the numbers advantage finally took the initiative, pushing the elite mech pilots to the wall.

They were in danger!

"Hello, this is mech pilot Andrew, code number 02-16".

"We are under attack!"

"We have been surrounded!"

"This is an emergency!"

"I repeat, we are under attack from rogue pirates!"

"Requesting for backup!"

"We need backup now…!"

Bzzz!

~Connection Lost~

~Last recorded location of connection: No. 305, Philadelphus District, Hellport Street~

…

Inside the main police station of the Philadelphus District, the main floor.

The head of the police department stood before his subordinates with a serious look on his face. "You heard the last reading from team Delta".

They were all standing before a holographic film.

"As you can see on the heat map, we've lost contact with all 6 teams that were dispatched out there to quell the violence".

"The mission was connoted as Code Green, meaning 0% likelihood of violence". This bald head middle-aged man with brown beard looked towards the side, at one of his subordinates. "The analytics team has an explanation to give me when we come back".

He continued, looking at the holographic film. "We're going to assume that some of them are still alive, and our mission today is going there to retrieve them".

"From the last reading, we can be certain to meet hostiles in there".

"Pirates maybe, but we are prepared".

"Our only mission is to go in there, retrieve friendlies and retreat as fast as we can. Back-up is coming in later to wipe them out".

"I need a troop of 50 mech pilots, and 30 mages for this, preferably crowd control mages".

"Understood?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Good, follow me".

Following the head of the police department, under the guide of the police mech specialists, they entered the hanger where the machines rested even as the mage specialists left to mobilize more mages for this mission.

Inside this hangar were lined units of gigantic war machines, mechs.

Some stood as low as just 2 meters tall, but the majority stood between 3 meters tall, and some 4 to 5 of them stood at over 5 meters tall.

They were all made in humanoid shapes. Apart from the reinforced glass head which was just there for the aesthetic value, the mechs had 2 legs, 2 arms, and a giant torso which also served as the cockpit of the mechs.

"Board your mechs, boot and follow my lead".

"Let's go retrieve some friendlies!"

A few seconds later, the gigantic metal machines rose to life as their reinforced glass heads started glowing in white colors.

The glass heads could also serve as headlights in dark combat situations.

Immediately after they booted to life under the control of their designated mech pilots, the gigantic machines finally started moving.

Thump!

Every step from them was heavy and powerful.

And once they were outside the police headquarters, tires appeared out of their legs with which they used to rapidly accelerate down the road.

The mages joined the mech pilots and together, they left.

"Collision time is in 8 minutes".

They had 8 minutes to prepare themselves and their mechs mentally and technically for the fight, and exactly 8 minutes later, they clashed with the pirates.

The head of the police department was right, there was still some friendlies who survived the ambush.

They were still mounting a defense against the pirates when they arrived.

Without hesitation, they immediately joined the fray.

A dirty and chaotic skirmish later where metal body parts were left sprawled all across the ground from scattered mechs, they finally retreated after retrieving only 15 mech pilot friendlies out of the original 53 who went out.

The pirates used the opportunity to escape immediately before further reinforcements came. All 15 survivors were taken to the hospital.

In the hospital, their fate was decided.

~Patient: Hillbilly Ember~

~Mech Police Officer~

~Current Condition: Critically Injured- 15 broken ribs, fractured arm and leg, damaged kidney…~

~Survival Chances: Low~

…

~Patient: John Carter~

~Mech Police Officer~

~Current Condition: Injured- Fractures from weight compression stress~

~Survival Chances: High~

…

~Patient: Andrew McTate~

~Mech Police Officer~

~Current Condition: Brain; Critically Injured- Concussion, skull fracture, hemorrhage, diffuse axonal injury, cerebral edema…~

~Current Condition: Body; Severed legs, severed left arm, broken ribs…~

~Survival Chances: Very Low~

…

That evening, the full force and fury of Philadelphus' Police was felt by the criminal circle in this street and neighboring streets as they aggressively scoured every crook and cranny with their giant mechs in search of the pirates.

They had scores to settle.

The mages also did a good job with their magic.

Most managed to escape, but as for the few that were caught, they were made to pay for the sin of the multitude.

They all suffered miserable deaths.

There was only 1 penalty for killing a mech police, death with no negotiation.

By the time the cleansing was done later in the night, more than 2 dozen pirates were captured and eliminated but the damage was already done.

It was a terrible accident with casualties.

Of the 15 survivors who were retrieved and taken to the hospital, more than half already died and the other half were all fighting for their lives.

Most of them were not supposed to survive but at the last moment, one of the core research groups in the whole of the Vemido Kingdom, Lucius Industries intervened.

After negotiating with the government, they came to a conclusion.

Apparently, they had a research program that may likely save the soldiers' lives and the government sanctioned it.

…

Andrew didn't know how long passed, it felt like just an instant.

Everything was happening so fast.

Life is a scam!

He thought life after death was supposed to be nothingness, and even if it was not nothingness, those books depicted it that he would either go to a paradise in heaven full of beauty and food or to a lake of burning fire.

So, where the hell was this?

Blink!

Andrew blinked his eyes open again, and immediately, he was blinded by a bright blue light that filled his vision.

[Reincarnation Successful!]

[New host acquired!]

[Ultimate Simulation System initializing…, please wait…]