National Tournament Opens: Extreme Highs and Lows
The national tournament had arrived. All the painting was done, and the opening day of the nationals was here.
“Base, red cross, single blade, mini single blade, three-blade, skirt. All set!”
The national tournament worked like this: First came the round of 32 group stage. Thirty-two robots divided into eight groups of four. Each robot in a group fought twice. The top two from each group advanced to the single-elimination bracket. Robots from the same group wouldn’t meet again until the finals.
After arriving at the venue, Moon Naru checked the members of Group H.
“I’m in the last group, H? Who else is in it besides me?”
“Pentagon, Concorde, V-Killer, Scary…?”
1st seed: P3nTa9on / 2nd seed: KonKoarde / 3rd seed: V-Killer, Scary
The 1st and 2nd seeds were practice robots belonging to pro third-string players. It was an overwhelmingly one-sided group where the outcome looked painfully obvious.
“Those guys are pro third-string practice bots, so they probably thought about the rules in advance. Kinda jealous…”
The International Robot Combat Association, IRCA, had placed restrictions on the names of professional battle robots. They maintained a list of overly common words that couldn’t be used directly in robot names, all to encourage more distinctive, marketable names.
The two names that got flagged the most were:
● Viper: A venomous snake from the Viperidae family
● Valkyrie: The warrior maidens of Norse mythology
The list even came with a note telling builders to come up with fresher names.
If you wanted to use those words, you had to modify them. There were two common methods:
1. Twisting the spelling
└ Pentagon → P3nTa9on, Concorde → KonKoarde, etc.
2. Adding symbols
└ Avenger → †Avenger, etc.
V-Killer’s first opponent in the nationals was KonKoarde.
(My first match is against Concorde…? Time to go on the offensive!)
The robot lived up to its name to some degree. It resembled the famous supersonic passenger jet, with a wide isosceles-triangle body and a flipper mounted in the center. When the flipper moved, the middle third of the front section moved with it. It was a fast-acting flipper driven by a linear motor.
Flipping opponents was its basic function. It could also launch them into the air so the impact of the fall dealt damage. From now on, its official name would be “flipper.”
(Since it’s a linear motor, it can be used unlimited times, so I need to finish this fast.)
Most flippers ran on pneumatic circuits using compressed gas. Every activation consumed gas, so once the tank was empty, the weapon stopped working. The number of activations varied by robot, but usually ranged from ten to twenty.
(Buying separate CO₂ or nitrogen tanks must be a hassle.)
Plain compressed air could spark and explode on contact. Low-reactivity gases like nitrogen or carbon dioxide were required for safety. The downside was that these gases had limited uses. Unlike other consumables, they couldn’t be shared between multiple robots, which made bulk purchasing difficult.
(It’s weird to pay money for carbon dioxide that’s already floating in the air.)
Some people had tried collecting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or extracting nitrogen from snack bags. The results? Buying the gas outright was still better.
First match, V-Killer VS KonKoarde. The fight began.
(It accelerates way faster! That’s the advantage of a single blade!)
V-Killer had come out fitted with one of its new weapons: a large single-blade disk. The single-blade design had a lower moment of inertia, allowing faster acceleration. V-Killer’s already quick blade was now even quicker.
(Concorde’s ridiculously slow, huh? Live up to the name a little…)
KonKoarde, named after a jet that flew faster than Mach 2, failed to live up to its namesake. It boasted incredibly sluggish actuation—the exact opposite of its namesake. Its flat profile meant small wheels, and being a defensive bot, it simply didn’t prioritize mobility.
(It’s already fully accelerated…? Now!)
2.3 seconds after the weapon motor started, V-Killer’s single-blade disk reached full speed. It struck immediately, completely blasting KonKoarde’s flipper away. The sight resembled a longsword cleanly cleaving a small tree in one swing.
(It hits hard, but it needs more time to re-accelerate…)
Because of the low moment of inertia, each attack cost more speed, requiring longer re-acceleration. Fast acceleration ↔ loses more speed per hit. In a way, the drawback was offset by the advantage.
(Doesn’t matter right now! I already got the KO!)
But there was no need to worry. The KO count began for KonKoarde.
“10, 9, 8, 7, 6! 5! 4! 3! 2! 1! Concorde KO!”
A single solid hit had knocked out KonKoarde.
0:28. A KO victory with just one effective strike. It was a perfect demonstration of the single-blade disk’s greatest strength: overwhelming one-shot power.
“Next opponent is… Scary. Hey, Lee Cheong-bi! I’m not going easy on you just because we’re friends~!”
“Hah! Moon Naru! Same goes for me~!”
(What should I equip this time?)
Scary had an extremely unusual structure. How was V-Killer supposed to deal with it?
(Just bring out the original weapon. Firepower versus firepower—mutual destruction tactics!)
When you didn’t know what to use, meeting force with force was one valid approach.
Second match of the nationals, V-Killer VS Scary. The fight began!
(I get Cheong-bi’s taste, but… Scary is still weird no matter how many times I see it.)
Scary had an absurd number of features.
(Starting with mounting both horizontal and vertical weapons is already unusual,)
It carried weapons on both the front and back. A three-blade horizontal spinning disk sat in front. A coaxial counter-rotating vertical blade sat in the rear.
(Making it coaxial counter-rotating to improve mobility is clever,)
The gyroscopic effect of a vertical weapon normally hindered movement. Counter-rotation canceled the gyro effect, making the robot easier to drive.
(Plus, the vertical weapon can still be used even when flipped,)
The vertical blade remained functional when inverted. The mounted unit automatically adjusted whenever it flipped over.
(Four-directional movement too? How does a robot like this even exist?)
Its drivetrain used Mecanum wheels, allowing movement in all four directions—forward, backward, sideways, and diagonally. This was far more sophisticated than the simple rear-wheel steering found in some luxury cars. Each wheel had auxiliary rollers mounted horizontally. By changing the rotation direction of the wheels, the robot could move in any direction.
(It’s weird that a robot with this many features is still on the stable side… Kyaaak!!)
Even after cramming in so many functions, it remained relatively stable—an oddity in itself.
The first collision sent V-Killer flying into the air courtesy of Scary’s vertical blade, like a super-heavyweight boxer throwing an uppercut. Immediately after, Scary spun and slammed its horizontal disk into V-Killer’s underside with tremendous force, reminiscent of a ninja finishing off a target. Its rotating movement looked like a figure-skating routine.
(This kind of toying around is just like Cheong-bi… That #!#!#!…)
V-Killer took a direct floor slam after being completely toyed with by Scary. At first glance, it only looked scratched.
Internally, however, it was damaged beyond the point of movement. V-Killer’s floor was made of quite sturdy material, but the shock transmitted inward was another matter entirely.
Eventually the KO count began for V-Killer. Scary continued spinning like a figure skater or a drifting car.
“10! 9! 8! 7! 6! 5! 4! 3! 2! 1! V-Killer KO~! Naru, I told you I wouldn’t go easy~?”
0:29. V-Killer was knocked out after just two effective hits.
In just two matches, V-Killer had shown both extremes. The first match reached a peak as high as the summit of K2. The second match plunged to a low as deep as the bottom of the East Sea. What would the third match bring? One of the two extremes, or something in between?
(I should probably bring out the skirt for the next round.)
“What’s the problem? With thirty minutes of waiting time, I can fix it quickly.”
Most issues like this were caused by disconnected wires. For a temporary fix, simply reconnecting them was enough.
“If I connect it like this… done!”
Moon Naru had reconnected all the broken wires. Since they had to fight three matches in a single day, a temporary repair was necessary. A proper fix would have to wait until the rest day.
The next opponent was P3nTa9on, a robot of the same type as V-Killer.
“Next opponent is… Pentagon? Why does it look so much like V-Killer?”
P3nTa9on resembled V-Killer so closely they could have been siblings. Battle robot tournaments required design review before registration to prevent a flood of nearly identical robots.
(Back when I was a baby, tournaments supposedly collapsed because all the robots looked exactly the same.)
The tournaments from Naru’s infancy had failed for several reasons, one of which was that every robot looked identical.
The visible differences could be summarized as follows:
1. Flatter body
2. Rear corners remained at right angles
3. Moved by four small hidden wheels underneath
4. Equipped with a skirt as standard
5. Possessed a self-righting mechanism that allowed recovery when flipped
6. Weapon fixed as a large double-edged blade
“There are battle robot design regulations… Well, this level can be excused as a kind of convergent evolution.”
It wasn’t a perfect copy, just convergent evolution.
(Should I go for a same-type mirror match? Small single-blade disk with skirt?)