The next morning, I discovered that Sir Pentious had a particularly generous interpretation of what he called “essential technical specifications.”
When I opened the first file he had sent me, I expected to find the dimensions of the component he was looking for, the load it needed to withstand, its thermal tolerance, and perhaps a few indications that would help me understand the system he intended to integrate it into.
That would already have been more information than necessary to contact a supplier, but at least I would have had something relatively simple to examine.
Instead, I received thirty-seven pages of schematics, five sets of handwritten annotations, two competing versions of the same circuit, several calculations—some of which had clearly been added afterward in the margins—and an entire paragraph in which Pentious explained why a modification he had ultimately abandoned would have been revolutionary if the rest of Hell had possessed the genius necessary to understand its potential.
I finished my coffee before opening the second file.
It was longer.
My lieutenant entered my office just as I reached the nineteenth page of a cross-section devoted to the cooling system.
He carried several reports under one arm and stopped in front of my desk while I scrolled through the plans, making no immediate attempt to interrupt my reading.
Eventually, I noticed his presence and briefly looked up.
“Nothing urgent, I hope.
I’d rather avoid adding an administrative disaster to whatever Pentious has already dumped on my desk.”
My lieutenant calmly placed the files in the free space beside my screen.
“Nothing requiring your immediate attention.
The first reports simply concern next week’s convoys and the progress of the work on the southern workshop.”
I nodded and returned to the diagram in front of me.
“Good.
I’ll look at them once I’ve figured out why this man thinks a secondary regulator needs to feed three independent bypass circuits when two would be more than enough for the current configuration.”
My lieutenant studied the screen for a few seconds before tilting his head slightly.
“I thought he had only asked you to find him a part.”
I stopped halfway through an annotation.
He wasn’t wrong.
“That was indeed the original plan.
I thought I’d identify the model, call a supplier, settle on a price, and forget the whole thing before noon.
Unfortunately, Pentious sent me enough detail to discover that his installation is going to push an absurd amount of energy through a regulator that risks melting after twenty minutes if the stated tolerances are accurate.
Now that I’ve seen the problem, I can’t pretend it doesn’t exist.”
My lieutenant moved slightly closer to the screen, examining the schematics with cautious interest.
“So you’re correcting his plans.”
I slowly turned my head toward him.
“I am pointing out a potential flaw in a design I was asked to examine.
That is absolutely not the same thing.”
He didn’t answer.
He didn’t need to.
Over the decades, my soldiers had developed a form of personality subtle enough that sometimes their silence was more irritating than an actual remark.
My lieutenant, in particular, had become remarkably skilled at making me feel judged despite possessing neither eyes nor eyebrows with which to do it properly.
“Don’t start,” I added, picking up my pen again.
“I already know exactly what you’re thinking.”
“I haven’t said anything yet, Commander.”
“Exactly.
It’s becoming a recurring and worrying habit.”
I resumed studying the plans and, despite myself, continued for almost another twenty minutes.
Pentious’s system was far more ambitious than the little machine he had shown me at the hotel.
It was no longer simply an automaton designed to carry objects or serve drinks.
His new project looked more like a modular experimental platform capable of supporting different configurations, powering several interchangeable tools, and operating long enough without an external power supply to be useful for actual field testing.
The general idea was good.
Very good, even.
The execution, however, suffered from a problem deeply connected to its designer’s personality: Pentious clearly regarded any unused power reserve as a personal insult.
Where a reasonable engineer would have added a safety margin, he had added the possibility of installing new systems.
Whenever a new possibility appeared, he immediately planned an additional power supply.
That supply then required more cooling, which led to another chassis modification, and I was beginning to understand how a relatively elegant little machine could end up transformed into a mobile fortress if nobody stopped him.
I added a note in the margin concerning the tolerance he had specified for the regulator.
Four percent.
Far too much.
I picked up my phone.
My lieutenant watched the movement.
“You’re going to contact the supplier?”
“Pentious first.
I’d like to make sure he isn’t planning to change another three parameters while I’m looking for the part.”
I dialed his number.
He answered on the third ring.
“MISS DEGURECHAFF!”
I had to move the phone slightly away from my ear.
“Good morning to you too, Pentious.”
“You received my documents?
I tried to limit the information to the bare minimum so as not to overwhelm you with secondary details.”
I looked at the dozens of pages open in front of me, then at the stack of appendices he had attached separately.
“Your definition of the bare minimum fascinates me more every day.
But yes, I received the plans, and I think I’ve found a supplier who can help us.”
The change in mood on the other end of the line was immediate.
“Excellent!
I knew my specifications were precise enough for a competent person to quickly identify the appropriate component.
Can it be delivered directly to the hotel this afternoon?”
“No, and before you start protesting, it isn’t because I’m trying to make your day more difficult.
I want to see the component before paying for anything.
Sellers in Pentagram City have a particularly flexible relationship with terms like ‘new,’ ‘functional,’ and ‘never exposed to an explosion.’ The supplier I have in mind is generally reliable, but the equipment you’re looking for isn’t exactly recent anymore, and I’m not buying something that important based solely on a description over the phone.”
Pentious remained silent for a moment before answering in a much more professional tone.
“I could naturally send you a detailed inspection procedure.”
“You’re going to do better than that: you’re coming with me.
Since it’s your machine and you know exactly what stresses the part will be subjected to, having you there will save me time.”
His enthusiasm immediately returned.
“A joint scientific expedition!
An excellent idea.”
“A visit to a supplier,” I corrected, even though I already knew it wouldn’t change anything.
“Naturally.
A scientific expedition of a commercial nature.”
I sighed.
“Meet me at two o’clock in front of the old tram station number twelve, in the southern industrial district.
And before the idea crosses your mind, you are not coming in your airship.”
He immediately protested that he had never considered such a thing, then fell silent long enough for me to understand that he had probably considered it very seriously.
“Very well,” he finally said.
“No airship.”
“And you’re also limiting the number of Egg Boiz.
I refuse to turn the purchase of a regulator into a company deployment.”
He negotiated anyway.
We eventually agreed on four Egg Boiz, which was already four more than I would have considered necessary for a normal business transaction.
When I hung up, my lieutenant was still standing in front of my desk.
“You just negotiated the number of eggs allowed to accompany an inventor into an industrial district.”
I slowly set down my phone.
“That sentence never leaves this room.”
At five minutes to two, I was standing in front of the old tram station, without my lieutenant this time.
I had left him at the domain because the outing was officially nothing military.
I was going to buy a part with a resident of the Hazbin Hotel, and bringing my senior officer along with an armed escort would have been unnecessarily theatrical.
Naturally, I wore my angelic-steel handgun at my belt, because visiting Pentagram City unarmed remained absurd even when one only planned to conduct business, but I had brought no other special equipment.
Pentious appeared at the end of the street a few minutes later.
He walked with four Egg Boiz behind him, clearly trying to maintain an imposing dignity while his assistants were already bumping into each other every time they changed direction.
When he spotted me, he immediately straightened his upper body.
“Miss Degurechaff!
I hope I haven’t kept you waiting.”
“You’re even slightly early, which already puts you above a large portion of Pentagram City when it comes to punctuality.”
The Egg Boiz stopped behind him.
One of them raised a hand.
“Hello, Miss Tanya!”
His neighbor immediately nudged him.
“She’s an Overlord, idiot.
You have to say Your Highness.”
I looked from one egg to the other, then at Pentious.
He turned slightly red.
“Their training in protocol is not yet entirely complete.”
“I’m mostly noticing that one of them just invented a royal title for me.”
The Egg Boi in question nodded with far too much conviction.
“I knew it.”
His neighbor stared at him.
“But you said—”
“I was testing you.”
I decided that continuing the conversation could probably only produce increasingly absurd consequences and simply indicated the direction we needed to take.
The supplier was about a fifteen-minute walk away, in the heart of an industrial area filled with businesses specializing in everything Hell could salvage, repair, modify, or resell at a sufficiently high price to create the impression that the object still came with a warranty.
During the walk, Pentious slowed down several times in front of shop windows.
The first time, I said nothing.
The second time either.
When one of his Egg Boiz suddenly appeared carrying a box containing three gears they most definitely had not possessed when we started, I finally turned my head toward Pentious.
“If you keep buying everything that catches your attention before we even reach our supplier, we’re going to have to rent a vehicle just to transport your discoveries.”
Pentious immediately straightened, adopting the offended expression he reserved for moments when someone dared question his scientific seriousness.
“I was merely evaluating the available possibilities.
A responsible inventor must constantly observe the resources in his environment.”
I pointed at the box being carried behind him.
“You still bought three gears.”
He looked at the Egg Boi, then at me.
“An unforeseen scientific opportunity.”
“Obviously.”
The supplier occupied an old warehouse whose facade had clearly been repaired so many times that it must now contain pieces from half a dozen different buildings.
The interior was even more impressive.
Engines of every size occupied an entire row, several mesh-protected display cases contained electronic components, and heavy mechanical parts hung from chains attached to the ceiling.
There was probably some kind of organizational system hidden somewhere behind the accumulation, although I had worked with this man long enough to abandon any hope of understanding it.
Pentious stopped as soon as we entered.
His gaze locked onto an old propulsion module installed near a stack of generators.
“Oh…”
I turned toward him.
“Try to remember why we’re here.”
“I am perfectly focused.”
He said this without taking his eyes off the module.
The supplier spotted us from the back of the warehouse and approached his counter.
“Tanya.
Didn’t think I’d see you today.”
“I need a somewhat unusual regulator.”
His gaze slid toward Pentious and his four Egg Boiz.
“I figured there was something unusual going on.”
Pentious immediately stepped forward and placed his specifications in front of him with all the importance of a scientist presenting a historic discovery.
He didn’t even have time to finish his first sentence.
“I’ve got one,” the supplier announced.
Pentious fell silent for a second.
“You actually have one?”
“Maybe.”
I immediately turned toward the seller.
“When you use the word ‘maybe,’ it usually means an important part of the information isn’t encouraging.”
He sighed before disappearing behind several shelves.
A few minutes later, he returned carrying a dust-covered metal box and placed it on the counter.
Pentious opened it almost immediately.
The regulator did indeed match the model we were looking for.
At first glance, even I could tell it had led a more eventful existence than a precision component ideally should.
Pentious carefully removed it, examined it from several angles, then took off a small protective plate.
His demeanor changed immediately.
All his usual grandiosity vanished behind an almost methodical concentration.
“The main circuit appears intact.
The insulation isn’t bad either.”
I leaned closer beside him.
“The casing took a hit on the right side.
Look at the secondary connector.”
He moved the part closer to the light.
After a few seconds, his expression hardened.
“Shit.”
The supplier crossed his arms.
“I said it wasn’t perfect.”
Pentious looked up with almost personal indignation.
“You said you had one.
You failed to mention that it had probably been used as a projectile during a riot.”
“It almost works.”
I looked at the seller.
“Every time a merchant says that, someone ends up paying for an extra repair.”
Pentious continued his inspection anyway.
After several minutes, he pointed to a small module integrated inside.
“The main problem is the secondary stabilizer.
It’s cracked all along this section.
The regulator could probably handle a low load without it, but with the system I’ve designed, it would fail far too quickly.”
I looked at the module.
“We can replace it.”
Pentious looked up.
“Not easily.
This series hasn’t been manufactured in a long time, and the dimensions don’t match almost any modern model.”
Behind us, the supplier cleared his throat.
I turned toward him.
“That expression tells me you know something.”
He gave a small smile.
“I know where you might still find one.”
Pentious immediately straightened.
The old Kessler Dynamics factory was only a few miles away.
It had once manufactured industrial regulation equipment, and part of the building still contained machinery old enough to match the model we were looking for.
There was, however, a very simple reason why the supplier wasn’t retrieving the parts himself.
A group of scavengers had decided several years ago that the factory was now their territory and greeted visitors with considerably more guns than commercial forms.
Pentious looked at me before the seller had even finished explaining.
I recognized the expression immediately.
“No.”
He blinked.
“You haven’t even heard what I was going to suggest.”
“You want us to go to the factory and retrieve the stabilizer ourselves.”
He raised a finger, hesitated for a few seconds, then finally lowered it.
“That was indeed the essence of my idea.”
I looked at the regulator, then at the time.
The reasonable decision would have been to go home, find another supplier, or advise Pentious to adapt his plans to a modern component.
Unfortunately, I had now examined the mechanism.
I knew exactly how to repair it.
And I wanted to see whether it would work afterward.
That last reason probably irritated me more than the other two.
“Fine.
We’ll go get the part, but I refuse to let this outing turn into a territorial war.
If the occupants of the building ask for a reasonable amount to access their scrap, we’ll pay and leave.
I’d much rather lose a little money than spend an hour cleaning up the consequences of an unnecessary firefight.”
Pentious nodded with admirable seriousness.
“Perfectly reasonable.
We are scientists, after all, not savages incapable of negotiation.”
One of the Egg Boiz timidly raised a hand.
“Boss, did we bring the bombs?”
Pentious froze.
I slowly turned my head toward him.
He cleared his throat.
“Emergency devices only.”
I decided it was probably better for my mental health not to ask for further clarification.
The old Kessler Dynamics factory looked exactly like the kind of place where a business transaction could very easily become a bad decision.
The building occupied almost an entire block, and part of the roof had been collapsed for long enough that no one seemed to have considered repairing it.
Several windows were gone, metal plates hung dangerously from the facades, and the old company logo still clung above the entrance thanks to two fasteners, one of which appeared to be waiting for an excuse to give up.
Pentious looked up at the structure with something almost resembling admiration.
“This place possesses a certain industrial nobility.”
A huge metal plate fell somewhere inside with a crash violent enough to make two Egg Boiz jump.
I looked at Pentious.
“A nobility actively trying to collapse on its visitors.”
We went inside.
The interior was enormous.
Old assembly lines ran across the main hall, surrounded by machinery, some of which was old enough that even I needed several seconds to identify its function.
Signs of scavengers were everywhere: torn-out cables, dismantled panels, broken tools, and parts abandoned after being judged too heavy or too useless.
Pentious changed again as soon as he found himself surrounded by technology.
He remained theatrical, because he was probably incapable of being anything else, but his attention became far more precise.
He recognized mechanisms, assessed their condition, and quickly understood which parts might still have value.
At one point, he stopped in front of an old machine and placed a hand against its casing.
“Electromagnetic winding system.
Very old model, but the insulation is magnificent.
Look at the size of those separators.
They built in a ridiculous margin.”
I moved closer.
“Not that ridiculous.
With the materials they used, they could probably handle thirty percent additional load without modifying the entire system.”
Pentious abruptly turned his head toward me.
His smile changed completely, becoming less theatrical and far more genuine.
“Exactly.”
I understood then something I had only glimpsed at the hotel.
He genuinely loved this.
His machines weren’t merely a way to build a reputation or impress others.
Beneath his obsession with oversized weapons and ridiculous declarations was a genuine interest in mechanics, deep enough to completely transform his behavior when he found someone capable of following his reasoning.
We continued farther inside.
The Egg Boiz, meanwhile, remained true to themselves.
One of them stopped in front of a large lever mounted on a rusted panel and asked Pentious whether he could pull it.
Pentious immediately forbade him from doing so, explaining for several seconds that we had absolutely no idea what the mechanism controlled and that touching something without understanding its function was therefore profoundly stupid.
The Egg Boi waited approximately one second after the explanation ended.
Then he pulled the lever.
A massive metallic noise echoed through the hall, and a platform weighing several tons abruptly descended from the ceiling a few yards away from us.
Pentious froze.
I looked at the platform, then at the egg, who seemed particularly proud of the result.
“I suppose we can now consider the mechanism identified.”
Pentious slowly ran a hand over his face.
“I’m beginning to understand why Charlie sometimes has that expression when she looks at us.”
I laughed despite myself.
“That’s probably the most important discovery of the day.”
We eventually reached the old regulation workshop.
A small technical room protected by a metal door still stood at the end of the corridor.
Pentious examined the lock, pulled a small device from his coat, and confidently announced that the problem would be solved within seconds.
I expected a lock-picking tool or a controlled overload.
The device sparked.
Then the lock exploded.
Smoke drifted from the mechanism.
I looked at Pentious.
“That’s your version of a delicate opening?”
He put the device away with dignity.
“The door is open.
I consider the result to have perfectly fulfilled the objective.”
Hard to argue with that logic.
Inside, several cabinets had already been completely emptied.
Only one still contained a few modules attached to their mounts.
Pentious began examining them one by one.
After a few minutes, he stopped.
“We have it.”
The stabilizer he was holding matched the exact serial number we needed.
I moved closer.
“Check it before celebrating.
We’ve already learned today that having the right reference doesn’t necessarily mean the part works.”
Pentious nodded and began the inspection.
He didn’t have time to finish.
A voice from the corridor interrupted us.
“You planning to pay for that?”
I turned around.
Six demons now occupied the entrance to the room.
Their equipment was a fairly typical mixture of scavenged clothing, mismatched weapons, and confidence considerably greater than their situation actually justified.
The one who appeared to lead the group held a rifle.
His gaze moved over Pentious, then me.
I saw very clearly the moment he recognized me.
His expression lost some of its confidence.
Not enough.
“We didn’t know it was you,” he finally said.
I kept my hands visible and gestured toward the stabilizer Pentious was still holding.
“Now you do.
We need that part, you clearly consider the equipment in this factory to belong to you, so we’re going to do what adults capable of commerce generally do: give me a price and we’ll see whether we can reach an agreement.”
The demon said five thousand.
Pentious had an almost physical reaction.
“Five thousand?
For a stabilizer several decades old recovered from a half-collapsed building?
Even accounting for its rarity, that is completely absurd.”
The scavenger shrugged.
“You want it.
That’s the price.”
I could almost respect the logic, even if the amount remained ridiculous.
I offered one thousand.
He came down to four thousand five hundred.
After a few exchanges, I realized he was no longer truly negotiating.
He was simply trying to take advantage of the fact that he had recognized me to artificially inflate the price, probably assuming the money meant nothing to me.
He was right about that last part.
That didn’t mean I enjoyed being robbed.
“I’m offering twelve hundred,” I finally said, deliberately allowing my tone to become colder.
“That’s already more than the usual value of a part in this condition and enough to compensate you for considering this building your scavenging ground.
You can accept and make money without any further effort, or you can keep asking for an absurd amount until we leave without buying anything.”
The leader looked at his men.
Then, slowly, he raised his rifle slightly.
Not directly at me.
But enough that the conversation ceased to be purely commercial.
I stared at the weapon for a few seconds.
“I’m going to give you a piece of advice I have no obligation to provide: lower that.
We came here to buy a part, and I’d rather leave without having to explain to my staff why a twenty-minute errand produced an incident report.”
He hesitated.
For a moment, I genuinely thought he was going to understand.
Then one of his men shouted from behind him that I was bluffing.
The first shot rang out.
My barrier materialized immediately, and the bullet ricocheted from it in a shower of red sparks.
Pentious jumped backward while the Egg Boiz scattered with surprising speed.
I materialized a pistol in my hand and sighed.
“I offered twelve hundred.”
The leader fired a second time.
I returned fire, aiming for his weapon rather than his body.
My projectile struck the rifle and tore it from his hands, which normally should have been enough to make the difference in power between us perfectly clear.
His men had apparently not received the message.
Pentious pulled two small devices from his coat and moved behind a piece of machinery.
“Egg Boiz, defensive formation!
And don’t let anyone get near the stabilizer!”
I gave him a brief glance.
His assistants obeyed far more efficiently than their previous behavior would have suggested.
Two took cover near the door while the others carried the part toward the back of the room.
“Not bad,” I remarked before reinforcing my barrier as another burst struck our position.
Pentious smiled.
“I told you they were indispensable to my scientific process.”
“I’m almost beginning to believe you.”
He activated one of his devices.
An electrical discharge struck a scavenger squarely in the chest and hurled him violently against a cabinet.
A second demon tried to move around my barrier.
I pivoted, shot him in the leg, then knocked his companion back with the butt of my weapon before he could get close enough to use his knife.
The fight didn’t last long.
There were too few of them, they were poorly coordinated, and, most importantly, they hadn’t anticipated that Pentious might actually participate effectively.
He used his gadgets with far less clumsiness than his public image suggested.
His movements were exaggerated, his comments unnecessary, and he seemed incapable of preventing every attack from becoming some kind of performance, but his devices worked and he knew exactly how to use them.
I was even beginning to enjoy the demonstration when something passed over my shoulder.
A small round object.
With a fuse.
I turned my head quickly enough to see one of the Egg Boiz throw it toward the scavengers.
“Is that a bomb?”
Pentious spotted the object at the same moment.
His expression changed immediately.
“Oh no.”
The explosion shook the room.
My barrier absorbed most of the debris while an entire cabinet toppled against the wall.
A thick cloud of dust filled the air and several pieces of metal fell around us.
When visibility returned enough, I slowly turned my head toward Pentious.
He was already staring at the responsible Egg Boi.
“Why did you have that on you?”
The egg seemed extremely proud of his initiative.
“Emergency bomb, boss!”
I had to press my lips together to keep from laughing.
The surviving scavengers, meanwhile, had lost all desire to continue.
Their leader had recovered his damaged rifle, but his gaze now moved between my barrier, Pentious, and the Egg Boiz as though he were finally recalculating his chances correctly.
A few seconds later, they fled the room.
I made no attempt to pursue them.
They had been stupid, but their mistake didn’t justify an execution.
They hadn’t attacked my organization, killed my men, or deliberately tried to challenge my authority like the gang from the previous chapter.
They had simply thought they could intimidate two customers into paying more for a part and had just discovered that their assessment of the risk had been wrong.
I let my barrier disappear.
Pentious adjusted his coat and adopted a dignified posture despite the dust covering almost his entire right side.
“A perfectly controlled victory.”
I looked at the destroyed cabinet, the smoke still drifting from the corridor, and the Egg Boi now holding a second bomb.
“We clearly don’t have the same definition of perfectly.”
Pentious followed my gaze and sighed.
“There were a few unforeseen variables.”
The Egg Boi raised his bomb.
“I’ve got another one!”
Pentious and I told him to put it away almost simultaneously.
We looked at each other.
And this time, I couldn’t hold back my laughter.
Neither could Pentious.
By a statistically remarkable miracle, the stabilizer had survived the entire operation.
After several checks, Pentious confirmed that it was perfectly usable.
We therefore headed back toward the supplier, covered in dust but without any serious injuries, while two Egg Boiz carried the part with almost religious care.
The seller watched us walk in.
His gaze moved down to our clothes, then to the stabilizer.
“I take it things went well.”
Pentious placed the part on the counter with immense satisfaction.
“Perfectly.”
I brushed a small piece of plaster from my sleeve.
“Relatively.”
The supplier had the good sense not to ask for details.
We immediately began repairing the regulator.
Very quickly, I almost stopped noticing the rest of the warehouse.
Pentious worked beside me with impressive concentration.
He handed me tools before I even asked for them, anticipated mounting difficulties, and modified two connections when he realized the recovered part didn’t have exactly the same tolerances as the original model.
For nearly an hour, his usually theatrical behavior almost completely disappeared.
Naturally, he continued to defend certain technical decisions as though they were fundamental philosophical principles, but the conversation became genuinely interesting.
We discussed cooling, pressure losses, and bypass circuits.
Eventually, I returned to what I had noticed that morning.
“If you keep three secondary lines, you’re going to create more problems than you solve.
Two are more than enough with the current configuration, and you’ll gain stability.”
Pentious tightened a connection before looking up.
“Two will no longer be enough if I later add an offensive module.”
I went still.
“You assured me this machine wasn’t a weapon.”
He hesitated.
Then adopted a deeply reasonable expression.
“I said it wasn’t primarily a weapon.
The distinction is important.”
I slowly set down the tool I was holding.
“I’m beginning to understand why Vaggie watches your projects with so much suspicion.”
Pentious pretended not to hear me.
We continued anyway.
When the regulator was finally reassembled, we connected it to a test power supply.
The load gradually increased while Pentious monitored the main readings and I kept an eye on the temperature.
The system remained stable.
Several minutes passed.
No sign of overheating.
I finally cut the power.
“It’ll hold.”
Pentious’s smile appeared immediately.
I raised a finger before he could launch into a triumphant speech.
“And before your ego turns that sentence into an official declaration of genius, listen to the rest.
Your design is good.
Genuinely good.
The problem was never your ability to build something functional.
Your problem is that you seem to regard every finished machine as an invitation to keep adding functions until the whole thing becomes unnecessarily complicated.”
Pentious looked deeply offended.
“Constant improvement is the very foundation of scientific progress.”
“Improvement, yes.
Adding cannons to a machine that works perfectly well without them is not automatically progress.”
He looked at me for a second.
“You haven’t even seen the cannons.”
“I didn’t need to know they existed to guess that they did.”
This time, he smiled.
“They’re very well designed.”
I shook my head with an amusement I no longer even bothered to hide.
“I’m sure they are.”
When the supplier announced the final price, Pentious immediately took out his wallet and paid for the equipment.
Once the transaction was complete, he turned toward me.
“How much do I owe you in addition?”
I frowned slightly.
“In addition to what?”
“For your time, your contacts, the trip, and, naturally, our glorious victory in the factory.”
I crossed my arms.
“You pay for your part, half the travel expenses, and whatever you owe the supplier.
Nothing else.”
Pentious remained still, clearly convinced I was going to add a condition.
I added nothing.
His expression gradually became more suspicious.
“That’s really all?”
I finally understood.
He was expecting a favor or a contract.
Perhaps even something involving his soul.
I let out a small sigh.
“Pentious, I don’t turn every interaction into a supernatural contract simply because I’m an Overlord.
You needed a spare part.
That part has a perfectly measurable monetary value, and you have the means to pay for it.
I therefore have no reason to ask for your soul in exchange for an electrical regulator.”
He seemed genuinely unsettled by that answer.
“Many Overlords would probably view the opportunity differently.”
“Probably.
Many Overlords also make business decisions I consider stupid.
A soul contract isn’t automatically superior to a normal transaction simply because it looks more impressive.
If I ever want your soul, I assure you it won’t be for the price of a secondhand part.”
Pentious stared at me for a few seconds, then burst out laughing.
“That’s surprisingly reasonable.”
“Be careful who you repeat that to.
I have a reputation to maintain.”
We left the supplier in the late afternoon.
Two Egg Boiz carefully carried the regulator while a third had kept the box of gears purchased earlier.
I still didn’t know what they would be used for, and I no longer had enough energy to ask.
At the intersection where our paths separated, Pentious stopped.
His demeanor shifted slightly.
For once, he didn’t immediately try to fill the silence.
“Thank you,” he finally said.
I turned my head toward him.
“You paid for your equipment.”
“I’m not only talking about that.”
His gaze briefly settled on the regulator before returning to me.
“Most people see my inventions and start laughing before they even try to understand what they do.
Some of them probably deserve to be considered excessive, I admit, even if they remain magnificent from an aesthetic standpoint, but… you actually look at them.
You figure out what works, what doesn’t, and you tell me why.”
I remained silent for a few seconds.
This wasn’t the megalomaniacal Pentious Pentagram City knew.
It wasn’t even the one who proclaimed himself a genius every five minutes at the hotel.
Just an inventor who, for a moment, admitted that he appreciated being taken seriously.
I clasped my hands behind my back.
“I look at them because your work deserves to be looked at.
You’re competent, Pentious, and intelligent enough to come up with solutions many others wouldn’t think of.
That doesn’t mean all your decisions are good, especially when you add weapons to something that didn’t need them, but I’m not going to pretend you’re bad at what you do simply because your personality sometimes makes people want to throw you out a window.”
He stared at me.
Then an enormous smile appeared.
I immediately realized that I had probably fed his ego for the next three months.
Too late.
“Send me the final plans once you’ve installed the regulator,” I added.
“I want to see how the system behaves in its actual configuration.”
Pentious straightened as though I had just awarded him a medal.
“With pleasure!
I can also send you the new load curves, the modifications to the cooling system, and perhaps the calculations concerning the offensive module if—”
“The final plans, Pentious.
Not your complete scientific works in twelve volumes.”
He nodded with enough conviction that I immediately knew he was going to send me far too many documents.
We parted ways shortly afterward.
I watched Pentious walk away with his Egg Boiz, already busy explaining the modifications he intended to make before he had even reinstalled the part we had just spent an entire day recovering.
I shook my head.
Charlie had probably accomplished something without even realizing it.
Pentious was still a megalomaniacal, theatrical snake obsessed with weapons, but I no longer saw him merely as the airship clown Pentagram City liked to caricature.
He was an inventor.
A real inventor.
And I was beginning to understand why Charlie refused to reduce the residents of her hotel to their worst flaws.
I obviously had no intention of telling her that.
She would be insufferable.
I returned to the domain shortly after seven in the evening.
My lieutenant was waiting for me in the manor’s entrance hall, and his attention immediately dropped to my dust-covered coat.
“The visit to the supplier appears to have been more eventful than expected.”
I removed my cap and handed it to him as I continued toward my office.
“The main component was damaged.
We had to retrieve a replacement part from an old factory occupied by scavengers who decided a business negotiation would be more interesting if it included gunfire.
Then one of the Egg Boiz used a bomb inside an enclosed room because he apparently considered it perfectly normal emergency equipment.”
My lieutenant walked beside me without interrupting the explanation.
“Despite that, we recovered the part, repaired the regulator, and no one suffered any serious injuries.
I therefore consider the day reasonably productive, although I’ll probably revise my personal definition of risk upward whenever Pentious uses the phrase ‘simple errand.'”
My lieutenant tilted his head slightly.
“Should I write an incident report?”
I looked at him.
“Only if you can find an administrative category specific enough for ‘spare-part purchase interrupted by a bomb carried by an egg.'”
He actually considered it.
“I can create one.”
“You absolutely will not create one, because that would imply I expect the situation to happen again.”
We reached my office.
I had barely put down my coat when my phone vibrated.
Pentious.
A first file had just arrived.
Then a second.
Three messages followed almost immediately.
My lieutenant placed the day’s reports on the desk while I opened them.
The first announced, with an impressive quantity of capital letters, that the regulator was working perfectly and that Pentious had actually modified the cooling system according to my remarks.
The second specified that he had also reduced the length of the third bypass circuit.
I smiled slightly.
Perhaps he had actually learned something.
Then the third message appeared.
It proudly informed me that he had added two cannons.
I remained motionless for a few seconds.
My lieutenant probably noticed the change in my expression.
“Is something wrong?”
I slowly turned the screen toward him.
“I believe I’ve made a much more serious mistake than expected.
I gave him the impression that I’m now available to review his plans, and less than two hours after we parted ways he has already sent me several files, a series of modifications, and confirmation that he added exactly the two cannons I explained were probably unnecessary.”
My lieutenant briefly examined the screen.
“You’re still going to look over the new plans.”
It wasn’t even phrased as a real question.
I turned my head toward him.
Then toward the administrative files I was supposed to read.
Finally, I looked at the first file Pentious had sent.
I knew perfectly well what the reasonable decision would be.
I opened the plans.
“I’m only going to check that he hasn’t ruined the system’s stability with his modifications.
Then I’m going back to work.”
My lieutenant remained silent.
I looked up.
“If you keep looking at me like that, I’m going to start regretting letting you develop a sense of humor.”
“I haven’t said anything, Commander.”
“That is precisely the problem.”
He finally left the office while I began examining the new schematics.
After a few minutes, I found a minor error in the power supply to the first cannon and almost automatically began writing a correction.
Then I discovered that Pentious had genuinely improved the cooling.
After that, I looked more closely at the two cannons.
I sighed.
Shit.
They were very well designed.