I'd like to say that's a diplomacy check I've rolled high on and that I did not let any of my annoyance towards the alliance and that goat-girl show through or just plain 'ol hiding it by saying other things.

…The masked helmet of the suit makes that easy.

Duh. I could have told you that.

But you didn't, so…

Hush, you.

Hey, eheheh, I'm supposed to be the one saying that!

From the way I saw the goat-girl in question's eyes roll back in her head from, yes, drinking the heavy- and light- oil along with the petroleum gasoline, then immediately flying off in the distance with great haste, I think she was indeed convinced to go find some uranium for me.

I wonder how she'll get it in bulk without mining drills and sulfuric acid?

The shorter blonde girl who I'm pretty sure knew that, no, I did not spot them via her weirdo magic crystal wings, just laughed, politely thanked me for the very quick QnA-sesh, and took off after.

Well, good news and even good-er news came from that whole thing.

One, that there's a city off in a direction where I'm pretty sure the robots are going.

Two, I can probably get there before them.

…Actually, some bad news about that.

I was not lying about the steam power thing. I mean, sure, I could power all, uh, 25-and-counting engines with some alternate form of burnable fuel, such as, say, solidified cubes of that light-oil product as opposed to raw coal, but…

Hrm. That…actually wouldn't take that much effort to re-factor the conveyor belts to transfer it over or get the robots to do it instead.

Huh. Minimum effort?

Effort, effort…

Say, while you're still here Hecatia, does it matter my method of conquering Hell?

Nope. Though, different methods will provide different results. It really depends on what exactly you expect to get out of it, even if it'll be under my name in the end, y'know?

…she says in a casual tone.

Alrighty then. Time to unpack what exactly I learned from Yuuma.

There is, in fact, a city. It's known as the Beast Metropolis, and it's somewhere over there.

I should note that Metropolis is a word that, inherently, does not exist in Japanese without borrowing from another language, in this case, English, and therefore, carries English connotations.

Anyway, Metropolis is a word I expect to associate with enormous cities, ones that take insane amounts of physical infrastructure and have populations in the millions, possibly more.

There are most certainly buildings. There are most certainly streets. Given how cities of such size could not exist without advanced sciences, I will add electricity and all that implies to my list of certainties.

Finally, given the year of 2023, there will not be anything too mechanically advanced. None of my robots or automatic conveyor belts or crafting machines, for example.

Especially no other Engineering Suits. That'd be a damn pain, but…

…Expect magic as a replacement, instead. Do I have to consider soldiers or policemen who can casually cast fireball spells or something?

Not that the spitter variant of the biters were any better. Acid has gotta be one of the worst things to defend against, out of all physical attack vectors that exist with how it practically ignores metal armor, eating away at everything underneath until it all melts and turns to goop.

I'm really gonna need those Spidertrons soon. At least I can shove those things full of Energy Shield modules.

…Oh. Huh. Well then.

I haven't even seen what this place is or what it's even about and I'm already thinking about going to War.

If Yuuma is any person to base the general personality of a populace off of, then, well, it's gonna devolve to that point sooner or later. A case of when rather than if.

But, well. It's always been that way, hasn't it?

Nevermind whatever the typical personality of the Beasts of the titular Metropolis is, time and time again, Humans have already proven it to be so.

A lyric of a song comes to mind, and I sing it aloud.

"...in the end, it has to be this waaaay~"

Huh. Seven hours, and I haven't even turned on my music player module. This whole situation is really getting to me, isn't it?

Though, only that once so far have I started singing aloud or done something strange like dance atop moving trains for fun.

But that would imply I can take this casually to do such a thing?

Or is that just my version of taking this seriously.

Now I'm thinking funny things.

…Can I attach robot arms to my Engineering Suit and have them each hold a gun?

As an aside, it'd give me a vaguely spider-ish motif, so I could theoretically disguise myself as a beast of some sort. If I wanted to infiltrate the city of beasts to get a look at it, that would probably be my ticket in.

Perhaps I'll raze the city and make this a Mechanical Hell all of my own. Just to complete that requirement and pretend like nothing has changed.

How would I snowball my advance through Hell in its entirety? I know I already got found out by a certain group, but apparently they're distracted by a task which leaves me undiscovered by anyone else.

The element of surprise is still on my side.

…Can I automate this war?

What machines do I have available to me which could theoretically do this?

Can I have the planet eater system do this for me? I really only used it for lifeless planets, or had them turned into lifeless planets beforehand, so—

…Huh? What? Uh, repeat that last part?!

Hm? Something wrong?

—-

There were a lot of things wrong with what he said, but after a few explanations, it ended with him saying:

"I don't have nearly a fraction of that kind of power available to me right now."

Hecatia Lapislazuli, Goddess of Hell, sighed in relief.

Relief that there wasn't going to be a sudden depopulation of Earth, the planet she lived on, in the name of her goals.

Relief that the company which had merely loaned his signature black suit wasn't suddenly going to renege on their contract and pop out of thin air to take it back and make her contract useless—or do anything else, really.

Relief that there remained hope she would have a champion of her own in the end.

Because that was her unexplained and secret goal.

She was a Goddess, she could be as petty and frivolous as she wanted, and having her name resound throughout her domain for fun was pretty high up there in terms of pettiness.

Maybe she'd rescind Clowpiece's banishment to give her newest champion-in-the-making a helper.

…Not that he seemed to need it, with how close he was already to the Rocket, according to him.

Heh, the looks on those Lunarian's faces when a completely non-magical rocket ship flew past the moon would be priceless—and it'd be a fun event, having the residents of Former Hell and Gensokyo gather in a festival to watch a proper, scientific rocket launch.

Oh, and Hecatia would have fun, too.

In fact, she was already having fun. The sheer amount of Significance, Emotion, and, yes, Faith which was surrounding the almost town-sized factory had nearly brought tears to her eyes.

And to think that one singular person had done this on their own.

I really got lucky with my choice, didn't I?

Hecatia returned her attention to her not-quite-champion, who was attaching those super long red mechanical arms to the armor, mumbling something about disguises.

Spiders, huh?

She spoke to him with magic.

"Keep that up and I'll call you my Arachnae Mechanicus and give you some spider themed magics."

The Goddess didn't need to understand how this 'Research' stuff worked to give him an unused color and new branch of it.

Of all the colors of the rainbow, his were red, green, light blue, gray, purple, yellow, and white.

Hers would be orange and it would teach him about magic…ah! And Spellcards!

What a great way for an extragalactic alien to become acquainted with the natives!

Practically anything was allowed in Hell, yes, but how about the Surface, with the Dragon God and the Sages and their pacts?

She snapped her fingers, all three of her bodies', and watched as Jeremiah flinched, then sent a message with a prayer.

"...Thanks, Hecatia."

"No probs. This is getting kinda important now."

Vaguely, she wonders if she could get that friend to help out with this campaign of hers, maybe introduce the two, perhaps have them settle down and start a family as the next step of that eternal grudge against the Lunarians with her champion, who was very…handsome…?

Huh.

What did he look like underneath the suit?

—-

I'm not taking it off.

Aw. Not even for a pretty lady?

Not unless she wants to be part of my harem back at home.

Oh.

…You have a—

It's a long story that I don't really want to explain. Besides, it's all political marriages. I wouldn't purposely subject anyone to that. Also, I, uh, don't think any of them know that they're, uh, part of one.

I hear choking snorts and several sets of coughing. All three of Hecatia's bodies?

Fine then, an explanation. For a super summarized version, I just…never told them. It never came up, I never went out of my way to say anything, and I've never returned to check up on them. The very definition of a deadbeat, but, um…

You—cough, cough—are the worst.

Listen, they're rich and only wanted me for the mere fraction of a bloodline I apparently have. I was practically the one-night-stand equivalent of getting married, with how there's the chance that I could just vanish into the cold depths of space at any moment with that engineering job. I don't think they even care. I don't even care. It's a future space politics thing.

I hear a sigh in response.

…I guess I can't say much. My pantheon wasn't exactly better with relationships, even before the times changed and we stopped getting as much worship from humans.

Oh. That's a thing, huh? Well, uh, to change the topic, you're really leaning into this whole spider-thing.

This time, Hecatia's voice has a brighter tone to it.

Yup-yup. You've been saying 'Spidertron' quite a bit, those robots you're using almost look like they're making a big web, and then you went and attached those arms to that suit of yours, calling it a spider disguise. Are you sure it wasn't you who did, my Mechanicus?

Huh. And there I was, calling the robot system my personal star-map of constellations. Alrighty then…and I'm not going to ignore how that's a very creepy tone you're using to call me 'yours', and I don't think I like it.

Eheheh. Get used to it~

Eurgh. I don't think I can. At least the artillery cannons are almost done Researching and I can use it to ignore your '30 year old alcoholic cougar-gal'-esque tone.

…That's oddly specific.

I can practically hear her squinting her eyes.

There's all kinds of people out there, as you doubtlessly know, and, as it turns out, some can most certainly be categorized. But, uh, I'm trying to focus on war and the Research you just gave me, so…

Fine, I'll get out of your hair. You're lucky you're already mine or I'd drop you straight into Hell for your insults. I've done it to others for far less, y'know!

Yes, yes, thank you, I greatly appreciate it.

Not to mention how I'm already in Hell, which makes that a strange argument. Unless that was metaphorical and not literal? Eh, who knows.

Now to make room in my war-structure blueprints for the cannons while they finish…

—-

It was a very standard day at the Myouren Temple. Morning prayers were had, local youkai nor humans weren't convinced to convert to Buddhism, and the food was still bland.

Yup. Cheese time.

If it was any consolation to Nazrin, the treasure hunting mouse youkai could at least snack on something her controlled mice had gathered—assuming it wasn't already eaten by the time they returned to her, which was something of a problem when it came to finding food.

That reason was why she had her own little stash of cheese over at her hut in Muenzuka, that place for the nameless dead where strange treasures and other forgotten things from the Outside World could be found.

…It was mostly because the poisonous flowers which grew so abundantly there, red spider lilies, kept out regular beasts, such as, say, mice.

Nazrin herself was fine, though, being a youkai and having a constitution befitting one.

Anyway, as the daily (in the hourly sense; they were frequently held throughout the day) sermons droned on and on, she quietly fantasized about the smoked gouda waiting for her at the hut, that cheese that literally tasted like a delightful bonfire on a cold winter night.

As she salivated, she didn't notice a girl who had walked out of the sermons group wearing a scarf wrapped around her head, or the glance that the head youkai nun of the temple, Byakuren Hijiri, gave said girl.

Nazrin herself only gave them a once-over, taking in a few details just in case they were of importance later.

White hair covered by the head garment, plain blue dress, red eyes with horizontal lines…

Huh. She almost looks like that taotie…

Wait a—

The mouse youkai whips her head back to the interloper, who only grins in smug delight knowing she's been found out, revealing a mouth of sharpened teeth.

Ah. She removed signifying parts of her clothes to stay hidden from the guards. She doesn't want to make a scene?

It was as she had guessed. The woman across from her had none of those eye-motifs on her dress, nor those strange half-detached sleeves. And indeed, her horns and hair were covered by that wrap around her head.

"Keh-heh-heh. Sharp eyes, mousie."

The Best-in-Class Treasure Mouse takes a step back from the disguised matriarch of the Gouyoku Alliance, tense at having been caught off guard.

"Yuuma Toutetsu. What do you want?"

"Relax, I'm only here to hire you to find something. That is what you do, right?"

A slight tilt of Yuuma's head with the question has the wrapping around her hair shift, the red of her curved horns showing through ever slightly.

…Her giant club of a spork is nowhere in sight. Did she really not come here to fight?

Nazrin de-tenses, but only slightly. The suspicion she held against the beast gang matriarch from the Land De-ownership Incident scuffle—which, if anyone asked, Nazrin did not take advantage of to find any hidden treasures whatsoever—was still there.

Not to mention the fact that the beasts came from Hell, that one place where she'd been sealed for following Byakuren. That place she'd been buried for—

Nazrin shakes her head.

"Nuh-uh. No way, I'm not going to Hell to find anything for you."

The sharp grin only grows wider and wider.

"Lucky you. I'm not looking for anything in Hell. In fact, it'd be better if it weren't. Take a look at this."

From her pocket, she pulls out a gray cylinder with a bright green tip. It glows with a strange aura even she can feel.

"See this green stuff? An…acquaintance…is searching for it and hasn't had any luck over in Hell, so he asked me if I could help. Naturally, I agreed."

Yuuma places a hand over her heart while smiling smugly, as if she were so magnanimous to offer her assistance to just anyone.

There's no way. At least, none in Hell, that's for sure. She must be getting something out of it. I wonder if I can get some, whatever it is.

…It better not be something like that oil sea Murasa spoke about. It'd be useless to me.

Nazrin voices her doubts, not what she herself would be getting out of it, and the response is as expected.

"Free? Like Hell I would!"

Some of the temple-goers look over at the sudden outburst, and Yuuma ducks her head, slightly flushing in embarrassment upon seeing them.

"...Yeah. Not free."

Nazrin forcefully widens her eyes in curiosity. Sure, she wants to know, but Hell is still scary.

"So what'd you get for it?"

"Keh-heh-heh. Refined oils. I know that Murasa gal lives here and probably said something about the Petroleum Sea. Don't worry, I'll still treat you to something if you take the job on."

"Ah…w-was I too obvious?"

Yuuma snorts.

"I know you cowardly types. Proud to a fault. Worry not dear mousie, just bring me to more of this stuff and I'll leave you be."

"…After payment."

The lamb shaped beast girl crosses her arms impatiently.

"Yes, yes, after payment."

The mouse youkai blinks, clearly not expecting to come to an agreement so easily.

Best not to push my luck.

"Um…Okay, when do we start?"

"In a bit, actually. We're picking up a friend in the village, and I've still got to get you that payment, right?"

Nazrin agrees—and then they're off, leaving behind the youkai temple and heading to the main gathering of regular humans in Gensokyo, the Human Village, where a friend of Yuuma (and Nazrin's payment, presumably) awaits.

—-

A little bit outside the entrance to the village, the two take a moment to make sure they're disguised, Yuuma just checking her own was still sufficient and Nazrin having to wear an incredibly large hat and stuffy coat to cover her dinner plate-sized mouse ears and tail.

It would be bad if there were any youkai in the Human Village, now.

…Upon entering the gates, they immediately spot three others in disguise, and two more not.

Red haired girl with red coat collar popped up. Sekibanki, a rokurokubi. Just getting groceries.

Black haired girl in brown flat cap. Aya Shamimaru, a crow tengu. A news reporter secretly collecting scoops.

Lavender haired girl with wide sun-hat. Reisen Udongein Inaba, a moon rabbit. Selling medicines on behalf of her master.

Then—at some stands near the intersection ahead, running their dango stands, Seiran and Ringo, also moon rabbits, but not hiding it.

For whatever reason, those two were more accepted than others, but, then again, that mask tsukumogami—or menreiki, as the girl in question so insisted—Hata no Kokoro, who occasionally put on Noh plays in the village, was yet another "acceptable youkai".

…That was to say, without special circumstances, any other youkai were very much not accepted. Not Nazrin of the Youkai Temple or Yuuma from the Beast Metropolis in Hell.

Thus, the disguises. As long as they caused no trouble for the humans, the more observant of them who might notice their head covering clothing or strange colored eyes would simply ignore the two—never mind the rest of the disguised youkai.

…Also, the very secret rule of 'don't attack humans' sort of stopped applying outside the village, and long lived youkai didn't exactly forget those who would embarrass them.

So, then. Who was Yuuma looking for that she would consider a friend, and was here in the village?

"You'll see, keh-heh-heh."

—was the only answer Nazrin got when she asked.

Whether or not that would be a signifier of things to come was uncertain, though she decided to have hope that no, nothing bad was going to happen, and that she would get paid and then get out.

And then and then—smoked gouda. It would do me some gouda to focus on that, huh?

The cheese pun, despite being in that language Hell frequently used, helped ease her nerves, if only a bit.

At a bench near the moon rabbit dango stands, a short blonde girl in a yukata holding a deep blue parasol looks over and waves at the pair, the mouse youkai immediately trying and failing to recognize who exactly that might be from looks alone.

As it turned out, 'short blonde girl' described quite a few people.

Um, Marisa Kirisame, Medicine Melancholy, maybe Shizuha and Minoriko Aki…was Yamame Kurodani short?

But also, there was an equally likely chance this might have just been someone who Nazrin didn't know.

"Yuu-chan! Ah, you brought her?"

"Hey Su-chan, and yes, I did."

The girl, Su-chan apparently, gives Nazrin a once over with her bright ruby-red eyes.

Definitely not human, but given the influence of magic and youkai, it's not an uncommon eye color anyway. And those names! 'Yuu' is obviously short for Yuuma, so 'Su' means…I don't know. Hrmm…

Frustrated, Nazrin just nods to the friend of the Beast Gang Matriarch while internally chanting her mantra of gouda, gouda, think of the gouda, and attempting to ignore the idea that anyone that associates with Yuuma is probably bad news.

Much to her surprise, the two make light conversation about the kinds of food available in the Human Village while ignoring her in return, therefore causing no commotion. Given that the three were all in disguise, perhaps to bystanders and average walkabouts, this was simply three friends waiting for their dango—from Ringo's Best Taste Dango Stand, of course—before heading on with their day.

"Here you go: two orders of Three Color Dango. Thank you for your patronage!"

Yuuma grabs both skewers from the orange-colored moon rabbit, Su-chan who had presumably paid for them beforehand and was content not to eat and instead carry her little parasol, which, admittedly, was kinda cute.

"Much obliged! Let's get going now. Mousie needs her payment and then she can finally get started."

"Indeed."

"...Yeah."

—-

As it turned out, the payment only arrived once the three had left the village, despite Nazrin's increasingly stressed nerves screaming that this was somehow a trap.

It came in the form of Yuuma snapping her fingers and watching as an eagle, glowing ever so slightly with purplish hue, dropped out of the sky holding a wicker basket.

Said basket contained…ah.

Half were strings of coins, mon, the most commonly used currency in Gensokyo given that it was a barter economy, and the other was cheese.

Cheese for a mouse youkai? That might have been racist, but…Nazrin really liked cheese. She wasn't beating the stereotype allegations anytime soon.

Three entire wheels of the stuff that, well, considering it was from Yuuma who lived in Hell, could probably only be found there.

One wax cover had flecks of red painted on it, presumably to emulate pepper chunks. The second was a ghostly silver color, a heavy sour scent emanating from it, which made her think it was a magical type.

The third was covered in black wax, the logo claiming it was…Swiss cheese from the Outside World. A treasure not found in Hell, let alone Gensokyo as a whole.

Okay, so, only that shimmery silver-wax cheese was a specialty.

"That good enough?"

"Huh? Oh, uh, um, yes."

Nazrin rapidly nods at Yuuma's inquiry.

"But, uh, I need to put this somewhere."

"Go ahead. I don't need to tell you what'd happen if you bailed on us now, right?"

What followed that statement was the quickest and most nerve-racking flight Nazrin had ever made to her Muenzuka hut, tearing out a fourth of the whole wheel of smoked gouda (the newest cheeses were now the ones to be saved for special occasions), put it in a sack she had specifically for these sort of all-day searches, and flew back.

She landed at their meeting point outside the village, gasping with effort, and found the pair in different clothing.

Yuuma had changed back to her standard eye-patterned clothing and accessories, the wrap gone to fully reveal her red horns and giant spork in hand.

Su-chan was no longer wearing her yukata, instead clothed in a button-down red vest and skirt combo, a white undershirt with puffy shoulder length sleeves, a large pink scarf tied around her midriff, and a white mob cap with a red bow tied around it. A side-ponytail stuck out underneath the hat. From behind her, a set of iron stick-like wings with hanging rainbow crystals idly swayed.

Nazrin stared directly into Su-chan's—no, Flandre Scarlet's eyes and withered.

"Oh…"

She felt her body droop as her nerves buzzed themselves into the oblivion of numbness.

I see. 'Su' was short for 'Su-carlet'.

Yuuma chuckled from the sidelines, holding out that green tipped object she wanted more of.

Despite the very frightening people she now was surrounded by, it was time for the treasure hunting mouse youkai to get to work.

Shivering every so slightly, Nazrin felt the energy signature of the item, let her cardinal direction dowsing rods point the way, and off the three flew.

Perhaps she thought it couldn't get any worse, but then she immediately realized they were pointed towards Youkai Mountain and choked back a sob.