Leaning back in the chair in her office, Carmilla Carmine was patiently waiting for someone.
At Plaze's request, Carmilla Carmine was to meet a "friend" of Plaze.
She could tell a mile away that Plaze was simply fulfilling his side of a deal. Most likely, the friend of his was likely the one behind Plaze's actions. After all, she could tell quite easily that Plaze was a newcomer to Hell and that someone must've told him about the Overlord system.
Attempting to become an Overlord by controlling another Overlord or creating a new Overlord certainly wasn't a new thing in Hell. It's just that the only time it was ever successfully done was a century ago and it only lasted a decade.
Carmilla Carmine only knew that particular tidbit because Zestial off-handedly told her about it, claiming he was the one who killed them. History in Hell wasn't very well documented despite the work of a few historians doing their best.
Either way, as Carmilla had invested her resources into Plaze's future, she agreed to meet whoever Plaze wanted her to meet.
Which is when a purple succubus wearing a black robe and a large witch's hat with a claw on the end walked into the room.
Carmilla raised an eyebrow, "A purple succubus? I thought you only came in shades of red?"
The succubus didn't seem too pleased with Carmilla's starting words, "Those of us who actually have a few souls on our belts can change colors. I chose purple. Either way, my name is Mehira, pleasure to make your acquaintance."
It was nothing new to try and do business deals with hellborn demons. However, with her inability to move towards the lower rings, far too many deals with them have been betrayed and end in the loss of angelic weapons. Carmilla has tried to hire hellborn hunters to her side, but she was never able to find any who would be willing to kill hellborn demons on behalf of a sinner.
So, Carmilla eventually banned the sales of her weapons to hellborn demons. Something that Mehira was likely here to circumvent.
Without being prompted, Mehira pulled over one of the chairs meant for her daughters over to the opposite side of Carmilla, sitting in front of her.
How bold. Carmilla would've killed a lesser sinner for that. But upsetting Plaze by killing whoever this was might send him towards Vox, so she'll stay her ire for now.
With that, Mehira began the conversation, "So, I'm only really here to make my name familiar to you, and actually be able to buy something from you."
Before Mehira continued further, Carmilla immediately asked, "And why would you want to make yourself familiar to me?"
Mehira waved it off, "Building connections. I would prefer it if the masses didn't know my name just yet. But I do need Overlords like yourself to know me."
Carmilla could tell that if she asked for the reason why Mehira wanted for Overlords to know about her, she wouldn't answer. So, Carmilla let her speak.
"So, you've made your distrust of other hellborn demons explicitly clear, and I won't try to force you to reverse your decisions," Mehira said, then raising her hand to her side to create a pool of some kind, pulling out two angelic spears from it.
Carmilla did feel an inkling of envy from watching a hellborn demon use magic in a way that Carmilla once wished to be able to do when she was a young sinner. But she squashed that feeling down. Sometimes, people just weren't born able to live out their dreams.
It was clear that the intention wasn't to attack, and Carmilla figured that Mehira was just here to actually exchange her spears for guns.
Her guesses were all correct as Mehira told her, "But I would like to exchange these two spears for an angelic pistol and an angelic sniper rifle."
Over the years that Carmilla perfected the crafting of angelic weapons using the spears of the exterminators, she has gotten very good at getting the most out of the angelic spear provided to them. So, she could make about two weapons for every spear, depending on the size of the weapon.
For a sniper rifle, it would have to be two spears. So it wouldn't fully pay off the pistol which would only require half a spear.
If she botches the weapons and makes them not fully efficient, she could make do with just the two spears. However, Carmilla Carmine does not produce garbage.
Pointing this out, Carmilla said, "It takes more than two spears to make both a sniper rifle and a pistol. I hope you have the money to pay for it, otherwise, this would be quite embarrassing for you."
They have the necessary angelic steel in store to make both weapons without the use of Mehira's donation. However, it wasn't good to just sell them to anyone. Especially when Mehira was holding two extra spears.
Chuckling, Mehira shook her head, "Oh, unfortunately, I don't have the money. But I do have something better."
The arrogance of the hellborn demons rarely surprised Carmilla, but she was a bit suspicious of what Mehira was planning.
Raising an eyebrow, Carmilla asked, "Oh? Even just a pistol costs millions. What makes you think whatever you have is capable of paying it off?"
Mehira offered a hand towards her, "Let's make a deal. I can't afford to reveal my position just yet. But I will offer a very exclusive venture in the near future. You have the foresight to work with Plaze, as unimpressive as he is right now. You'll surely have the intelligence to work with me as well. So, here's the deal. I will tell you what I am capable of doing, and I have no doubt you'll accept the two spears for the angelic sniper rifle and pistol. But because I would like for this to spread nowhere until the right time, I'll seal your memories of what I tell you after you agree to the business deal."
The arrogance of Mehira to claim that just the knowledge of what she can do was equal to an angelic pistol genuinely surprised Carmilla. It also greatly interested her to find out if Mehira was bluffing or not.
Carmilla conjured a paper, laying it out on the desk as she requested, "If I do not find whatever you are revealing to be equal to the angelic pistol, the memory erasure will not take place."
Surprising her once again, Mehira easily agreed, "It's a deal."
Then there needed to be no further words exchanged.
Carmilla wrote down the deal on the contract without attempting to subvert or trick Mehira.
And Mehira signed her name.
The symbols that were produced were of Mehira's design.
Plaze eagerly snapped up the papers that his new secretary, who was given to him by Carmilla, held in his hands.
Alha was apparently a lower level paper pusher in Carmilla's company, but Carmilla handed his soul over to Plaze to act as his new secretary.
He was also another 'Literally just a human with extra features' demon, which mildly pissed Plaze off when he first met Alha, but that was beside the point.
(Seriously, in what kind of Hell let Plaze absolutely despise his own inhuman body to its fullest extent, but Alha was just minorly disappointed with having a leopard tail and some leopard patterns on his arms and legs?)
The point of the matter was, his very first week of debut was over! It was time for the weekly report!
Muttering a small prayer, Plaze hesitantly looked at how many sales he made.
On the very first day, out of the 5,000 initially produced consoles and the 20,000 games sold separately, they sold almost a quarter of it.
And by the end of the week, they sold 4,500 consoles and 13,000 games!
Plaze was a fucking millionaire now! He could easily pay off Carmilla for his debts- Well, maybe not. Carmilla took almost half of the profits and those factories costed more money to operate than just a few million.
So, Plaze wasn't a millionaire. But by December, he should be!
Absolutely filled with childhood giddiness, Plaze excitedly paced around his new office building that, once again, was bought and paid for by Carmilla.
The headquarters of The Plaza!
It was a bit far from Sergeant Hammer's territory, where he was going to be soon. But he could always just move when the day of his ascension comes.
Either way, it's October now, and only 2 more months remain until he beats the crap out of Hammer to take her spot.
Plaze sent a happy smile to Alha, "Isn't this fucking awesome, Alha?"
Not being used to his presence yet, Alha hesitantly but dutifully nodded in agreement, "Yes it is, sir."
Turning on the TV in the room, Plaze excitedly turned over to the news channel.
Where, unfortunately, it was nothing about him.
Alha coughed, "Sir, we have to publish our first week's report if we want others to catch onto your success."
Oh, that made sense. Plaze was supposed to be the first person to get the news, not just another normal person learning things on the news now…
Huh, that was going to be weird.
Skimming over the rest of the paper, Plaze took notes of the various other statistics he should care about.
About 6% of the consoles were destroyed by some unfortunate accidents and had to be replaced. That was apparently a decent statistic to have, as 8% of Voxtech TVs are similarly broken. And it was especially good considering that Plaze was going to reimburse the consumers if their items broke.
But it didn't seem as though many people needed it. After all, why break a product that you were going to use for the next year or two until the new console comes out?
The most popular game that was bought seemed to be the Legend of Zelda. Because Plaze didn't have anyone surveying people after they bought the product, there wasn't a listed reason why. But if Plaze had to guess, it was probably the name being the most interesting.
Additionally, there were a good decent number of sales that only bought the console and the Overlord Tycoon that came with it. It was probably from people who only had $200 to spend.
And lastly, there were about 120 people who ended up selling their souls for a membership. Plaze could already feel himself being much more powerful than before.
It also meant that he now had around 200 souls in his possession.
He was definitely going to have to find a way to boost those numbers and get more permanent souls, though. The older Overlords had decades of experience on him, and he didn't know their secrets for getting their legions of souls.
Maybe if Carmilla is receptive to Plaze hanging around her for longer, Plaze might be able to ask how many of their souls are actually theirs, and how many souls are just temporary ones. That way, Plaze can figure out if he should be out on the street more often hunting down new souls.
Either way, that was all of the information available on his first week of sales. So Plaze handed the stack of papers back to Alha and told him, "Do your thing and publish it. I wanna hear my name on the news by tomorrow!"
Alha saluted, "Sure thing, boss!"
Quickly making himself scarce, Plaze was left alone in the room.
Not for long though, because 3 seconds after, Mehira opened the door and entered his office.
He wasn't really expecting Mehira to show up today, but since he's feeling good, Plaze greeted her with a smile, "Oh, hey Mehira! I just got the sales report for my first week! I have half a million dollars to play around with now! Isn't that fucking crazy?!"
Apparently, Mehira was a traitor and did not believe in me because she genuinely looked at me in shock, "Half a million? Really?"
Graciously deciding to believe that she was just that surprised, Plaze confirmed, "Yeah! I sold most of what we put on the shelves! Alha already sent in the order to make more! Carmilla is probably going to start charging me for the materials too now, but with our profits, it'll probably be fine!"
Mehira wiped the shock off her face and went back to a neutral grin, "Ah, well, congratulations, Plaze. Your rise is similar to how quickly Vox rose back when he first started out. At least, once he finally obtained a factory, anyways."
Plaze did watch that documentary about Vox's rise. It was super vague in a lot of parts, likely because it was both too boring and Vox didn't want to give up secrets. But it took Vox a year for him to get a factory to start producing TVs.
Plaze got his start in 2 months. In fact, he might be one of the fastest sinners to become an Overlord. He heard that Alastor became an Overlord in like, basically his first week, so Plaze wasn't the fastest. But 2 months was just fine.
"I sent Alha to go publish my reports," Plaze said, sitting down in his chair, "I'm sure whoever is running the news station will let me know how I compare to the other Overlords."
Mehira similarly sat down nearby, "You did get quite lucky, though. Meeting both me and Jessie in such quick succession. Not to mention getting your ambition due to Hammer."
Shamelessly nodding, Plaze pointed out, "Hey, it's a skill being so lucky."
Shrugging, Mehira didn't seem bothered, "Well, I suppose so."
Now that Plaze thought of it, didn't Mehira talk to Carmilla today? He was fulfilling his end of the deal, but Mehira hasn't initiated the conversation about how that went yet. Maybe she wanted him to ask.
So, Plaze asked, "By the way, how did your meeting with Carmilla go?"
Leaning back relaxed, Mehira replied, "It went very smoothly."
Well, it looks like Plaze wasn't going to hear more about that, then.
Moving on, Plaze mentioned, "I'm probably meeting up with Jessie soon. But I might stick around my TV so I can catch my on-screen debut."
Mehira accepted the change in conversation as she mentioned, "There'll probably be a few reporters either before or after you show up on screen so they can add it in. And since the news in Hell is constant, you'll show up in maybe an hour or two after Vox tells the news organizations how he wants it spinned."
Ah, Vox, of course. He owns the most popular TVs, so everything on it was obviously going to be influenced by Vox.
Can't blame him, though. Plaze would probably do the same thing if he was in his position. In fact, maybe Plaze should make his own TVs in case Vox ever tried to reject his consoles from his TVs. Or maybe create some sort of universal cord that can go into any TV.
After all, if you needed to buy a separate screen for his consoles, you might as well have just bought an arcade. The convenience is a deliberate feature, after all.
Still though, just waiting an hour or two to see his face show up on the TV was perfectly acceptable.
Plaze turned on the TV, telling Mehira, "Thanks, then. I'll be sticking around here for the rest of the day."
Accepting Plaze's decision, Mehira left without a word.
Plaze was a bit sad that her stay was so brief, but she did say that she was pretty busy. It was kind of surprising to see her show up for basically no reason in the first place.
Well, Mehira could do whatever she wanted. Plaze wasn't going to miss his debut on the big screen.
AN:
Took a whole month for me to write something for this but hey, that's what a backlog is for.
I'll do the debut on the big screen next chapter.
As for who Alha is? Idk, I literally just made him up to be Plaze's secretary. I was gonna go Aha, like the aeon from Honkai Star Rail, but even I felt that was a bit too silly. So Alha it is.
[1 week of backlog left and I'm planning to burn it all and hope I just write something real quick when we have 0 backlog. Trust in the urgency!]
[Mehira always shows up with like a paragraph of dialogue whenever she speaks lol.]