Plaze quickly learnt that trying to steal the souls of newcomers was vastly inefficient to just stealing the souls of minor gang leaders who already had a few souls on them. Because those types of gang leaders were practically everywhere in Pentagram City, and no major Overlords were really in the industry of keeping them in line, so it was free pickings for Plaze.

Plus, those gang leaders were vastly outclassed by Plaze's power due to the fact he has 300 souls, and his durability is very high. There was essentially no chance for Plaze to lose.

So, in a single day, Plaze was now up to 350 souls total. If he kept that up for the rest of October and November, he would be more than ready to take on Sergeant Hammer.

Of course, that assumes that Plaze would be able to gain 50 souls every single day just by hunting petty gang leaders, which is a bit of a stretch. But hopefully, Plaze will be able to hunt down smaller Overlords as well.

Besides, there seemed to be an overlap between Overlord and business owner. He'll gladly take advantage of that.

As Plaze was heading back to The Plaza headquarters, which was located in a non-affiliated part of Pentagram City, one of the many areas where turf wars take place, a random encounter took place.

Namely, between Plaze and one of the souls he took.

Honestly, Plaze didn't think this would ever happen.

The sinner in front of him was a short silicone puppet demon, who was literally human except her joints were replaced with puppet parts. Also, she was wearing a purple dress and looked good so she's been in Hell for long enough to figure out where to get decent clothing. Yet another point to why Hell was unfair and that whatever greater being decided the appearance of its sinners should be with them too.

She also had an advantage on him, because she clearly knew who he was, sporting a large frown on her face and unamused hands on her hips.

"You," Her voice was upset, but she also had what Plaze would call an intelligent sounding voice, "You took my soul."

Lightly lifting his right hand and pulling, wires began to form between his fingers and the woman in front of him. She was right, he did own his soul.

Plaze said, "So, why are you talking to me about it? You're not getting it back."

In fact, Plaze doesn't even remember when he took her soul. It might've been the result of taking a gang leader's soul who happened to own her. Maybe she was one of the 100 souls who entered Hell recently and happened to encounter Plaze.

Really, it didn't matter. And it didn't matter to her either because she pressed on, "My name is Herta, and I saw that you were hiring aspiring game developers to help make your games. Considering you already own my soul, I'm one of the smartest people in Hell right now, and you're looking for smart people, I think this should be an easy decision for you."

Hm, yep, Herta definitely fits in the Pride Ring.

Plaze wondered if that immense ego was actually warranted or not. It was easy to talk, but it was much harder to actually follow up on it.

So, like any good interview process, Plaze gestured for Herta to follow him back to the headquarters while he asked, "Alright then, what's your prior experience back on Earth? Have you contributed to any actual projects that have anything to do with electronics?"

Annoyedly clicking her tongue, Herta said, "I was involved in the invention of the colored television. Of course I'm experienced in this field. I eventually tried my hand at getting humans to experience another world, but all I did was create a piece of junk headset that puts a screen in front of your face and some motion-controlled controllers before I died."

And hired. Plaze absolutely wasn't going to give up someone quite literally involved in the invention of the colored television. He would be stupid not to hire her.

Still, he would also be stupid not to check her motives for joining The Plaza, "Alright, then. Why are you interested in joining The Plaza instead of, say, VoxTech?"

"You own my soul."

"Alright, that's fair."

If Plaze remembered correctly, most of the higher-up positions in basically any company required their soul to be owned by the owner. So, someone like Herta, who's owned by Plaze, would essentially be stuck in the lower ranks. Something that her ego would no doubt be unable to take.

Humming, Plaze asked what would probably be his last question, "Alright then. So, if you're interested in making games for The Plaza, do you have any experience in making games?"

Herta shook her head, "No, but I do have experience coding on a computer. It shouldn't be that hard for me to figure out how to make a game."

Plaze paused and stopped walking.

"A computer?"

He's heard of the computer a few times. It's one of those things that were somewhat niche and hadn't fully caught on to the entire country yet. As such, there wasn't much money to be made in trying to scalp computers.

That being said, Plaze was much more enamored with the arcade and consoles. Not the computer. Was there something important about it?

Looking at him as though he was stupid, Herta explained, "Uhh, yeah? You know how to code games, right? On a computer?"

…Oh, was that how games were created?

Wait, why didn't Jessie tell him about this? Was she using a computer to get everything able to be manufactured?

"Give me a second," Plaze said, pulling out his phone to call Jessie.

She picks up on the first ring, "Uh, hello, Plaze?"

Jessie calling him by his name meant that she was in a safe place, so Plaze immediately asked her, "Are you using computers to help manufacture everything?"

"What's a computer?" Jessie immediately replies.

Neither of them were being very subtle, so Herta deadpans, "You morons in Hell haven't brought down the computer yet? How is your business even working?"

Defensively, Plaze answered, "I just magic the game into a few bits of circuitry and we reverse engineer it into normal electricity."

Then Jessie replied, "Yeah, and then we have to adjust all of our factory equipment to precisely copy all of that so the game turns out the same each time. It works, so we never really bothered to improve the process."

It seems as though their ignorance caught up with them, however, as Herta was unimpressed, "You're all making that process a lot harder, you know? Ugh, it looks like I'll have to invent the computer down here too."

Plaze caught onto the wording, "Too?"

"I also had a hand in inventing the home computer," Herta reveals as though that wasn't a big deal, "I wasn't really the main hand in either of the projects, but it was a team effort."

Where did this woman come from?

Jessie chipped in from her phone, "Plaze, I have no idea who this person is, but you should probably hire her."

Quite frankly, Plaze already hired her.

"Okay, before I get you started, do you have any other notable inventions you want to tell me about?" Plaze incredulously asked, half expecting something and half not.

Shaking her head, Herta answered, "No, not really. Anyways, considering you owe my soul, I'd guess that I can't demand anything from you?"

Plaze thought about it for just a moment before he answered, "It depends on what you're asking for."

While Plaze wasn't going to let his game developers off his tight leash, happy workers usually resulted in better products. Though, if that didn't hold true, he would gladly pull the leash and force his developers to make good products.

With that in mind, Plaze listened to what Herta had to say.

"I want to lead my own team in your company," Herta politely asked, "I have a slight issue with envy, which probably resulted in me ending up here. I can do fine with you being the leader, but I'm not having a peer try and one-up me."

A slight issue with envy, she says, already trying to get a promotion from her boss. Clearly, she's cut from the same cloth he's from.

Plaze scoffed, his view of Herta immediately dropping, "Earn it."

He wouldn't tolerate a leader in his company that's garbage at making games. That's all there is to it. If she proves that she can make good games, then he'll let her have that higher position.

She seemed very confident in herself as she shrugged, "Alright. That's all I have, then."

Plaze holds his phone to his ear again as he said, "Alright, Jessie, I'll get you in contact with Herta here when she makes the computer."

Jessie hummed in affirmation, "Alright, then before I go, I need to warn you that Hammer is getting some of her allies to try and participate in the battle coming up."

Tilting his head, Plaze asked, "Oh? Who are Hammer's allies? She doesn't strike me as the type of person to have a lot of those."

Especially considering that Hammer pissed off enough of Pentagram City to the point that Vox seems to be egging him on to win and Carmilla is literally setting up Plaze to take her over, Hammer really doesn't seem to be in a position where she has a lot of allies.

Sighing, Jessie informed him, "Just because the few Overlords you do know don't like Hammer doesn't mean that she's on her own. After all, she's been an Overlord for almost 40 years now, she wouldn't be here if she was incompetent," Then, she paused for a moment as she recalled, "Well, I'm not exactly sure who is coming. But I know for sure that there'll be a few small construction Overlords. Hammer is on good terms with most of them because she destroys a bunch of buildings so they're always in business. Uh, of them, Zilla, the Sports Overlord, might show up since she's also in the construction business. But Zilla is also powerful enough to where she might not show up because she doesn't really need Hammer. Other than that, there's a few other Overlords of different industries that really benefit from her tanks and mercenaries, so they'll probably show up to protect Hammer."

Pondering the list, Plaze decided that it was a very good decision on his part to involve Carmilla Carmine into this.

First of all, those are multiple fully armed Overlords likely coming to help Hammer. Then, he's off-handedly heard of Zilla being basically the biggest sports Overlord. And considering how big sports was on Earth, he has no doubt that Zilla has a bunch of resources to help defend Hammer as well. And that isn't even mentioning that Plaze has no idea if he survives a tank shot or not.

Yes, it was a very good decision to get a bigger Overlord on his side.

Taking it all in, Plaze tells Jessie, "Alright. Thanks for the insight and I'll see you soon."

Hanging up the call, Plaze turns back to Herta, "Alright. Your first job I have for you is to create that computer thing so coding becomes easier. Got it?"

Herta boredly saluted, "I've already figured out what I should need, if what's in Hell is similar to what's on Earth."

Smirking, Plaze approvingly said, "Good. I'm hoping to push out another line of games in early December. So, here's the schedule for you…"

AN:

When I said this chapter was gonna be tiny I meant like 900 words maybe, not 1.9k.

Also, for the record, VoxTech already has computers but doesn't sell them since they're mostly for internal stuff. Plaze and Jessie don't know this, though. They're dumb and old. (And honestly I'm not really keeping track of how any of this works.)

Herta is directly from Honkai Star Rail, though it's more just copying the design and rough shape of the personality. Not every member of The Plaza is going to just be expies. But like, a lot of them probably are going to be. I love that shit.

If Herta seems too smart to exist, my reasoning is this; I love Herta.

And lastly, there'll be a bonus update on the 13th for my 3 year anniversary as a fanfic writer.