Holding the neck of a pathetic gangster named Lozenge, who had encroached on his territory, Irving glared daggers into him as he asked the deer sinner, "So, who sent you?"
Desperately trying to breath despite the grip of the alligator on his throat, Lozenge barely croaked out, "Pla-Plaze! It was him- I just had to make chaos- Urgk!"
Snapping his neck, Lozenge was unceremoniously tossed aside, left to regenerate.
Crossing his arms, Irving could barely suppress a growl of annoyance upon learning who was behind most of the chaos in Stardom currently.
Since this mess started, it was clear to anyone watching the situation that this had all been orchestrated before Chroma's death. At first, he thought it may have been someone higher up, perhaps Vox or Bendy. But now that he knew that it was just a washed up Overlord…
Well, the situation wasn't ideal still, as the reasoning behind Plaze being able to bring a thousand agitators into the city despite his defeat and stripping of most of his power was still a mystery. There was likely a higher power behind his return.
Either way, that wasn't important at the current moment. Whoever Plaze or his benefactor is can wait. Plaze's minions hold multiple districts within Stardom, doing nothing with it beyond collecting protection fees, likely sending them to their master.
Considering he's heard reports of Plaze setting up base on the other side of the city, he is unlikely to come out and stick his neck out for his minions, who were only sent to cause chaos to distract everyone from himself.
Irving hummed, wondering how best to counter the Plaza.
"Hm… Perhaps it would be best to call the other Overlords," He said out loud, looking over the city, thinking of potential contacts to call up.
When demons need something done with quality and precision, they go to the Greed Ring. When they need something done quick and dirty, they go to the Greed Ring.
When demons just need something done in general, all roads lead to the Greed Ring.
Walking down a shady alleyway in Mammopolis, Mehira couldn't help but sport a frown as she had to walk through the cesspools of Greed once again. No matter how often she came down here, it was never a pleasant experience. Between all of the street scammers, demons whose sole purpose in life was to advertise, and all of the waste on the streets, she wouldn't hesitate to call it the worst ring in Hell.
Yet, this place still had its uses. Any skill could be found in the Greed Ring for a price. Because of that, even though no one loved Greed, they would all make a trip to it whenever they needed something done.
It was nothing like the Pride Ring, as there was still a clear hierarchy in Greed. But it was still better than the Lust Ring in her opinion.
Feeling something crawl up her leg, she immediately stabs the hand of a small imp with her tail and immediately kills him a moment later with her claws.
His friends behind her retreat wordlessly.
Clicking her tongue, she irritatedly cleaned the blood off of her using her magic. The lowly scum of the Greed Ring never changed.
Still, to value their lives so lowly… That lack of ambition or desire to succeed disgusted her even more than their actions.
Soon enough, she exited the alleyway and entered a clearing. There were the people she wanted to meet.
The other incubus saw her before any of his coworkers did, cheerfully waving at her, "Oh! Hey! Mehira! It's been a while!"
Waving to him, she politely greeted him back, "Grover, hello. I'm hoping you're all not working on anything?"
"Nah, we're free right now," Grover said, looking back to see all his companions come up to them, "So, I assume you have a job for us? I know we all still owe you a favor from a year ago…"
The incident they were referring to was a simple time when they had accidentally angered the Ars Goetia by knocking over a building, blowing up a bunch of debris, and that flying shrapnel managing to hit and dirty one of the Ars Goetia relaxing on the front lawn in the Greed Ring.
They would've been dead if not for Mehira, who happened to be nearby watching that mess go down. She managed to conceal their presence for long enough to make their escape while that member of the Ars Goetia simply destroyed some other group of demons, believing they were the ones who did that to them because they were the closest.
In return, now Mehira could call upon a fairly reputable yet expensive construction company for a discount. Something that was of no help to her until this very moment.
"That is correct," Mehira revealed the schematics Jessie gave her, "If I recall, you're fairly well connected, right? My company needs these machines to get our business going, but we're a bit short on money, so I was hoping to use you all to get discounts on both constructing the factories and sourcing the creation of these."
The boss of Ytrewq Constructions, a shark demon named Orkus, took the schematics from her and glanced at them.
After a few moments, he responded, "Hm, seems your friend here wants something pretty complicated, and not just that, be able to source the construction of new factory parts at her own place so the company we'd need to call in for this won't get called again. I'm sure you understand that most people wouldn't be thrilled to be making something that makes them obsolete."
Well, that definitely does sound something that Jessie, who doesn't like demons, would do.
Quickly, she thought up an explanation, "Well, this takes place in the Pride Ring so-"
"You want us to go to the Pride Ring?!" Orkus immediately interrupted her, aghast, "Are you insane?! No, I already know you are, but are you trying to get us killed?!"
Raising her hand to calm him down, Mehira told him, "The Pride Ring isn't as dangerous as you think it is…"
"Sure, but if I shoot someone down here, I know they're dead," Narrowing his eyes, Orkus looked up to the sky, as though he were gazing through the rings of Hell, "Those motherfuckers, though? They keep coming back. How am I supposed to call in the mercenary companies and tell them that their kills won't actually kill anyone?"
If that was the only issue, then the temporarily dead bodies of the sinners should be enough to quell their fears. Yet, of course, Mehira knew that this argument was entirely based on the emotional fear of not being able to defend themselves against an immortal opponent, just like the Ars Goetia.
"We can protect you," Mehira said, conjuring up smoke to make herself look a bit more intimidating, "I am an Overlord, you know? Plus, the area we'll be in is still relatively calm."
"Are you working with the sinners?" Grover curiously asked.
Nodding, Mehira confirmed, "Yes, I am. Plaze and I own the Plaza together as Co-Overlords."
"Co-Overlords?" Raising an eyebrow, Grover pointed out, "You own each other's souls or something?"
"Yes…?"
"Ain't that just marriage?"
Now Mehira wants to die, great.
After thinking it over for 4 seconds, she has to admit… He was basically right. This was basically marriage. Until death did them part, they would be unable to exit from their alliance together.
That being said, she didn't abhor the idea. She was still a succubus with needs, although she needs it a lot less than other succubi…
…She'll have to talk this over with Plaze later. Hell, he'll probably enjoy being married to a succubus, knowing humans.
Clearing her throat, she got things back on track, "Regardless, can you do all of this for me?"
"...Yeah, here's the pricing for all of this off the top of my head…"
After confirming that it was within their price range thanks to the discount, Mehira gave them the necessary location and instructions, called Plaze to make sure he knows they're coming, and left to go on another errand.
Since they were looking to expand their business into the lower rings with her help, she needed to find some buyers. Unlike in the Pride Ring, where they owned the stores their games were sold at due to the culture of having company-specific stores in every city, there were often just variety stores by demons looking to sell whatever they got at a marked-up price.
After all, with all of the Plaza's employees being sinners, it would be difficult to fully fill out any stores they would attempt to create in the lower rings.
One day, though, with her help, that would change. Her influence spiraling through the rings of Hell, away from her sinful companions…
Plaze must've at least realized that most of their lower ring business will be controlled by her. Despite that, he was completely onboard and even encouraged the expansion of the Plaza within the lower rings.
He really must not be expecting a betrayal from her. That no matter if she became more influential than Plaze due to her larger market, Mehira would not try to backstab her partner.
It felt wonderful to be trusted like that.
With a smile on her face, she walked into a nearby store. It was a store specifically for maps, so no chance they would want to buy a console, but she would need a map to scout out potential locations where there would be a market for consoles.
While it was also a long-shot, there might've been a map that listed out where all of the 72 Ars Goetia made their homes. That way, she could make some progress on finding who the nearest Ars Goetia was to Stardom.
After browsing the map store for 10 minutes, she managed to find a map for all 7 rings of Hell. But nothing about the Ars Goetia, unfortunately.
Leaving out the map for the Pride Ring, she went up to the desk to the male imp running the store and asked, "Excuse me, but do you happen to have a map regarding where the Ars Goetia live?"
"Do I look like I have a death wish?" Was his quick and curt reply, before he recommended, "You'd have to ask local communities about that. The Ars Goetia, well, at least some of them, collect taxes in their area."
As far as Mehira knew, the Ars Goetia don't ask for taxes from the sinners due to the simple fact that Lucifer rules over the sinners. The hellborn communities in the Pride Ring often don't live near the Goetia either, since they don't want to pay taxes.
Thanking him for his brief help, she paid for the maps and left the store.
When she traveled through the lower rings, she would occasionally find some tabloids or magazines made by the particularly vain Goetians that praised themselves for the most miniscule things.
She hasn't read through any of them at all. But, maybe, she could get lucky enough to get some information on them.
Fortunately, there was a store for that on the other side of the city.
As the store owner was currently out, but had placed all of the magazines at the front of the store for anyone to preview before buying, Mehira placed a few coins and took a magazine to read.
For almost an hour, she had to slog through the petty, uninteresting drama that the Ars Goetia went through. Some of them read like slander, likely because it was slander.
Why did she need to know Andrealphus was an absolute dick to Paimon 30 years ago? Why is the sin of Gluttony, Beelzebub beefing with almost half the Ars Goetia? Why is Vassago sponsoring like 13 different musicals? Why is Kimaris actively trying to undermine every one of the Ars Goetia in the Pride Ring and is getting slandered to Heaven and back in almost all of these magazines?
Actually, she could somewhat respect that last one.
The more she read, the more she was reminded why she loathed the Ars Goetia.
Eventually, she simply gave up as her gaze fell on a magazine of Mammon. It seemed to be retelling his story of how he got the TV to Hell.
Pandemonium trials were rare, and having everyone actually show up to Pandemonium was even rarer. While it was custom for all of the 7 Sins of Hell to show up to the trials, that didn't often happen.
On her day in that court, the only two sins that were there were Satan and Mammon.
She remembers the apathetic way he looked at them as though they were insects and nothing more, wasting his time.
Thinking of cutting his face and putting it on a wooden board to throw knives at, she picked up his magazine and casually flipped through it. The story she already knew wasn't reworded in any interesting way, so it didn't catch her attention.
Until fate smiled upon her.
One of the leading figures of getting the TV down to the lower rings was Marbas, one of the Ars Goetia. He had seen Vox gaining popularity in the Pride Ring and brought it to Mammon's attention.
This magazine held a few quotes from Mammon, but for Marbas…
"We could not reach out to Marbas for a comment because his current housing location is like a few miles away from some backwater city named Stardom and we don't wanna drive through a bunch of dirty sinners and potentially die to some random Sinner Overlord just to try and get a comment out of him."
So, Marbas lived near Stardom.
Marbas, the Goetian with an eye for technological progress.
Mehira was pleasantly surprised by this development. While they would still have to be careful and respectful, for a Goetian would always be a Goetian, it seemed exceedingly likely that they would be listened to.
In fact, Mehira didn't think there could be a better shot than him. They could likely go to him sooner rather than later.
Luck really did smile down on the Plaza.
No matter how many demons Jessie met through her life in Hell, she doesn't think she'll ever really like the hellborn.
She had gotten the news of hellborn companies arriving with relatively cheap prices compared to calling companies from, say, Pentagram City. So she was going to put up with it just so the Plaza could get its footing.
Yet, as the entire crew arrived…
To call it a dysfunctional mess would be an understatement.
There was effectively no way to tell which demon was a part of which company. It was basically impossible to figure out the leaders of any given company. Hell, she didn't even know if these were actual employees or a bunch of people that just followed each other here.
Turning to Jalaha, one of the only other "higher-ups" in their territory right now, Jessie asked him, "Hey, Jalaha, please tell me that Mehira didn't hire a bunch of useless idiots. There will be a factory here by the end of the week, right?"
With a keen eye, Jalaha pointed out a few things, "They all seem to be multitasking, actually doing their jobs and talking to each other. They do not seem to be going for precision. Fortunately, they do seem to be competent… Although, some of those components that require precision may need to be adjusted by some magic."
With his calm attitude towards them, Jessie calmed down a bit and looked at them with some more analysis.
…Right, she could see the organization in the chaos…
…She could also see that her beautiful schematics were being butchered. Most of them were in the margin of error, so it was fine and wouldn't affect anything beyond the maintenance.
But some of them…
Immediately getting on her phone, she called Plaze.
He picks up a moment later, "Plaze speaking."
"It's Jessie. I need you to lend me– Ah, you're not fighting, are you?" Jessie asked, considerate of his current position, where he was attempting to strengthen his grasp on their territory as a buffer away from their factories.
"Just beat a bunch of guys," Plaze answered back casually, "Nothing but housing in this area, so our income can go up a bit with the protection fees. How many souls do you need?"
Gleeful that she didn't even have to ask because he already knew what she was going to ask, she immediately answered, "I dunno where my boundaries are for my abilities, but just give me a thousand and I can fix up some of the components here."
"Are they incompetent?"
"Largely no, they're just disorganized. There are just a few defects I need to fix since a lot of them need more precision than the others."
"Hm," Plaze interestingly hummed, "Alright, you'll get your thousand souls."
Already, she could feel her power increase a thousandfold as she thanked him, "Thank you, boss. We'll hopefully get the factory done in a week."
He joyfully mentioned, "A week? I thought it'd take a lot longer than that– That's good! Keep up the good work."
As he hung up, Jessie immediately went to work on fixing the defects and made some rough estimations in her head.
Plaze assured her that he would spearhead the development of basically all of their games and leave the turf war alone for the first month they can work in order to get everything on its feet. So in that sense, the games should all be finished by the time they have to launch them out.
Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that, even with Mehira's aid, they would be able to send anything to the lower rings of Hell for now. So that revenue source is off the table.
After they're done and everything is shipped out, they might be able to break even for the first development cycle.
If they sell everything.
Hopefully, Plaze will be more understanding and simply take their slow start on the chin…
AN:
Man, why is this almost 3k words long. I'm trying for quantity of chapters here… This ain't helping my laziness!
Written April 24th.
[The writing situation has developed not necessarily to our advantage.]
