Where The Cash Flows
The journey back to Loriana was a blur of bone-deep fatigue and the rhythmic, jarring thud of burdenbeast hooves against packed earth. To Asep, Karl, and Stark, the sprawling, chaotic sprawl of the refugee camp erected outside Loriana's high stone walls looked less like salvation and more like a fever dream.
Asep felt as though his marrow had been replaced with cold lead. Every bone in his body ached, but the dull throb was far from unbearable; he was simply numb and sluggish, every bump in the road rattling his molars. Still, compared to the adrenaline-soaked, blood-drenched slaughter at Black River Hold, an agonizing cart ride felt like an absolute luxury.
"We finally made it..." Karl murmured. His usual boisterous bravado had vanished, replaced by a raw, fragile desperation. Beneath streaks of grime and dried blood, his face was pale, but his wide eyes burned with nervous energy. "They're here. Somewhere in this damn mess."
Asep grunted, shifting his weight across a precarious stack of empty supply crates. "Keep your pants on. You'll see them. Just try not to pass out before you do."
At the reins, Stark maintained his usual stony silence, steering their mount toward the Radiant Temple's annex—a sprawling compound hastily retrofitted into a primary triage center and sanctuary for the displaced.
The annex courtyard was a masterclass in controlled pandemonium. Healers swathed in ivory Papal vestments hurried between tightly packed rows of cots, while volunteers stirred massive cauldrons, ladling out thin, steaming porridge to hollow-eyed crowds.
Karl didn't even wait for the cart to grind to a halt. He vaulted over the wooden sideboard, hit the cobblestones in an ungainly stumble, and instantly broke into a frantic sprint, his head swiveling wildly.
"Cecilia! Mimi!" he bellowed, his voice cracking on the names.
Asep and Stark dropped down from the cart, jogging to keep the frantic man in their sights. Then, from the far side of the courtyard near a cluster of patched canvas tents, a tiny silhouette broke free from the throng.
"Papa!"
It was a full-tilt aerodynamic sprint. Asep blinked in surprise. The child hurtling toward them was a pint-sized Caprine girl—a sheepkin sporting fluffy, sand-colored hair and two adorable budding nubs for horns. She wore a dust-caked tunic that was clearly two sizes too large.
"Mimi!" Karl shouted, dropping to his knees and throwing his arms wide.
The little girl didn't slow down. Instead of an embrace, she launched herself into the air, tucking her head and turning her entire body into a guided missile aimed directly at Karl's chest.
"Guh!"
The impact sounded uncomfortably solid. Karl let out a strangled wheeze as the crown of her head, specifically the reinforced bone between her tiny horns, hammered flush into his solar plexus. He toppled flat onto his back, coughing violently, yet his arms clamped instinctively around her, dragging her into a fierce embrace.
"Ow! Mimi! That's... oof... you're getting way too strong!" Karl wheezed, tears cutting clean tracks through the dirt on his cheeks as he buried his face in her dusty hair.
"Papa! You smell like mud!" Mimi giggled, throwing her small arms around his neck, entirely unfazed by the gore clinging to his armor.
Asep let out a dry chuckle. "Well, that's one way to greet your old man. Hit him with a localized battering ram."
"She gets it from her mother's side," Stark noted with the faintest ghost of a smirk before glancing past the tangled father and daughter.
Following Stark's gaze, Asep saw a woman picking her way through the press of bodies, looking breathlessly relieved. She was undeniably striking, carrying an aura that simply refused to be diminished by the squalor around her. Like Mimi, she was a sheepkin, though her features had bloomed into full maturity. Long pale-blonde hair fell in soft waves down her back, framing a gentle maternal face, accented by a pair of elegantly curled horns swept back against her temples.
Despite the evident exhaustion haunting her posture, she carried herself with effortless poise. She wore the remnants of what had once been a tailored deeply cut sapphire dress—a garment that, travel stains notwithstanding, accentuated an astonishingly generous bust that seemed to openly mock the laws of physics.
Damn, Asep thought, purely as an objective observer of reality. Karl really outkicked his coverage.
"Karl!"
"Cecilia..." Karl scrambled awkwardly to his feet, tucking Mimi securely under one arm. The man who had spent the last week charging into walls of armored knights looked completely, utterly undone.
Cecilia threw her arms around them both, pulling Karl and Mimi into a warm embrace. For several long moments, the three formed a quiet island of weeping relief amidst the roaring sea of displaced humanity.
Asep politely averted his eyes, fishing a slightly crushed cigarette from his breast pocket. He offered the pack to Stark, who turned it down with a subtle shake of his head. Striking a match against a nearby stone pillar, Asep took a slow, deep drag, letting the acrid smoke settle his frayed nerves.
Good for the idiot, Asep thought, feeling a bit hollow twinge behind his ribs. It wasn't quite envy, but rather a sharp reminder of his own isolation in this world. Amongst the squad, he's the only one with no 'experience'; Stark already married twice, Karl is a happily maried guy, and hell, even Bob have a girlfriend. He exhaled a thin stream of grey smoke, mentally swatting the thought aside. His feelings regarding Adeline were already messy enough without Karl's idyllic domestic life complicating them further.
Eventually, the family parted, Karl wiping his red-rimmed eyes on a grimy sleeve. He turned toward his squadmates, clearing his throat. "Ceci, you remember Stark, right? And this is Asep. The new guy I wrote to you about. He's... well, he's saved my neck more times than I can count."
Cecilia offered Stark a respectful nod before turning her violet eyes toward Asep. Her gaze was warm, carrying a weight of sincere gratitude that made him slightly uncomfortable.
"You have my deepest thanks, Mister Asep," she said softly, resting a delicate hand over her chest as she inclined her head. "Every evening I prayed for Karl's return. To know he had such dependable men at his back... it brought me peace."
Asep shifted his weight, rubbing the back of his neck. "No need for the 'Mister', ma'am. Just Asep is fine. And honestly, most of the time I'm just stopping him from doing something completely stupid that gets us all killed."
Karl let out a nervous squawk. "Hey! Don't go airing all the squad laundry right out of the gate!"
Cecilia offered a small weary smile. "I am simply grateful. Merlesia fell into madness so fast. If not for the southern merchant trains, I don't know if we would have made it across the border."
"Where are you two quartered?" Stark asked, cutting through the sentimentality. "The sanitation here is... questionable at best."
"That is what I needed to tell you, Karl," Cecilia said, turning back to her husband, her expression turning somber. "We aren't staying in Loriana. It sits too close to the front. We've secured passage south, to the Free City of Genoa."
Karl blinked, bewildered. "Genoa? That's past the southern border! Ceci, how? We don't have the coin for that kind of transit!"
"We don't need coin," she replied. "We are traveling in Lady Rubia's personal convoy."
Beside Asep, Stark went completely, rigidly motionless. It was as if someone had physically struck the him with an iron pipe. His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard, and his eyes slowly slid shut.
"I beg your pardon?" Stark asked, his voice dangerously flat.
Asep raised an eyebrow. "Lady who?"
Karl's eyes went wide. He snapped his head toward Stark, his expression instantly shifting from confusion to horrified pity. "Wait... your third wife is in town?"
"Third?!" Asep blurted out, the cigarette nearly falling from his lips. He spun around, staring at Stark in disbelief. Normally, Asep prided himself on being unflappable, but hearing that his notoriously brooding superior had a literal collection of spouses caused his primitive male brain to short-circuit entirely. "Third wife?! Are you out of your mind?! I knew you had an absurd harem situation going on, but when the hell did you find the time to collect a third one?!"
Stark didn't even look at him. He kept his eyes locked on Cecilia, his tone devoid of all warmth. "Rubia is here? In Loriana?"
Cecilia nodded. "Yes. She arrived three days ago with a private security detail and a massive supply train. She funded the evacuation out of Merlesia. When she realized Mimi and I were tied to your unit, she personally granted us passage to Genoa. I believe she is currently at the company headquarters, negotiating with Commander Zachary."
"Negotiations," Stark repeated, pinching the bridge of his nose as if staving off a migraine of catastrophic proportions. "Of course she is. War is a prime market for the Turturici family."
"Alright, hold on, color me fascinated," Asep cut in, grinding his cigarette butt beneath his heel. "Who in the hell is Lady Rubia?"
"Rubia Rossina Turturici," Karl whispered, his voice dropping as if uttering the syllables might manifest her out of thin air. "She's the daughter of a Don."
"A Don? What's that, like a Duke?"
"A Merchant Lord," Stark said, his voice laced with pure agony. "The Turturici syndicate controls one of the largest mercantile conglomerates in Sycillia. And by 'mercantile,' I mean they hold monopolies on everything from deep-sea spice routes to the continental black markets. Legitimate logistics... and violently illegitimate ones."
"A mafioso," Asep translated, a massive grin breaking across his dirty face as the pieces snapped together. "You married the daughter of a Sycillian mob boss! How did you even pull that off?!"
"It was an escort contract five years ago," Stark sighed heavily, looking like a man marching toward the gallows. "A catastrophic chain of misunderstandings. I had no intention of marrying her, butthe Sycillian Godmother essentially held a crossbow to my ribs and told me it was 'for Rubia's protection.' Do you have any idea how much hell I caught from Lisa and Eve when they found out? I can barely keep my sanity with two wives. Three is a death sentence."
"Bwahaha!" Asep doubled over, laughing so hard his cracked ribs protested. "Oh man, that's rich! Here I thought you were just an emotionally stunted mercenary, but you're out here living like a tragic light novel protagonist! A mafia princess! Unbelievable!"
"Shut your mouth, Asep," Stark growled, though there was zero heat behind it—only pure, unadulterated dread.
Meanwhile, within the stone walls of Castalia headquarters, a far more subdued, yet equally lethal negotiation was playing out.
Zachary Valente sat behind his heavy oak desk, the dark bruises of exhaustion under his eyes masked by an intense evaluating stare. Flanking his right stood Princess Adreana, her posture regally composed, watching the woman seated across from them like a hawk tracking a viper.
Rubia Rossina Turturici commanded the space with an effortless grace. She was a striking Lupine beastfolk, possessing the aristocratic sharp features typical of high-born Sycillian wolf packs. Her silver-grey hair tumbled over her shoulders in meticulously styled waves, while a pair of plush, pointed ears rested atop her head, occasionally twitching to catch every stray rustle in the room. Her wardrobe was an immaculate marriage of Sycillian high fashion and rugged road wear: a crimson velvet riding coat cut over an immaculate silk blouse, tailored trousers, and polished knee-high boots that clearly hadn't seen a speck of trench mud.
"The terms are remarkably generous, Commander Valente," Rubia said, her Sycillian accent rolling off her tongue like smooth velvet, hiding an edge honed to split hairs. She rested her elbows on the armrests of the heavy chair, leaning forward with casual insolence. "My family's enterprise is prepared to guarantee a consistent supply line. Grain, cured meats, bulk medical tinctures, and—most importantly—the refined ingots your local blacksmiths need to forge real steel."
"And the designated payment is exclusively raw Lumite from the eastern Ardenian reserves," Zachary replied, his fingers drumming a steady rhythm against the desk. "That is an extraordinarily bold demand, Lady Rubia. Lumite exports are strictly controlled by the Crown."
"Controlled in peacetime, perhaps," the corner of her lips curving into a razor-thin smile. "I took the liberty of securing an audience with His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Finlay, prior to my arrival. He understands the arithmetic of survival far better than your Ministry of Commerce. He has already granted preliminary approval, pending your logistical signature."
Adreana took half a step forward. "My brother is a pragmatist. If he signed off on this, it means he sees no other way to keep the Western Army from starving."
"A drowning man does not haggle over the price of a rope, Your Highness," Rubia remarked smoothly. "Gold loses its charm when there is nothing left to buy. Lumite, however, powers the world. The Turturici family possesses the... discreet infrastructure required to refine and distribute it far away from the prying eyes of the Holy Papacy or the Albion blockade."
Zachary's eyes narrowed into slits. "Lavoro."
Rubia's smile deepened, her silver eyes catching the light. "A man of culture. Yes, Commander. The grey trade. The shadow routes. Call it what you like. When the kings close the gates, that is where the real cash flows."
"The price isn't my concern," Zachary stated, pulling a map across the wood. He traced a finger along the coast. "It's the delivery. The Albion navy has the Telmar Gulf on complete lockdown. Not so much as a rowboat sails north."
"We aren't using ships," she said, leaning over the map and dragging a manicured nail across the continent's interior. "We move overland. North from Genoa, straight through the Gallian territories to the west."
Zachary's brow furrowed. "Gallia is an autonomous region under the thumb of the Avagnon Curia. If the Inquisition discovers a massive unsanctioned supply convoy crossing their borders to aid Ardenia and backed by Sycillian syndicates, no less—they will execute everyone involved."
"The Inquisition is a sluggish bureaucratic beast," Rubia dismissed with a flick of her wrist. "And their regional border prelates are remarkably... receptive to generous spiritual donations. The route is secure, Commander. Provided your couriers are fast enough to receive the drop-offs at the border before the local bishop notices his ledgers are bleeding."
She sat back, her sharp gaze locking onto Zachary. "Make no mistake, I am not running a charity. This is an extraordinarily lucrative venture for my family during a continental crisis."
"So this is purely business?" Adreana inquired, a skeptical tilt to her head.
Rubia froze. Her pointed wolf ears pinned back against her silver hair, and a sudden, violent shade of pink dusted her porcelain cheeks. She quickly looked away, clearing her throat with a cough that fool nobody.
"Well... not entirely," Rubia muttered. The velvet smoothness in her voice dissolved, replaced by a defensive irritable snap. "It is also a matter of... domestic maintenance."
Zachary's eyebrow twitched upward. "Ah. This is about Stark."
"That thick-headed, suicidal brute of a husband is out there throwing himself at heavy cavalry in a muddy ditch!" Rubia snapped, her composure shattering into full-blown indignation as she crossed her arms tightly over her chest. "He is an idiot who doesn't understand the concept of tactical retreat! I refuse to allow him to die a hound's death simply because your incompetent quartermasters ran out of clean bandages!"
She glared at Zachary, though the fierce panic in her eyes betrayed her completely. "I tolerate his ridiculous mercenary nonsense. I tolerate the fact that he visits Genoa once a year if I'm lucky. I even tolerate those two other women he insists on keeping around! But I will not tolerate him dying over logistical negligence! If I have to drag an entire supply train across an empire to keep him alive, I will do it. If only so I can strangle him myself!"
Zachary shared a brief look with Adreana, who was doing an admirable job of swallowing a smirk. A Sycillian mob princess was moving mountains and defying the Holy Empire, all because she was too proud to admit she was worried sick about her husband.
"Your pragmatism is noted, Lady Rubia," Zachary said, maintaining a strictly neutral tone. "If the Crown has approved the trade, Castalia will handle the border rendezvous. We have a deal."
"Splendid," Rubia said, instantly recovering her icy veneer as she stood and smoothed down her velvet coat. "See to it that your men aren't late. I will signal the first convoy. Now, if we are finished, I have a deeply unpleasant conversation waiting for me."
She spun on her heel, her boots clicking sharply against the stone floor. But as she reached for the brass handle, the door swung inward.
There stood Stark. He looked as though he would have vastly preferred facing an entire regiment of knights.
Behind him, Asep hovered in the hallway, an intensely amused grin plastered across his face.
Rubia stopped dead in her tracks. Her silver eyes locked onto Stark, cataloging the dented armor, the dried mud, and the bone-weary exhaustion etched into his features. For a fraction of a second, her fierce posture melted into raw relief—before her guard slammed back down.
"You," Rubia pointed a sharp accusatory finger at his chest. "You look like a corpse someone dragged out of a shallow grave."
Stark exhaled slowly, resigning himself to his fate. "It is good to see you too, Rubia."
"Do not use that calm tone with me!" she hissed, stepping into his personal space and aggressively swatting at the dried blood on his breastplate. "I leave you alone for five months and you somehow embroil yourself in a continental war! Do you possess an innate talent for finding the most dangerous place on the map?!"
"It is my employment," Stark answered flatly, enduring the aggressive fussing without flinching.
"It is an idiotic employment," she muttered. Her hand lingered against a poorly stitched cut on his shoulder, her touch suddenly gentle. She let out a long sigh. "You are coming with me. We are going to the only decent inn in this miserable town. You are bathing, and you are sleeping for twelve consecutive hours. If you protest, I will have my enforcers drug your tea."
Stark didn't even bother to fight it. He simply gave a weary nod at her. "Understood."
Clamping a firm hand around his gauntlet, Rubia dragged the hollowed-out Stark down the corridor. Before turning the corner, she cast a lethal glare back at Zachary. "Ten days, Valente! Do not make me regret this!"
Once the pair had vanished down the stairs, Asep strolled into the office, leaning against the doorframe as he chuckled under his breath. "Boss, if that's what marriage looks like, I'm sticking to cheap tobacco and early graves."
"A wise policy," Zachary muttered, rubbing his temples as the headache he'd been fighting off returned with a vengeance. "Though considering our entire logistical backbone now depends on her family, we had better pray Stark keeps her in high spirits. How is Project Highway coming along?"
"Hard to say. Haven't checked in with Treste since we got back."
"Get yourself fed, take an hour to clear your head, and then get down to the workshop," Zachary ordered, leaning back into his chair. "I am relying heavily on that machine of yours, Asep."
"Right, right. Good luck with the paperwork, Boss." Asep tossed a two-finger salute and slipped out.
A scalding bath and a fresh change of clothes went a long way toward purging the war from Asep's bones. But the true miracle worker was a massive bowl of peppery chicken stew at the Water Lilies' Embrace, washed down with a mug of black coffee strong enough to strip paint. He had almost forgotten how sublime it felt to sit in a chair without someone actively trying to impale him.
Still, duty loomed. Dragging himself away from the tavern's hearth, Asep navigated the cobblestone alleys toward Castalia's newly designated R&D workshop—a reinforced warehouse sitting in the industrial sector, a far cry from the cramped bakery they had previously used.
As he drew near, a familiar symphony of clattering iron, hissing steam, and foul-mouthed muttering drifted through the heavy oak doors.
Asep pushed the door open and was immediately greeted by the pungent, eye-watering stench of vaporized Fire Lumite and overheated machine grease.
"I told you, you disproportionate heap of scrap brass, the backpressure cannot vent through the primary intake manifold!"
Treste Comte Mordeau, currently coated in charcoal dust and wrestling a two-foot-long iron wrench, was shoved waist-deep into the skeletal belly of a machine. Her oversized, floppy witch's hat sat abandoned on a nearby grease-stained workbench.
The machine itself—designated "Project Highway"—was essentially a crude, boxy iron frame sitting atop four heavy-duty carriage wheels. Stripped bare of all aesthetics, it looked hilariously, undeniably like the rusted chassis of an Angkutan Perkotaan. An angkot minivan straight out of suburban West Java, dropped into a fantasy world.
"Still picking fights with the intake?" Asep asked, leaning lazily against the frame while striking a fresh match.
Treste violently jerked backward, cracking the crown of her head against an iron crossbeam.
Clang!
"Ow! Confound it all, Asep!" She wriggled out of the machine's undercarriage, clutching her skull and glaring daggers at him. Her lavender hair was a chaotic nest of static frizz and black soot. "Do not sneak up on me like a phantom! And extinguish that vile stick this instant! Do you possess a death wish? One stray spark near these Lumite fumes and we'll both be plastered across the ceiling!"
"Relax, witchlet," Asep chuckled, stepping inside and taking one final, deliberate drag before crushing the cherry beneath his boot. "Lumite vapor is heavy; it sinks to the floorboards. Smoke rises. Basic fluid dynamics. Zachary said you were about to tear your hair out. What broke this time?"
Treste tossed the wrench onto the iron workbench with a deafening clatter. She stomped over, her diminutive frame bristling with indignation.
"The crisis, my chronically lazy assistant, is that your theoretical mechanical nonsense clashes violently with the volatile laws of high-yield arcane conversion!" She jabbed a soot-stained finger toward the rear of the buggy. "This... this 'four-stroke internal combustion' monstrosity. I successfully scaled the cylinder displacement to roughly four hundred cubic centimeters, using superheated steam catalyzed by refined Fire Lumite injected directly into the combustion chambers!"
"Sounds like a win to me," Asep noted, approaching the engine block bolted behind the driver's bench. It was a terrifying jagged lump of cast iron wrapped in copper pipes and glowing crimson runic arrays, heavier and rougher than any engine he'd seen back home, but undeniably mechanical.
"I perfected the combustion," Treste corrected sharply, crossing her arms. "It generates roughly twenty-five of your hypothetical 'horsepower.' The torque output is magnificent. The catastrophe is the transmission. The moment I drop the drive engagement, the instantaneous kinetic shock shears the iron coupling pins clean off! We have shattered three separate axles today alone!"
Asep ran a palm down his face, sighing heavily.
Right. A 400cc equivalent running on magical flash-expansion instead of gradual gasoline burn.
Gasoline had a combustion curve. Lumite didn't burn; it detonated instantly with magical kinetic force. Slamming that raw, unbuffered shockwave directly into a rigid medieval gear train was like hitting a glass rod with a sledgehammer.
"Let me see the blueprint," Asep said.
Treste thrust a crumpled sheet into his chest. Unrolling it against the vehicle's iron hood, Asep studied the frantic collision of his own crude mechanical diagrams and Treste's hyper-complex arcane calculations. While her runic circles looked like alien geometry to him, the mechanical layout was straightforward. He traced a line from the output shaft to the rear differential.
"Here's your problem," Asep pointed with his fingernail. "The Fire Lumite triggers all its energy at millisecond zero. You're dropping maximum torque directly onto a dead-stop iron axle. The metal buckles from pure shear stress."
"I am well aware of that!" Treste hissed, throwing her hands up. "But we do not have access to modern high-tensile metallurgical alloys! Standard iron cannot endure that magnitude of sudden rotational torsion!"
Asep stared at the blueprints, his mind drifting back to his vocational high school days in Indonesia, sweating through automotive shop classes. They couldn't invent advanced metallurgy overnight. Which meant they couldn't use a hard mechanical clutch. They needed a cushion.
"If we can't make the metal stronger, we soften the hit," Asep muttered.
He snatched a stick of drafting charcoal from the bench and began sketching a bulbous, split-chambered housing directly over her delicate runic notes.
"What are you doing?!" Treste shrieked, swatting at his wrist. "Those containment equations dictate the—"
"Hush, let me cook," Asep grunted, swatting her hand away with his forearm. "We need a fluid coupling. A torque converter. Instead of metal teeth smashing into metal teeth, we use a dense fluid to transfer the rotational force."
Treste paused. Her anger evaporated in an instant, replaced by the razor-sharp focus of an arcane scholar. "Kinetic transfer via fluid dynamics? You mean... suspending a highly viscous alchemical medium between two opposing, unlinked turbines?"
"Bingo," Asep said, outlining the internal fins. "The engine spins this side—the impeller. It flings the fluid forward. The fluid slams into the turbine on the other side, which is hooked to the wheels, forcing it to spin. At low speeds, the fluid slips, so the engine doesn't stall and the axle doesn't snap. At high speeds, the fluid locks up and gives you almost direct drive. It eats the shockwave."
Treste leaned over the charcoal sketch, her eyes darting frantically across the lines as she muttered under her breath.
"The hydraulic logic is sound... brilliant, even. But standard oils would boil instantly under the radiant heat of the Lumite core." She tapped her chin, then a manic and borderline unhinged grin spreading across her soot-streaked face. "However... if I synthesize a high-density Water Lumite distillate suspended in... yes... refined Basilisk marrow! The molecular viscosity would remain completely stable under extreme thermodynamic pressure, generating massive fluid drag!"
She suddenly lunged forward, grabbing Asep by the lapels of his tunic. For a tiny woman, her grip was terrifyingly tight.
"Asep! You infuriating, glorious savage! We can build this! I simply need to recalibrate the containment runes so the internal pressure doesn't rupture the housing and..."
She released him just as abruptly, spinning around and sprinting toward her alchemy bench, sending glass vials clinking in her wake. "Hand me the runic calibrator! Move, move, move! We have a converter to forge!"
Asep chuckled, shaking his head as he pulled on a pair of thick leather smithing gloves. "Alright, Boss. But you're buying dinner when this is over."
For the next four hours, the warehouse was transformed into a madhouse of soot, fire, and clanging metal. Treste brewed her sludgy, glowing-blue alchemical compound, setting off two minor localized explosions and filling the rafters with acrid purple smoke. Meanwhile, Asep worked the forge and lathe, hammering out a thick, bulbous iron casing and mounting the dual bladed impellers Treste had shaped from dense cast bronze.
It was an exhausting labor. Sweat stung Asep's eyes, and the radiant heat from the forge made his muscles scream. Yet, beneath the fatigue, he felt a strange satisfaction. Here, he wasn't hacking through flesh or listening to men scream in the mud. He was building something from nothing. Even Treste's arrogant bickering was a welcome reprieve from the grim realities of the front line.
"Alright," Asep grunted, wiping his brow with a greasy forearm. "Mount's secure."
The new torque converter sat snug between the engine block and the rear driveshaft, a heavy iron sphere pulsing with faint magical light.
Treste carefully tipped a glass funnel, pouring the final measure of glowing deep-blue sludge into the unit's intake valve. She sealed the heavy brass bolt and immediately traced an intricate stabilization glyph over the seam with a glowing fingertip.
She blew a stray lock of lavender hair out of her eyes, exhaling dramatically. "The alchemy is sealed. The mechanical tolerances are within theoretical limits. Now... we see if your primitive mind has doomed us."
Asep stepped around the iron frame and climbed into the driver's seat—a simple wooden bench bolted to the chassis. The controls were gloriously rudimentary: an iron hand lever for the drum brakes, a foot pedal tied to the Lumite fuel-valve, and a heavy spoked steering wheel linked directly to the front axle via a crude rack-and-pinion assembly.
"Light it up," Asep said, gripping the cold iron wheel.
Treste stepped back, leveling a small ignition wand at the engine's intake port. "Combustion sequence initiating in three... two... one..."
She struck the port.
The engine let out a violent, metallic cough, spat a cloud of superheated white steam toward the ceiling, and then roared to life. A rhythmic, deafening cadence of thump-thump-thump-thump echoed off the stone walls as the Lumite-fueled pistons fired in sequence. The entire chassis rattled violently, vibrating right through Asep's tailbone.
"Hang onto something!" Asep yelled over the mechanical din.
He gripped the iron brake lever, shoved it forward, and smoothly depressed the accelerator pedal.
In their previous tests, this was the exact moment the drive pins had snapped with a deafening crack.
This time, the engine revved, whining higher as the internal impeller churned the alchemical fluid. There was a fraction of a second of soft hesitation—and then, the torque transferred. The rear wheels bit into the cobblestone floor with a heavy groan, and the iron beast surged forward under its own power, smooth as silk.
"It holds!" Treste shrieked, hopping up and down like an excited child. "The fluid drag is absorbing the kinetic spike! The drive link is unbroken!"
Asep grinned from ear to ear, stomping the brake pedal just before the front bumper kiss-tested the warehouse's far stone wall. The Angkot lurched to a halt, the engine idling in a steady, chugging rhythm until Asep reached over and cut the Lumite feed.
Silence crashed back over the room, save for the ticking of hot iron cooling down.
"Well, I'll be damned," Asep murmured, stepping out of the chassis and patting the warm iron hood. "We actually built a working car in the middle of a warzone."
Treste immediately crossed her arms, sticking her nose into the air with immense arrogance. "Naturally. You provided an adequate conceptual spark, but it was my peerless mastery of arcane principles that dragged your crude ideas into reality."
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever helps you sleep at night, witchlet."
Treste walked up beside him, studying the machine with a far more critical eye. "Zachary requires practical logistics. This... 'Angkot', as you call it, is structurally hideous, but it will easily carry half a ton of cargo across rough terrain twice as fast as any burdenbeast. But a single prototype changes nothing."
"I know," Asep agreed, leaning against the frame. "This is just proof of concept. If we can standardize this drivetrain, we can mass-produce the chassis. Cargo haulers, troop transports, hell, mount a ballista or an armored gun-shield on the flatbed and you have a mobile strike platform. But..."
He trailed off, his pragmatic side rearing its head. A functioning prototype was one thing; building a fleet was another entirely. Ardenia was starved for raw metals, and the army needed every scrap of steel for swords and armor. They couldn't just burn coin they didn't have.
Still, Zachary's earlier mention of Rubia's Sycillian supply train offered a glimmer of hope. Raw metals were on the way.
"We need scale," Asep murmured. "I'll talk to Sylvanne tomorrow. See if there are any competent metalworkers or carriage wrights among the refugees we can put on the payroll."
Before Treste could respond, an ungodly, hollow rumble echoed through the quiet garage.
It didn't come from the engine.
Treste instantly froze, her hands clapping over her stomach as a furious crimson spread from her cheeks all the way to the tips of her ears.
Asep raised an eyebrow, then a slow smirk spreading across his face. "So much for the 'peerless genius' running purely on intellectual superiority."
"Quiet, you!" she snapped, failing entirely to sound intimidating. "Magical synthesis is an intensely caloric endeavor!"
"Uh-huh. Come on," Asep chuckled, grabbing a relatively clean towel from the bench to wipe the grease from his hands. "I promised you a meal, didn't I? Let's see what's left at the tavern before I collapse."
Treste sniffed haughtily, though she was already grabbing her oversized witch's hat. "Very well. But I expect real meat. None of that grey slop you called food."
"You'll eat whatever the cook hasn't burned yet, and you'll like it," Asep replied, holding the workshop door open for her.