(3rd Person POV)
Arthur registered the "Electricity Tower" with the Merchant Guild, signing the patent ownership documents in full. Reiner studied the compact structure with undisguised curiosity.
"So this tower distributes energy to any object that requires it?" He tilted his head. "I still don't entirely understand the mechanics — how does it work, specifically?"
By way of demonstration, Arthur reached into his inventory and produced a TV, setting it on the desk between them.
"This device is called a TV," Arthur said patiently. "It does not power up without electricity — which is precisely why the tower is necessary. It distributes that electricity to whatever device requires it."
Reiner's eyes lit up. He rubbed his chin in slow, deliberate strokes, staring at the dark screen like he was already seeing gold coins stacked behind the glass. "Woah. Interesting."
Ten minutes was all it took. Once Reiner grasped the full scope — not just the TV, not just the tower, but the entire ecosystem they represented — his posture shifted entirely.
"Lord Arthur." His voice carried a new weight. "I want to invest. Significantly." He straightened in his chair. "I'll put in one thousand — no!" A beat. "Even ten thousand gold coins."
Arthur looked at him.
Ten thousand gold. He'd cleared 2,445 from The Wizard of Oz in the Eastern Theatre alone, so the figure wasn't staggering in the way it once might have been — but it was still substantial. By his rough conversion, it sat somewhere around thirty million HKD, or ten million in global dollars from his home world.
"If you're willing," Arthur said, "I can offer you a ten-percent stake in Hellfire Electronics. It doesn't sound like much — but if we scale production and distribution beyond this city, across the entire world, the returns will follow."
Reiner didn't immediately agree. He ran the numbers in his head, quiet for a moment.
"Let me ask something practical," he said. "Ten percent of Hellfire Electronics — roughly when do I start seeing a return? Give me an estimate."
"Conservatively? Two years before the infrastructure here is broad enough to generate meaningful revenue. But that's city-scale thinking." Arthur let that land. "At full world distribution, you're looking at five to seven times your initial investment within four years. Possibly more, depending on how fast we expand."
Reiner worked through it. "So around year three or four, I'd see real movement."
"That's the reasonable estimate, yes."
Reiner tapped the desk once. "From what I know, Hellfire Electronics is just one part of the bigger Hellfire — correct?"
"Yes," Arthur said. "Hellfire Corporation has Hellfire Entertainment, Hellfire Agency, the electricity company — and more that haven't been formally registered yet." He smiled. "The full picture is considerably larger than what's on paper today."
Reiner let out a breath. "I gotta say — your company structure is really complicated."
"This is how things worked in my home world."
Reiner nodded. He knew Arthur was from another world, connected to this one through a portal — Saza had told him as much. Which meant the demon sitting across from him had already seen where this kind of architecture led. He had the blueprint. He knew the ceiling.
That changed the calculation entirely.
"Lord Arthur," Reiner said, leaning forward slightly. "What would it take to have shares in the main company? Hellfire Corporation itself — not just the electronics division."
Arthur's expression shifted — faint amusement, a thread of warning woven through it. "It will cost you significantly more than ten thousand."
"He-he." Reiner was unbothered. "Here's how I see it — ten percent of Hellfire Electronics is one piece of one division. But if Hellfire Corporation holds Entertainment, Electronics, Agency, and everything else you haven't registered yet, then even a small slice of the whole is worth more in the long run than a larger share of a single branch. A merchant buys the orchard, not just one tree."
"Name your price," he added.
By the end of the day, Reiner had agreed to invest twenty-five thousand gold coins into Hellfire Corporation — and walked away with a 6% stake.
---
Days followed Reiner's decisive investment, and the Electricity Tower cleared approval from both Profellie and Saza without issue — but Arthur ran into a different problem entirely.
The City Lord of Eisen City, Oswin Steir, was a man of Profellie's generation — old, weathered, and apparently with an agenda.
"I've been hearing about you from Profellie," the old man said, settling back in his chair with the unhurried ease of someone who had held authority for a very long time. "He says you're interesting. That you created something called film." He folded his hands. "I watched The Wizard of Oz. My daughter saw it too — she hasn't stopped talking about it since. She wants to be famous. Like the girl who played Dorothy. She has the beauty for it, you know. She really does. Remarkable girl. Anyone who's seen her says the same..."
He went on like that for a while.
Arthur listened with patient expression and quietly observed the daughter seated to the side.
She looked like a sour forty-year-old who had somewhere better to be.
Still — the City Lord's signature was not optional. Oswin Steir's approval over the city's infrastructure was exactly as crucial as it sounded, and Arthur had no interest in navigating this project around him. He could work with this.
"I'll cast her," Arthur said. "There's a production format I have in mind — it's called a telenovela."
Oswin's brow creased. "A tele... what?"
Arthur explained. Not just the telenovela, but the television itself — what it was, how it worked, why it required the Electricity Tower to function, and why the tower needed to be installed across the city before any of it was possible. He laid it out cleanly, connecting each piece to the next.
By the end of it, Oswin understood the shape of what Arthur had just done. The daughter's acting ambitions depended on the TV. The TV depended on the electricity. The electricity depended on the towers. And the towers needed the City Lord's approval to go up across his city.
Arthur watched the old man think it through.
'If he refuses, he can forget his daughter becoming an actress. Simple as that.'
Oswin was quiet for a moment. Then he picked up the pen.
"Fine. I'll sign." He scratched his name across the contract, then set the pen down and fixed Arthur with a look that had some years behind it. "But don't forget your word. Not even Duke Hartvel would be able to help you if you do."
Arthur smiled. "Understood."
He left the office with the signed contract in hand.
What he didn't see was Oswin leaning back after the door closed, stroking his beard with a slow, knowing expression.
"Clever kid." A quiet laugh. "He just wanted my signature — so he invented some telenovela business to make sure I'd have no choice but to give it to him." He shook his head, still smiling. "He-he. Interesting. I genuinely look forward to what you do with this city, foreign deity Arthur."
---
With the agreements signed, Arthur hired workers and began installing Electricity Towers at key points throughout the city — prioritizing high-traffic, densely populated areas first.
The citizens had no idea what to make of them.
People slowed as they passed, heads tilting upward. Children ran circles around the bases. Fingers pointed.
"Is that some kind of magical artifact?"
"I don't think so. I don't feel any mana coming off it."
"There's definitely no magic in it," a dwarf said, squinting at the structure. "But there's something coming out of it. Strange feeling — reminds me of the spark you get when you strike hot iron."
"So strange..."
Nobody understood it. Not at first.
Then the flyers went up.
Advertisements for "Hellfire Power" — an electric company — began circulating through the city. Citizens read that electricity could power devices like cameras, which many already recognized, and charge a Hellphone. It could run a fan. It could light a dark room.
Most people read the flyers and remained confused.
Then night came, and they understood.
The streetlights — installed alongside the towers, quietly replacing the mana-powered light-spell lamps that had lined the roads for years — came on without a single thread of magic. No enchantment, no spell, no maintenance from a guild-licensed caster.
They were brighter than anything the streets had seen before.
The market district, which had always sat in a kind of dim half-light even with magical illumination, was flooded with it. Vendors stopped mid-conversation. Passersby looked up.
"It feels like we've got miniature suns out here. Look how bright it is."
"It's the electricity — that's what it is. Even the City Lord sent word through the plaza messenger."
"I heard he's already using it himself, up at the estate."