Season 3 chapter 94
The Board's Panic
Standing completely frozen near the shattered laboratory doors, Filoska and Salesh watched the entire interaction in pure, unadulterated horror. They had sprinted down from the executive suites the second they heard the explosion, fully expecting a mass casualty event.
Instead, they arrived just in time to watch their most expensive prototype vaporize, only to see their Managing Directors giggling and casually throwing another five hundred billion credits into the ashes.
Salesh practically grabbed his own hair, his eyes wide with pure financial terror. He began to hyperventilate, staring at the heavy parchment check in Kniya's hand.
"Five hundred billion credits?!" Salesh choked out, his voice cracking violently. "You just authorized another five hundred billion liquid credits while standing in the literal ashes of the first batch?! Are you out of your minds?!"
Filoska's pristine aristocratic composure completely shattered into a million pieces. She aggressively marched forward, pointing a trembling finger at the glowing crater.
"Are you two completely crazy?!" Filoska shrieked at the top of her lungs, her voice echoing over the hissing steam. "Why the fuck are you laughing?! The reactor literally just melted down completely! We just lost billions of credits in exactly ten seconds, and you are literally mocking the situation this way?!"
Shuntesh lowered his hands from his temples, entirely bewildered. He looked back and forth between the utterly panicked executive board members and the completely relaxed, smiling Managing Directors. His brain completely short-circuited. He had absolutely no idea how to process a workplace where catastrophic failure resulted in a massive budget increase and a stand-up comedy routine.
The Psychology of Failure
Filoska and Salesh stood near the shattered doorway, practically hyperventilating as they waited for a rational explanation for why their bosses were laughing at a multi-billion-credit crater.
Malesh smoothly adjusted his tailored cuffs, perfectly calm in the face of the board's absolute panic. He looked at Filoska, his dark eyes reflecting the glowing embers.
"Filoska, philosophically speaking, the thing is that it is quite weird to see, to be honest," Malesh explained, his voice profoundly relaxed and entirely devoid of his usual corporate arrogance. "But Kniya and I have a weird kind of habit. Whenever we face a major failure, our minds are like that... we start to laugh. We literally mock our own failures by ourselves. We are not laughing at the destruction; we are laughing at ourselves. It is our mistake that we aggressively forced Shuntesh to turn this on. He wasn't confident. He was thinking of some mistake, but we didn't focus upon his warnings. It is kind of our mistake, I think."
Kniya nodded vigorously, wiping a tear of amusement from his eye as he leaned against a heavy workbench.
"Yes, Filoska and Salesh, I don't think you would know about these things, but it is literally like that for us," Kniya chimed in cheerfully, completely dropping his CEO persona. "Whenever we failed at anything, we just completely laughed at our own incompetence! Malesh, did you remember when we tried to build some kind of a postcard and cardboard machinery? We failed miserably! It was a simple fucking postcard machine, but we failed, so we just burned that machinery and laughed at it all!"
"Exactly," Malesh agreed, a rare, genuine smile tugging at his mouth. "We even tried to use the stove with the fart cylinders. It never worked, and it blew off, and the whole kitchen became a place entirely unable to live in."
Kniya chuckled, walking over to the utterly defeated head researcher. He put a highly reassuring hand on his friend's shoulder.
"Well, Shuntesh, this is the thing that we need to tell you," Kniya said gently. "We were not laughing at you. It was entirely our fault. We were laughing at ourselves. Don't take it in that way, okay? I know that it is psychologically weird to see a person like that, but yeah, that is just us."
The Burden of Generosity
Shuntesh stared blankly at the bubbling pool of liquid slag. He was aggressively rubbing his temples, desperately trying to process the disaster as tears split from his eyes and cut through the thick soot on his face. Even with Kniya and Malesh's reassurance, the crushing weight of the failure felt completely unbearable.
"But the thing is that I have created a great mess," Shuntesh whispered, his voice trembling as he looked down at his ruined boots. "I am really not useful to you. I completely failed the vision."
He completely ignored the noise of the laboratory as his mind spiraled into a massive, suffocating wave of self-doubt.
I wanted to develop something revolutionary for this country, Shuntesh's internal monologue screamed, tearing his confidence to shreds. I took on a massive federal loan for my advanced university studies. But when the civil turmoil hit and the economy crashed, I defaulted on the debt, my land got seized, my house was sold out by the bank, and my parents formally cut all their ties with me. I was completely stranded, living in a cardboard treehouse, and working in a shithole factory just to repay the remaining interest on my loan while getting beaten with a leather belt. But Kniya and Malesh... they saved me. They completely changed my life. They brought me to the Northern East wing of Kavilson Steel and gave me an entire R&D department to research Fisluation. And now... I have completely disappointed them. I have wasted billions of credits. And even though they are so unimaginably generous that they instantly deposited another round of money so that I could rebuild it... I did a major failure. I am a fraud.
The Pep Talk
Seeing the sheer devastation and self-doubt on Shuntesh's face, Kniya's chaotic energy completely shifted into genuine, friendly support.
"Oh, don't sound so depressed, bro!" Kniya said warmly, giving his shoulder a firm squeeze. "It is just a metal machine. Just relax. You can do much better next time. Let it go. You have to relax for some days, you know? Make your mind peaceful and calm. Then you can start building the new reactors. It is not like you cannot build that thing. We can wait for some more time. It is not a thing that is being dealt with on a strict deadline that has to be made right now."
Salesh, finally recovering from his sheer financial panic, let out a long, exhausted sigh and stepped forward to join the conversation.
"Well, Shuntesh, for the record, this is absolutely our first time ever witnessing this kind of unhinged shit from them," Salesh complained, pointing an accusing finger at Kniya and Malesh. "I have literally never seen two people casually giggle over a melted fortune. Their weird psychological habit of mocking their own failures is entirely psychotic. It makes absolutely no sense."
Filoska crossed her arms, a rare, highly sympathetic smile breaking through her strict aristocratic composure as she looked at the crying researcher.
"Salesh is entirely right, they are absolute maniacs," Filoska agreed smoothly, shaking her head at Kniya and Malesh. "But Shuntesh... they are also right about you. You are the smartest engineer we have. Do not let one single meltdown shatter your resolve. You built a working prototype from scratch. We all know you have the actual capability to perfect it. Take your time. We have your back."
The Alloy Epiphany
The genuine, unshakeable support from Kniya, Malesh, Filoska, and Salesh pierced straight through Shuntesh's paralyzing depression. His racing heart slowly began to calm down. Cheered by the massive motivation from all of them, his mind finally stopped panicking and shifted back into pure, analytical engineering mode.
He turned away from his friends and looked closely at the glowing, melted ruins of the reactor core. His sharp eyes narrowed. The heavy smoke was clearing, revealing the jagged, shattered edges of the internal structure.
Suddenly, a massive realization struck him. He noticed exactly what had gone wrong.
"Wait..." Shuntesh muttered, stepping closer to the intense heat, his eyes darting across the shearing patterns of the warped metal.
He spun around, his face suddenly alight with raw, frantic scientific clarity.
"I see it!" Shuntesh yelled, his passion instantly returning. "Ahhh, I see the major structural failure! The machine actually burst because of only one reason: it was the specific alloys we used to manufacture the internal structure!"
Filoska and Salesh cautiously stepped closer, trying to follow the sudden, dramatic shift in energy.
"Look at the blast radius!" Shuntesh explained rapidly, pointing at the melted core with absolute conviction. "The traditional steel and iron alloys were entirely unable to handle the extreme pressure and the heat at the exact same time! When the Fisluation compressed inside the chamber, it generated massive kinetic pressure and an unprecedented temperature at the core! The traditional metal literally warped under the dual stress of the Fisluation's kinetic pressure and the heat, causing microscopic fractures, which led to a massive, instantaneous meltdown!"
Shuntesh let out a massive breath, a huge, triumphant smile finally breaking through his soot-stained face. He looked directly at them with profound gratitude.
"Thank you, everyone," Shuntesh announced passionately. "Thank you so much for your support. I was only able to acknowledge this because of your motivation. If you had yelled at me, my brain would have been completely clouded by fear. But now, I know exactly what I have to do to fix this reactor!"