“I don’t need insurance! I’ve said it a hundred times—I don’t need it!”

The chainsaw’s rasping paused, like a sawtooth catching on bone, and Raven’s familiar voice drifted through the door.

“Knowing your craft as an Arcane Engineer, you don’t need insurance. But you do need dinner.”

A heavy thud hit the floor. Then Raven sprinted over like a gust and slammed the door wide.

I had the foresight to step back a few paces, guarding the lunchbox like a skiff in choppy water.

“Andor!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m here—so slow down! Don’t tackle me! Wait—hey—fine. Be glad the food didn’t spill.”

She crashed into me and took me down. I clamped both hands on the box, keeping soups and sauces steady like a dam holding a flood.

Good thing Raven’s a brain-first Arcane Engineer and Alchemist. If Stini copied that full sprint and pounced, I’d pinwheel midair and skitter eight or nine meters.

Picture a big cat slamming prey. The lunch wouldn’t stand a chance.

The girl in grease-stained coveralls sprawled on me. Her stomach rumbled like a kettle.

“Looks like I called it. You skipped dinner.”

Raven pushed herself up, cheeks warm, one hand over her belly. She isn’t fiery like Stini; that pounce was a string snapping after tight study.

The red spiderweb in her eyes said she hadn’t slept. Each day she fought the Nameless Sword Saint once, then carved mana circuits and framed a Construct.

Raven swims in arcane tech and alchemy and drinks joy from it. But research and making are dry roads, lonely as winter fields.

A visit helps—any friend who can talk. Her mind uncoils like a bowstring, the truth-seeker turning back into a teenage girl for one clean breath.

Arcane Engineers aside; Alchemists often lose themselves chasing the root. The Sorcerer Emperor kept sane only by will beyond mortal after peering into the abyss.

“These days the pressure’s too much. I’m exhausted.”

She tried to veer from the tackle topic. She isn’t good at it; her face was stiff, the subject swung wide like a door in wind.

A gentleman doesn’t poke holes; that’s the surest way to raise favor without breaking porcelain.

“Anyway, let’s get inside. Unless you planned to eat without knife and fork. Also…”

I pointed at a human-shaped Construct inside, its skin gleaming with diamond frost.

“I’m curious about that. You’ll tell me, right?”

“Of course! Come in. This is a magi-tech armor Construct built from Sword Saint data I recorded in recent fights. It’s for the senior Arcane Engineer exam. I named it Valkyrie Series, Unit Two-Five…”

Raven hauled me into the workshop, pointed at a stack of steel for a seat, and fell on the boxed meal, wolfing it down.

I already struggle when Alchemist notions tangle with Arcane Engineer jargon. With her chewing, the principles turned to fog rolling over a marsh.

But she was happy, so I echoed along. You don’t get it, you glow like a lantern anyway, so the storyteller keeps shining.

I couldn’t trace where her muse struck. But I glimpsed the schematics beside the Construct; that map I can read.

“Hold on, Raven. The knee load here looks off. Won’t it strain the pilot too much?”

A true prodigy wants more than praise; they’ve drowned in it. They crave a clean strike of doubt in their own arena.

Raven frowned at my interruption, scanned schematic and mana-circuit map, then tugged paper over and started to calculate. Her pen skittered like rain on eaves.

“Ah, put like that, it does seem… Let me see. Almost there!”

She dropped the half-eaten meal and dove into a sea of drafts, running numbers like fish.

This workaholic.

Is making things really that joyful? I come from the Ocean of Darkness. I’m best at breaking, and I love breaking; her joy is a foreign shore.

I smirked and snapped the lid on, letting the warming charm bloom like morning mist.

About two hours later, she finished a new blueprint.

She overhauled the Construct’s mana circuits, a river rerouted without new dams, with no side effects.

She errs often, but fixes faster. She sands flaws to seamless, a talent past human. But the world forbids perfection; it calls the Ocean of Darkness to lash back.

“Done!” She wiped sweat from her brow, then attacked the meal again. “Andor, check again. Can you spot anything else? I can’t, but every fight with the Sword Saint, he digs out a flaw. It’s maddening.”

Julian, student of the Nameless Sword Saint, can cleave sky and earth. Raven now pilots her Construct to beat Julian clean. That’s strength fit to face a Demon King.

Don’t make the Nameless Sword Saint your goal. Better such monsters never show. He’ll die soon, a star due to fall; many are waiting.

But right now I’m Shadow Artisan Andor, a suave, well-mannered gentleman. I shouldn’t know the gods’ calculus written in cloud and thunder.

Still… I have other reins to pull on Raven’s research.

“By the way, you’re using this Construct as your final piece for the senior Arcane Engineer exam, right?”

I pretended to study the new design—its circuits wholly different—and dropped the line like a hook in calm water.

“Yeah. Three weeks left. I need to finish the Construct… and, sorry, I still have to trouble the Sword Saint.”

Good. Here’s the hinge of the tale. Raven finally turned the key I needed.

I folded the plan and set it on the junk pile. Then I asked, voice level as still water, “Do you know why I’m here?”

“Right! This is Machu Picchu, capital of Colonna. You should be in the City of Heroes. Did you come just to see me?”

“If I had leave, I would. Sadly, the real reason: the Arcane Association moved the exam two weeks earlier. You know I run the Mephi Consortium. I’m here for a rush order.”

“Wait… you said ‘two weeks earlier’?” Raven’s mouth twitched like a snagged thread.

“Yes. You heard right. Counting today, you have at most six days to ready this Construct.”

I lifted the order Miss Kadula prepared, and showed Raven the date like a knife.

“W-what kind of joke is that! Six days is impossible!”

Honestly, a Construct that beats Julian head-on already clears the exam, a blade that needs no polish to cut.

But a suit that reads a fighter’s moves and lets even a child stand against Demonfolk—mass-produced—would call a black wave from the Ocean of Darkness. That must be stopped, even if stopping it means killing Raven.

Luckily, Raven’s too gifted; her compass of “good enough” spins like a sparrow in gale.

“This defective thing will be rejected! The Master title won’t be mine!” She hugged her head and squatted, yelling like steam from a kettle.

So you want the Master title too, not just the senior license? Greedy, Miss Raven; you reach for both moon and tide.

Truth is, if this Construct and its full blueprints went public, the state would claim it and draft her into the National Arcane Engineer Corps. That’s her height.

“It’s fine. I’ll help you.” I ruffled her hair and squatted beside her, like sharing shade under one tree.

Now, for Andor’s solo performance.

“I know you care about this exam. Let me help. I can’t keep up with your mind, and a Shadow Sorcerer can’t use magi-tech magic, but I have eyes.”

“On carved mana circuits, on combat motion—I can help in many ways.”

“Materials too. Steel, ore, rare magi-tech stock—the Mephi Consortium has plenty.”

“I know you hate handouts. So I’ll sell at market price. Short on cash? Put it on account. Interest at market rate. Acceptable?”

Raven’s face shifted, then settled into her usual puffed-cheek frown, like a sparrow swelling its chest.

“O-okay. Then… I’m counting on you.”

She lowered her head and touched her Construct, the way you palm a warhorse before the charge.

The market can’t match her burn rate. Other houses won’t extend credit. Only a big firm, cracking the bottom chest, can feed an Arcane Engineer’s bonfire.

I’ll bleed market share for this. But Raven understands the cost and my intent. That balance is the best return.

She’s proud to the bone and won’t take advantage. If time weren’t crushing her, she’d refuse me. But without me, she can’t birth a perfect Construct; she knows rushing leaves scars.

“I… should I kiss you, or… I mean, as thanks?”

Raven trailed me, voice hesitant, light as a cat’s paw.

I shrugged off the nice coat, kept the grimy undershirt, and rolled my sleeves. At her words, I flicked her forehead without mercy.

“Did Stini infect you with idiot brain? You don’t owe me. My help doesn’t take kisses as payment. Materials—you pay. One kiss won’t erase an IOU.”

“Oh.” Relief loosened her face; she nodded, still a touch wooden.

I couldn’t help a grin, a small ripple across calm water.

“Oh what. Work. I can’t engineer Constructs. You need to gather combat data and design circuits. Move. Who’s the one in a rush?”

She finished the last grains of rice, flashed a radiant grin, then put on her usual puffed-up face again.

“Come on. We’re pulling an all-nighter. Ready?”

Of course—her brows still smiled, moonlight hidden at the corners.