Chapter 1357 (2/2)

Mareen had left that meeting bewildered but hopeful that Ed’s follow up investigations would allow him to realize the mistake that he had made. Now, several days later, Mareen realized that her thoughts at the time were almost childishly naive. Ed Dugg had the strongest case of Confirmation Bias that she had ever seen.

Ed would interpret Mareen’s untimely death as a PR stunt to drum up more business.

Ed had sent her a message on the day following that misunderstanding filled meeting to the effect of, ‘I can’t believe you forgot to file for incorporation of your new company! Luckily you hired me, an experienced hand. I’ve taken care of everything.’

The day after that Ed had reported to her that he had met with local material providers to establish a working relationship. Bekany was hired as a receptionist and Ed began gathering quotes for various materials and contractors into a haphazard pile on a dining room table. When Mareen had first seen it, she hadn’t been able to resist the impulse to organize and file everything so it would be possible to actually reference the gathered information.

Yesterday had been reassuring bereft of further messages from Ed, but this morning she had been distracted from her mental training by Bekany’s soft knock at her door. They had a job. Her company, that Mareen had very little to do with, had a client. It was not just any job either, but the opportunity to build the house of Randidly Ghosthound.

“Jesus Christ,” Mareen whispered as she read through some of the notes that Bekany had made. The size and scope of this project… the amount of money that the Ghosthound was willing to pay… her heart began to pound.

Despite her misgivings and intentions to confront Ed and get him to stop spreading misinformation, Mareen was intrigued. She couldn’t deny that she had grown to like the construction work while serving in her position at Ed’s company in Donnyton. She also knew that by the end of it, Mareen was essentially running the company while Ed did all of the hands-on work. Their current arrangement was perhaps just the true reflection of their work dynamic, which was why Ed had agreed to an offer that she hadn’t even made.

For all that Ed could be incredibly oblivious, he did have a rather powerful knack for sniffing out good opportunities. Hence the mess that Mareen was currently sifting through on the dining room table. The same factors that made her nervous also meant that if she succeeded in making this client happy...

Hell, even if its just Kharon that hires us to do buildings, we will be set. But we need an actual office if we are going to do this… Mareen bit her lip and looked down at the papers. If she was reading Bekany’s notes correctly, it seemed that Randidly Ghosthound would be providing almost all of the materials himself. The only requirement that whoever was hired for the job would be able to handle them. There was even a note that, assuming he had some spare time, the Ghosthound might be able to assist with refining…

Mareen had been at the Ghosthound’s birthday’ She had felt the powerful images of all those individuals and had felt rather small. It made her realize that although she was getting better at the organization required to juggle a construction project, that was a small thing in a big world.

But isn’t this part of the reason I left Donnyton and quit my old job? It wasn’t just about Naffur, but about getting a new start… For several long seconds, Mareen stared down at the papers.

Then Mareen knocked her fist onto the table. A strong resolve formed in her heart. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

“Well you have to do it,” Bekany replied. “Ed already accepted the commission. We have a meeting with Tatiana scheduled for this afternoon.”

Instantly, Mareen’s expression turned sour. But still, she had made her decision, so she wasn’t going to flake just because Ed had already-

Mareen’s breath hissed through her teeth. Then she sent Ed a vicious message about professional bounds and the chain of command at the company. Especially considering the importance of the client, this sort of behavior was absolutely unacceptable.

To her surprise, Ed’s response was positively penitent. In addition, he called her ‘Boss’ several times throughout his string of apologies. It made Mareen suspicious, but it was enough to cool her temper for the moment. So Mareen could focus on going through the paperwork more thoroughly in preparation for the meeting. In addition, Mareen sent Ed a string of instructions to find out the exact specifications of the materials that the Ghosthound offered to provide.

All this would be moot if they didn’t have the expertise to use the materials.

Right as she was walking out the door of their apartment office, Ed sent the specifications back to her. Seeing them, Mareen blinked. She quickly typed a message back asking if Ed had made a mistake in typing down the hardness and structural integrity of the materials. Ed replied that he had not.

“Holy shit,” Mareen muttered. The strength of the materials was practically ludicrous. At this point, it wasn’t a matter of expertise. It was a matter of whether they could even shape the materials at all. But simply by dint of inertia, Mareen kept walking down the street.

Tatiana met Mareen alone in the industrial sector. The two women chatted for a while before Tatiana led Mareen to a platform covered in those dense Engraving that allowed the moss spirits to grip and levitate the platform. Mareen hadn’t seen the effect up close before, so she was grateful for the chance to ask some questions about the functional limitations of this method.

Tatiana laughed. “Honestly, we don’t really know. We’ve been steadily upping our experiments, but we haven’t yet reached a weight where the moss spirits couldn’t eventually lift the object. There does appear to be some corrosion to the Engraving at higher weights on smaller platforms, but it certainly is an extremely useful ability that we didn’t expect to discover in the making of Kharon.

It was only after Tatiana stepped up onto the platform that Mareen blinked. “Uh… our meeting…?”

“Oh, I figured since we were going to be talking about it anyway, we might as well give Randidly a surprise and pay him a visit.” Tatiana’s smile was sharp as she looked up toward the floating island above them. “He deserves it after all the work he has thrown on my plate recently…”