CHAPTER 403: BUSINESS NEGOTIATIONS.

After talking things through, Dante got Suzuka to let him keep the MBIs on the condition that he gets them installed only after she gets her payment. He wanted to go start working on gathering the funds right away, but the genius Gearhead stopped him in his tracks.

"I think you are forgetting something." She said with narrowed eyes. When Dante failed to come up with a guess, she stabbed him with the answer. "My conditions. They were a part of our agreement."

"... Oooh..."

Besides the payment, the genius Gearhead had set three conditions in order for her to agree to create the MBI set. One of them was a favor she intended to cash out sometime in the future. The second one was the return of the blue demon suit Klaus Stahlwölfes used in that fight in the hotel. Then there was the third.

"You want to look at my armor?" Dante frowned. "Now?"

"Yes. We have already delayed it a bunch of times."

"Seriously..."

Dante didn’t think much of it when he agreed to let her take a look, and he was starting to regret that. Given everything happening right now, asking her to delay seemed like the right choice. Dante leaned toward that choice, and he would have picked it, if not of the bitter feeling it left.

"Alright, which one do you want to look at?"

Suzuka had done her part and delivered an exceptional masterpiece. The least he could do was fulfill the conditions she had set. After much thought, he decided to hear her out first.

"I would like to see the one you use to create portals."

"Of course you do..." Dante was instantly faced with another set of choices, and after a moment, he realized he didn’t have to be the one to pick. "You get ten minutes, five minutes, one minute, or forty seconds. Which one do you pick?"

"... what?" Understandably, Suzuka was confused by his suggestion.

"I got four armors that can open portals," he explained. "Each one is... more painful to wear than the last, so the time I have with it gets slashed."

"Oh, right..."

Dante didn’t remember telling her about the strain VOLCAN’s armors put on him, but the genius must have surmised it from what he told her so far.

"Ten minutes, huh..."

Seeing the grimace on her face as she considered that one option, Dante suddenly realized something very important.

"Actually, you can only choose five or fewer. The one with ten minutes is my go-to, so... yeah..."

8-3 became his favorite ever since he used it for the first time, and nowadays, he relies on it the most. There was simply no replacing the utility 8-3 provided, and after discovering its Rift Creation was enough was enough to move between pocket dimension, it became indispensable. Because of that, he couldn’t afford to leave it in repair for long.

"What am I even supposed to do in five minutes?" Suzuka asked. "How much do you have to go between each use?"

"Preferably a day," Dante said. "I usually try to keep each use way below the time limit. That way, I can take it out multiple times without killing myself."

Though he grew used to the strain and learned how to ignore it most of the time, the effects of each use remained. The time limit doesn’t get reset when he switches between armors, too, which meant he had to be very careful when choosing which armor to wear and for how long he could wear it.

"This is far from what I had in mind..." Suzuka went to sit on a nearby chair, and Dante left her to think things through. "The time limit, can’t you extend it a little?"

"I mean, I can hold on for two or three minutes more, but that’s it," Dante said. "We can extend the limit much more once I’m a full cyborg, but until then..."

"You... aren’t trying to trick me into hurrying up with your commission, are you?"

"It would work better for us both, right?"

"... I really can’t with you..." Thinking some more, she finally seemed to make up her mind. "I would like to see the one with the ten minute limit. I’m only going to perform a scan, so you don’t have to worry about it being unusable."

"Oookay... I’m fine with that, but..."

"Yes, I plan on asking you to keep it on for more than ten minutes. Even then, you would have to drop by multiple times for me to get a full scan."

Once again, it was starting to sound like they wouldn’t be able to make it after all.

"Maybe... maybe we should leave it until I’m done with the whole gang business," Dante said.

Wasting his daily time limit when considering the kind of emergencies he might run into seemed like a very bad idea. He had just decided to go on a stealing spree to gather the funds for his new implants, too, so not having his armors at the ready wasn’t a very wise idea.

Going by her reaction, Suzuka didn’t seem to like his suggestion.

"I can pause working on the rest of your commission until you are done." She said. "You didn’t pay for the work I’ve already finished, and you don’t plan on fulfilling one of the conditions I set. I think it’s only fair."

"C’mon..."

When she put it like that, Dante couldn’t find it in himself to argue. The two of them weren’t that close to begin with, and she has already made more than enough concessions for his sake. She had gone above and beyond already, so his insistence on delaying the matter came across as exceedingly rude.

The more he thought about it, the worse it felt. Before long, he found himself giving in.

"Alright, I will let you have it." He said. "If I go an entire day without using my time limit, I will drop by and let you scan it all you want."

"I guess that is acceptable." Staring at him for a moment, Suzuka let a smile play on her lips. "You have yet to use it for the day, right?"

"..."

Dante could only sigh. Since he had taken another big step in his plans, he didn’t have anything urgent scheduled. With that being the case, he had no reason that prevented him from slowing down a little.

"Alright. Fine. I get it." Letting his shoulders slump, Dante sighed, finally admitting defeat. "But... you’ll have to wait a little for that ninety-two million."

"That’s fine., Suzuka said. "It’s far more important to get started on this."