Chapter 381 - 270: Making Cars and Toy Cars Together

Chapter 381: Chapter 270: Making Cars and Toy Cars Together

Benz stared at the white building before him. It looked completely unremarkable.

Zog said, "This is just the first building. That whole area behind it is reserved for the research institute. There aren’t many people here now, so you can take your pick of labs and offices. We’ll reassign them later when more departments are established."

They had just gotten out of the car when a goblin shot out from the doorway—a goblin in a uniform.

Benz’s eyes widened. Now *this* was strange.

The goblin completely ignored Zog and the other two, making a beeline for Benz’s patented car.

He sniffed it, tapped it, and even gnawed on it.

Benz wanted to stop him, but seeing Zog and Yuno’s completely unfazed expressions, he felt he couldn’t say anything.

Then, the goblin blew a whistle.

Immediately, a whole swarm of uniformed goblins poured out of the institute, carrying tools like pliers, hammers, and wrenches. They scrambled and hopped over to the car, ready to take it apart.

"Wait!"

Benz’s shriek cracked.

The lead goblin, hammer raised mid-swing, paused. He glanced at the strange Human, then turned to Zog, waiting for the boss to give the order.

"It’s fine," Zog said, grabbing Benz and pulling him inside. "They may look like goblins and act like goblins, but just think of them as a new species. Trust me, they can put it back together after they take it apart. For science."

"But—no—they..."

Benz didn’t get a chance to argue before he was dragged into the building.

The goblins could indeed put it back together, but their disassembly process was generally rather "brutal." Zog was afraid Benz would keel over on the spot if he saw what the goblins were about to do.

After all, he called the car "she."

Having him watch "her" get brutally manhandled by the goblins’ massive wrenches... what kind of sick, husband-is-forced-to-watch drama was this?

Ultimately, Benz chose a south-facing office. The Sutton Kingdom was in the northern hemisphere, and he liked the sunlight.

"Alright then," Zog said. "If you need any equipment, just ask a Laboratory Assistant. If you want to bring your family over, I can sort out jobs and schooling. In the next few days, estimate the time you’ll need for all that, and let me know the required R&D cycle as soon as possible. It would be best if we could make it to this year’s exposition."

He planned to unveil the new car at the exposition because all the major manufacturers of Magic-guided Vehicles would be there.

Zog’s goal wasn’t just to replace horse-drawn carriages; he wanted to quickly phase out magical-industry junk like Magic-guided Vehicles too.

They were expensive and didn’t even work well.

And after that, all those oil fields in Hell would finally come in handy.

To make automobiles famous overnight, what better gimmick was there than a head-to-head speed duel with the top Magic-guided Vehicles?

Magic-guided Racing Cars were a regular feature at the exposition. The nobles were quite passionate about it, and the commoners loved watching the spectacle.

’Such a great opportunity,’ he thought. ’It’d be a waste to only release a family car. Why not release toy cars along with it?’

’If they can’t afford a real car, surely they can afford a toy car.’

And so, after a long time, Zog decided to return to his old trade: selling toys.

「One day later, Twin Tower City.」

According to the Zog Group’s traditional strategy, toys had to be released alongside comics, animations, and even games.

"Go find me the ’Soaring Double Wings’ of the comic world," Zog said to Elsa.

"Who?"

’Soaring Double Wings?’ Elsa thought. She couldn’t recall any artist with that pen name. What the hell was that? It sounded like a Beastman naming convention, but a Beastman could never come up with such a cultured phrase.

"Robben and Ribery. The two who draw *Mechanical Warrior*."

"What does that nickname even have to do with them?"

Completely baffled, Elsa went to contact the two famous comic artists.

"And while you’re at it, get the Ackley family over here too!" Zog’s voice called from behind her.

Robben, lead artist for *Mechanical Warrior* and the top talent at Zog Comics magazine.

Despite having a net worth of over ten thousand Gold Coins, his work as a comic artist was so draining that he had no time to spend any of it.

Ribery, the one in the duo responsible for writing the story and drawing the storyboards. Unfortunately, he never did end up with the bakery owner’s daughter.

The two of them had recently found a rare moment of peace.

Because the main story of *Mechanical Warrior*, the series they were in charge of, had officially concluded last month.

As for why it was the "main story," it was due to Feilin’s approach to comic development, which was more of a hybrid between American and Japanese comics.

After a character was created, besides the original creator handling the core story, other artists were allowed to create spin-off stories.

The upside was that the value of an IP could be squeezed completely dry.

The downside was that new fans could easily get confused by the same characters appearing in different, sometimes even conflicting, stories.

The magazine’s editors gradually discovered this problem as well.

So they created a truly nefarious concept.

Parallel universes!

After all, any conflicting plot points could just be explained away by "parallel universes."

Perhaps in a few decades, they would even invent another "brilliant" concept called a "reboot."

In any case, the current story of *Mechanical Warrior* no longer had anything to do with Robben and Ribery.

The editor really wanted them to continue the series. Why end something so popular?

But the two of them strongly objected.

They were numb. They were tired. They didn’t want to draw any more "hero fights monster, hero fights super monster" nesting-doll plots.

After enjoying less than a week of vacation, Robben showed up at Ribery’s house.

KNOCK KNOCK! Robben pounded on the door.

Half a minute later, a wary-looking Ribery opened the door. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw it was Robben.

"Why are you so jumpy?"

"I thought it was the editor chasing me for a manuscript."

"Are you an idiot? Our comic ended over a month ago. What editor would be coming?"

"You don’t get it. Now, whenever I hear a knock on the door, I just assume it’s an editor on the other side."