Only three or five minutes had passed before the Warden watching prisoner Number 13 heard the elevator descend. Coming from the Inspection Tower was none other than the "Warden," assembled from metal plates and gears.
This early?
He was somewhat surprised.
"What happened?"
Since a throat and tongue made of flesh could never produce a synthesized mechanical voice, Tang could only show the Warden a whiteboard bearing words in the Common Tongue.
The gesture was so abrupt that the other man hesitated.
"Why are you speaking like this?"
"The Head Chef's food was accidentally sucked into a metal tube. My voice equipment is being recalibrated." Tang made his handwriting as square and neat as possible, like printed text.
"And for some reason, you seem... more approachable today?"
That was the Warden's instinctive reaction.
In their eyes, the Warden had always been cold-blooded and unfeeling. He still remembered a colleague asking for leave after his mother died of illness some time ago, only to be refused because "his leave allowance for that year had already been exhausted."
Yet looking at this fearsome War Golem now, he somehow felt as though he were looking at a childhood playmate. But when the other party was young, his own great-grandfather had still been an embryo.
Tang realized that his charm had become a liability and hurriedly wrote on the whiteboard:
"Even if you attempt to praise me, it will not restore a single copper coin of the wages deducted for the time you waste next. Rules are rules."
"My sincerest apologies."
Rather than feeling annoyed, the Warden breathed a sigh of relief.
Now that was the Warden he knew.
Tang's eyes lit up. He had not expected the man to accept his characterization so quickly.
*Was the charm of [Master of Drama] influencing the