Mecha Are the Romance of Men

Chapter 14: Mecha Is a Man's Romance

"Welcome, Rimuru!"

Jarvis's rich, magnetic voice rang out as the laboratory doors opened automatically.

The moment he stepped into Tony's lab, the intense sense of futuristic technology hit him head-on. Rimuru could not help but sigh. Being rich really was great.

Sooner or later, he would build a laboratory even more advanced than this one!

"Why did you call me over here in such a rush?"

When Tony saw Rimuru, he could not help but brighten at the sight of him. With enormous dark circles under his eyes and an almost ethereal air about him, Tony Stark looked like an immortal who had descended to earth.

Was this really the Rimuru he knew?

He was way too pretty!

Western and Asian beauty standards differed greatly, but they still had much in common.

It had to be said that Pepper had excellent taste. The clothes she had picked suited Rimuru perfectly, fully bringing out all of his best features.

Especially with that long blue hair framing him, he was so cute and beautiful that he looked like some dreamlike elf!

"The clothes suit you."

Tony had originally intended to jab at Rimuru, but all his barbed remarks vanished. Only this heartfelt praise remained.

"Thank you!"

Rimuru smiled, open and natural.

After exchanging verbal stabs with Tony Stark, Rimuru had gotten a clear read on the man.

Petty, extremely vindictive, and ruthlessly precise when it came to mocking people. The more someone cared about something, the more he would poke at it.

There were only zero times and countless times when it came to wearing women's clothes. Since he was already wearing them, this stain was destined to remain forever.

Rimuru had decided to just roll with it!

Still, he was not about to give Tony another chance to mock him!

Tony raised his brows and teased, "You adapted pretty quickly. Don't tell me you've always dreamed of wearing women's clothes? If so, then I really did you a huge favor."

Rimuru was utterly unfazed. "Yeah. Tony, why don't you try it too? Then you'll discover a whole new door opening before you!"

Ugh!

The moment Tony imagined himself wearing women's clothes, a chill ran down his spine. He was completely defeated.

"I've finished researching the Recovery Potion you gave me. I extracted a self-healing factor from the solution. It can effectively increase the speed at which wounds recover."

He had figured it out already?

Rimuru's eyes widened. How long had it even been?

Seeing Rimuru's incredulous little look, Tony Stark felt as if he had just closed the biggest deal of his life and was sipping victory champagne.

It felt amazing!

"The effect is less than one percent of your Recovery Potion's, so at best it can be considered a heavily watered-down version. But as a first product, it's more than enough."

"I named it 'Life Goddess's Caress.' It'll be handled by Stark Industries' biopharmaceutical division, and the shares will be divided according to our previous agreement."

"In other words, Little Rimuru, before long you'll become one of the richest people in the world!"

Rimuru rubbed his little hands together excitedly. The feeling of making money while lying in bed without having to work was simply incredible!

Pop!

A bottle of Tony's prized champagne was opened, and the laboratory instantly became a sea of celebration.

For a time, Rimuru and Tony were incredibly harmonious, arms around each other's shoulders like brothers with the best relationship in the world!

"Tony, let's make up. No more hurting each other from now on!"

"Did we ever have a disagreement? How come I don't know about it?"

"You're right. There was never any bad blood between us!"

"To friendship, to the future, and to money!"

Tony Stark might have had a strange sense of humor, but it had to be admitted that he was truly brilliant, with a genius mind beyond ordinary imagination.

Now that Rimuru had joined in, the development of Mark II was progressing several times faster than expected.

That was only natural!

The most difficult aspect of the Iron Man Armor was actually its power supply technology. The existence of the Arc Reactor had solved that problem perfectly.

Secondly, although Mark I was crude, it had already established the core framework.

Mark II merely needed to be improved on that foundation!

But that did not mean the improvements were easy. Take modern keyboards, for example: no matter how they were adjusted, their core design philosophy still remained that of decades ago.

Flight assistance systems, shock absorption systems, communication systems, fire suppression systems, temperature control systems...

Every system involved knowledge from one or more specialized fields.

For an ordinary R&D institution, completing all of this would probably require dozens of experts from different fields working together.

Yet Tony Stark had single-handedly completed the design for every stage. He truly deserved to be called one of the biggest cheat-code users in the Marvel Universe—his knowledge was simply ridiculously vast!

While Lord Rimuru admired Tony's absurdly overpowered abilities, Tony was equally stunned by Lord Rimuru's breadth of knowledge.

Lord Rimuru could actually keep up with his pace, leaving Tony both shocked and delighted. It even felt like a peerless swordsman finding a worthy opponent, or a master musician finding someone who truly understood his music.

Tony Stark had never experienced such a satisfying feeling of meeting an equal before.

"Rimuru, you can use this lab. How about we each make some improvements, then compete?"

Lord Rimuru raised an eyebrow. She had just been about to remind Tony about the icing problem, yet the next second, Tony wanted to PK her.

He had delivered himself right to her doorstep, so he could hardly blame her!

"It's a deal, Tony. This time, I'll beat you until your teeth are scattered all over the floor!"

"What? Rimuru, are you sure you were just talking to the great Tony Stark? Don't cry when you lose later!"

"Tch, you probably don't even know how to write the word 'surrender.' I'll teach you!"

What was racing?

Real men should race Sai Gundams!

At the thought of competing with Tony Stark—Iron Man—in an aerial race later, Lord Rimuru felt her blood begin to boil.

Mecha was a man's romance!

Mark II could already be considered an extremely refined model. Most of the later Mark designs were essentially minor adjustments based on it.

Many of the Mark N models that appeared later had even been designed to adapt to specific combat environments.

If Mark II had any major flaw, it was that it was inconvenient to put on. Both equipping and removing it required mechanical arms.

After a fierce battle, if the parts became deformed, it might even become impossible to remove.

Its other major flaw was that Mark II had failed to solve the problem of icing at high altitudes.

But Lord Rimuru stood on the shoulders of giants, after all.

Walking Tony's path and leaving Tony with nowhere to go—Lord Rimuru felt that her entire life was filled with meaning.

Tony brought out Mark II, Lord Rimuru brought out Mark III; Tony brought out Mark IV, Lord Rimuru brought out Mark VII...

She wondered whether Tony would be so crushed that he'd shut himself away!

Pfft. Just thinking about it made Lord Rimuru unable to stop herself from laughing.

So, Tony Stark, were you ready to accept Lord Rimuru's merciless tutoring?