The Supreme Mage in a Loser's Body

Ch 5 - Three Days to Pay

Kael turned the phone so Elena could read it.

She took it from him, checked the amount, and pressed her lips together. Maya leaned over her shoulder. The roll of tape slipped from her fingers and struck the floor.

“He can't just change it,” Maya said.

Thomas lowered his foot from the box. “He already has,” he replied.

Kael reached for the tape before Maya could bend, but the movement pulled at his ribs. She picked it up herself and placed it on the table without looking at him.

“Don't answer him,” Elena said. She returned the phone to Kael. “Not while we're all like this.”

He set it facedown beside the first-aid box. There was nothing useful to send Marcus yet.

Thomas asked for the account book from beneath the counter. While Maya fetched it, Elena opened her banking app and counted the notes in her purse. They brought everything to the worktable, moving the broken tools aside to make room.

The money looked even smaller spread out in front of them.

Elena had enough for groceries and part of the next electricity bill. The shop's cash drawer held a few payments from jobs Thomas had finished that week, but some of that money belonged to a supplier. Their bank balance could not cover the coming rent.

“What about the customers who haven't collected their things?” Maya asked.

Thomas ran a finger down a page. “Two might come tomorrow,” he replied. “The others haven't answered.”

He added the amounts anyway. When he finished, Elena checked his figures on her phone. Neither spoke after the total appeared.

Kael studied the entries while Ethan's memories supplied their meaning. Dollars, bank transfers, wages, bills. He understood the individual words, but now he saw how they fit together. Most of the money passed through their hands before they could use it. What remained went to the Iron Vipers.

Even the amount Ethan had originally borrowed was far beyond what they could gather. Marcus's demand might as well have been ten times larger.

Thomas closed the account book halfway, leaving a finger between the pages.

“I could sell the business,” he said.

Elena stared at him. “Thomas, no,” she replied.

“The tools, the stock, whatever someone will pay to take it over,” Thomas said. “It wouldn't give Marcus everything, but it might buy time.”

Maya looked around the room. Kael followed her gaze to the drawers of spare parts, the old workbench, and the carefully labeled appliances waiting along the wall.

“And then what?” Elena asked. “My shifts barely cover food. What do we live on after that?”

Thomas did not answer. He reopened the book instead, as though another look might reveal money they had missed.

Kael pulled it closer.

“These jobs were refused?” he asked, pointing to several crossed-out entries.

“Couldn't finish them,” Thomas replied. “One needed a replacement board I couldn't get. Two needed work at the customer's property.”

Kael turned back a page. The older entries carried larger amounts. After Thomas's injury, those became less frequent, replaced by small repairs that took almost as much time for much less money.

“Your leg stopped you taking the better work,” Kael said.

Thomas glanced down at the brace. “I can't carry the heavy units anymore,” he replied. “And some days I can't stay at the bench long enough to finish the delicate work.”

Ethan had helped where he could, but collection visits and temporary jobs had kept dragging him away. Kael remembered unfinished lessons, diagrams from college, and evenings spent holding a lamp while Thomas repaired machines. There was knowledge here he could use.

“Don't sell anything tonight,” Kael said. “Let me look at the unfinished work first.”

Elena began gathering the money back into separate piles.

“You can look while you sit,” she replied. “That's all you're doing.”

Maya returned to the front window to finish taping the plastic in place. Before she reached it, someone knocked on the open shop door.

“Thomas? Are you still working?” a man asked.

He stood beneath an umbrella, wearing a dark coat over a suit. A delivery trolley waited behind him with a large metal unit strapped to it. He noticed the broken glass and hesitated at the threshold.

Thomas recognized him and gripped the table to stand.

“Daniel,” he said. “Mind the floor. We haven't cleared all of it.”

Elena moved a chair out of the man's path. Daniel folded his umbrella and leaned it beside the door, then helped Maya hold the loose plastic away from the trolley.

“Daniel Reyes,” Thomas said to Kael. “He manages the Crown Meridian Hotel.”

Daniel looked at Kael's bruised face, then at the bandage showing below his sleeve. He did not ask what had happened.

“I called earlier about the heater,” Daniel said to Thomas. “You said I could bring it for a look, but if this is a bad time...”

“What is it doing?” Kael asked.

Daniel rested a hand on the metal casing.

“Nothing now,” he replied. “It used to start, run for a few seconds, then shut itself off. Three technicians have looked at it. The last one said we need a control board from overseas.”

Thomas examined the label. “That won't come quickly,” he said.

“Three weeks, if we're lucky,” Daniel replied. “It's part of a heating system for a private dining room. We've got an event tonight, and the replacement rental hasn't arrived.”

He loosened the trolley strap but left the unit where it stood.

“I'll pay fifteen hundred if you can have it working today,” Daniel said. “I need it tested properly. I can't put a faulty heater back in a room full of guests.”

Elena's hand stopped over the account book. Thomas noticed too, but he did not reach for the money that had not yet been earned.

“I won't promise a repair before I've opened it,” Thomas replied.

“Then let us open it,” Kael said.

He stood slowly, keeping the chair behind his knees until his balance settled. Elena moved to stop him, but he pulled the chair closer to the trolley and sat again.

“I can work here,” he said.

Thomas studied him for a moment, then handed him a screwdriver.

They unplugged the unit and removed the rear panel. Daniel held the casing steady while Thomas pointed out the heating section, the fan, and the small board that controlled when each part switched on.

Kael listened. He could understand a damaged path once he saw it, but this machine was not an enchanted object from his former world. Ethan's memories helped him recognize the parts; Thomas's explanation told him what this particular arrangement should do.

The heater itself showed no obvious damage. The fan turned freely. On the control board, several parts had already been replaced, their fresh joints standing out against the older work.

“They kept changing those,” Daniel said. “Every time, it worked for a moment. Then it failed again.”

Kael leaned closer to the edge of the board. A narrow strip of copper disappeared beneath a darkened patch near one connection. He changed the angle of the lamp and saw where the strip had burned through.

“Here,” he said. “The replacement parts can't work if the connection feeding them keeps failing.”

Thomas brought his tester over. He checked the strip on either side of the damaged section, then checked the neighboring connections.

“You're right,” Thomas said. “But there's hardly any sound metal left to join onto.”

Kael examined the loose connection beside it. Each time the machine heated, the weakened join had shifted, interrupting the circuit. Replacing another part would not keep that join in place.

“Do we have thin copper?” Kael asked.

Thomas directed Maya to a drawer. She brought back a small roll, along with the pliers he requested. Kael cut a short piece and began shaping it to replace the burned path.

His fingers trembled on the second bend.

Elena reached across the table. “Let your father do that part,” she said.

Kael set the pliers down before he could drop them.

“Hold the lamp closer, please,” he replied. “I need to see the underside.”

Thomas turned the board while Maya moved the light. Kael placed the copper against the surviving connection and supported it beneath his thumb. Everyone could see the tools, but the narrow space beneath his hand hid the damaged join.

He drew on the small reserve of power he had kept from the ring.

The copper warmed beneath his fingertip. He used just enough heat to soften the join, then applied a precise pressure his injured fingers could no longer manage. The new piece settled into place without touching the neighboring strip.

Pain tightened around his ribs. Kael stopped immediately, leaving Thomas to finish securing the repair with the ordinary tools on the bench.

There had been no flash or visible glow. To the others, he had only held a difficult piece steady.

Maya looked at his face.

“You need water,” she said.

Kael accepted the glass rather than explaining why his hand had gone cold. He had spent little power, but little was all he had left.

Thomas checked the repaired path and tightened the loose connection that had caused the damage. He tested the surrounding parts before replacing the cover.

“We try it here first,” Thomas said to Daniel. “Then we let it run.”

Daniel moved away from the trolley while Thomas connected the unit. The fan started, followed by a quiet click from inside the casing.

Warm air came through the front grille.

No one spoke during the first minute. Daniel checked his watch twice. Maya stood with her arms folded, watching the small indicator on the control panel as though looking away might make it stop.

The heater kept running.

Thomas tested the controls, shut it off, and started it again. He let it reach its normal temperature, then checked the casing and the repaired connection once more with the power disconnected.

“It's holding,” he said at last.

Daniel crouched beside the unit. “You're certain?” he asked.

“The damaged connection is repaired,” Thomas replied. “The safety controls are working too. We'll write down what we changed.”

Daniel stood and took out his phone.

“Give me your payment details,” he said.

Elena checked the transfer when it arrived. She read the amount twice before turning the screen toward Thomas.

Fifteen hundred dollars.

Kael looked at the account book. The payment could cover the immediate rent shortfall, groceries, and Thomas's medicine. For the first time since Rafe arrived, Elena began putting money against needs instead of crossing them out.

It was still nowhere near two hundred thousand.

Thomas wrote the repair on an invoice while Daniel secured the heater to the trolley. Maya gathered the discarded parts into a small tray, but her attention kept returning to Kael.

Daniel put the invoice inside his coat.

“We've got other equipment sitting in storage at the hotel,” he said. “Expensive things. Some are waiting for parts, and some were written off because nobody could find the fault.”

He took a card from his wallet and placed it beside Kael's glass.

“If you're willing to look at them, there's more work,” Daniel said. “Call me when you're able to come in.”

Kael picked up the card. Crown Meridian Hotel appeared above Daniel's name and number.

“I'll call,” Kael replied.

Elena gave him a warning look, but she did not put the card away. Thomas helped Daniel guide the trolley through the cleared path, leaving Kael seated near the front counter.

Across the street, a woman watched from inside a black car.

She raised her phone as Daniel paused at the doorway to thank the family. Through the gap beside the plastic sheeting, she took a photograph of Kael holding the hotel's business card.

A small device on the seat beside her lit up again.

Its needle moved toward the shop, repeating the same sudden movement it had made while Kael was repairing the heater.

The woman lowered her phone and checked the photograph against the young man seated inside the shop. Then she looked at the device's glowing needle.

The magic had come from him.