Chương 41: Filthy Rich

Ch 41: Filthy Rich It was something close to a miracle that three days went by with me successfully avoiding a meeting with Lord Krosak, something only possible because of the illusion spell in the former gambling ring now converted in a production line. And it was equally impressive that creation of nearly two thousand of copies of the system was successful, though not without its setbacks.

The most annoying by far had been the fact that the school store didn't have enough high-quality ink and paper in stock, forcing Niko and the brothers to visit the city for additional supplies. But now that all those production problems had been solved, I was about to tackle the biggest challenge of all. How to sell thousands of copies of the system in a single day.

"Are you sure this is a good idea, Eric?" Niko was standing by my side in front of the door of Mayor Fernik's manor. And the rest of the sales team was here too, though they hadn't followed us through the manor's gate, afraid the guards could confiscate all our copies of the system they were carrying in their backpacks. Well, the ones doing the heavy lifting were the brothers, whose backpacks were almost larger than their own bodies.

But the others were there too, and everyone except Sahirah had sneaked out of the school to help me with this task.

"Of course getting help from the Mayor is a good idea," I said.

"He might have been forced to tell the Krosak family where Sahirah and I were staying, but if he really is a good person, he will certainly feel bad about it and help us now to make up for it." As much as it was tempting to blame Fernik for the incident in the inn, the truth was that the Krosak family had coerced that information out of him. And even if a sincere apology might be all I needed to forgive the guy, I would feel really grateful if he could help us this time.

That, and pay me for the hundred Mimic detection spheres Sahirah and I had delivered last time, of course. Because we had already fulfilled our part of the deal, and yet we hadn't received a single benefit from our roles as city officers. With all of that in mind, I knocked on the manor's door, watching as Niko grew tense while we waited for someone to answer the door. To our surprise, when the door opened, it was neither a guard nor an employee who greeted us, but Fernik himself.

"Eric," he said, his voice thin and weakened. The most unbelievable part wasn't the weak voice, but what happened to his face. To begin with, his lips were swollen. It was impressive he even offered us an awkward smile, which allowed us to notice a few of his teeth were missing. And that was not all. Despite his grey skin preventing us from seeing wounds in the same way we would see on a human, I still noticed bruises around his eye sockets, extending all the way into the whites of his eyes in a shade of red.

"Ah..." I initially struggled to find the right words to start this conversation. But then I gave up and said the first thing that came to my mind, "They fucked you up really badly, didn't they?" Niko stared at me as if I had gone insane, but the Mayor only laughed.

"The worst part is the humiliation," he said.

"The Krosak family offered double to all my employees, and now I don't even have security to protect my family." Could it be that all of that happened because the Mayor had tried to resist spilling the beans and sharing Sahirah's location? Well, it could also be revenge. Lord Krosak had lost a son in this city to the Mimic Queen, and the revenge against the Mayor might have just aligned with their goal of capturing Sahirah.

"Would it be too hard to hire replacements?" I asked that question already considering what I might do with all the credits our company would make, thinking of all the possibilities that would be unlocked once we expanded our reach to the whole city instead of just the school. He shook his head.

"Looking like this?" He pointed at his own face.

"No reputable Grey in this city will work for a Mayor who got on the bad side of the Krosak family. At least not until Lord Krosak leaves the province."

"What about the Zufi and the other species?" I placed a hand over Niko's shoulder to use him as a living example.

"The Granar keep to themselves in their own district. The Zufi only listen to their alphas." Fernik sighed.

"The Driari? Some of them are the fourth generation born in this world and they still haven't mastered our language out of pure arrogance." Wait a minute... Could the stars be smiling down at me today to this ridiculous extent? I came here to ask the Mayor for help to sell my system, but what if instead of asking for help I framed this as me offering help instead? Before I realized, my mouth was already moving.

"That's pretty bad, isn't it? But what if I told you that today is your lucky day, Mayor?" Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. The blue eyes of a man who didn't feel today was his lucky day stared at me as he crossed his arms, already realizing he would be the victim of my sales pitch. Still, I was undeterred.

"Guys," I shouted out, "please come here. The mayor is a good guy, I promise he doesn't bite." Those words were meant for the rest of the sales team, Zira, Lili, Kip and Kap. And I hoped they could hear me across the distance from the manor's door to the property's gate. Amazingly, before the Mayor could even ask who I was calling, Kip and Kap emerged from the gate with their enormous backpacks.

Zira and Lili came right after them, with smaller backpacks and their pointy ears lowered as they observed the Mayor's large garden. I smiled as they approached us. And before the brothers could even perform their usual bow of respect, I was already moving towards their backpacks, opening both of them. I reached inside, and retrieved one of the thousands of spheres we had made in the previous days.

"This," I said, "is a revolutionary product that will change your city for the better forever." With a grin, I let him observe the ridiculous number of paper spheres inside the backpack.

"It offers seamless translation. It tracks your progress with meditation and physical training. And believe me, it's the tool that will help you build bridges across species and solve a lot of problems you currently have." As if to prove a point, I wrapped my arms around Kip and Zira, embracing them both in a way that felt a bit awkward. Yet, they did their best to play their roles and not ruin my sales pitch. When I released them, I said, "What do you say, Mayor?

Are you interested in being part of this revolution I'm about to start in your city?" My behavior was quite shameless, I knew. Sahirah and I were the ones who needed help the most, and here I was, framing the whole thing as though it were a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the Mayor. Still, I didn't feel bad. I wasn't lying. And just because I really needed to get rich in a rather short time span, it didn't mean I didn't believe in my own sales pitch and my product. Fernik just observed us for a moment.

"When did you fix the discomfort caused by the translation spell? And Zufi, Granar, and Driari working together in harmony?" he said, pointing at Niko and the others.

"All of you led by two rare species first-year students." He laughed.

"Now I can say I saw everything."

"We still have room for a Grey," I said.

"And all of us have a lot to gain from this. Can you help us sell all these spheres today, Mayor?" Fernik's eyes widened. He opened his mouth, but he stopped himself halfway through. A short moment of silence followed. Before I could understand what was going on, he said, "Why are you offering me this after I failed Sahirah and you when needed me the most?"

"They threatened your family. You didn't have a choice, did you?" I extended a hand.

"But you still can help us with this, and I'll handle the Krosak family myself afterward, I promise you that." With eyes of every color watching us, the Mayor took a step closer. He slowly raised his hand, and when he gave me a handshake, it felt as though he meant it.

"I'll try my best to help you, Eric Nevermore," he said.

"For your sake, and for my own. I just hope this deal doesn't end with me forced to flee my own city."

Fernik was true to his word, taking us to a big warehouse in a floating car, driving it himself since the Krosak family had hired even his driver. He told us to clean the place, make it presentable to some important people he would bring, and he left us there without offering much of an explanation. The whole crew helped, and even I took advantage of my improved strength and constitution to move some heavy tables and chairs, so that this place could vaguely look like a sales operation of a serious company.

In the end, we assembled one table per species, filling them with the copies of the system while we waited for Fernik to return with the potential clients. I took advantage of the idle time to go upstairs into the second floor, where I retrieved a vial of mana conductive ink from my pocket, and started to draw a copy of the distance communication spell. The person I wanted to contact was obvious, and I had left a twin copy of this spell in the tower before we left the school for this sales trip to the city.

Still, I didn't activate it immediately. I waited until Fernik returned, and I watched as a bunch of people from the three common species followed the Mayor into the warehouse. Most of them were old, and quite a few of them were dressed in expensive-looking attire. The group of Driari especially seemed to all be rich, to the point where they seemed bothered by the fact that this warehouse didn't meet their high standards.

"I know you're not fond of the district meetings, much less when they happen on such short notice," said Fernik.

"But feel free to ignore me and talk only with those two members of your own species, they will introduce you to our new solution so your people won't need to complain anymore about your children forgetting your own language." To my surprise, the Mayor was very good in handling the different groups, taking full advantage of the fact we had a full team of sales representatives of every species. And by observing this, I concluded those people he brought here were community leaders of their people.

The Zufi alphas, the Granar elders, and the Driari elected leaders. And when good luck smiled upon us through Zira, who concluded a sale of six hundred units in a matter of minutes, I finally activated the communication spell and called Sahirah from where I stood on the second floor. Nothing happened initially, the magic circle just glowing to the point I wondered whether the thing was actually working. But then I heard Sahirah's voice in my mind through the spell, already translated through a custom module.

"Eric?" she said.

"Is a girl using this spell right?" I ignored her question.

"Guess what just happened?" I asked teasingly.

"You made your first sale?" I frowned. It wasn't me who made the sale directly, but how the hell had she guessed it so well?

"Our golden goose of an elf worked her magic again," I said.

"Six hundred spheres sold, five hundred credits each." Yeah, three hundred thousand credits in a single sale, and I had deliberately not told Sahirah the number so that she would be forced to do the math herself. Silence took over our distance call. Yet it didn't bother me in the slightest. I watched Niko placing a hand over the shoulder of one of the Zufi alphas and then looking at me with a thumbs up.

Kip and Kap were also presenting the system to their scaled friends, and I knew it was just a matter of time until they made a sale. Sahirah finally replied, "Three hundred thousand credits? Did a girl count that right?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Ten percent of it is sales commission. But Niko finished another sale while you did the math, and there's a whole bunch more now." Silence took over our distance call once more. When she broke the silence, she erased my happiness with a single phrase.

"I wish I was there to see it." I didn't reply immediately this time. Yeah, as much as getting trapped in that tower for a while was the lesser evil, Sahirah was still technically a prisoner as long as Lord Krosak insisted on adopting her. And the worst part was that I hadn't managed to figure out how determined his family actually was to get Sahirah during the previous three days, though the fact that Lord Krosak had never left the school in those three days was a hell of a clue.

And by deliberately avoiding this meeting, I had also quite likely complicated my own situation regarding the soldier who lost his life because of my spell. Still, I wouldn't give up.

"I'm returning to the school as a rich man tonight," I said.

"Just hold on a little longer and everything will be fine." What I didn't say was that I wasn't sure if I would be successful in buying our freedom. And as I watched the sales team at work, I couldn't help but think about how far we'd come since that first sphere exploded the moment Sahirah touched it. Whatever happened next, we'd come this far together, and I knew we'd figure something out.