VRMMM…
On a stormy evening, a truck pulled into a decrepit district in the slums. Its tires were reinforced with a powerful alchemical enhancement, made to be tougher and much harder to pierce with knives or nails or even magiguns, courtesy of Seliphaz's magic.
CLACK
The back doors of the truck opened up, revealing a flock of people anxiously calling out to the Trinity Housings Sales Team within.
"I want one haven!"
"We would like to purchase two!"
"I would like to purchase one!"
"I have already ordered one last time!"
The crowds drew closer and closer, eager to get their hands on what was now known to have a limited supply. They grew more forceful, pushing and pushing closer and closer to try, as their eyes sparked with the determination to get their hands on at least one haven unit.
"Please give us some space!" Dlint announced as he leaped out of the truck, gesturing for the residents of the slums to back up while several more workers emerged from the truck, immediately forming a perimeter.
They donned enchanted vests that could protect them from knives and even magiguns, albeit imperfectly. Their expressions were serious, and their attention was alert, entirely focused on the crowd of people who eagerly tried to reach out with money to get their hands on a haven unit.
CLACK CLACK CLACK CLACK
Light makeshift fences were erected to separate the residents from the slums, manned by the workers who stood in guard, while another set of fences created a rudimentary line for people to get in and get out after purchasing the haven units.
Instantly, the residents of the slums funneled in as hard as they pushed and pushed past each other, desperately eager to get their hands on the haven units that they so dearly coveted.
"Here's my pre-order ticket!" one young woman gasped with exhaustion as she managed to reach the very front of the line, her light blue hair messy from the little tussle she went through to get to the very front.
Her clothes were scrappy and dusty, patched with stitched cloth to cover holes and tears. She held out a crumpled ticket in one hand, one issued by Trinity Housings in a slightly more formal ordering system once the number of orders began ballooning into the hundreds. In her other hand were notes of currency, crumpled and dirty as they were.
Dlint counted the money quickly before nodding to his two subordinates inside the truck.
"One haven unit for the young miss."
Her eyes lit up as she clasped the holding strap of the housing unit, directing a grateful smile at Dlint with a simple nod before departing in a hurry, anxious of the greedy eyes that the men and women in the locality had as she ran past them.
She needed to anchor and root the unit within her home, where her family was, before someone could rob it from her.
"I want one too!"
"Two for me!"
"I also have an order!"
"Please remain calm!" Dlint announced once more. "We have plenty to go about this time, and we will be coming daily with lots of havens!"
And yet, the crowd was not to be calmed down, only growing more and more eager and determined to get their hands on the diminishing supply of haven units that they could see with their eyes.
The fixed quota for the given district ran out within half an hour.
By the time each haven unit allocated to the district had been sold out, the only thing left around the truck was a cloud of dust that raised by the stampede of the men and women fighting to get their hands on a haven unit, and running away like they held gold in their hands the very moment they acquired a purchase.
"Cough cough…!" Dlint shook his head lightly as he waved some dust out of his face, heaving a resigned sigh. "I didn't think demand for the haven unit was going to be this intense. It's too stressful."
RUMBLE…
The roar of thunder emerged from the skies after flashes of lightning spread across the dark sheet of clouds covering the entire sky. The icy wind carried the dust away with a chilling gust as Dlint studied the skies with a serious expression. "Then again, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised."
He turned to his subordinates. "Pack up, men, it's time to return to HQ soon. Have you transmitted the sales records back?"
"Already done, boss."
"Good…" he threw one last severe glance at the stormy skies. "Then let's get out of here before the storm unleashes."
It wasn't long before they quickly gathered back all the light fencing they had with them, closing the truck door behind them.
VRMMMM
The truck departed from the slums in a hurry as the storm began picking, hurriedly returning back to Trinity Housings' headquarters, where Feidin, Cæ, and Seliphaz concerned themselves with the sales data that the sales team transmitted.
"…nine hundred and sixty-three sales today alone." Feidin's tone was stunned.
The three of them were in the general office on the second floor, a busy and messy office with documents scattered around the tables and shelves of the office. Feidin sat at the table, with several monitors seated before him, while Cæ and Seliphaz stood behind him.
Seliphaz's mouth was open as she stared at the tabulated data on the screen while Cæ nodded with satisfaction and approval on his otherwise impassive face.
"This is incredible!" Seliphaz exclaimed as she readjusted her round spectacles, brushing aside her short, messy blue hair behind her ears as she leaned forward with amazed eyes. "To think we would approach four-digit daily sales this quickly!"
She turned around to Cæ with an awed expression. "You were right. We may very well saturate the market that we're targeting at this rate! Choosing to contract with many more contract manufacturers, even at the cost of a lower profit percentage split, was worth it!"
Cæ nodded. "Not just that. We have increased the efficiency and productivity of our sales with your alchemy, securing the trucks physically. It has become safer to take the trucks directly into the slums and sell our goods there as it reduces time, labor, liability, and the cost of distribution. This has made our operations more stable and healthier, financially."
"I must concur with the CEO."
STEP
A middle-aged woman with a plain disposition and an unassuming appearance stepped into the general office, holding several files in her hands, dressed in her formal office attire, comprising a matching pair of shirt and skirt.
"Mrs. Meriam," Cæ remarked as he turned around to meet her impassive, pointed gaze. "I'm glad that we can agree on something."
She had been quite critical of Cæ's leadership of Trinity Housings in the time that she had worked in the company as the chief financial officer, leaving Cæ rather surprised at her vocal agreement.
She stirred at those words with a mixed expression. "…I do not disagree with you on principle. And in regards to our disagreement—"
She raised the documents that she held in her hands. "—I believe that you have been largely, albeit not entirely, able to live up to your promise of proving yourself by results."
Cæ raised an eyebrow as a knowing expression emerged in his eyes. "Those are the…"
"They are the company accounts," she remarked. "After tallying up the count of our nominal and overhead expenditures, credit, and income and comparing our daily numbers for the past week since the latest implementations with the retro-variable credit scheme that we are borrowing money under, I have determined that…"
Her expression softened, "That we are very much in the financial green with a healthy portion of our revenue being retained as profits."
Feidin's eyes lit up with an excited delight while Seliphaz's expression illuminated with ecstasy.
Cæ heaved a sigh of relief. "That's good to hear, but…"
His eyes sharpened with a glint of determination. "We need to stay on our toes. Our success is anything but solidified, and our current fortunes aren't stable yet. We need to mass produce havens and flood the forty-eight districts of the slums with them."
This time, Feidin and Seliphaz were much more convinced of Cæ's ideas than they were when he presented them a week ago. They hadn't expected the demand for haven units would only grow even more intense than it did in the past, which had already exceeded even their greatest expectations.
"Once our sales in the forty-eight districts start to plateau a little, we should immediately focus on shifting towards the outer districts that we haven't touched yet," Cæ continued with a serious expression. "We cannot allow ourselves to be limited to merely forty-eight districts. The preparations that I have made with the Talent Acquisition Task Force of the Elendir Institute of Magic will soon be very ready."
Feidin and Seliphaz stirred with a hint of discomfort.
This was the part about Cæ's plans that they still weren't too happy about. He had just asked them to trust him and have their faith in him that this was a good idea due to some secret that he couldn't reveal.
He had insisted that if Feidin had known the same information that he did, he would have made the same decisions that Cæ had. To this day, neither of them had yet to understand why Cæ wanted to expand sales to the deeper districts of the slums further and further away from the inner city and also poorer.
These were also the most dangerous parts of the slums, where even the residents of the slums had to be very careful for their own safety, lest they be assaulted, robbed, trafficked, and potentially even enslaved and sold to the upper-class laundered illegal slave market in Colohen City.
Not even Seliphaz, in all her eagerness to help the people of the slums, was too keen about expanding deeper and deeper into the lawless parts of the slums. With the forty-eight districts of the slums that they were currently selling haven models in, these districts bordered the inner city, and the influence of the inner city was too much for gangs to form a proper absolutist stronghold over the territories.
Deeper into the slums, however, the gangs of the slums had a much fiercer control over the slums as arms and legs of the Colohen Mafia and the Underworld at large.
"I still don't understand why you are fixated on selling in the most dangerous places of the slums, to be honest with you," Feidin heaved a sigh. "But you have earned more of my trust with the success of our last implementation, which was also a success, so I will still place my faith in—"
BZZZT BZZZT!
Feidin frowned as the phone in his pocket buzzed loudly. "That's strange. My news alert app doesn't go off unless something major happe—"
His eyes widened with surprise as he read through the notification of the message. "…what?"
His tone was truly moved.
Cæ narrowed his eyes with a hint of suspicion. "What happened?"
Feidin stared at his phone with a truly bewildered expression. "The Prime Minister… is holding a press conference at the Central Headquarters to announce a nationwide rate-cut from the Central Bank of Elendir! Not just that, he's announcing a new financial credit program!"
Seliphaz frowned, not entirely understanding why this was such a big deal.
Mrs. Meriam, on the other hand, grew truly surprised as her otherwise deadpan expression crumbled. "Is that true?"
Feidin stared at his phone with disbelief, immediately turning back to his laptop as he furiously searched for several keywords in his search engine before it yielded several links.
Including a governmental livestream of the announcement.
CLICK
A video feed immediately enlarged on the screen of the monitor, one of a man clad in a custom-tailored suit, hand-woven from magical fabric checkered with encrypted runes that shone dimly along the fabric of the protective artifact it was.
Around him in the feed were several mages, armed to the very teeth with active magic surveilling the entire area and simultaneously protecting him with passive barriers.
The flag of the Democratic Republic of Elendir waved prominently in the chill winds of the evening while the dim light of the twilight gently lit up the Central Headquarters perfectly positioned behind the Prime Minister. The leader of the nation smiled gently, directing a sweeping gaze to the gathered press with his aged eyes.
"Citizens of Elendir, I, Prime Minister Mendel, have called this press conference to make an important announcement to the entire nation."
His elderly tone was serious.