Ruthless ~ 47!

~ 47 ~

“So is there a reason that Aten made me come with you?” Mike grumpily demanded as Joe and several other people with extremely high carrying capacity walked deep into Ardania. “I know that you said you needed help, but why should the Vice Guild Leader have to be the one that helps you with a secret task?”

Joe stopped dead in his tracks and turned to Mike. “Listen. Do you remember when I talked to the guild about buying up all the items and such that they could? How I really pressed the issue, and the board of directors vetoed it until they saw that prices were starting to climb? How the guild missed out because they didn’t listen to a basic economics lesson?”

“I do, and I was the one who made everything happen, lest you forget.” Mike raised a hand to calm Joe. “I’ve been on your side for all of that.”

“Yeah, well.” Joe ran a hand over his bald head. “I’m the reason that the guild missed out on all the good stuff. When I first got to Ardania, I had a hundred thousand gold with me. Since then, I’ve spent most of that on goods. Through proxies, of course. My mother was able to get merchant discounts, Jess was able to put together lists of everything she could think of that I’d need, and I gave both of them access to my accounts. In fact, I’m just about broke right now, to the point that I can’t even buy replacements for the gear I lost today.”

“What? Really?” Mike’s face lit up. “We’d be happy to help you out and buy what I assume is building materials?”

“And you just found out why you’re here.” Joe handed over a parchment with Aten’s signature on it. “I’m selling everything we need at double what I bought it for to the guild.”

“What? What about all the discounts you were talking about?” Mike’s left eye twitched as he looked at the authorization order from Aten. “Double what you paid for them? I highly doubt-”

“Here is the expense report, and everything you can expect for cost.” Joe handed over a full scroll full of numbers and items. “On the left is what I’m willing to sell to the guild, followed by the price. The column after that is current market value, and the final one is our estimate on what it would cost the guild to buy these things.”

Mike scanned the document, his face paling. “Has the price on these cured oak beams really quintupled?”

“You are free to run to the market and confirm it for yourself.” Joe told him directly. “Remember, Mike. A billion people were dropped into an area that was previously barely supporting a quarter of that. A single loaf of fresh bread is getting close to a silver right now.”

They kept walking as Mike kept reading. “Do you really have all of these things?”

“What you have in your hand is the list of things in my warehouse, given to me by my mother. She is also the one that listed out the market value on them. If there is a more accurate list in all of Ardania, the only place you would find it would be her shop.” Joe smiled as he thought of his mother, and her relationship with Blas. He had never seen her happier than she was now, and it blew him away how well she had settled into a life in Eternium. “We’re here, let’s put these guys to work. Make sure to keep a proper accounting of everything they carry, because if we don't use it and it goes missing, you’re still on the hook for paying for it.”

“Won’t be an issue, Joe.” Mike nodded at the people with them. “These are some of the guild’s most trustworthy people. Besides that, none of them would want to lose their position, benefits, free food, and affordable housing over building supplies!”

Joe decided not to comment on the fact that Mike was being louder than conversational volume. ‘Trustworthy’ members, indeed, it seemed. The shadows in the area were deep enough that Mike couldn’t see their expressions, but Joe clearly saw them grimace. He hoped that it was only because they were having their honor called out like this, but either way they simply got to work. Mike stood next to the men as wood, cut stone, crates of nails, fashioned doors, and pallets of shingles were loaded into storage devices. Mike looked sidelong at Joe when they got to the shingles, but Joe was innocently looking away. “Wait a second… we get benefits?”

“They get benefits.”

The talking ended, and everyone set to work. Thanks to the spacial bags, rings, packs, or whatever else was being used, the entire process took under an hour to complete. In fact, it would have gone much faster if they hadn’t needed to check what was in everything and write it down. Eventually, and reluctantly, Mike had to call everyone to a halt. “That should be enough for our purposes… as much as I want it all, this is a shop at this point and we need to pay for it. We still have to pay for it, right?”

Joe rolled his eyes at the hopeful question, “Yes, Mike. Unless I can just walk into the guild treasury and clean it out for free as a ‘reward’ after an extra large raid?”

“Fine, I see your point.” Mike sighed and the group started walking out of the building. Seeing that Joe wasn't joining them, Mike gave him a questioning look.

“I have some things I need to get while I’m here, I’ll see you all back at the guild.” Joe closed the warehouse doors, and turned to look at the huge stacks of stuff. Even with all the things that the guild had just bought, the room was still three-quarters full. Not everything was building supplies, about one-twentieth of it was components, rare materials, and various objects of interest. Even so, at the time of purchase those components and such cost as much or more than the otherwise full warehouse of building supplies.

Joe started walking through the area; awkwardly pushing his hips forward and letting the stacks be swallowed into his Copiece of Holding. Since he was starting near the bottom of each pile, everything fell straight down and was pulled in directly. There were a few times when a corner came down awkwardly and landed on him, but all in all it was a very efficient method of grabbing everything. Besides, he was able to restore the pulverized bones after a little screaming and a quick spell. After that, he pumped mana into his recently-shattered Exquisite Shell and kept going.

In about an hour, he was able to clear the entire warehouse simply by walking through it and directing his codpiece accordingly. Joe looked around the area and nodded sadly. This was the first place he had really done research on rituals. Right over there, Joe had captured Cel and kept him in a ritual of containment while testing healing spells on him. Still, it was time to let go of this place.

Joe hadn't been joking when he told Mike that he couldn’t currently afford to replace his gear. Jess had run up to him while he had been talking to Aten, handed him a foreclosure notice, then took him aside to let him know that she and his mother had spent every single gold he had put in the bank. At first, Joe wasn't sure how to react, but everything had worked out pretty well. By selling five buildings’ worth of raw material, he should have enough to get by until his team and he were out and adventuring again.

Either way, he only had until midnight to clear out the building before the owner of the Odds and Ends shop would be forced to confiscate all his goods. His mother, the owner, had tried to figure a way around it, but the kingdom used royal authority to purchase all the land in this area. Though Joe had a lease, it was annulled and he had made a bit of money back. Joe looked down at his spacial storage device and grinned while shaking his head. “I have made a warehouse out of my junk.”

He left the building behind and traveled back through Ardania to the town square. At this time of the night, at least there was no one recruiting for the destruction of his guild. No one was singing about their black hearts of lack of ‘charity’ either. Joe snorted at that; his guild gave out more free food than any other. He pulled open his quest list and looked at the task his guild had given him.

Quest completed: Feed the People! The greenhouse that you have created is now able to support the nutrition requirements of ten thousand people! Good thing they can eat vegetables, right? Reward: 10,000 guild contribution points!

Quest gained: Feed the People II. Figure out a way to stretch resources enough to support 25,000 people! Reward: Guild contribution points, reputation increase with the people being fed! Failure: reputation decrease with the guild. Time limit: 30:18:23:33.

“Thirty days to figure out how to feed twenty-five thousand people? Guess I’m gonna take a hit to my reputation unless I flood the greenhouse with monsters and make it a food dungeon. Forget this.” Joe realized that he was getting grumpy from sleep deprivation, so he went back to the guild to get some shuteye. 

Far too soon, Joe needed to get rolling on making some buildings. Still, even though he had so much to do the next day, he ignored his spinning thoughts and fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. All too soon, far too soon, he was getting woken up by the rising sun streaming onto his face. 

Joe grumpily covered his face and shook a fist at the window, “I need to figure out who in this world makes curtains, and then put them on retainer.”