Feidin and Seliphaz gulped with a hint of anxiety while Cæ simply nodded with satisfaction as he directed a scrutinizing gaze across the scary delinquent gangsters that Dlint brought with him.
"Thanks, boss," Dlint nodded curtly with an intense expression. "I rounded up the men I trust the most, who have been looking for a way to get out of the slums for some time now. They are willing to do whatever it takes if you are willing to give them that opportunity to do that."
Cæ could tell that that was the truth.
For one, he didn't smell any drugs on them.
One of the largest shackles that held people back in the slums was becoming addicted to substances of all kinds and going as far as to develop a chemical dependence on them. Steering away from them in an environment where they were so easy to find was one of the reasons that it was so difficult to escape from the slums.
From what he could tell, the men before him were clean, which was a good sign that they were sincere about their desire to leave the slums and move into the inner city. He definitely didn't have any intentions of letting anybody compromised into his company.
THUD
Cæ jumped off the first floor, landing cleanly on his feet as he approached the men.
"If you are particularly sincere about your desire to leave the slums," he began with a composed tone, "then I am able to help you. I can give you a job that, with a lot of savings, should allow you to get humble living quarters that will be far better than anything that the slums have to offer."
The men were clearly intrigued by the offer. "…How much?"
"Fifteen thousand a month," Cæ replied.
The figure stirred them where they stood.
Cæ knew that it was an order of magnitude above the median earnings of the slums, far, far higher than anything that they could hope to earn doing odd jobs in the slums.
The man at the front stepped forward with a suspicious gaze. His body was burly and muscular, barely fitting within the tattered, patched shirt that he wore, unable to hide all the scars that ran across his entire body.
His intense eyes fixed themselves onto Cæ's calm, dichromatic gray eyes.
The air tingled electrically as Feidin and Seliphaz flinched at the intensity of the confrontation.
"What's the catch?"
His tone was suspicious.
Cæ grew amused at the lining of the question. "The catch is that you do your job earnestly."
"Hmph, you'd think I'd believe you?" the man snorted. "We're not so naive."
Cæ heaved a sigh.
He wasn't particularly surprised that they couldn't easily believe that he was going to pay them such a high salary just for a simple job. In the slums, this kind of money would be enough to commission beatdowns or murder.
"Things work differently in the inner city." Cæ was strangely patient with people who were in a situation that he himself had found himself in. "We will sign a contract that details the transaction of money for your labor. There are no hidden 'catches' that are waiting to trap you. Do your work, and you'll get your money."
They stirred at his words, clearly surprised.
"You want us to… take your li'l box and show 'em that it works?" the man raised an eyebrow.
"Yes, to put it simply," Cæ replied. "Dlint will train you on exactly what you will need to do in the next week. After that, you can decide if you want to take up the job or not. What do you say, Mr…?"
"The name's Doven." He grunted. "…I don't know why you are paying people so much just for living in a box in the slums, but… if that's what you want, we can handle it. But there's one issue…"
His eyes sharpened. "What'll you do if a gang decides that you're not allowed to sell your little boxes?"
Cæ's expression grew more serious. "I don't intend to venture into the territory of any of the major or minor gangs in the slums. My target market is in the innermost ring of the slums that is closest to the inner city. This tends to be a no-gang-land as it's too close to the inner city."
Doven stirred with thought at the answer, realizing the merits of that plan. "Still, that doesn't mean you'll be safe for long. If you sell too much and they start seeing them boxes all around, they won't remain silent and just watch you do your little thing, y'hear?"
Cæ simply regarded his words with a knowing nod.
Gangs often wanted a piece of every single pie there was within the slums. That didn't mean that they would aggressively pursue every single commercial venture, of which there were almost zero, to begin with, unfortunately, Cæ couldn't rule out the possibility that one or more of the gangs of the slums would take interest in his goods and decide that there was too much money to be made.
It was possible that they would try to steal the goods or demand tributes or protection fees.
"If they do try to interfere in my business…" Cæ's tone gained an edge of peril as his eyes glinted with chilling intensity, "I will burn them alive."
Goosebumps crawled across everybody's skin.
"I will burn every last one of them."
He unveiled just a little of the boundless rage and hatred he harbored within his heart.
Doven broke into a cold sweat as he took several steps back. He felt more danger from Cæ than he did from almost anybody else in the slums.
Cæ closed his eyes as he collected himself, breathing deeply.
When he opened his eyes, he had returned to his calm, albeit severe disposition: his expression stoic and his eyes impassive.
"I will handle any problems that we encounter," his tone was chillingly calm. "By myself."
With the power of magic, he no longer had to cower before the gangs of the slums that contributed to making everybody's lives worse, including his, for much of his life. He could single-handedly take down a small army of non-mages all by himself.
The gangs of the slums were violent, but their absence of magicapita and magical skill or knowledge meant that they didn't have the power,r and they didn't have the skill to utilize what little power they had.
Unfortunately, he knew that things weren't as simple as that.
"…There's more to the slums than just gangs," Dlint warned, "Gangs're… just the surface. There are larger… greater forces moving in the shadows."
His tone was ominous.
"You should know this."
Cæ's eyes sharpened. "…I don't have any intention of provoking the Underworld."
The air darkened at the very mention of it. The men grew severe while Feidin and Seliphaz gulped nervously at the direction that the discussion was going.
Comprised of the black market for all criminalized goods and services, the Underworld was an umbrella term that included any and all black markets across different levels. They often conducted manly of their operations hidden in the slums where they were away from the reach of conventional modern civilization.
It was an open secret, especially to those who lived in the slums.
Human trafficking, illegal substances, illegal information, dark magic, violence, and a variety of other criminalized goods and services were exchanged in or routed through the slums.
"Hmph," Doven accepted the answer with a snort. "Just make sure you don't get ahead of yourself. Stick to the innermost circle and do not stray any further into the slums."
Cæ nodded. "Then, I suppose we are in agreement."
He turned to Dlint with a nod. "Have them memorize the protocols and the general plan and draft up the employment contracts."
Dlint nodded with a hint of satisfaction in his eyes, pleased that the deal went through for his men.
WHOOSH
He cast a magic circle, flying back up to the second floor where Feidin and Seliphaz were.
STEP
"With this…" he landed before them, "we have finalized all aspects of the business and the operations. Which means…"
His gaze intensified, "…it's finally time."
The two of his fellow co-owners lit up at his words as they understood what he was referring.
"It's finally time to complete the final step of officially creating the company."
Cæ turned to Feidin. "I trust you have all the permits, licenses, finances, and other registrations ready, right?"
Starting a business officially and on paper was not as simple as a few clicks on a magital portal. There was a considerable amount of paperwork that went into it beforehand, prior to the stage where one could actually register it on paper.
One of the reasons they had waited until the last minute to officially launch the business was because of a tax break incentive scheme that the government had for brand-new businesses, reducing the taxes on the net income of the first financial year.
"The process is almost complete," Feidin remarked. "I have completed all the necessary paperwork in the past month. Now all we need is our signatures and…"
He smiled enthusiastically, "our business will officially exist."
It was a surreal moment after all the months that they had put into developing and building the business. For Cæ, it had been eighteen months since he had first conceived of the idea while temporarily taking shelter in the slums.
Reaching this point since then hadn't been easy. It took months of his own extensive research, brokering deals with the Headmistress for magicapita while finding the perfect business partner to help him build the business up, as well as just the right mage to help develop a product that adhered to his constraints and fulfilled his conditions.
From that point, Feidin and Seliphaz had led the charge with the business, fleshing it out with great effort over many months. The three of them had collectively invested a lot into the business and now they had finally reached the moment of their business officially being created.
FLAP
Feidin placed a thick stack of sheets bound together in a file on the table in the conference hall they had migrated to. On the very front page, a large and bold title, 'Ministry of Commercial Affairs,' was at the top of the page, beneath the symbol of a cornucopia surrounded by circular olive branches: the coat of arms of the Democratic Republic of Elendir.
FLAP FLAP FLAP
Cæ skimmed through the pages of the document, with different registration forms for Seliphaz, Feidin, and Cæ, specifying the ownership and the equity that each of them had in the company.
Cæ owned about fifty percent, while Feidin and Seliphaz owned about fifty percent in total. The rest of the extensive document specified the licenses, permits, and financial registration of the yet-to-exist company and other legal paperwork. He spotted Seliphaz's and Feidin's signatures across the entire document, as well as seals of the government of the Democratic Republic of Elendir across the entire page.
Everything was ready.
The business was on the very verge of coming to life.
"Huff…" Cæ heaved a deep breath as he grabbed a pen, signing away on page after page carefully.
Feidin and Seliphaz grew jittery with nervousness as they watched Cæ's movements like hawks.
The air tingled.
The atmosphere grew electric from the sheer weight of their anticipation.
Despite paperwork being the most mundane and dull of processes that most people loathed to go through, the three of them could not stop their hearts from racing as they drew closer and closer to the promised beginning.
And just like that, it was done.
Cæ's eyes lit up as he gazed at the name of the company on the final page.
The name that they had all chosen together.
"Trinity Housings."
And just like that, they had opened up a new chapter in their lives as they commenced their venture to house the slums.
-