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After saying the main thing, Tenur added. "Also, we can prioritize the deliveries of the orders made by the Amari family over that of other families. Of course, we would have to talk first... But everything can be worked out."

Adham listened to Tenur's proposal, which was quite tempting, and stopped to think it over for a moment.

'The plaster, the paint, and the bread... These are hard-to-find items for the price and quality offered by Mero Touma's store.

So even if they are not always needed, they will certainly become popular in the kingdom.

Having a good relationship with the makers of this product could be an opportunity for my House Amari!' He pondered.

He could notice that anyone who bought plaster would not have to repurchase for some time, which made the discounts Tenur promised not so attractive. However, the fact that he could connect to a higher-level force and not have it as a competitor was already excellent.

But the Amari family would still have the chance to become the secondary supplier of the local House Touma store.

That was a great point to consider!

The bread business would certainly become a recurring thing, and paint and plaster would move the local powers until many properties were plated.

But even after that, the local store could still produce these materials to be sold in different areas of the kingdom. On the other hand, from what some of the early customers of Tenur's plaster had noticed, this material could be damaged quite easily.

It was not the kind of thing that would fall apart overnight for no reason, but an earthquake or hammering could damage these plaster structures. And with that, the need to repurchase the material would arise.

That man was a local leader, so even though he lived in a primitive society, he could see that these materials would not disappear in the future. So even if it wasn't beneficial for his family to ally with House Touma, he could still gain quite a bit.

"That deal pleases me quite a bit..." He said, looking at Tenur but occasionally watching Amir. "But would young master Mero accept something like that? There is no point in you promising me these things and him not agreeing to these conditions."

Tenur was silent and looked at Amir, who had more ownership to talk about this.

That servant replied. "Senior Amari, I dare not say that surely lord Mero will follow these conditions. Only he can say that.

But I believe that if the Amari family doesn't try to sell the resources they buy from us, he will be inclined to make this deal.

My lord will get a good return from it, and his business can develop more easily."

Adham could assume this for himself since, with his support, fewer powers in Cusca would risk standing against that store.

Unlike the Touma family store, which pretty much only had its name on protecting its items, servants, and slaves, the Amari House had a small force capable of causing chaos in Cusca.

The other three local noble houses and the imperial forces' post also had groups of armed warriors. However, even though they were not the strongest local family or the only ones with armed warriors, the Amari family could provide plenty of security for the Touma store.

Going from being defenseless to becoming a local military power ally would already be quite a change for the store run by Tenur!

In acting against him, the local powers would have to consider possible reprisals from an area power, not from a force that would take weeks to send its men!

That was the reason Tenur and Amir were there to take care of business!

"If that is the case, we can start the deal tomorrow!" Adham commented as he stood up, smiling, satisfied with this deal.

Tenur and Amir were even more pleased, as they might as well have just saved their lives by getting a powerful ally locally.

Amir said. "We will relay this conversation to lord Mero, and as soon as possible, we will notify the senior of the probable date of our master's visit."

"Hmmm, that's fine with me... But what about the business we've already done?"

Tenur replied. "We can advance the senior's deliveries. I just need a day to go over it."

"Perfect!"

...

After their conversations, Tenur and Amir returned to Mero's minions' rest area, planning to rest.

"Tomorrow, we will see two mercenaries to stay in the store," Tenur said to Amir.

"Will we still need that even with the Amari family by our side?"

That foreigner stated. "Yes. Just from the business with the Amari family, they won't keep surveillance and protection of our lord's store all the time. So we will need more people capable of fighting if we don't want to be overly vulnerable."

"Do you think someone will attack us hard enough to immediately immobilize us?" Amir frowned his eyebrows.

"The store is making a profit and drawing local attention. At the same time, we are not part of a post of an emerging power, which can be manipulated into handing over its values to 'associates.' We are part of the store of lord Mero, a member of the powerful Touma family.

That is, if the family realizes the store's value, there will be no room for the local powers to get rid of us.

Either they act now or accept that we will put them in the shadows, even if Cusca is a small place and still ignored by the Touma family." Tenur said.

That was a difficult time, a period where people did not follow the rules easily unless they were benefited or threatened significantly. But even in this society, predicting enemy movements was still not so simple due to an absence of study and the difficult passage of local knowledge.

Certainly, some elders from Noskain's noble families would have a perception similar to Tenur's. Still, Amir had not reached that level of experience to notice such things.

Because of this, Tenur could impress this servant with his abilities from his thousands of years of experience.

In his life, Tenur had seen countless times powers acting to eradicate enemy forces before it was too late.

At first, the problem would arise, and then these powers would analyze the damage they could do by moving. Then, after some consideration, if the problem were really complicated but possible to solve by violence, most of the time, these powers would choose the annihilation option.

Hell, Tenur had already seen sovereigns give up technologies that could revolutionize Rinia just because they had no guarantee that these technologies would benefit their families!

So even though plaster and paint were cheap and interesting to everyone, local powers with the potential to be harmed by this would probably be against these options, even if they could benefit from them!

Amir was not stupid, so he saw the logic in Tenur's words.

"You are right. Let's prepare for the worst!"

...

The next day, the fifth since the opening of Mero's store under Tenur's command...

At dawn, Tenur and Amir made their way alongside Shui to a local tavern, where they had heard they could find some of the local mercenaries.

In Cusca, there was no place where one could go and find several of these professionals on hand. Instead, these free men would usually have to be found in taverns, restaurants, and places where only those with contacts or luck could find them.

These three then entered a tavern where two mercenary brothers supposedly spent their days, sometimes drinking, sometimes offering their services to people with various interests.

The store was still closed, so only the three of them were there for this first attempt.

"Why did you guys insist on looking for mercenaries?" Shui asked, not the least bit bothered to do so in the morning.

Since there were no developed technologies in this society, people generally slept just after dark and woke up at sunrise. Consequently, at 6 a.m., the taverns and streets of Cusca were already crowded with people coming and going.

What bothered Shui were the motivations for the actions of these two...

Amir then replied. "That is for the safety of the store. I fear that some power unhappy with the recent success of lord Mero's store will do something dangerous... Then it is time we had some men on our side."

"Is that really interesting?" Shui insisted. "It will be another cost to the store."

The store had profited from product sales, considering the cost of acquiring the ingredients. But buying four slave women and now hiring mercenaries would cost more than the store's profits...

"Don't worry about it, senior Shui. My head is the one on the line. If the store doesn't make a profit, I'll be the one to lose." Tenur said before smiling at that individual and entering the tavern before them.

...