Delivery

As Tenur and Amir returned to the resting space of Mero's servants and slaves, two men stood in front of the Touma family store in Cusca.

Both were crouched down near some bushes in an area with no buildings or care by this state's noble families or the royal family.

Noskain was a prosperous place compared to others around this little blue world. But even so, fundamental problems of urban infrastructure, such as the presence of untended vegetation, water puddles, and even accumulated garbage, were common to see even in the largest cities of the kingdom.

Right there, those two men dressed in clothes neither worse nor better than those worn by servants were crouching down, observing the store run by Tenur.

"Is this place being watched?" A man of great stature, with noticeable hair on his arms and legs, asked the person next to him, a smaller individual.

Both had weapons at their waists. One had a long-bladed dagger, a common weapon in this area.

That person dressed in a dark green tunic then answered. "Yes, Chief Nail. I have been guarding the store ever since Lady Khaa ordered me to do so, and in fact, recently, two mercenaries have begun to secure this place day and night."

"Two mercenaries? Who are they?" Nail, Khaa's son, asked.

Cusca was not large, so the locals knew quite a bit about each other's lives.

That man answered. "Sefu and Sati."

Hearing those names, Nail made an ugly expression. "Who's there now? Don't tell me it's Sefu?"

"It's him..."

"Damn!"

Sati and Sefu were famous local mercenaries, two quite capable men who Nail himself had hired recently.

Therefore, Nail knew that Sati was the more intelligent of the two, while Sefu was the strongest. The first would be quite difficult to act upon, given his tricks. But the older brother, well, that one, was a beast!

Sefu could easily challenge three ordinary warriors and still have the best chances!

Nail knew that he and his companion would not be a match for Sefu and promptly felt angry with himself.

His mother had sent him a message to help Shui days ago. Still, he had continued his previous work, confident that that servant would seek him out to initiate what his mother wanted.

But surprisingly, that servant of Mero did not seek him out, and earlier today, he had taken a regulation from his mother, who had gone to his workplace to look for him.

So Nail was there now, trying to think of a way to solve his family's problem with his own method since Shui was a slow coward.

"What are we going to do? If we try to break into that place with that animal there, we'll turn into two frozen bodies by dawn." Nail's companion said. "Even if we succeeded in killing him, his damn smart-ass brother would come after us later."

Nail clenched his fists and said. "We have to urge one of the local families to send a group of men to secretly attack this place.

I heard that one of the Nassar family men died recently after failing a mission near this store..."

"Do you think Kat died to Amir?" The man next to Nail frowned his eyebrows.

"Most likely... The Nassar family would be the most damaged of all if this store continued its operations. So they must be trying to harm Mero Touma's store somehow." Nail said.

He was an individual who usually used his rough side more to solve his problems. But as someone raised by a knowledgeable and manipulative woman, he had learned some of his mother's methods.

He had been punished many times for acting differently than she wished, so he had adjusted to her method.

So even though he wasn't that smart, he could spot an opportunity when he saw one. "Let's guide that family to act against that store instead of us.

As long as everyone except Shui is killed, we can return to my mother's operations as in the past few months."

"Oh? All right!"

...

Two later...

Mero's store normally opened in the previous days, selling only paint and stuffed bread due to the lack of resources to produce plaster.

But even so, in those two days, the store had collected another 390 silver coins and 80 bronze coins. With this, Tenur had achieved a profit margin of more than 100%, enough to reduce a little more losses or amounts invested previously.

But there was still a long way to go before he could bring the results of this store out of the red.

The good news was that in these two days, the slaves had finished producing and assembling the items necessary for him to produce alcoholic beverages!

In addition, starting today, the shipment of resources scheduled to take place could arrive any day.

So Tenur started the day in a good mood, right at dawn, going out alongside Amir and Shui to visit the Amari family store, interested in buying some ingredients that would not come on the boat sent by Mero.

He immediately wanted to start producing beer and wine to injure the Gaber family.

"What are we going to do today? Will we lose more of lord Mero's coins on unnecessary things?" Shui asked, as always being negative about everything Tenur tried.

Temur didn't say anything to him. Instead, he just looked at a servant of the Amari family and asked that person to show him some resources.

He had been to this place a few times since the beginning of the agreement between the Mero store and this family, so he already knew which people were reliable and would not get him into trouble.

The patriarch Amari had ordered all his servants to follow strictly clean dealings with Tenur and people from Mero's store.

Upon arriving there, even though he was a slave, Tenur was welcomed, soon being led to the products he wanted to see.

"Very well, that's 60 silver coins, gentlemen." The servant said as he counted all the items Tenur asked for.

Amir made the payment, and soon after, they heard that the products would be delivered by late afternoon.

As they returned to the store, they heard more people on the street talking about the land auction, which the two had talked about earlier. But upon hearing this, neither of them nor Shui was curious about it anymore.

The day before, they had found out that the event would not take place for more than two months, and the location of the land to be auctioned would only be released a week before the auction.

Amir had already notified Mero about this, not having much to do but waiting for the right moment.

Anyway, after a few minutes of walking, the three arrived in front of the store, opening this establishment for another day of operations.

In Noskain, people did not have an exact notion of the days of the week. They knew how to separate the days by the sunrise and knew how many days a month were because of the moon's phases. But there was no calendar with seven days a week, for example.

Without a calendar and in a state where slavery and servitude were dominant, there were no weekends, so the Touma family store was open every day.

'Another day at work...' Tenur stopped in front of the door of this establishment after everyone began to do their duties.

He looked at the movement on the street and suddenly saw several men with carts and animals coming in the distance on that street.

...