Chapter 31 Profits

"CLINK!"

"CLINK!"

"CLINK!"

As Alonso walked through the mines, he could hear the constant reverberating of metal against stone, as the miners chipped away to gather resources. "So how has the operation been coming along?" Alonso questioned holding a book in his hand.

"Well its the same as usual, with our current pace we should be producing about 10 Million Beris a month of coal, after deducting costs such as wages we'll have around 8 Million Beris a month." A middle age man replied, as Alonso took note in the book.

"Good this is lining up with projections." Alonso nodded, before touring more of the mine. He made it a point to inspect the mine at least once a week to make sure nothing was going wrong and he was quite pleased to say the least.

'In reality we still need someone to supply the coal to but we can worry about that later as his Majesty hasn't made any decisions on this matter yet.' He pondered, inspecting the workers and the coal produces as he walked through the mine. An hour later Alonso finished his inspection and made his way to the old city of Lawless.

The city was much better off than it was before to say the least. Buildings were remade albeit unprofessionally with wood hammered everywhere, making the city look crude to say the least, but what were the soldiers meant to do?

On the other hand some buildings were much nicer compared to the crude repairs of the soldiers, looking much more professional and pleasing to the eye in comparison. Naturally this was the handiwork of the construction workers.

Off to the side of the city one building in particular stood out from the masses, the gun manufacturing factory. Seeing the building Alonso couldn't help but smile, after all guns had many uses.

Heading inside the factory, Alonso witnessed 10 men fiddling around with various tools as they molded various materials. "Ah, Sir Alonso have you come to inspect our work?" One of the men smiled placing down what he was doing.

At the same time all of them looked towards Alonso. "Don't mind me, I am just here to inspect your work if you don't mind." Alonso voiced, taking out hit book. Seeing this the 10 men simply nodded, they were currently working on developing flintlocks.

Unlike flintlocks from Earth flintlocks in One Piece could fire multiple times in a row making them extremely useful for dealing with large amounts of weaker enemies, assuming the one using the flintlock had some skill.

An hour later one of the flintlocks was completed and clearly the manufacturer was proud. "So how many does that make now?" Alonso inquired, his eyes darting to a barrel at the side. "This should be the 137th gun." One of them replied.

The factory had been rebuilt a month ago, so this number was good and bad depending on how one looked at it. They had 10 men and 30 days so that meant they made about 4.5 guns a day give or take, but this wasn't too much of a worry because overtime the process would only get faster and faster.

"From my experience the guns we're making should typically sell anywhere between 50,000-100,000 Beris I don't know about the costs you've been incurring to provide us materials but considering our salaries, you're definitely going to make a profit." He chuckled fiddling with the newly made gun in his hand.

In reality being a gun manufacturer was quite profitable and most would sell privately if they could, but the sad truth was if they tried to do that they could either be raided by pirates one day or they could have trouble acquiring the starting funds, they also wouldn't have a specialised facility either so for them working for the Kingdom was much more stable and safer considering their older age.

"Then this is a satisfying development, keep up the good work, in a month or so some young men will be sent to learn from you, and we'll be implementing something know as a production line. I'll have more information for you later." Alonso explained before departing from the factory.

On the other side of Lawless Kaf was currently watching over the soldiers as they practiced their techniques. 'Lately there's been a few pirate attacks luckily they've all been pretty weak so losses have been minimal.' Kaf thought, over the months he had been protecting Lawless and fighting off some various small pirates who tried to invade.

Day by day the soldiers grew stronger and more resolute as they continued fighting off the pirates. Kaf also refined his skills as he thought off new methods and tactics to fight off the pirates, because how else would he spend his time on Lawless?

Later that day all the people on Lawless gathered at the city and ate their dinner before heading off to sleep, days were pretty mundane on the newly conquered island, at least most of the time.

"Haa, setting out to sea is so nice." Arch sighed atop the Perfume Yuda, he was happy to finally have time to relax after constant paperwork. 'I wonder how Alonso is doing, the last report I got was a bout a week ago.' Arch pondered gazing at the sea.