The Touma Shop in Cusca 2

After arriving in Cusca, Tenur would spend the first whole day reading the scrolls of this place, which marked the incoming and outgoing resources, as well as the actions of the servant Shui managing this store.

The store would be closed for the whole day due to his orders while he analyzed the current situation of this place.

The servants and slaves there who did not know Tenur's methods would all strangely close at his initial orders, but since they had nothing to do, most accepted them easily.

Only Shui didn't like how Tenur was taking things, and he naturally complained to Amir.

None of this would do any good since it was too early for Amir to worry about anything related to this man who had done so many good deeds during the past two months.

...

Late afternoon in Cusca...

Tenur had finished reading the scrolls with the records of this store.

When he finished, he walked to the exit of that store and looked at the beautiful sunset of the surrounding area.

'Now I understand why this place doesn't profit.' He thought as he sighed. 'Besides there being few customers, or rather, few local businesses, Shui has been diverting resources to improve his own situation.'

From what he had found out, Mero's store should not make a loss. However, Shui could be considered a genius for his time and had found a way to hide some moves from his superiors.

Because of this, he seemed to be paying the store's expenses but was paying for the life of his entire family that he had made in this city when he arrived two years ago.

But amidst Shui's corruption, the place also had several inefficiencies.

For example, a good healthy slave could easily carry a thousand bags of sand in a single day. But to do a job similar to just moving 2,000 bags of sand, this place had six slaves.

Each slave ate once a day, so the food cost of this place was at least three times what was needed!

Apart from this, Tenur had already noticed several things to be improved in this store, which he would resolve the next day.

So before he left next to servant Amir, Tenur looked at those people and said. "Fellows, you can go on with your usual routines.

Those who have come with me today follow the other slaves to eat and rest. Don't do anything beyond that.

We will start some changes early tomorrow, so don't be late."

The captives slowly dispersed after his orders while Shui had already left.

With that, Tenur turned to Amir and began walking beside this tall, strong man with a calm appearance.

"Senior Amir, I have a problem that I need your help with."

"Oh? What is it about?" He asked, interested.

Tenur replied. "I have suspicions about some of Senior Shui's actions. But I don't want to notify lord Mero before I have more concrete evidence. So I'd like to know if senior can help me to..."

Quickly, Tenur explained his plan to catch Shui stealing resources from the Touma family store.

Amir naturally felt strange to find out about Tenur's suspicion of Shui. After all, a servant betraying their master was a grave crime punishable by death.

Every servant knew this, and to risk one's life for small coins that would not even change one's life much was stupid.

Not only the servant who betrayed their master could be killed if caught. Everyone involved, even free men could be harmed!

The extermination of entire families was not so rare in Noskain!

But since Tenur had already performed several meritorious services, and Amir knew that Mero would give this slave a chance to prove his theory, he agreed to go along with the plan.

While they talked about this, the two walked through the central area of Cusca, where were the few houses where one could find meat, bread, and other basic foodstuffs locally.

The population of this place lived basically on leftovers, and few were the citizens who could afford to buy food outside the families they belonged to.

Even those who could, given the small difference in quality between making something at home and buying it on the street, few bought food outside their homes.

This place was made up of free men that existed in the area, slaves that served the families that mined, and servants to these powerful houses.

So there was not much to do locally, the options for eating or visiting were few, and the quality was as low as anyone could hope for.

Anyway, Tenur and Amir managed to find a place to eat before returning to the store, which at the back of it had a place for the captives and servants of Mero to rest.

'If I want to transform this store, I'll have to change the situation in this town as well...' Tenur imagined before going to sleep in the little room he got because of his position above the other slaves.

...

The next day...

When the sun rose, Tenur was already standing in front of the Touma family store, along with the slaves who had come with him from Amri.

Amir was also around, but those who belonged to that post were still coming, still in time, so as not to be late.

When he noticed that not everyone had the same commitment, Tenur immediately put this in his mind for when he went to divide up the work.

There was still no clock in this place, and the sense of time was not good.

But Tenur knew how to divide the time well and patiently counted the 15 minutes he had to wait until everyone was there.

When he heard Shui's annoying voice, he opened his eyes and said. "I hope you will arrive early tomorrow... In any case, let's go inside. I will assign tasks to each of you."

The slaves who had belonged to this post before quickly opened the doors of this store, then did the same with all the windows.

Tenur asked someone to close the doors at the entrance before he put himself in a position where everyone there could see him.

"Very well, we won't be opening the store today either. I want to make some changes here, and you will help me."

"We won't open?" Shui asked, thinking that being closed for two days was too much. 'Does this slave by any chance not want to work? Is he crazy?'

"Yes, we can't open the store in this state. See how bad the state of things is here... Who will be attracted to shop here when everything is so sloppily stored?" Tenur asked as he gestured toward the piles of materials.

Shui didn't like this, but he remained silent after seeing Amir glaring at him.

"What should we do?" One of the slaves who already respected Tenur questioned him, not feeling bad about being ordered around by another slave.

Tenur explained. "We are going to change how each thing is arranged in the store. To do this, I want all the captives to take hammers and saws and produce the material I will show you."

He had already identified some wood logs in that store and planned to use them to produce furniture that would hold or display the materials sold.

The huge materials, such as logs, would look the same as they were currently displayed. But smaller items that could easily be stored in compartments would be displayed differently.

For example, in this store, one could buy special stones that, when melted, released an important metal and other components normally thrown away. These stones Tenur planned to store most of these inside the furniture. At the same time, only a few handfuls of this material would be displayed on top of the furniture.

All the furniture in this place for minerals would follow the same style. A large square compartment would store the ores and display them in small quantities on top.

That would make the store's area more organized and place the products at the height of the customers' hands, so they would not have to bend down to evaluate or even see the products available there.

At the same time, laying out a store with products piled up without any organization was not nice. It was much better to keep just enough in sight for customers to understand that their items of interest were available for sale in the store.

Because of this, Tenur could also keep the store's surroundings clean and make the place look different from other stores of this type.

The difference would always attract attention, and he might even gain some customers.

With these plans in mind, he soon made drawings of where to cut the logs, allowing the slaves in that store to follow his plans without difficulty.

Shui and Amir would watch this for hours, with one of them curious to know the outcome of it all, but the other thinking that the results of this store would only get worse with that slave.

But even before the end of the afternoon, they would see what Tenur had in mind!

...