Thomas was feeling more surprised by William. "Let's sign the contracts then," William noticed how Thomas kept gazing up at him, and decided to ignore that dude for now, "but we'll add a little extra clause for the mining teams."
"This…" William's request came as a source of puzzlement for everyone standing around, including Thomas, "you do know they are already a property of our brand, right?" Andy stepped in, trying to get what William wanted to do here.
"I want to separate them," William paused, "they aren't in essence part of yours. They are just groups hired and working under your name."
"But they work on the places we buy from the fort," Andy kept pushing for explanation, "what's the point in separating them? Besides, they are already a waste! We were discussing how to end such spirit crystals bleeding from their useless role in our business."
"I want them to be separated," William didn't explain much, "they won't be hired on a monthly basis, but they'll be asked to join part of a team that'll operate under me."
"This…"
"At the end of the day, they'll still get hired by you," William shrugged, "and if things went as I planned, and luck was by my side, then I'd end up being partner with you two, right? So you won't lose anything in the end."
What he said didn't reveal anything about his intentions towards them.
"I find no issue in doing that," Alfred acted like a middleman here, speaking to his two friends, "you already wanted to cut their part in your business."
"And he shall do the same!" Landy argued, "they are quite useless."
"I'll handle things for one year," William knew these two were still not fully aware about the implications of this deal, "and during this time, everything related to your business will be handed over and ruled by me."
"But…"
"It's my spirit crystals I'm spending here. If I wanted, I could throw them in the river or even burn them," William added this to make it clear about things between him and these two. He wanted to show them who was the boss after signing this contract, and how he'd run things.
He'd do things his way, without placing any of their opinions high or take them into consideration or anything.
And when he stated his intentions in such a clear way, some sort of heavy pressure and silence appeared in the area.
"Ahem, let's sign the contracts then," Alfred cleared his throat, took out four copies of contracts, and added, "we have everything ready here. But we'll add the new clause to these two."
The moment William saw the ready copies of the contracts, he confirmed his early doubts about these two.
They just acted as if they didn't buy any of what he said before. Yet they were already agreeing on working with him. And who wouldn't?
"Fine," Andy decided, and Landy couldn't help but scoff and said nothing.
Alfred took the charge of adding this clause, while the other two kept their silence, watching what Alfred wrote.
"It's ready," Alfred handed one copy of each contract to William to read, while the other copies were with him, Andy, and Landy.
"It's all good," William signed the contracts after revising them, "now you can stay here and bid if you like."
"That's what we planned to do," Landy said, before laughing, "we'll bet on your success."
"This… Aren't you the one who kept speaking bad on me and didn't trust me? Why would you do that? Bet against me, don't place your bids on me!" William didn't know what to do or say, felt more shocked about what this lady just said.
"Hahahaha! We'll bet on your success, as by that we'll have the most out of this deal," she laughed, even pointing at him as if she was enjoying the reaction on his face, "what? Did you think you were the only one enjoying this hot cake alone? Come on! Just from the number of people gathered here, I'm sure this event will have billions of spirit crystals on stake! Don't be greedy, and don't think you'll get all of this alone."
"..." William got that what he thought about was already grasped by few intelligent people here. But when he thought about the ratio of such people, he knew they wouldn't lose much of his cut.
There was indeed too much for everyone here. And he just had to accept his share getting slightly lowered than what he initially imagined.
"Sir William, are you going to place your bids now or…" Remy came after three hours and asked this first.
As the three went to place their bids, William stood with Thomas, watching in silence the circus that was going on around.
During the past three hours, more people came and joined the party. The guards from the Refos group seemed pretty experienced at handling such situations. They started to push people who placed their bids back in organised fashion, while allowing others to step forward and join the fun.
pαndα`noν?1~сoМ William lost count on how many people actually came. And just at the last hour alone, he saw hundreds of huge caravans coming from far away. They seemed like the merchants who heard about what was going on here and decided to return to the fort and take part in such a big event.
William was now sure that his and others' initial assessment of having billions of spirit crystals here wasn't going to happen. He saw one merchant just a few minutes ago place a huge bid of five hundred million spirit crystals over his loss. And that was just a bid from one person!
During this, and while William waited with Thomas, the Golden Fork restaurant delivered a meal to him and his two companions. William ate and enjoyed watching this festival while Trevor just ate fast, and hurriedly returned to shout and spread the name of the guild over the ears of everyone here.
And Thomas stood on the side, all silent, praying his luck inside about not getting the same torturing task as Trevor.
Updat𝒆d fr𝑜m fr𝒆ewebnove(l).com