Herald of Steel

It was on a bright late June afternoon, just after lunch did Alexander suddenly invited Pasha Farzah and Lady Inayah to come with him to an unknown place a bit outside the city saying he had a new ship concept he had been working on and wanted their opinion.

“Brat! What do you know about shipbuilding?” On their way, inside the carriage, the aged pasha asked this with a curious look and a raised eyebrow.

‘How could he also build a new ship when he had taken over Zanzan for just eight months?’ He asked himself, believing that even for Alexander, there had to be a limit to his talent.

“Hahaha, nothing really. That’s why I’m inviting esteemed guests like you.” To this, Alexander only chuckled, deciding to keep the whole thing mysterious.

While Lady Inayah who was sitting beside Pasha Farzah, too smiled and soothed, “Then Lord Farzah, let us be patient. Lord Alexander has surprised us so many times already, I’m sure he will not disappoint us this time.”

“Yes, yes, it will be easier to see the ship than hear about it anyway.” Alexander too reassured the grouchy noble.

For some reason, the old man seemed to have woken up on the wrong side of the bed today, as evidenced by the “Hmmmph,” Pasha Farzah let out and then slapped his back against the soft leather cushion.

The man himself very well knew the reason for his bad mood.

It was because he was letting his irritation get the better of him as he tried to deal with his mixed feelings about Alexander.

These feelings arose from recently seeing with his very own eyes how the impoverished city of Zanzan in less than a blink of an eye become as rich as half his entire province. all within just six months, and under the command of a slave boy from the gutters.

Someone he would normally be unwilling to even hit with his boots for fear of soiling them, not to even mention talking to.

But here was now, forced to even somewhat look up to the boy.

It rubbed the man the wrong way. 𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗹．𝐨𝗿𝗴

For he was that prideful.

It might not be readily apparent given his loud cheerful everyday demeanor and the casual manner in which he spoke with Alexander and his family, but it would be a grave mistake to be fooled into thinking this was his default.

In fact, most of the time, the man was a taciturn individual, being usually very aggressive to everyone who was outside his very close inner circle.

And because of this, for some time, the Pasha did hold Alexander in varying degrees of contempt even if he hid it well.

Sure he respected many aspects of the boy, his military prowess, eloquence with speech, and medical skills, but he had also bet that he would miserably fail in the administrative category, especially administrating a failed city like Zanzan.

But he could not have been more wrong even if he said the sky was red or the world was flat.

In fact he figured that Alexander might be the one soon holding him in contempt given his speed of progress.

And for the hyper-competitive man, this was a nasty blow.

Hence, the bad mood.

But the old man did not let that bad cloud of feeling affect him for too long.

“Since we have the time, then let us discuss the prices,” He suddenly decided to reengage with the conversation, alluding to re-negotiating the prices of the goods he wanted to buy from Alexander.

And he was joined by Lady Inayah, who too chimed in, “Yes, let’s. It will be a good use of our time.”

Now, Alexander and the other duo did have several discussions before regarding this issue but were unable to settle on an exact value.

Mainly due to Alexander refusing to budge a single ropal, giving this hackneyed reply with an almost pleading face, “My lord, my lady, I have already told you.”

“We are already giving a huge discount here. And we are just making enough profit to keep us going with these prices.”

“Besides, as an ally, please consider that we are really strapped for coins right now.”

“I have already spent most of the money I had, first with you and His Majesty back in Adhan. That was already 600 million then and there.”

“Then after I came to Zanzan, I found the city folk here had no almost no coin to speak of and so then I had to give everyone a large amount of money to get the markets going.”

“Then there was using a lot more money upfront to set up the workshops to create jobs and build all these new things.”

“Then came paying for all the construction like the buildings, the roads, the aqueducts, and the sewage works as you all saw going was on.”

“Followed by the war and various bereavement payments, and lastly all the gifts for the nobles to name.”

“All in all I have less than 50 million ropals by now.”

“So at this point, Zanzan simply needs the cash.”

Here Alexander had grossly exaggerated his financial ruin, as in reality, he had around 200 million of the original 300 he had come with.

And it was unknown how much of Alexander’s lie the two experienced nobles bought.

But neither tried to disprove Alexander outright, as Lady Inayah replied to this with,

“We understand your troubles, Lord Alexander. But we also understand that you don’t need 800 million ropals from us to solve them, now do you?

The way this 800 million ropal was reached was because the bill Alexander gave them for the list of products they wanted to buy amounted to 400 million ropals each.

And given such an amount was around half of Adhan’s annual income at its peak, and Lady Inayah only had a budget of 300 million, she was eager to try and push the price down.

But Alexander responded as such to the allegation of him being greedy, as he replied gently and with a light smile,

“My lady, please not be unreasonable. You know better than me that Zanzan needs a lot of capital to expand.”

“It needs a lot of money to build a strong army, and then a strong navy, it needs to pay its nobles to keep them happy, and then it needs to capitals to launch wars of conquest.”

“So that 800 million will soon disappear like the morning dew under sunlight.”

Alexander afterward quickly reminded her,

“And please remember that I have already given you the secret for the brown sugar. You can start earning a lot of money from that soon.”

The brown sugar Alexander referred to was sugar obtained from the beetroot juices that had been only treated with limestone and not also with bone char or charcoal, thus giving them a brown color and a slightly bitter taste.

They were neither as good to look at as the pearly white powder, nor nearly as tasty.

Hence Alexander sold them at wholesale for 10,000 ropals per ton or a tenth of the white stuff.

And the reason for selling the inferior goods was given after Pasha Farzah’s little aggrieved spat, “Bah! What use it that useless thing?”

“Tell me how to make the white stuff. And I will you 800 million ropals upfront!”

The old man might be a misery penny pincher, but that did not mean he was not loaded.

And it was because of such greed that Alexander decided to keep the supply low and the demand high, thus maximizing profit.

To accomplish this he lied to Pasha Farzah through the teeth, replying, “My lord, the process of turning the beetroots into white is extremely complicated and labor intensive. Meaning a lot of time and hard work has to go goes into it.”

“Not to mention even then the chances of turning the brown crystal into the refined pearly whites is just 1 out of 100.”

“Meaning to get 1 ton of the beautiful white, we need to use 100 tons of the brown sugar, which itself has to be processed first.”

“And sometimes, depending on the quality of the beetroots we need to use even more.”

“And then there is the fact that in the process, a lot of the brown sugar becomes inedible when it fails to turn into white sugar.”

“So the price we are charging is very reasonable.”

“And thus we also cannot so easily hand over this secret process. Not right now. Please understand.”

As Alexander finished his long speech, it was unknown how much the two nobles believed him.

But at least his ‘not right now’ phrase indicated that he might be amicable to a deal in the future which placated the lord somewhat.

While Lady Inayah raised another potential thing she had wanted to buy.

“My lord, this like thing that becomes like marble when it hardens…you call it cement I believe. We would like to buy it.”

This demand somewhat surprised Alexander because Lady Inayah had not expressed a desire when he showed her the apartment blocks, for they already had a similar mortal.

So what changed?

Well, it was simply Lady Inayah thinking whatever Alexander made was worth taking a second look at.

And Alexander knew this thought would become a thousand times stronger when he unveiled to them the ship he wanted to showcase, and so attempted to give an appropriate reply.

But his reply was suddenly put on hold for now.

Because they had arrived.