Chapter 54: toby

The village families were out in the open, watching the moisture sink into the soil. For the first time, they had hope in their eyes.

I stood near the storage barn . Suzy was beside me, looking at a small group of strangers who had just entered the village gates.

There were five men, wearing fine cloth outfits that did not belong in a poor farming town. They had three small carts packed with farming tools and bags of grain. These were traveling merchants from the neighboring eastern territory, and they had a reputation for fixing market prices to trick local farmers.

The lead merchant, a man with a small mustache, walked straight up to the village square. He looked at the sacks of relief grain we had stored in the public barn, and his expression turned sour.

"What is the meaning of this?" the merchant called out, looking around the square. "We traveled all the way from the eastern border to sell our harvest supply. Who is giving out free grain here? You are ruining the local trade balance!"

Suzy stepped forward. She looked at the thin merchant with a cold gaze that made him step back. "The Silver Crest Guild runs this sector now. Your trade monopoly is finished. If you want to sell goods in this village, you follow our pricing rules."

The merchant sneered, trying to look tough in front of his workers. "The Silver Crest Guild? You are just a small-time manager. The old King’s advisors always allowed us to set the rates here. These peasants owe us money from last winter anyway. We have the legal right to take half their upcoming harvest as payment!"

"Your old royal agreements were canceled three days ago," Suzy said, as she stepped closer to his cart. "I have reviewed the province ledger logs. You charged these people four times the standard interest rate for regular seeds. That is a complete compliance failure. If you try to enforce that fake debt, I will have your entire merchant license revoked by sunset."

The lead merchant gasped, his face losing all color as he realized she knew the exact numbers. He looked at the two thousand capital guards standing around the perimeter with their spears ready, and his hands began to shake. "You... you can’t just change the market rules!"

"I just did," Suzy smiled, her eyes flashing with pure authority. "Now, you can either sell your tools to the village at our new, fair warehouse prices, or you can pack your carts and leave this territory immediately. Choose your contract."

The merchant knew he was completely beaten. He dropped his head, signaling his men to lower their prices, completely submitting to her terms.

While Suzy was handling the trade dispute, a sudden noise came from the nearby clay pit at the edge of the village. A little boy, around twelve years or older, was standing on top of a pile of raw mud, shouting at three village brick makers who were trying to mix clay in a large wooden trough.

The boy had messy brown hair, a dirty face, and a very proud, arrogant expression. He was holding a small stick like a pointer, waving it at their work.

"You are doing it all wrong!" the child yelled, his voice high and confident. "If you mix that much river water into the local clay, the bricks will just crack when you put them inside the oven! You are wasting the whole batch, you old dummies!"

One of the elderly brick makers wiped the sweat from his forehead, looking annoyed. "Go play somewhere else, Toby! We have been making these since before your father was born!"

"And your mud blocks always crumble after one winter!" the boy, Toby, snapped back, crossing his arms. "My grandfather’s old records say you need to add dry straw ash and a little bit of fine sand to bond the grey clay correctly. But you never listen because you think a kid can’t do math!"

I walked over to the clay pit. I looked at the mixture in the trough, then looked down at the arrogant little child.

"The kid is actually right," I said, my voice making the brick makers turn around in surprise.

Toby looked up at mye, his eyes widening for a second when he felt my unmatched aura, but he quickly puffed out his small chest and gave me a proud stare. "See? Even the tall guy in the fancy black coat knows basic material science! Who are you anyway? The new supervisor?"

"I am the silent partner, kid," I smiled, looking at his sharp, intelligent eyes. He was arrogant, but he had a real spark of genius in his brain. He reminded me of a young, ambitious store assistant who wanted to run the whole company on day one. He was exactly the kind of smart person I could train to manage the village infrastructure in the future. "What’s your name, brat?"

"Toby," the boy said, lifting his chin. "And I’m not a brat. I can calculate the heating time for a structural brick oven faster than anyone in this whole district."

"Is that so?" I smirked, reaching into my pocket. I pulled out a small piece of paper where I had used my system memory to draw a better layout for a high-heat brick kiln, using multiple air vents to distribute the heat evenly. I tossed it down to him. "Take a look at that blueprint design, Toby. Tell me if your grandfather’s records can balance those numbers."

The boy caught the paper, his arrogant expression changing into total shock as his eyes scanned my simple drawing. His mouth dropped open, his small fingers trembling as he realized how perfect the air ventilation channels were.

"This... this design uses the rising heat twice before it escapes. The bricks will bake completely solid in half the time! Did you draw this?"

"We are building twenty new houses in this sector, Toby," I said, putting a hand on his small shoulder. "If you want to prove you are the smartest person in the village, you are going to help me oversee the construction of these new brick ovens. What do you say? Want to join the staff?"

Toby looked at the paper, then looked up at my face, a new look of absolute respect and loyalty showing in his eyes. His pride was still there, but he gave me a firm nod. "I can do it better than these old guys. I’ll run the whole yard for you."

Suzy walked over from the market carts, a beautiful, laughing look in face as she saw me recruiting a child into our corporate team.

"You really are expanding the company payroll quickly, Barry," Suzy smiled.

"Every great enterprise needs a local manager, partner," I laughed, looking at Toby and the village workers starting to dig the new foundations. "And our new branch is finally starting to grow up ."