Published at 10th of August 2023 11:18 am

Chapter 85: Foreign Investment

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In a different section of the catacombs, Kyle stood with Sir Tian and two other Clouds employees, waiting silently as the sewage water slowly surged along its path, leading far into the darkness beyond.

“The delivery is late,” Kyle remarked, tapping his finger.

“This was a rush order; don’t you dare try to blame us. We only had a day’s notice.” Tian grumbled. He had already delivered the message and retrieved a weapon for Kyle from Raktor, it being the long-range railgun along with a few optical illusion suits that they used for the auction in the past.

He got Dekar to wear it and snipe the targets from afar while he acted as the Ghost of Tenar in the centre stage, splitting up the Nest hitmen to prevent them from catching any one of them.

The attack on Mornero had served its purpose, frightening the local populace as well as the representatives who were siding with Mornero. Kyle intended to create something close to a legend, equivalent to that of a bogeyman – except this time, the bogeyman was real, and not even the government could have stopped him based on how incompetent their guards were. By ingraining a childlike fear into the hearts of the people, he could easily turn public opinion against Mornero and his supporting group.

Already journalists and people were beginning to doubt the government. Unsurprisingly, the Ghost of Tenar did not kill a single citizen, only aiming for the representatives. Some of the planted audience members tried to act hurt, but their attempts at swaying the rumour were ineffective.

“The Ghost of Tenar, is he a man? Or really a spirit? Did you see his white robes?”

“He seems to be only targeting specific people. Why is that so? Could there be some truth to his accusations?”

It was small talk like this that began to sow the seeds of suspicion among the populace, with more and more beginning to question whether President Johan was really dead due to a foreign assassination or because of another hidden conspiracy.

With this, Kyle could easily speed up the acceptance of his revolutionary forces. The biggest hurdle in any coup was the reluctance of the local population to accept the revolutionaries’ viewpoints. But with the Ghost of Tenar acting as a focal point to embody and personalize the idea, it would be easier to find sympathisers or people who simply didn’t care one way or another.

Just as Kyle was about to give up on waiting, a small speck of light could be seen at the end of the tunnel, a lone lantern at the time of a large sampan that was chugging, an arctech motor behind pushing the boat upstream along the sewage water. On it was two boatsmen, along with multiple boxes and five long human-size crates.

The boatsmen quickly anchored the boat with a thick rope to a mooring point, stabilising the sampan on both ends. The employees helped to haul the crates out of the sampan first, with one of them shaking furiously with loud banging on the lid, nearly shaking off the hinges.

Kyle quickly unlocked the crates, opening up to reveal Feldon, who gasped for air as he breathed deeply. “By fucking Yual, what the hell is hap-urk!” However, the sudden stench of the sewage water finally assaulted his nostrils in full, the smell causing him to gag.

Before Feldon could regurgitate whatever he ate for breakfast onto Kyle’s shirt, Kyle quickly grabbed him by the neck and hung him over the sewage water, the vomit falling out of his mouth like a fountain.

The other crates were opened, revealing five other company employees, all of them having worked in the goblin den in a similar situation as Feldon.

“Blerghhh….” Feldon vomited even more before coughing violently. “Where the fuck is this place?” He managed to speak in between deep heavy breaths, glancing around. “I don’t remember Raktor having this kind of sewer!”

“Follow me.” Kyle ignored his questions, lifting Feldon by the collar and leading him to yet another secret safehouse, courtesy of Dekar and Zayin. While Tian and the Clouds employees unloaded the large sampan, Kyle explained Feldon’s new role to him.

“What, this is the capital of Versia?! Build a factory here?” Feldon was taken aback, but internally delighted at the fact that he had been recognised by Kyle to have such skill.

What he did not know was that he was the last choice Kyle had – everyone else was too critical and could not be pulled away to Versia on short notice, having no time to prepare a successor or a body double to mask their disappearance. In short, Feldon was dispensable and largely not critical to the success or day-to-day operation of the goblin kingdom.

“Specifically, it needs to be underground. It is not necessarily a factory but more of a large workshop area where I can have workers manufacture equipment and weapons. At least the basic equipment that would be enough to have an engraver work properly would suffice.”

“Well, I guess I can just duplicate what we’re doing at the goblin kingdom now… what’s the deadline?”

“As fast as you can, but no later than a month.”

“What’s happening here in Versia?”

Kyle pulled out a handwritten note obtained via the Clouds, handing it over to Feldon, who read it with widening eyes. “The Yual Dominion is preparing for an attack?”

“With the disturbances in the city now, along with the instability in general, Count Leon would most likely attack within a month or even faster. I need you and your five men to work fast and organise a large-scale manufacturing operation. More helpers will be on the way each day.”

“But where do we get the raw materials from? We don’t have our own mine, and judging from the entire situation, it has to be completely undercover.”

Kyle nodded, pointing to a rough map of the city that was previously drawn by the former owners of the safe house. “Right now, we’re outside the city walls. The factory would be placed even further towards the outskirts, as we can’t afford to be caught by the military. We have diversions set up in other parts of the catacombs. For now, all of you will be based here; the raw materials will be shipped in via the same way you guys came as well.”

“So dig out a large enough area to have as many workers as possible to use workbenches to make weapons. Got it. How are we going to get the power supply?”

“We’ll haul depleted arcite ore from the city’s trashpile and set up a mechanical arcite regenerator in the river. I trust you know how to do this.”

Feldon nearly gagged again at the thought. “A waterwheel in a sewer…”

The men got to work, with Kyle showing them where they would start. It was a large enough room, though it had to be expanded to encompass the scale Kyle was envisioning truly. The crates ferried it had all the tools needed to dig out the surrounding walls as well as place supports to prevent it from caving in. Kyle did not know the exact layout or layers of the catacombs, planning to expand slowly and place supports where necessary.

Tools such as arctech pickaxes allowed the men to begin checking out the area, with their experience from mining in the goblin dens coming into play. Feldon quickly drew out a rough plan of the area, allocating sections for different purposes.

“Over here will be the workbenches. Eventually, we need to have close to five hundred a day. Fifty of the workbenches will be specialised for the production of our custom mortar. On the opposite side will be the ammunition storage space. We need to make sure it is fenced off from the rest – the workers coming it will be untrained. Each workbench should be separated enough to prevent a fire from engulfing the entire area. For air ventilation, we’ll have fifteen people working the air pumps to pump air out towards the sewers…”

Just like that, work began in earnest, with Feldon giving a list of the required equipment to Kyle. “Arcia etchers, grinders, drilling machines for the barrels, wood for the stock, more tables…”

Kyle planned out the schedule of deliveries with Tian, ensuring the operation would have a continuous supply of goods needed for the operation. “Estimates on the completion date?” Kyle asked Feldon.

“We’ll do a trial run first with ten workers on what we have in three days’ time, assuming the schedule is as follows. This should help us to identify any possible pain points. Once we’re clear with that, we can begin production provided we have the correct parts.”

“I’ll send an order to the goblin kingdom to begin making some of the easier parts and shipping them over.” Kyle envisioned the operation to be more of an assembly rather than manufacturing directly from raw materials. It was far too hard to bring some of the required machines, and it would be too immobile as well.

“The expansion of the area will continue while the number of workers will increase. My men and I will train the new workers individually. Assuming a training rate of three days for competence, we can have a trained workforce of about a hundred within two weeks, and it should only increase exponentially as well.” Feldon was already planning to use the trained workforce to train even more workers, increasing the training rate.

“Good; make sure the standard operating procedure and the assembly guidelines for the weapons are as clear as day. No test fire is to be done in the workshop itself. Once you hit a hundred, you can begin to set up the next area as a backup. By the end of the month, we should have three separate areas going.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You know, there will be a humongous bill after all of this.” Tian squinted his eyes at Kyle.

“Your payment is the complete removal of Nest from Versia, establishing your organisation as the number one in the black market. Is that not good enough?”

Tian could not really refute – that was why he had joined forces with Kyle in the first place after witnessing his sheer strength. Either way, if Kyle’s entire revolution went south, it would be easy for Tian to jump ship quickly. He had no loyalty to Kyle nor Dekar nor any empathy for the homeless people.

“Oh, and one more demand. We’ll have to ship food from Raktor as well. Send another message over.” Kyle added on, walking away from the fuming Tian, who somehow felt like he was getting the shorter end of the stick.

Kyle was not too worried about a potential betrayal of Sir Tian – as long as there were still clear benefits for Tian, Tian would not leave his side. Either way, with Clouds being the main focal point of the military, it was hard for Tian to run away without losing everything either.

More importantly, the large workshop areas needed to be set up. No matter what he had planned to overthrow Mornero, the invasion of the Yual Dominion would throw a wrench into all his plans. He had half expected them, but not this fast, prompting him to speed up his efforts.

The objective of the workshop areas was simple – produce enough weapons locally to arm an entire battalion that could stall the invasion advance of the Yual Dominion. It was now a three-way battle for dominance over Versia: Mornero and the Industrialists, Kyle and Dekar, and Count Leon.

The longer Kyle could stall Count Leon, the better chance he had at winning this three-way fight. If he did not produce the weapons and arm the battalion now, it would be near impossible to fight off the Yual Dominion. Mornero certainly would not be able to, given the level of unrest now present within his capital.

Mornero must know about the incoming invasion, whose timeline has been sped up as well. This means that he is going to start reallocating the budget to the military and his cronies – no doubt they will want to defend Versia with everything they got. But it won’t be enough due to the current lack of faith in the government.

In a sense, Kyle had created his own problem. By undermining the authority of Mornero, he had egged Count Leon on to invade faster. However, as with every situation, he now had a winning strategy that could net him the most profit as long as he played his cards right.

Soon, I will be the biggest winner of this war.

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