Chapter 135 Magic Car
The horse carriage was quickly moving across the Falling Rain Road, carrying Xu Yi and chairman Cruise off to the Falling Rain Valley.
There was another horse carriage with large amounts of cargo following them. Chairman Cruise looked at the horse carriage to the side and looked at the wheels on the road before suddenly saying to Xu Yi, “This road should be expanded.”
Xu Yi gave a nod, “That’s right, I already considered this matter. When building this road at first, one reason was because there wasn’t enough money and two, it was because you didn’t have enough experience, so this road was only four meters wide. Looking at it now, it really isn’t wide enough. It’s best if we widen it again.”
“There’s no need to widen it that much, I think that just another two meters is enough.” Chairman Cruise said.
“No, since it has to be widened, then it should be widened by a bit. After all, it wouldn’t just be horse carriages on this road, there will be other kinds of vehicles…..”
“Other kinds of vehicles?” Chairman Cruise realized something, “Chairman Xu, I’ve heard chairman Pompeii say that you would develop a new Magic Car for him within the year that can replace horse carriages and could drastically reduce the cost?”
“I was just comforting him.” Xu Yi said in a somewhat helpless voice, “Actually the main part of the Magic Car hasn’t been developed yet, so I’m not certain if the Magic Car can be developed in the year. If it wasn’t for chairman Pompeii rushing me, I wouldn’t have lied to him like this.”
Chairman Cruise didn’t care if Xu Yi was comforting chairman Pompeii or not, he just cared about the most important thing in Xu Yi’s words.
“That means that the Magic Cars are real?” 𝗯𝗲𝐝𝐧𝗼𝘃𝗲𝐥．𝗰𝗼𝐦
Xu Yi looked at him, “What do you care about this thing for?”
“Why can’t I care about it?” Chairman Cruise immediately asked back, “If that Magic Car can be as good as you described to chairman Pompeii, being able to go forty kilometers an hour, it will definitely replace horse carriages. Moreover, this thing runs so fast, it definitely can’t run on those normal broken roads. Since it’s like this, it means that the demand for public roads will increase by several times, so it is greatly related to me as the Amrit Chamber of Commerce’s chairman.”
Xu Yi couldn’t help smiling, “You react quite fast. That’s right, this Magic Car has a high demand when it comes to road quality, so public roads must become popular for Magic Cars. Your Amrit Chamber of Commerce’s road construction business will become even more important.”
“Can you tell me when this Magic Car will be developed? Give me an accurate guess so I can expand our road building team ahead of time, so I won’t be caught off guard.” Chairman Cruise asked.
Xu Yi thought about it before shaking his head, “I can’t give you an accurate guess. Doing experiments is something without certainty. For example, there is a researcher called Sancheli in our company who I gave a task to and he hasn’t given me any results even after more than a year. But I can only wait patiently because there’s no help even if you try to urge these things forward.”
“No achievements even after a year?” Chairman Cruise was a bit surprised, “Xu Yi, you really are patient. I think that this fellow is just playing around in your company, right? No matter how hard the research, how could he not have any success even after a whole year.”
“No, the thing he’s researching isn’t normal, it indeed is this difficult.” Xu Yi said with a smile, “As long as he can develop this thing, it doesn’t matter if I feed him for ten or twenty years. Anyway, my company can afford to raise him.”
Chairman Cruise couldn’t help shaking his head, “This fellow, I can’t not call you a wastrel. But speaking of this, you can’t give me an accurate guess, then can you give me a general time? For example, even if you can’t do it this year, what about next year? If you can’t next year, what about the year after?”
“Eh…..Let me think…..” Xu Yi stroked his chin as he considered this. He slightly knit his brows and said with a bitter smile, “Actually I don’t even dare say that it can be made this year, so I can’t tell you if it will be this year or next year. But I’m certain that even if it isn’t developed this year, with the progress they’ve made, it will definitely be developed next year.”
“This means that it should be two years time?”
After receiving Xu Yi’s confirmation, chairman Cruise began to quickly calculate.
“Even if it is developed at the end of next year, that is two years time. Adding in the year that it would take to become popular, that is three years. This means that the most time I have is around three years and if it’s fast, it should be around a year and a half. Like this…..”
Seeing chairman Cruise reach a conclusion, Xu Yi thought about it and said, “Actually before the Magic Cars are developed, don’t you still need to quickly expand your road building team? There is demand for roads all over the kingdom and you’re severely lacking people, so why do you need to wait for the Magic Cars to come out?”
“That’s different.” Chairman Cruise shook his head and said, “Before the Magic Cars come out, our company can invest a bit less in building roads, but once the Magic Cars come out, we definitely need to increase our investment. So once this thing appears, it will decide the business plan of our company.”
“Then there’s no other way, I can only give you a general time and can’t give you an accurate time.” Xu Yi gave a shrug.
“That is enough. Actually, it’s fine as long as you’re certain that your company can develop this thing.” Chairman Cruise said with a smile, “Many times, just a certain piece of news can affect many things.”
“This is something I deeply agree with.” Xu Yi nodded as he said with a bitter smile, “For example, chairman Renersa has determined that there are three beastmen tribes that have ideas towards us, so I have no choice but to consider creating a group of guards.”
Chairman Cruise looked at Xu Yi and gave up the idea of investing in the non-ferrous metal smelting plant with him. He thought about it before saying, “Actually if you can’t do it, I know the leaders of some mercenary groups, so you can hire some mercenaries to be your guards for now.”
“That is a last resort. Mercenaries cost too much to hire and they are not people on our side, so it isn’t assuring.” Xu Yi shook his head.
“Un, that is right. For something easy to use and assuring, it’s best to use your company’s guards.” Chairman Cruise said with an emotional sigh, “Actually I envy your company very much, you can hire dwarves and elves to be your company’s guards. They are much stronger compared to normal human guards.”
“I don’t know if I can even convince them yet.” Xu Yi shook his head, “The dwarves and elves can accept working for our company, but that doesn’t mean they will be guards for us. This is because that is equal to them coming over to protect humans, so I’m worried that they will not accept it.”
Facts proved that Xu Yi’s worries weren’t groundless.
When the horse carriage carrying the two arrived at the Falling Rain Valley, Xu Yi and chairman Cruise went their separate ways. Chairman Cruise went ahead to Samara to meet with chairman Renersa and Xu Yi went to find chief Siluka and chief Monto in the steel mill who were sweating profusely.
Of course, when he mentioned to the two chiefs that he wanted to create a guard group for the company and he wanted to hire some dwarves to be guards, the two chiefs revealed awkward expressions.
“Sir chairman, this…..Although our brothers are all very willing to work for the company, they are just working for money and being a guard is selling one’s life. To sell their lives to humans, I’m afraid many of our brothers aren’t willing to do that…..” Chief Siluka said in an awkward manner.
Xu Yi turned to chief Monto and chief Monto also shook his head as he said with an awkward look, “Chief Siluka is right. It’s fine to work for money, but there are many problems with selling their lives. In the end…..we’re different races.”
Seeing that Xu Yi’s expression was a bit ugly, chief Monto quickly waved his hands and said, “Chairman Xu, chief Siluka and I don’t have any other meanings, it’s just…..It’s just that to have us dwarves sell our lives to you humans, it really sounds quite strange.”
Chief Siluka kept nodding, “That’s right. When we fought against the reign of the elves thousands of years ago, we dwarves worked together with humans. But us dwarves weren’t willing to accept the commands of you humans and weren’t willing to sell our lives to the humans, so it’ll be hard to tell just based on history.”
Xu Yi thought about it before saying with a frown, “Can’t you treat being a guard as normal work? I can give the dwarven brothers a wage and I guarantee that it will be higher than the normal workers.”
Seeing that Xu Yi wasn’t willing to give up, chief Siluka and chief Monto looked at each other before helplessly saying, “Alright then, we will discuss it with the brothers. But chairman, I can’t guarantee the brothers will agree. Of course, we will do our best since we’ve received your care for this long, so we will definitely help you now that you’re in trouble.”
Xu Yi could only helplessly say, “Alright then, just do your best. Tell the dwarven brothers that this is just normal work and everyone can participate at will, I’m not forcing anyone.”
Compared to the dwarves, the elves were famous for being arrogant and looking down on humans.
Xu Yi thought that since he was given the cold shoulder by the dwarves, it would be even more impossible with the elves.
But when he came to the Night Song Tribe with a bit of hope and raised this request to elder Illusia, he was very surprised to receive a positive response.
“Why not?” Elder Illusia looked at Xu Yi’s look of disbelief and said with a faint smile, “Although we elves are arrogant, we will always acknowledge facts. When we lost to you humans several thousand years ago, it means that you humans have aspects that are better than us elves. Not to mention that after the clansmen have received the special training from your company, raising their sense of discipline, it’s given me hope for a new life. Even if you want them to be guards now, I also feel it would be helpful to them.”
Hearing the appraisal of a “new life”, Xu Yi became a bit vigilant.
Could it be that the elves want to fight back against the humans and regain control of the continent?
But thinking this, Xu Yi felt that this idea was a bit funny.
The elves couldn’t beat the humans when they were at their strongest and now that there were so few of them, it was more impossible for them to fight the humans.
The most important thing was that the elves had a low fertility rate. It was impossible for them to greatly increase their population, so it was impossible for them to threaten the humans.
Thinking of this, Xu Yi relaxed and asked elder Illusia, “Then that means you’re willing to let your clansmen become guards for the company?”
Elder Illusia revealed a faint smile, “Of course. Since I decided to let the clansmen put down their useless pride and have them enter your company as workers, denying this new work would be the same as denying everything from before, right? Chairman Xu, the greatest advantage of us elves is that we will finish everything that we’ve accepted and won’t give up halfway.”
Seeing elder Illusia’s face that seemed to be glowing, Xu Yi silently said a few words in his heart.
“This advantage, if the view was changed could be considered stubborn.”
Chapter 136 Signs of an ambush
When chairman Cruise and chairman Renersa saw Xu Yi bringing a bunch of fully armed elves with all kinds of leather armour, the two of them were shocked.
Chairman Cruise’s mouth twitched before he revealed a forced smile. He stretched his hand out to chairman Renersa, “You have to accept a loss when betting, pay up chairman Renersa.”
Chairman Renersa stared at the elves behind Xu Yi for a while before taking out a gold coin to give to chairman Cruise. He shook his head and said with a sigh, “Chairman Xu really isn’t a normal person, he actually got the elves to become his guards. This really has opened my eyes.”
Seeing the actions of the two, Xu Yi was a bit surprised.
“You were betting?”
Chairman Cruise carefully put the gold coin in his pocket with a smile before replying to Xu Yi with a nod, “Un, I made a small bet with chairman Renersa. I bet that you could recruit elves as guards and he bet against it, but I’m the winner now, ha, ha…..”
Xu Yi was speechless. One of them was almost fifty and the other was also over forty, but they were bored enough to bet over this matter.
What made people even more speechless was that their company made millions of gold coins each year, but they only put a single gold coin on this bet!
Being too lazy to care about these fellows who were betting on whether the elves would become guards for the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, Xu Yi looked over at the carriages not far away and asked, “Has everything been packed?”
Chairman Renersa ended his argument with chairman Cruise and replied, “Un, this is the first batch of mining equipment. Other than those mining magic machines from your Frestech Chamber of Commerce, the Falcao Chamber of Commerce also provided some necessary equipment. They also sent a bunch of mining experts who are over there.”
Chairman Cruise and Xu Yi looked at the people whose clothes and manners were different from the Renekton Chamber of Commerce’s workers. He couldn’t help asking Xu Yi, “Chairman Xu, did you secretly make some secret arrangement with the Falcao Chamber of Commerce? Otherwise, why would chairman Morgan agree to help and send this much equipment?”
Xu Yi revealed a faint smile and ambiguously replied, “When I went to Anvilmar City, I met Marquis Jole and had a small talk with him.”
Chairman Cruise and chairman Renersa looked at each other, seeing the shock in each other’s eyes.
Xu Yi had actually made a deal in secret with the Jole Family, this really was outstanding.
Since everyone was here and the equipment had been prepared, their group no longer delayed and set out from Samara Town, heading off to the Voller wolfmen tribe.
The three companies were planning to open a mine at the Voller wolfmen tribe, therefore they had prepared a large variety of equipment. Therefore, there were thirty four large horse carriages in this motorcade, with drivers and guards from all three companies, so this motorcade was quite large.
Before this, including the Renekton Chamber of Commerce, all the human companies only resold some commodities to the beastmen of the Black Rice Wasteland. Even if they formed caravans, it would be just a few horse carriages, there was nothing that could compare to this scale.
According to what chairman Renersa had said, this current caravan was the largest human caravan that had ever entered the Black Rice Wasteland.
The biggest would naturally attract attention.
So as soon as the motorcade left Samara Town and entered the Black Rice Wasteland, the guards of the Renekton Chamber of Commerce reported that people were monitoring them.
As soon as he received this news, chairman Cruise became a bit nervous.
“Chairman Renersa, is this news true? Are there beastmen watching us? Then do you know how many beastmen there are? Are they strong? Are our guards enough?”
Chairman Renersa shook his head, “I just know that there are beastmen watching us, but as for what tribe and how many there are, I don’t know.”
“Then what do we do?” Chairman Cruise was a bit worried, “If there are too many beastmen, what do we do if our guards can’t fend them off?”
Chairman Renersa laughed, “Relax, the current beastmen aren’t like the beastmen from several thousand years ago. Even if the beastmen really dare come, there wouldn’t be too many. We should be able to deal with them with our guards and then again, chairman Xu also brought fifty elven warriors. Just them alone can match several hundred human warriors, so there’s no problem.”
Hearing this, chairman Cruise finally relaxed. He looked at the elves who had been silently following by the sides of the motorcade and he seemed to feel comforted.
“Chairman Xu, it would be even better if you brought elven guards.” Chairman Cruise suddenly thought of a problem, “That’s right, I’m very curious. Why did you bring elven guards and not dwarven guards? Even the arrogant elves were willing to become guards for your company, so why weren’t the dwarves willing?”
Xu Yi helplessly replied, “This…..The reason can’t be explained in a short period of time, in short, don’t think about dwarven guards for now. Even these Night Song Tribe elven warriors, they cannot be considered guards of our company. If you really want to describe them, they can only be considered mercenaries.”
“Then will they listen to your orders?” Chairman Renersa noticed a key problem.
“They will listen to my orders, they just won’t listen to my specific instructions since I don’t know how elven warriors fight.” Xu Yi replied.
“It’s good that they listen to your orders. If anything happens, I hope chairman Xu will have them cooperate with the guards of my company.”
“That’s easy.”
The beginning journey was considered peaceful, but according to the reports of the Renekton Chamber of Commerce guards, there were more and more people surrounding them.
Although these people didn’t do anything, it made the atmosphere of the caravan quite anxious.
According to what chairman Renersa said, when his company came to do business in the Black Rice Wasteland, they would be observed by beastmen most of the time. Those beastmen would normally obediently leave and they didn’t take any action, there were only a few times they really tried to rob them.
But no matter what time it was, there weren’t this many people watching them.
Based on this, not only did they make a big move, the beastmen side might also be making a big move.
Moreover, since they openly made this big move, the beastmen might not be willing to leave like this and might choose to really attack.
Hearing chairman Renersa’s analysis, chairman Cruise became nervous again.
He proposed that they ask the royal army to guard them, but this was rejected by chairman Renersa.
This caravan was a private action and was unrelated to the royal army.
Without an order, the royal army definitely would not run over to become guards for a company.
Although with the connections of the three, they could get Count Sean to give an order to the army, this matter was not just an one time occurrence. Even if the royal army could guard them this time, could it be that they would have them guard them next time as well?
Not to mention that the three companies would be opening a mine at the Voller Tribe, they couldn’t get the army to guard their mine, right?
“The beastmen are a race who care about force. If we can’t use this chance to shock all the beastmen of the Black Rice Wasteland, even if we set up our mine, there will be all kinds of problems.” Chairman Renersa revealed his true plan with a serious look, “So this time, we have to use this chance to hurt the beastmen and make them remember to never offend us!”
“I agree.” Xu Yi immediately showed his attitude, “Instead of guarding each day, we might as well get it over with.”
The two of them showed their attitudes this clearly, so naturally chairman Renersa had nothing to say and showed his support.
According to chairman Renersa’s experience, because beastmen have sharper senses than humans, they would most likely choose to attack at night.
Based on the distance between Samara and the Voller Tribe, the trip would only take a day.
So if the beastmen wanted to attack, they would only have a chance tonight.
So when Xu Yi heard this analysis, he didn’t care about the jolting of the carriage and immediately went to sleep.
When night came, the motorcade prepared to camp out on the plains and Xu Yi woke up.
Seeing chairman Renersa quickly getting the guards to set up camp, Xu Yi jumped out of the horse carriage and came to one of the Night Song Tribe elves to ask, “Hey, Furio, how’s it going?”
This elf called Furio was the leader of the fifty elven warriors.
According to elder Illusia’s agreement with Xu Yi, Xu Yi could give these elves orders for a target, but as for specific directions, that was up to Furio and Xu Yi couldn’t interfere.
Xu Yi naturally trusted Furio and naturally wouldn’t talk to these elves if he had no reason, so he only came to ask about the situation now.
No matter what Furio was thinking, he was very respectful to Xu Yi on the surface and replied after giving him a salute, “Sir chairman, we have already smelled the evil scent of the beastmen on the wind and can feel their evil intentions. According to our understanding of them, they should be launching their attack tonight.”
“Un, that’s good. You can help the other guards protect the caravan tonight.” Xu Yi paused before adding, “But I hope that you will pay attention to your own safety. The cargo doesn’t matter, but if you are injured or even killed, that is a loss that can’t be recovered. Do you understand?”
Furio’s expression changed a bit before he replied with a nod, “As per your order.”