Chapter 97

Since Timothy had accomplished his goal of raising eyebrows of others to recruit a good sized group, he told the rest of the group that it was now time to head out. He was unsure about where they would choose to create the headquarters, but what he did know was that until they did, it would take quite a bit of funds to take care of twenty one experts including himself. He did still have quite a bit of food saved up, but renting out enough rooms in a hotel type situation would cost quite a bit which he was unwilling to do if he did not absolutely have to.

And so the twenty two experts stayed close to each other as they headed out of the coliseum. Timothy was eager to leave as soon as he could, because in about six hours, it would turn dark and wherever they ended up, would be the place that they would stay in. Ideally, Timothy wanted to find a large building to purchase within a small village that was close by to Tornado City, just in case anyone now under him wanted to compete once in a while to take some time off of working or doing other tasks.

What he was really excited about, was that majority of the experts knew the basics of different types of trades, so if he invested into them and helped them start their own small businesses under the merchant company, it would allow him to slowly more or less use his wealth to take over a small village or a large township that lacked the resources to build itself into a small village.

"Hey Cole, since you seem the most familiar concerning this region of Stone Kingdom, where would you suggest we head to in order to officially set up our headquarters?" Timothy asked Cole as the group finally left Tornado City and rested together while eating a filling meal. Timothy was unwilling to let any of the less perishable foods go to waste, and it was cutting it rather close, so he did not hold back feeding so many people for this meal.

"I have heard some terrible news about Fog Village recently that is also one of the three villages within the region near Tornado City. They were hit very hard by a large group of raiders, it was so bad that the royal family personally sent an entire fleet out in order to prevent them from collapsing since villages are normally backed by the royal family of kingdoms." Cole told Timothy after thinking over it for a short period of time.

"Also, not only was their population nearly destroyed, but the village's building must have taken a massive hit as well since the raiders were one of the many small revolutionary groups of the Stone Kingdom. Therefore, if we head over fast enough, you might be able to purchase several buildings that only need to be fixed up for a fraction of what it would normally cost to purchase a normal building."

"If you were to do that, it would be possible for some of our members to create their own small business right away as we use the headquarters as more of a buying and selling hub while we could have a second story for all of us to sleep and live in. It is obvious that Fog Village needs to somehow restart its economy sooner than later because it actually cost them nearly their entire village fund to receive such treatment of the royal family."

"So what do you say, will you at least think about spending more than you might have intended to also help some of us, or will you just do as you may have originally planned and build out a large headquarters for us? Either way should be fine, I am sure that some of our members will just use the lump sum payment to buy something for themselves." Cole asked Timothy in a polite manner. It was obvious that Timothy was not someone who seemed too over domineering and treated everyone of them with respect, so he himself received the same level of kindness and respect back.

"Everyone, if it is feasible, I will offer you all the ability to start your own small businesses once we reach our destination which is now Fog Village. However, I think it would be fair for the merchant company to receive a ten percent permanent tax. It is fair to do it in this way because the merchant company will continue growing and it will of course always support your businesses." Timothy told the group as a handful of the members all asked to put together a contract with different perks and tax rates until everyone finished their meals and the contracts were done.

Timothy was more than happy to do this because it would not just allow him to see more revenue being generated organically over time through the tax rate residuals, but it would also lower overall production costs of items the merchant company would sell while also aiding in boosting Fog Village's economy once more. Luckily, Timothy could always when things looked good enough, head out once more to Tornado City and purchase even better tools and such for said members who would have their own businesses.

According to Cole's estimations, for all six buildings including one larger one for their headquarters, would not cost Timothy more than twenty five thousand gold pieces. It may even be less or it could be that price but all the inventory needed to fix up the buildings could be included within the purchase cost. Since there were an entire twenty one members including Timothy, it would not take too long if everyone worked together to fix up all seven buildings. They would of course focus on the headquarters of the merchant company first, because it was where they would be living and more importantly, where they would be sleeping.