Chapter 99

"Do not be alarmed, the villagers are all together in the village hall where they have been all spending their nights. It is almost not even worth it to try to protect the buildings that remain, and it is much easier at least for now for our Fog Village's citizens to remain together in a smaller space so that the elders could protect them if something were to happen like another attack which may be in our future since the battle did almost an unrecoverable amount of damage." the guard told Timothy as they continued walking.

Eventually the two made it in front of a large building that Timothy knew by just looking at it, that it was the village hall. And so the guard led the way inside as he tried to locate at least one or both of the elders so that they could handle the present matters quickly. Timothy's group together made quite a small but capable force, and the last thing that the guard wanted was to push them to wanting to attack the village and slaughter the remaining villagers, even if he was sure that they would still be able to kill all twenty two of them eventually.

However, before even more terrible ideas popped into his mind, the guard finally was able to find the two elders who were sitting in a small room across a table from one another just enjoying their night and resting. It was clear to Timothy that these two elders were rather well aged and absolutely needed their rest since the stress of looking after so many people was catching up to them.

"Elders, this here is someone who owns a merchant group. He wishes to build their headquarters in our Fog Village and has even brought all of his employees that are at least of the Elementary level five and there are a total of twenty two of them while one of them is of the Intermediate stage of cultivation." the guard told the two elders as he bowed towards them. It looked like out of the survivors, they were all from different clans and families, but now it seemed that Fog Village was their new family so anything that had ever happened before the attack, truly meant nothing since so many people were lost.

"You are not the first to approach us while in our time of need. However, only twenty two of you will not make too much of a difference and are not much of a threat to us. The attack changed the minds of every individual who have lived peacefully for many years in our Fog Village. My only question is, since we turned down the offers of others, what makes you think that we would treat you and your merchant group any differently?" one of the elders asked Timothy with a rather upset look on his face while the other elder remained silent as he watched Timothy.

"I was always told to respect my elders, so I apologize for not respectfully bowing once I saw you both so please forgive me and accept this as compensation for my lack of manners. I just hope that my merchant company's headquarters and six subsidiary businesses could be built here within Fog Village. I may own a verified merchant group, but it does not mean that I am a greedy individual, but I will be blunt in that I plan on eventually expanding the company. The overall goal would be after many generations to turn Fog Village into our merchant group's own village, but it does not mean that I do not plan on removing everyone within, rather having enough wealth to hire everyone if such a time were to arrive." Timothy explained himself very honestly and this caused the upset elder to relax slightly as the other took over the negotiations.

"Every human that exists has some level of greed within their hearts which is perfectly acceptable as long as they are trustworthy. The others who came before you, had hidden thoughts and agendas, many who may have felt like you do but were unwilling to be honest with us. Since you were, I suppose that we can accept all of you into our Fog Village. There are plenty of areas around the village that are now barren since almost all of the survivors of the battle lived in the northern part of the village."

"Normally we would charge quite a bit, especially to a verified business like your merchant group, but I am afraid that there are not many like you, so as much as we would like, we are unable to charge you for choosing seven buildings in a small area to build in. In exchange, it would be nice if at least some of those in your group would be willing to spend some time with our village guards so that everyone could get some more rest. If they are willing, it would not be difficult for some of our ordinary citizens to head over to help rebuild the seven buildings." the elder who was originally silent told Timothy with a smile on his face.

"I was prepared to offer quite a sum of funds, but if your Fog Village is willing to make such arrangements for us, I might, with your permission, use the money I was originally going to spend to bring in more experts from Tornado City. Realistically, I do not need many employees right now since we are in our growing stage as a merchant group, but I do not mind investing in more village guards if it will make the village safer and would play a bigger role moving forward. However, even if I do these things, I do not wish to be the governor of Fog Village and hope that you both do not mind this as my bottom line." Timothy told the two elders awaiting their answers.