Bait

The young man as well as the crowds marveled at this sight, as they started asking questions about this soap thing.

"What is it made of?"

"Can it really clean clothes???"

"I WANT ONE!!!!" a young woman yelled as she walked to the stall o take a soap finger.

This triggered a cascade of other onlookers demanding to have one as well and before the young man could even prosses what was happening his little stall was picked clean, not a single soap sample remaining.

Upon seeing this the young man smiled, as he took out a dozen bronze coins from one of his pockets and looked at them fondly as he thought.

"This job is so easy and rewarding!!!! Time to go get the other half of my pay." As he quickly dismantled the stall and faded into the crowds in the busy streets.

Across Landow scenes like these were repeating themselves in different parts of the city, as soap samples were given freely to curious onlookers making sure that each person only got one soap finger so as to give chance to as many people as possible to try this new product.

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William met Edmund once more at around two pm in the small warehouse they had rented near the docks. He still went in with a disguise whether it was for him or the guards, just because Edmund knew about his identity did not mean that everyone should.

William made his way inside without being stopped or questioned by the guard outside the door since Edmund had informed him that he was an "important partner" and had as much say as he did in the company.

He walked inside and made his way to the small "private office", where he found Edmund sitting on the desk and taking care of some paperwork.

"Hello Edmund, so how did it go?" he asked

Edmund looked up from the desk as he answered William after greeting him back.

"All our stock was more or less given away in about an hour, we barely have anything left right now," Edmund said, with a bit of a melancholic tone.

Seeing this William smiled at his partner's slight short-sightedness.

"Edmund, you have to look at the long term when doing business. Yes right now we are definitely in the red, we have little money and no product to sell"

Upon hearing this Edmund's expression become even worst.

"But on the brighter side, we have just thrown a bait to all the people of Landow, word of mouth would quickly spread about the convenience of our soap and they would come looking for it themselves, all of this could be thought of as just an investment that will bring us a massive amount of profits later on."

William continued his explanation and as he did so Edmunds's expression got a little better.

"We already bought a huge amount of ingredients and the manpower has already been hired and paid, and to top all of this off, we have no competition at the moment. Do you understand this Edmund? We have a freaking monopoly!!!"

By this point Edmun's eyes were shining brightly, thinking of all the profits that they will make in the near future. He understood the concepts of investing before earning as well as giving some samples to entice customers, after all, he is a merchant and sometimes used these tactics himself.

But to give their entire stock away for free and to see it disappear in but an hour was a pill that was hard to swallow especially as he considered their financial situation. He knew that William was the second son of the Marquiss and could get their business immense funds.

Yet William had told him that he was not planning on seeing his father's for help, at least not for now and was therefore using his own funds to fuel this new business.

So after this little round of "Please comfort my fear and insecurity", William continued on.

"Right now all you have to do is make sure that our production is in full swing to build a stock. Let's leave our "dear customers" some alone time and pull a Houdini on them, once they run out of soap and look for more, that's when we will strike."

Edmund looked at the evil smile plastered on William's face and felt a slight shudder, though he did not know why because by every metric what they were selling was cheap and good for the people.

Yet somehow that smile made him feel he had partnered with a scammer that was about to take an old women's money and run away with it.

After going through a few more details with his business partner Wiliam left the warehouse and returned to the castle district.

Edmund stayed alone in the office as he looked at the plan they had devised, trying to make sure that they had not missed anything that might jeopardize their whole operation.

At around five in the evening, Edmund sent the workers away after the workday was over, closed the warehouse, made sure the day guard had switched with the night one, and went home.

His family lived in the lower-middle-class district in a small abode that they had bought once they had come to Landow, it was that last vestige of what was once a relatively prosperous merchant family hailing from the capital.

The house was a two-story tall building that was spacious enough for a family of four or five to comfortably live in. He entered the house holding a few groceries he had bought on his way back in his hand.

"I am home!!!" he exclaimed.

As he went to one of the rooms that served as the kitchen, he placed the vegetables he had bought on the table, when he turned to the door to leave the room he was met with his mother.

"How was your day son? I hope that it was not too hard on you." his mother exclaimed, she was a woman in her late thirties, and from the first observations, a person could easily see that she was a beauty in her younger days, though the years had substantially affected her, whether because of stress or overall hardship her skin had suffered somewhat.

She was holding a broom in her hands, giving a clue to what she had been doing not long ago, coupled with some dust on her shoes, it became obvious that she was sweeping the floor.

Seeing this, Edmund felt a burning sensation overwhelm his chest; when his father was alive and before they had fallen on hard times, the idea that his mother would ever be allowed to do such a menial task was unthinkable.

Edmund fought hard to swallow and hide the feelings of shame and anger that were directed at himself for failing to take care of his kin and answered.

"It was not bad mother, everything is just fine."

"That's good, you have been working really hard, especially these last few weeks, you should take it easy sometimes."

"Don't worry mother if everything goes well, soon all our problems will go away, I would finally be able to properly take care of my younger siblings and leave these difficult times behind."