Chapter 121: From great fire, just a small spark
The whole thing took whooping three days to organize.
Three days to meet with Greg, get him to organize some people, teach everyone their roles and then scout the whole town to find the best place for the event to take place.
Three whole days that I’ve spent watching how the crowds moved through town, trying to spot the best possible location and timing for my performance. A time I also spent trying not to see all the adventurers that gave in to the temptation of the easy money offered by the recruiters.
And now, after three days of working hard to get everything set up, it was time to check the effects of all this work, effort and preparation.
"Do you think the people will come?" Selia asked as we sat down in a specially prepared shed consisting of nothing but two chairs for me and Saintess, a table and then three more chairs on its other side.
There were also three piles of simple, wooden plaques stacked behind us, right within the reach of our hands, each marked with a different symbol. Then, below the table, there stood a single, averagely-sized, wooden box of quality just good enough not to let anyone peek inside of it until its lid was lifted.
All that was now left for us was to wait for Greg’s men to direct the interested people to our shed and see what we had to work with.
"Yeah, some will come," I nodded my head while trying to appear as confident as I humanly could. "Not as many as you would guess by watching the enthusiasm of the crowd, but some will."
Selia squinted her eyes a bit.
"And why is that?" she asked while leaning that lovely head of hers over to the side, allowing her beautiful, silk-like silver hair to cascade down her shoulder.
"First, it was an emotion-based announcement. Once the people cool off on their way to this place, they will start thinking." I shrugged my shoulders. "And some are bound to assume it’s all too good to be true. Others will assume that I’m some sort of a cheat. Only those desperate, determined or naive enough will pass through this simple test, giving us exactly the kind of force we need to work with."
Selia furrowed her brows but ultimately said nothing about the profile I made for the people I wanted to hire.
"Then, there’s also the fact that half of the hype was created by Greg’s men to consider," I added. "That makes the crowd’s reaction a lot bigger than it would naturally get. Not only because of all the shouting and cheering our guys initiated, but also by factoring in the people who joined in not to stand out like a sore thumb within the excited crowd."
I knew all of this better than I would’ve wanted to.
Despite only ever getting hired as a part-timer, over the course of the time I’ve spent on the job, I ended up doing pretty much everything for the owner.
Running an active promotion and promotional events outside of the shop included.
I saw many times how a massive crowd of potential customers interested by the gimmick of the promotion would turn into a small trickle of actual customers coming in to take advantage of a legitimate opportunity.
And here? In this world?
On one hand, we were dealing with people that have yet to gain immunity through exposure to a whole ton of bullshit of the same kind that I spouted on the stage. On the other hand, however...
The fact the people of this world only ever consumed a miniscule percentage of information that a modern person did, didn’t mean they were stupid.
Heck, I would feel safe to venture a guess that, on average, they were smarter than your average modern person.
Just like those born sickly or with poor constitution were unlikely to survive until adulthood as opposed to modern people who could fall back on advanced medicine to push aside the greedy fangs of natural selection, the same applied to common sense.
After all, if someone was stupid enough to fall for a simple scam, they would’ve long lost all their money and be forced either to emigrate or into the depth of the slums!
Knocking sound coming from the back forced me out of my train of thought, pushing my consciousness to return to reality right as Greg’s head peeked out from behind the shed’s back door.
"Five minutes, guys. I can already see some guys coming your way."
I nodded my head in acknowledgment before taking in a deep breath.
"Thanks. We are ready to roll."
Greg squinted his eyes.
"Roll?"
I rolled my eyes.
"Just a saying, don’t mind me. Invite them as they come, three people at a time at most," I then glanced over to the three chairs sitting on the other side of the table, "we didn’t have the time to craft more seats, after all."
The only reason why someone as busy as Greg could be here was... because he was curious what we were cooking.
And as it turned out, the massive queues to his smithy that we saw a few days back were, in part, due to his whimsical nature.
Sure, he would put in the hours and sweat over the anvil when the orders piled up sky high or when a high-priority customer came in. But beyond that?
Greg’s smithy was already working in full swing. And even with some of his men delegated to take care of manufacturing charcoal for their own use, he still had more than enough men to deal with mundane, day-to-day requests that the town locals would come to his smithy for.
And now?
Now, rather than working on his orders, he was here to see what this new project of mine was all about — not in theory, as he complained when I explained it to him face to face, but in practice.
That, and he was eager to cash in on his payment — not in the form of money, but a blueprint for the one thing I knew I would anyway need sooner or later: the very first rendition of a steam engine, an atmospheric one.
On one side, I threw quite the bait to get him to cooperate, allowing me to keep my preparations relatively low-key.
But there was a massive difference between an atmospheric steam engine and an actual steam engine that came to anyone’s mind when mentioning its name.
The first kind was bulky, sometimes as huge as bigger kinds of local houses, required constant maintenance, nearby source of water to replenish used-up steam...
The downsides could continue for quite some time. They were, after all, one of the reasons why humans on earth went ahead and invented a proper steam engine to combat those very flaws!
Greg, however, didn’t know it.
And he couldn’t really blame me for not telling him in advance that the blueprint I offered to him as a payment for all his services related to this project would become obsolete within days if not weeks after he would get his hands on it!
"Well then," Selia’s words pulled me out from my state of deep contemplation that I fell into again, "they are about to enter," she muttered before turning her eyes to me. "Are you ready?"
I took in a deep breath and silently nodded my head.
"As ready as I can be."
I took another breath. And then one more.
Then, the main doors to the shed opened up, with a group of four men in shoddy, leather armor walking inside.
’What the hell are Greg’s men doing?!’ My mood instantly sunk. ’I’ve told him over and over again, just three people at a time!’
"Welcome," I slightly nodded my head, keeping my inner turmoil to myself while standing up and lifting my seat only to then walk around the room and place it along the other three seats. "Please, take a seat while we discuss your future."
Even though I did quite a good damn job at hiding my annoyance, judging by the looks the four men exchanged after seeing Saintess and then watching how I gave up on my own seat just so that all four of them could sit down at the same time...
"We are very sorry," one of the men, a guy roughly in the middle of his thirties with more scars over his body than he had hairs, stepped out only to bow his head in apology. "We heard loud and clear that at most three people should enter at a time, but since we are and always were a party of four..."
"I understand and it’s okay," I quickly dismissed their worries, while remaining fully aware it did nothing to abate their anxiety.
And so, to make things just a little bit easier for them, I retreated two steps and then sat directly on the edge of the table, creating a clear structure to the situation in the room.
Selia, the Saintess, in the back, overlooking the whole thing from the shadows of the shed’s deepest part. Me, sitting on the table, above the four of them and this group of adventurers who just took their seats, still looking all nervous and uncertain.
"First thing first, I wish to congratulate you all for being the first to answer my call," I started while putting on just a slightly forced smile on my lips. "But before we begin," I crossed my arms over my chest while my smile, from faked, evolved into a legitimate one.
"Have you guys ever heard about coffee?"