The Freak Show Foreman

From factories and power plants to transportation means like ships, airships, and trains.

In this era, coal was essential in any industry.

Even in rural areas without a single carriage, coal was needed as a heating fuel.

However, the increased demand was not matched by the coal mining quantity.

Mines were being developed all over the continents, but there was a shortage of people willing to work.

Coal mining was truly dangerous, dirty, and strenuous work.

As a result, the value of coal and the miners’ labor skyrocketed every day.

Rumors even circulated in the Alchemy Academy.

Stories of a student confidently answering the final exam question, "What is needed to turn a rock into gold?" with "Mining carts and pickaxes," and tales of sending students to gather alchemical materials in the mountains, only to find them picking up coal around the mining area.

The former student received an A+ grade, and the latter students could buy all the materials with the money earned from selling coal, as the folklore goes.

Of course, these stories from the Alchemy Academy were nothing more than exaggerated anecdotes.

Among the substances alchemists dealt with, many had the value of several tons of coal per bottle.

Such tales only emphasized the significance coal held in this era.

The coal exchange set up between the city and the mines exclusively handled coal transactions.

A large three-story wooden building.

The exchange regularly updated the current selling price on the first-floor lobby’s bulletin board based on the hourly mined quantity and information from other regions.

Merchants waiting in the lobby would rush to the counter, hesitate, or step back after checking the price.

Merchants moving back and forth would see contracts piling up in their hands as banknotes left their pockets, and when they reached their target quantity, they would run to the central market or the airport with a bundle of contracts.

Customers seeking long-term coal supply contracts were guided to the second floor.

There, mainly representatives of large businesses frequented.

The third floor was visited by merchants dealing with things other than coal.

You might wonder what else could be traded at a coal exchange, but this was as important as the significance of coal.

It was about the rights to mine, own, and manage the coal mines.

Ownership transactions were no big deal; changing a few names on the documents would do.

Mining rights transactions were a bit troublesome. It required calling the managers of each mine for negotiations.

Management rights transactions were the most crucial. They could directly influence the mining quantity and distribution price.

The 10-year-old girl sitting on the side of the current head of the coal exchange came to trade all three rights.

Two weeks ago, when she visited the exchange, the head suspected that today was not just an ordinary day, but rather the day of the Festival of Fools, where jesters were forgiven for any pranks or lies.

April 1st was the day when jesters celebrated their antics.

As a green-haired girl with a machine and a few crew members prepared to transport several kilograms of what seemed like a calf, anyone would think she was a representative of the business world.

If the head’s secretary hadn’t given him a hint of "Iron Mask" as he went to meet the guest in the reception room from his office, he might have made a mistake in their first meeting.

Iron Mask.

Sure. He had heard of it.

In recent years, Vergsong Merchant Union, showing tremendous growth, has been the talk of the town. Rumors spread about a brilliant strategist joining the company.

Not long ago, it was revealed that the identity of this strategist was none other than the illegitimate daughter of the chairman, Geralt Vergson.

Anais Vergsong.

He heard she was a fragile girl, suffering from a gradually debilitating illness since the age of 5, making survival without special machinery difficult.

Rumors of her intelligence had circulated before, but people dismissed them, thinking it was just a proud father boasting about his daughter, as parents often do, hoping for exceptional talents even in simple doodles.

No one took the talk of her brilliance seriously.

However, as the rumors turned into actual achievements, people started showing interest in her. Even those who thought she might have some talent assumed it wouldn’t be more than giving a few pieces of advice here and there, certainly not handling important matters as a representative of the company.

The director, too, didn’t expect much when he saw the girl sitting across from him. He thought, "Ah, Chairman Geralt must want to give his ailing daughter a taste of the business world, letting her handle something so significant."

He didn’t imagine that she would be talking about ownership, mining rights, and management rights.

The shock intensified when he realized she didn’t just want to trade them.

She wanted to purchase the rights to all the mines in the city.

Of course, someone like Vergsong could easily buy the rights to all the mines in the city.

However, whether she could generate profits from it was a different issue. The complicated web of ownership, mining rights, and management rights, entangled in dozens of mines, wasn’t something that even experienced traders in the field could easily navigate.

Buying ownership rights might mean paying expensive tolls to pass through other mines and purchasing mining rights might lead to finding all viable places already exhausted. Buying management rights might reveal unpaid wages of miners and various other hidden costs.

And all these rights were intricately intertwined in each mine. Some shared profits equally among owners, some had different ratios depending on the depth, and some had obligations like maintaining the railway for other mines, or the right to directly take the mined coal.

The Coal Exchange played the role of mediating these complex threads, collecting and processing all the coal they mined, calculating and settling the costs internally, taking a commission in return.

But the girl was talking about the rights to every mine in the city.

Could it be…?

Was she planning to unravel this tangled mess?

The director shook his head.

That was impossible.

Of course, with a few months and dozens of employees, it might be possible. It was theoretically possible.

However, that was worth considering in the Apollachian Mountain

Investing resources and manpower elsewhere was profitable from the perspective of the company.

But the girl was confident.

The director allowed her to access the Coal Exchange’s data room with the intention of trying it out.

Hands-on experience.

Probably.

However, expectations went awry.

Within two weeks of her arrival, the girl took down the signboard of the Coal Exchange.

She sat in her hotel room, rummaging through the documents taken from the Coal Exchange, and unbelievably resolved all the economic and legal issues entangled between rights.

She untangled a neat thread from the tangled mess.

It was difficult to grasp how dozens of rights were traded and at what prices.

One thing was certain: now all the rights of the mines in this city were in her hands.

As rumored.

No, it was even more than that.

The director looked at the girl sitting across from him.

The sound of the wind rustling and a calm gaze.

Above all, her expression was unreadable due to the metal mask covering her nose and mouth.

This was the girl known as the "Reaper of Sangye."

He admired her skills.

At the same time, he despaired of his own situation.

What she handed over was a notice of dismissal for them.

The first floor of the usually bustling Coal Exchange was locked in a gloomy atmosphere.

The second floor was no different.

They, who had created value from the tangled threads, were no longer needed.

Now that all rights were centralized, it was likely that employees from Vergsong Corporation would be dispatched from tomorrow onwards. And they would directly operate all the mines.

"Director, please sign."

A resonance through the mask.

It had a strangely unsettling power.

Iron Mask, Anais.

The director bit his lip and picked up the pen.

Where should we go now?

Is there a place to accommodate the mass layoffs of Coal Exchange employees?

At times like this, he envied the miners.

As he was about to sign, the office door suddenly slammed open.

Both the director and Anais turned their heads.

There, a middle-aged man with a red-bearded chin stood.

Anais looked at him with wide eyes.

"Uncle Pierre?"

"How did you get here, Uncle?"

"To see if you’re doing well."

He shrugged his shoulders as he spoke.

The director stared at him in astonishment.

He knew who he was.

Pierre Mopasan.

Vice Chairman of Vergsong Grand Assembly.

A man well-known in Sangye for his skills.

And also one of the decision-makers who had made them unemployed at this place.

Why did he suddenly come here?

Pierre leisurely walked around the director’s office.

He even showed the luxury of crossing his legs in front of the other person.

"Oh, I don’t like this painting. I want to take it down."

He nodded towards the painting hanging on the wall behind the director.

Then he looked at the black jade decoration on the director’s desk and clicked his tongue.

"Hey, why put coal on the desk?"

He went around the room, nitpicking at the cracks in the wooden desk, the wrinkles in the curtains, the dust on the carpet, and so on.

The director’s complexion watching this scene stiffened.

This space had been his office for five years.

Even though he was leaving, even though the other person was the Vice Chairman of the Corporation, such rudeness was difficult to overlook.

"Haha, if you live in a room like this, you should receive money instead of paying."

"Excuse me! What’s this nonsense…?"

"Director."

Pierre looked at the director and said.

"How much do you want, Director?"

The director, about to shout in anger, was momentarily silenced.

It took some time for him to understand the question Pierre had thrown at him.