Most poor families in this part of the town usually earn about 1,000 to 2,000 parou, which was enough for 1 week of food. But that food was mostly potatoes or rice, which satisfied the needed nutrition to live.
But usually, they only worked whatever they could find like cleaning the sewage, harvesting crops, or working part-time in a restaurant. The worst part was that they do not have a constant supply of money to buy groceries. It would not be weird for them to not eat for three to four days at a time.
Earning more than P5,000 per week in a family of four would consider you to be a lower middle class family, enough to not worry about your next meal. Some of them even had homes of their own, albeit run down or placed on the outskirts of town.
The Foster mother that took care of the orphanage that Caesar lives in makes about 8-9,000 parou per week, which is about P30,000 per month.
With 20 children to take care of, her income was barely enough to feed all of them. But every month, the debt collector comes in and demands a lot of money for something the orphanage didn't borrow.
Yes, that's right. The orphanage was paying for debts that were not theirs—it's the church's. The orphanage can't do anything about it because the dorm they lived in was inside the territory of the church.
Once they complained, the church will kick everyone out of the dormitory. Even if it was rundown and dirtied, it was still better compared to sleeping on the streets.
If Caesar gave the 10,000 coins he earned to the foster mother and pay off the debt for this month, then the Mother wouldn't have to scrape for money.
But Caesar wasn't that generous. It would be idiotic to give them all the money right now and leave nothing for himself. For his plans for the future, Caesar was planning on helping the orphanage, but now was not the time.
Right now, Caesar had to produce 5 kilograms of Joy in one week. Despite his protests back then, producing that much amount was not that much trouble for Caesar. It was not the cooking that was hard, it was the gathering of ingredients.
The ingredients he had gotten back then were painstakingly hand-picked by himself by walking around town and searching every nook and cranny.
Fortunately, the ingredients weren't that hard to find as it was fairly common around these parts. This was the reason why the production of Joy was so prevalent in this town.
Caesar could gather the ingredients by himself, but producing 5 kilograms worth of ingredients would take him at least a month. He needed to produce it in one week.
He needed someone to gather it for him, someone who already has kilograms worth of ingredients in their storage. Caesar was planning on contacting one of the main producers of Joy.
To be exact, he was planning on contacting the person who sold the ingredients in bulk to the drug dealers.
He needed to create the right connections this early in the game because it would make his plans of producing Joy easier in the long run.
Luckily for Caesar, he knew one person who was a supplier for the big producers in the Joy industry. Caesar saw him frequently visiting the laboratory near the church to personally suck up to the drug dealers for a better price on the ingredients.
He remembered him to have a big and fat body, but his movements in complementing his customers made it seem like he was as agile as a snake.
His name was Boban, and he was a perfect candidate for Caesar's plans. In truth, there were plenty of other suppliers in the town, but he didn't know much about them nor did they suit his plans.
Caesar closed his eyes and remembered the pathway of the Boban's carriage back to his lair. Then, it was as simple as walking towards them with a casual stride.
But before he went on this mission, Caesar completed his preparations. He went back into his secret sewage area and created a few chemical concoctions that he had learned from his psychotic readings.
This was one of the advantages of being a schizophrenic. Back when he had advanced to level 1, which he guessed to be some sort of ranking, he had gotten a few more recipes in mind.
Since this was his brain, the voices gave him the recipe that he needed the most in his plans. Caesar wasn't that surprised. It was only natural that his brain would help him achieve his goals.
Once his preparations were hidden in his pocket, Caesar made his way to one of the most luxurious houses in the outskirts of town.
Caesar guessed that Boban placed his lair in the outskirts of town because he needed to have a big place to store his ingredients. It was much more expensive to buy a big place in the center of the town. It was smart of him to do that.
Boban was not only smart, but he was cautious too. Despite his rat-like behavior to curry favors, it was merely a ruse so that his enemies didn't see him as a threat. It was a dangerous business dealing with criminals like Joy manufacturers.
Caesar looked at the two-story mansion painted with gold and saw men with silver armor walking around the area. There were five people stationed at the entrance, and two on each balcony.
He smiled and thought to himself. 'You must think you're so safe with those guards, don't you Boban?'
Then, he walked straight into the entrance without any care in the world. The guards were talking with each other when they saw a shadow on the side of their eyes.
They immediately looked at Caesar for one second and subconsciously pulled out the sword from their scabbards. But as soon as they saw Caesar's dirty appearance, they stopped being wary.
"You can't beg for money here, kid," the guard said while flailing his sword towards Caesar. The other guards immediately started snickering as they made fun of Caesar.
Caesar looked at the guards and secretly shook his head. The armor and the swords on their hands made them look intimidating, at least for normal people.
Nobody used swords anymore now that guns were normalized in this industry. But the sharp glint of the sword and armor would be enough to make it seem like these guards could take on a dragon.
This was another one of Boban's tactics to scare off the potential thieves that might want to steal his money. It was easy to see through, at least for Caesar.
"I'm here to speak to Boban," Caesar said straight.
The guards looked at each other and smiled. "Yeah, sure. We'll tell him personally that you especially want to talk to him," he said sarcastically.
The guards laughed together. They seemed completely sure that Caesar was as harmless as a fly—as planned.
"Tell him that Julius sent me," Caesar said.
The guards didn't have any reaction to Julius' name, which meant that they didn't know him. Why would they? Julius was an entirely made up name that Caesar created for this moment.
"Guliyus, aliyus, whatever his name is. We don't care. We can't allow you inside," the guards said as they shook their heads and started to leave the gate and back to their game of cards.
"Are you sure about that? Didn't Boban tell you something very important, something you must always do?" Caesar said provokingly.
The guards stopped in their place and shivered. They remembered the strict teachings that they had to learn once they had come under Boban's employment. The scars on their body itched.
"H-he did say that his customers are very important. We can never anger them…"
"Do you think this Julius guy is a customer?"
"How can we be sure?"
Caesar smiled to himself as he listened in on their conversation. Caesar knew that Boban taught his guards something, but he didn't know the specifics. Now, he knows about it because the guards told him. He can use it to his advantage.
"How do you think Boban will feel once he finds out his guards refused the biggest Joy manufacturer in town?" Caesar asked with a cold tone of voice.
The guards immediately felt shivers down their spine. They could not risk the fact that Boban could lose hundreds of thousands of coins in profit because of them. They would certainly die.
One of the guards immediately sprinted towards the mansion to ask permission to Boban himself. After a few minutes, he came back with perspiration dripping down his forehead.
"Sir Boban says you can come in," he said with a bit of fear in his eyes.
The guards then opened the gates to Boban's mansion and let Caesar in. Then, they patted down Caesar's body to make sure that he did not have any weapons on him.
They didn't notice a thin bag of chemical powder in his body. With the inspection done, Caesar walked inside the mansion. First part of his plan, complete.