'With the production of paint, plaster, and bread, the store will need more deliveries and for those deliveries to be bulkier...
Hmm, I will send a letter to lord Mero to let him know what is going on and send more resources.' Amir thought to himself, feeling that this would help Tenur realize his goal of making this store profitable.
Amir was a servant, and as such, he saw himself as superior to any slave. But even though he had his own arrogance, this man had to admit that Tenur was different and had ideas that made him shiver.
In a way, he wanted to see this slave succeed, and by participating in Tenur's actions, he felt a sense of belonging that was hard to ignore.
Amir wanted to participate in Tenur's crazy plans and see them become a success!
With that, without realizing it, he was beginning to help Tenur more than he was obliged to do because of Mero's orders.
'I will try to increase deliveries from one every 14 days to one every 7 days. At the same time, we have to get at least twice what we would normally get in previous deliveries.' He thought.
Amir knew all the numbers for this store since, in addition to having heard Tenur's analysis the other day, he had passed this place several times in the past two years.
He was not smart enough to notice Shui and Khaa's moves, but he knew enough to plan a change in the resource supply without talking to Tenur.
He walked away from this captive for a while, going to draft the letter to Mero.
Tenur had no idea what was on Amir's mind, so he continued with customer service, managing the store, but also watching the slaves at work.
Shui was in the vicinity pretending to work, but all that was on his mind was how to take down Tenur and get this place back to normal.
Several customers passing by the store on this day would think similar things, for different reasons of course.
But even with a few ill-intentioned people, most just wanted to do business, and besides ordering their products, some of them would once again get a taste of the bread of this place.
In the middle of the afternoon, Tenur delivered the bread ordered the day before and sold those left over, finishing his offer in less than a minute.
That had been so quick and disappointing for the customers who didn't get to taste that food that at the store's closing, Tenur couldn't help but approach Amir.
"Senior, we need more captives to work making bread, paint, and plaster." He got right to the point, smiling inwardly, for previously, he had thought of returning these excess slaves to Mero.
But the products he had improvised had actually exceeded his expectations, and now he had found a new line of business for this store.
At no time had Mero asked him to make this store profitable with the same activities as before. On the contrary, Tenur's master only ordered him to find a way to make this store sell. With that in mind, he intended to use these three products to improve the profit margins of this store.
'It's just a pity that I ended up giving three promising businesses to him...' Tenur lamented in his mind, feeling the pain of seeing three of his ideas serve others, not himself.
But this was for the greater good, his quality of life!
He would not complain about it and would see it as the cost of having a less miserable life in this imperfect world.
Amir then answered him. "We can wait for our lord to send captives from the capital, or we can go to a human market tomorrow morning and buy some ourselves."
"Oh? We can do that?" He asked, surprised, as he hadn't thought of that.
"Sure, we just have to let the master know, so he understands our situation."
"Perfect, let's do that tomorrow," Tenur said before preparing to leave for his meal.
As he walked through the dimly lit streets of Cusca, Tenur was thinking about the results of the day.
After a full day of operations, he had collected 1,700 silver coins, more than twice as much as the day before.
On the other hand, on this day the store's profit was a little lower than the day before. After all, more items on promotion had been sold, and the store had not yet begun to receive payments for the plaster orders.
But still, Tenur had made a second day's profit, maintaining his good results.
'We have over 2,500 silver coins, or 25 gold coins and some silver coins... Hmm, we can buy 1 or 2 slaves, maybe more. We don't need men or people with good physiques in the kitchen.
There will still be enough left over for us to pay for some materials to make more products tomorrow.' He thought with a smile on his face.
But in the middle of Tenur's walk, he suddenly found himself in an unprecedented situation.
When he was in a darker part of the street, walking towards the place where he would eat his well-earned meal, Tenur suddenly noticed a strange movement and stopped walking.
He had a lot of experience in the cultivation world, having attacked opponents by surprise on several occasions. Thus, even though he no longer had the powers or physical condition to fight, he was not slow to notice a problem in his path.
When he stopped, an individual in the middle of the leftovers of that street stopped trying to hide, pulled out a dagger, and leaped towards Tenur, attacking him.
That blow was vicious, aimed at the heart of the young-looking slave responsible for the abnormality in the local trade in the last few hours.
"Die!" That person, a tall, muscular man with tanned skin and no hair on his head, said as he did what he should.
"Damn it!" Tenur tried to move backward as he moved his arms and hands to protect himself.
But he knew that his physical condition was not good enough for him to save himself from a probably fatal blow. After all, even if the enemy missed his heart, what could he do with a cut at chest height in this place?
Without medicine, doctors, and surgical equipment, he would be dead in a matter of hours!
'Am I going to die?'
He wondered in a split second before what must have been the moment the blow that would take his life hit him.
Pow!
However, as Tenur froze in terror, suddenly, someone kicked toward the right side of his waist, pushing him against the opposite side of the kicking motion.
"Ahhhhhh!" Tenur cried out in pain as he felt that, but he was already grateful, for that blow had potentially saved his life!
As Tenur fell to the ground, the assassin hit the air, letting out a sound of surprise.
"What?"
But the one who saved Tenur with one kick was not there just to save him. As soon as he realized that Mero's captive was out of danger, he drew his sword and slashed toward his opponent.
"Damn it, don't you dare or..." The assassin saw Amir's face and shouted a warning to avoid his end.
When one reached rock bottom, with no light at the end of the tunnel, the last alternative was to appeal to his opponent's fear of potential revenge.
It was not good to depend on anyone, but appealing to the size of your supporters was something even the strong would do in hard times.
But not everyone would fall for the threat of others' revenge, and Amir simply slashed toward his opponent's chest. "Just die!"
Swooish!
In the blink of an eye, Amir's irregularly bladed sword pierced through his opponent's chest, causing that assassin to stop falling toward where Tenur was standing.
"Cough!"
He immediately began coughing up blood as his vision slowly turned deathly dark.
"Cough! You bastard... Cough!"
Amir heard his opponent's last curse before he pushed that body in the opposite direction from him, dropping it to the ground.
Tenur had recovered from his initial surprise by this point and saw Amir beginning to clean the blood-soiled blade in his hands.
"Thank you for saving me, senior." He said softly, feeling afraid but grateful both to Amir for acting in this situation and to Mero for letting someone so capable.
"Don't worry," Amir said. "We have a lot of work to do together, so you can't die."
"Certainly, I hope," Tenur said before getting help from Amir and returning to his previous path.
"In any case, that was only the first attack. Whoever is behind it will try more." Amir said, warning this outsider of their problems from then on.
"I know. We have to get ready!"