"Tsk. What's the use of allying ourselves with a security company if they can't even send some useless meathead to help us?"
"They're busy protecting the mines, sir."
The Ruobber company and the Sunverk company had a joint project that involved the mining of high-quality Kores in the mountains around the city. This particular mine was the biggest mine within hundreds of kilometers, which meant that they were the biggest supplier for Kores in the city.
Why were there two large companies involved in this project?
Mining Kores was no simple thing. First of all, Kores lived underground or embedded deep in mountains inaccessible to normal people without the proper equipment. The higher the quality of Kore, the deeper they were underground.
Some of the worthwhile Kores underground were either too deep underground or under an ocean of lava underground. This was why specialized equipment was needed to even get there. That was where the Ruobber company was needed. They had the resources to make the operation of the mining successful.
They supplied the manpower using their interns to do the actual hard labor required for mining. They also supplied all the equipment and all other expenses.
If that was just as easy as that, then the Ruobber company wouldn't need to cooperate with a security company like the Sunverk company.
A security company was needed in this mining project because of the dangers that lurked underneath. Usually, some oceans of lava or deep underground caves had dangerous Fiends protecting them. As for why those monsters were there, it was hypothesized that these Fiends were attracted by the power of the Kores themselves. However, that didn't make sense because they didn't try to eat the Kores. They only wanted to live beside it.
With those Fiends lurking in the shadows, that made the mining operation extremely dangerous. That's where the Sunverk company came in. They were the ones who sent in guards and martial artists to defend the miners and defeat the Fiends.
There were also some companies always trying to take control of the mines for themselves. Or there could be some individual thieves hoping to get some Kores from the mines without anyone noticing. It was the Sunverk company's responsibility to make sure that the mining operation went smoothly.
With the cooperation of those two big companies, they were able to create a monopoly in the Kore market. They were able to set their prices and inflate them as much as they wanted. They had no competition. They were the only ones who could provide high-quality Kores to the market.
Of course, normal people couldn't afford their prices. That's why they market their high-quality Kores to the other big companies that need tremendous amounts of energy for their projects.
"Whatever," said Tieve. "Let them deal with those shrimp startups. We have to deal with the real threat. We have to kill this mysterious company before they take any more interns from us."
Tieve then looked at all his board members and said, "We need to send Visionaries! That'll make sure that this mission will go as planned and we'll finally know the identity of this mysterious company."
"But sir. We don't have the budget to hire Visionaries right now. We are already borrowing funds to mitigate the damage to our reputation from the Physicality Test incident. We're using all of our budget to manipulate the articles and make sure that we are painted in a good light."
"It's fine. We'll just have to take another loan."
"But—"
"It's fine! Are you forgetting who we are? We own the Kore market! We get 50% of all profits from our joint venture with the Sunverk company. We'll earn back that money in no time!"
It was true that they were still profitable from the mining. However, the board members were not comfortable with taking that big of a risk. If something happens on the Kore market that takes away their monopoly on the high-quality Kores, then they would end up in the red. It would be a total disaster.
Although the probability of that happening was small, the board members still wanted to be cautious. It was their job to make sure that the company wouldn't take those kinds of risks.
However, they couldn't say no to the owner of the company. It was a lose-lose situation. If they refused to do what he wanted, then they would be fired. If they still went with whatever he said, and things went wrong, then they would be the ones getting blamed.
Tieve could simply say a word and they would all be fired in just a second. So, they all decided to let the young boss do whatever they wanted.
"Okay, boss. We'll hire Visionaries for this mission."
Tieve noticed that all of them looked uncomfortable with the situation. He could see the fear in their eyes. "Don't worry too much, guys. We will never lose our monopoly in the Kore market. Who else are they going to buy Kores from?"
—-----------------
Patty finally got back home after riding the bus. He opened the door and saw that the four interns were happily lounging in his home. Jorn and Dom were sparring while Roni was busy cooking something in the new kitchen that was renovated a few hours ago. This was the beauty of materializers. Jobs that would have taken days now took only seconds because of this amazing technology.
"How's your date boss?" Andres asked.
"Shut up. All of you are traitors." Patty rolled inside with his massage chair and immediately plopped into his bed. Although it was nice getting massaged all day long, it couldn't beat laying down in his bed and completely relaxing.
Jorn walked over to Patty and explained, "Boss, don't you know? It's hoes before bros. It's wife before husband. It's the girlfriend before the boss. That's just the natural hierarchy that we have to follow."
Patty shook his head. "She's not my—"
DING
Before Patty could say anything, he suddenly saw a notification from his phone and saw that an unknown number texted him. He opened it up and his cheeks immediately reddened. It was a selfie picture of Xandra in her pajamas looking at the camera from up above. It was a very…interesting picture that he wouldn't want others to see because they could misunderstand something.
Under that picture was a note that said;
Patty immediately closed his phone and hid it in his pockets.
"Ooooh! Is that a text from the missus?" Dom teased.
He didn't even want to explain to them anymore that Xandra wasn't his girlfriend. No matter how much he tried to explain to them, they wouldn't believe it.
"It's nothing. By the way, I haven't congratulated all of you, yet." Patty immediately tried to steer the conversation away from Xandra.
"It went as expected, of course! We dominated it."
"I don't know how, but we somehow got named the dark horses."
"It's very embarrassing, but it's good that others know that we are really powerful now."
Jorn, Dom, and Roni were the ones that showed off their full power. However, Andres decided to keep his powers a secret. He made sure to score only the third place. It was enough to have good grades, but it didn't get the attention of the media like those three.
Although Andres could have gotten first place and gotten really good grades, he thought that it was unnecessary. After all, he wasn't planning on getting another job ever. He would be loyal to Patty and the Aezure company forever.
Also, showing off his full power would attract a lot of attention. Case in point, one of the superiors from the Ruobber company was already planning on trying to uncover the secret to how those three dark horses got their power.
He was content in being the shadow that secretly protected the company.
"I told you guys to perform well, but I didn't say to destroy the competition completely. All of you were the undisputed champions of each event. That was too much publicity," Andres said to them.
"It's fine," Jorn waved off Andres' concern. "Didn't we want to recruit more members anyway? Now, everyone wants to join us."
"Yeah. There's a lot of people asking me how I got my powers."
"You got asked too? Even my classmates from kindergarten were asking me. I haven't seen them for years!"
Thankfully, Andres already warned them not to say anything to anyone. "We must be careful who we want to join us. There could be some spies from other companies like the Ruobber company who's trying to sabotage us."
"What do you think, boss?"
Patty simply shrugged. He didn't care whatever they did, as long as Patty could live in his lazy paradise. If they were planning on recruiting more members, then it was for the better because Patty would have more butlers to order around.
As for the sabotage from the other companies, Patty didn't care. He trusted Andres and the others completely. Also, it would take too much mental capacity to try and discern who was genuine or not.
Either way, Patty was simply too lazy to deal with anything. If some company was trying to sabotage them, then the easiest way to deal with them is to crush them completely.