I appreciate the Pratus not only because it reminds me of traditional Italian market squares but also because of its layers. The market is located by a small body of water that separates two walkways, each lined with statues. When you pass through the stalls and shops surrounding it, you enter a park that has such a pleasant aroma that you never want to leave.

But above all, the Pratus has a unique atmosphere - it goes from chaotic and busy in the outer ring to suddenly peaceful and quiet as you enter the park proper. And I've checked; there isn't any magical silencing spell - it's all natural. The Pratus is so large that it encompasses all these different areas. As I walk towards the spot where the homeless camp is hidden from sight, I reach into my bag and fumble with one of the golden buttons that my friend Fulvia sewed onto it. They remind me of another time, another place, and another country.

I pass by the fountains and wave to Stan. He’s third on my list for today; I first need to secure two people to make my plan work. Without them, it will be all for naught. They are an essential component of this.

What’s this?

Oh, you’ll find out. You might have guessed it already, but otherwise, just watch.

See, my problem with Flaminia is not as simple as it looks. I can’t just go in there and win. That would do too little for me. Instead, I’ve planned something a bit more elaborate to make sure that I don’t have to resign after winning. I don’t know how they are going to take it, honestly.

And I don’t know, because it kind of depends on how mature they will be about it. I’m going to be very honest and straightforward. What I’m doing here is simple, and if they don’t like it–well, that’s on them.

Call it a test if you wish.

Now, you know, there’s something about people in a business setting that most don’t ever realize. When you need to hire someone for a bakery, you might think that you will just get a few employees here and there, and boom, they are all making food. But the reality is that every single person you get working for you must internalize, at the very least, a summary of everything you know.

This is obviously also true for any other business. If you run a car repair garage, you don’t want idiots messing up your clients’ cars, do you?

And most people don’t realize how hard it is to scout the right people. Ideally, you want people who sought the job on their own, who would go the distance to learn from you. But, realistically speaking, that’s less than 0.1% of all people. Perhaps, 0.01%. Most just need a job to put some food on the table and pay for a house and good insurance. And look, I respect those people as much as I respect anyone else, ok?

Now, if you are in a very competitive setting, though, like, say you work for Ferrari instead of a simpler carmaker, you need the best of the best. You need people who are nuts about their job. Someone without passion can always do a decent job, but when you want excellence, you’ll have to hire the most motivated and competent, even when they don’t really know what they are going to do. Sometimes, hiring based on how much work they have put in one field – even if the field is completely unrelated to yours – can be a good predictor of their future success with you.

Consistency is the most important thing ever in a restaurant/bakery. If you sold two clients two completely different products, people would start thinking that coming to eat at your place is a hit-or-miss situation.

And whenever you hire someone new, you add a new cog to the machine. If the cog doesn’t fit, everything breaks down.

And even though I’m talking about work, you can apply the same rules to your personal life. You are the sum of the people around you–how many times have you heard that? Well, it’s true. You are.

I like both Lucinda and Flaminia. One in a romantic way, one as a friend. But the question many fail to answer is the following, ‘can they fit into my reality while not wrecking my life?’

Flaminia went full psycho on me.

Lucinda might have lost all hope in our connection.

I think it will be much easier to amend my relationship with Flaminia than Lucinda, though. With the latter there’s a fundamental difference in the way we think that hardly makes it possible to get anything from us getting together.

Lorenzo reminded me of who I am, and that means I’ll just have to show it at Happy Bakery. If they accept me, that’s good. If they don’t, well, we’ll see.

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...

As I approach the homeless camp, I can't help but notice how unchanged it looks. Despite my efforts to help improve the hygiene of the residents, many of them are still wearing old, tattered clothes and don't seem to be as clean as they should be. I have tried my best to provide them with soap and other hygiene products, but it seems like there is still a long way to go before they are able to take care of themselves properly.

The smell is not as overpowering as I had expected, but I know that the people living in this camp have likely been struggling with poor hygiene for a long time. It's heart-wrenching to see them in such a state, and I really need to do more here.

As I continue walking through the camp, I see people huddled together for warmth and shelter. Some are sitting on the ground, leaning against trees, while others are lying down, trying to get some rest. Despite the challenges they are facing, these people are fighting to survive.

It's clear that there is still a lot of work to be done in order to improve the lives of the homeless in Amorium. I will continue to do my part, but I know that it will take the efforts of many more people to truly make a difference.

See, the problem in a world without sweatshops full of children that no one in the first world cares about is the fact that clothing is not cheap. You might enter a random store to buy a T-shirt made in Bangladesh, and it will cost you five bucks. If you want two pounds of bread, that might cost you five bucks as well. Are you following me? Good.

Now, ten coppers are one silver. However, it takes a hundred silver coins to make a gold.

A loaf of bread that weighs around two pounds costs around three to six coppers. It depends on the specific bread. But that gives us a baseline to work with. Everyone eats bread–also because, considering the elven diet, if one of them suffered from celiac disease, they would most likely die very, very early.

Let’s say the average loaf comes to the consumer at the cheap price of four coppers. Flour in Amorium is particularly cheap, mind you. Flaminia told me that in other cities or continents, bread prices could easily balloon up to one silver on average and when things get tough, several silvers–but that’s usually when people start dying of starvation.

I have not asked Fulvia to make me anything enchanted. I just asked for some nice clothing. For my custom order, that’s around fifteen gold coins. Now, this tells us two things. First, Happy Bakery sells a ton of bread since I still got several golds on me.

Two, commodities like clothing and soap would cost the equivalent of several hundred dollars per piece.

For an average family, how many articles of clothing do you think they could afford?

Yeah. That’s why maintaining and repairing clothes is a whole industry here. It’s like second-hand cars back on Earth–especially before people realized how much toxic waste they produced.

So, if you want to even just dress up all these people... it takes tens of thousands of dollars. And that’s for one, perhaps two robes.

Anyway, putting aside the disparities in income and the insane cost of certain amenities…

“Hey, man, have you seen Quintus and Tiberius?” I ask one of the guys whose hair I cut.

“Joey,” he smiles, “have you got any bread on you?”

I feel a presence behind me, and I turn to see that, not too far, there’s the guy that really doesn’t like me—Arminius. I ignore him, even though he’s staring right at me, and focus on the guy in front of me.

“Yep. I’ll have those two distribute it as soon as I have a word with them. Can you point them out to me?”

He looks a bit miffed that I’m not handing out the food immediately, but after exhaling loudly, he points at the side of the camp that’s closer to the inner ring of statues.

“They are somewhere over there, sparring,” he shakes his head. “Or that’s what they call it. They are trying to beat each other with some blunted swords.”

“Cool. I’ll have them come back in a second, then. It’s not going to take long. Plus, we’ll have even better bread soon.”

I walk among the trees for barely two minutes before catching a glimpse of them. They are on a small mound of earth–impossible to call it a hill, but not exactly level with the rest of the landscape. I slowly approach Quintus and Tiberius as they swing blades against each other.

You might ask, ’but Joey, what do you need Tiberius and Quintus for if you still haven’t bought any ingredients for the bake-off? Shouldn’t you be taking care of more important things?

And that’s a fair question. I have already mentioned my interest in scouting people to work with me, right? I mean, at least I have mentioned it in general terms. Now, the very first reason I want to get to know Tiberius and Quintus better is that they have the biggest sway in the homeless camp right after Stan.

They are two experienced [Soldiers] who fell on hard times. Even if it were just taking care of the bread distribution and maintaining order when I cut hair, their cooperation would be essential.

And Lorenzo taught me a fundamental lesson while I was in Italy with him: you need people by your side. Every time you move around the world, there are small battles to fight everywhere. It might be just a run to get the best tickets to a concert or, perhaps, to get the best ingredients from a supplier.

So, you need to see who will stay by your side. And what I’m going to say next might sound bad to you, ok?

Flaminia and Clodia are part of a duo that I will never be able to break–nor am I interested in doing so. The only person in the entire bakery I could probably sway in one way or another is Raissa; that’s because I know I could help her with her needs.

The tighter a group is, the harder it is for someone to enter their ranks.

Tiberius and Quintus don’t have a real group other than themselves and the homeless people. And being homeless was not exactly a choice for them.

So, if I must start somewhere, I’d like to start here. They are nice. Quintus is a bit aggressive, but he’s still better than most people I have met. He is just protective of the more trusting Tiberius, in a way.

If I need to honor Lorenzo’s teachings, I need to be more professional in how I approach my life. And these two are exactly where I plan to start.

I turn my eyes to the two ex-[Soldiers] sparring.