Now Alric had a problem, sure he had dubbed himself the leader of a gang but that wasn’t his real intention. He needed a group that could lay some ground work in the kingdom, after all half of a battle is fought before the battle even starts.

Alric’s opponent was the entire kingdom and as such would take him several years to set the seeds needed for the downfall of an entire kingdom.

“Oii adjutant Han! come and report”

Alric sat at the center of the warehouse and called his appointed Adjutant. Han was a slim fellow in fact among the few members of the gang he was the smallest probably because he was more on the brainy side rather than the brawn side.

But being constantly surrounded by bigger men seemed to have made him into a Bonafede coward. The poor man looked like he was afraid of his own shadow not to mention Alric who took over by brute force.

“Yes sir!

The surrounding gangs haven’t seemed to notice the drop in our manpower caused by your … new leadership”

Han tried to downplay the massacre Alric had caused just by taking over, probably worried he might end up in the same boat.

“Oii! Skip to the part that I asked about.”

Han shuffled his notes that he was looking at and stood straight again before speaking,

“umm, well you see…”

Alric was getting a little frustrated at Han’s round about way of speaking

“I said get to the point!”

“Yes boss, It seems our men are having issues getting into the deeper parts of the city due to… our low economic value.”

Alric clicked his tongue. Was this Han’s way of asking for more money for the gang?

Alric rubbed his chin before thinking,

Initially he was against making any clear cut leaders seeing as no one was particularly better than the other but it seemed everything would only be solved if he actually proved he could do what he promised.

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“Very well then!

Line up all the men.”

Alric clapped his hand and Han scurried to gather everyone.

The men lined up but all showed a nervous expression. Afterall the last time they saw this blurred face man he had set his dogs on the gang and beat their previous leader.

“First!” Who are the two strongest amongst you?”

The line of men shuffled until the two bulkiest men were forced out.

Alric couldn’t even sense the slightest fluctuation of magic from them; this meant they never had any magic training whatsoever. This was pretty normal especially in these poverty stricken areas but he was still disheartened by the low level of manpower he had to work with.

“Step forward”

Alric waved his hand and spoke.

“Since you two are the strongest here you will be treated as commanders for the two teams”

“What are your names?”

“I am Blake boss”

The biggest one was the one to speak first, his body was a good build and he looked to still be relatively young, about age twenty three or so.

“And I’m Whyte, boss”

Alric sized him up from head to toe, Whyte was a little smaller but his appearance was better kept than Blake. His only outstanding feature was his head of silver hair and eyes that had a red hue.

“Not bad… open your hands and come forward.”

As Alric spoke he stretched out his hand and the two men looked at each other a little dubiously.

They stretched out their hands ready to collect whatever it was their leader was giving.

The moment they saw what was happening their eyes lit up. One by one gold coins fell into their palms and the look of envy filled the rest of the men standing in the line.

When the gold stopped spilling there were a combined six gold coins between them.

Afterwards Alric called Han forward and filled his hand with five gold coins.

Alric’s smile grew eerily as he watched the rest of the gang almost start to salivate just from the site of a few gold coins.

‘Ah yes,

the power of the almighty dollars’

He could see that the line of men were already convinced that just following instructions was more than enough to become rich.

‘Like a donkey nothing will beat a little carrot and stick approach.’

After giving the newly appointed leaders their pay he lined up the rest of the men and gave them one gold coin each.

It may not be much to the students at Alric’s school, but to this low tier gang it made Alric look like some wealthy merchant to them he stood on the same wealth as a king.

Afterall most of them throughout their lives had never owned a gold coin; they were more familiar with silver and copper coins.

By the time Alric was done the atmosphere in the warehouse seemed to have changed. Alric could have sworn he only had four pets but now it seemed like the whole gang's tails were wagging.

“Oii Han, I need about three people for a mission.

Tell them we are visiting Derawar prison. "