Yesterday, I started advertising my insurance business in the hope that it would attract at least some people to buy. I gave my employee, Hasbel, the task of actually receiving the payments and writing down the names of the people who will be covered. I woke up feeling like something was off, but I wasn’t sure what it was yet.

So as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, I sauntered up into the warehouse and I noticed something odd. Qaton and Darat were out and about, however still was unusual because they usually started after I woke up.

I groggily asked Qaton why they were earlier, but he said something which surprised me completely.

“You overslept. It’s like three hours after noon.” he said with an austere tone.

“Wait. What happened to Hasbel?” I wondered internally, panicked.

I quickly rushed out to meet him in his abode, and the light of the sun confirmed that, yes I had indeed slept late. Hasbel was probably finished with the task I had given him, so I went to his house so I could hear how it went from him.

I found him counting from a glistering pile of silver coins, seemingly giddy from excitement.

“Hello.”

“Have you seen how much I got?” he said proudly.

“How many silvers is that?”

“Around one hundred and twelve.”

“Shur wasn’t kidding when he said he had contacts that could spread the news.” I remarked.

“Yup.”

“So you’re getting ten percent of that, correct?” I asked.

“Yep, so I’ll get twelve silvers and you’ll get one hundred exactly.”

“How many people did you manage to get to buy insurance?” I asked him.

“I managed to get fifty-six households to sign up,” he said with a smug grin.

“That’s quite a lot.”

“Yeah, I know.” Hasbel replied, his head held up high, clearly pleased with himself.

The fact that he returned with as much silver as he did indicated to me that he was trustworthy with money, so I wouldn’t have to worry that he would just steal all of it for himself. It also told me that a lot of people in this town were really scared of getting their houses burned down, unsurprisingly. But while he did praiseworthy work, I thought it ill to stroke his ego too much. So I steered the conversation to the next issue at hand.

“So now I think now, we need to focus on training the men to adequately fight fires.”

“Yeah, so we need fit unemployed men that we can train.”

“Maybe Shur can make an advertisement like what he did with the insurance.”

“That’ll help. It worked pretty well for me.” Hasbel remarked, nodding back to his venture earlier in the day.

“How do you think we should select people?” I asked.

“Well maybe a test of some sort?” he suggested.

“Yes, one that would test whether they are actually fit for the job would be best.”

“Like what?”

“Well they need to be able to carry a lot of pails of water to be able to start a bucket brigade*.”

“Bucket brigade*, what does that mean?” he asked, his eyebrows raised.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

I had used a term in English from my world since I didn’t see any alternative, so I wasn’t surprised that he wasn’t familiar with it when I explained its definition to him.

“It’s a method of firefighting that means that people pass buckets filled with water around to extinguish a fire.”

“Like how would that work?” he asked, clearly puzzled.

“People form a chain like from a well to the fire source and they pass buckets filled with water, then the empty buckets are returned to start the cycle over again.”

“I think I get it.”

He still looked as confused as before, but he claimed to understand it. I would have to give him a practical demonstration later on.

“Remember, you’ll be training them on how to do it so I’ll show you later on.”

“Alright.”

“Anyway, so we need people that can carry a large bucket while running to the burn site, and we need people that won’t stumble or fall because that will take more time.”

“Maybe a test of speed could work?”

“Yeah, I think it’s a good idea to make them run a certain distance and come back all while carrying a heavy albeit empty pail.”

This idea could actually work, since it tested for things that the potential fire-fighters would actually need while allowing us to pick the people that have natural ability for it. Whether they would be able to be trained was an entirely different matter though, but I assumed that even the most dim person could be taught provided enough effort was put into making sure that they understood what to do.

“So now you have to spread this message, and I’m assuming that you’ll use Shur again?”

“That’s exactly right.” I confirmed.

“How much are you planning to pay them?”

“Well maybe a gold a month to start for each of the ten workers, and I can increase it when they actually get put into work.”

“Where will they stay?”

“I’m currently having some carpenters construct a facility wherein their equipment for the job can be kept, it will also be somewhere where you can work from.”

“So they’ll just stay there until there’s a fire?”

“Maybe I’ll have some of them patrol at night, but during the day, I’ll make sure that people know where to find them.”

“Alright, so where will I stay to test the candidates?”

“Do you know a good place that doesn’t have many people, so it won’t be too crowded.”

“I know the perfect place for it.”

“Let’s have it set for tomorrow noon, since it's getting a bit late already.” I said.

“Alright sure, tomorrow it is then.”

I began to collect my share of the earnings and go relay this message to Shur, when I realized that this was a good opportunity to build trust with Hasbel.

“You know what? Why don’t you tell Shur to spread the message, it’s not like I’ll do anything that you can’t.”

He thought about it for a while until he finally said, “Alright.”

“Also before I forget, take forty of the silvers in my portion and leave the rest behind. Use them to pay Shur for his services later on.”

“Alright, thanks.”

As he walked off, I briefly concerned that he would just take the gold that I gave him and run. However when I remembered how much he collected for me while I was pocketing the silver he left, I wasn’t too concerned anymore. But still I did double check with Shur that he actually gave him the gold, and he unsurprisingly repeated what Hasbel had said to him alongside the potential wage that they would receive and the fact that it would require them to stay up late. It was a bit foolish of me to doubt him at this stage, but I couldn’t be too careful.

The next day…

I woke up on time thankfully and was able to watch Hasbel in front of a crowd of men twenty-five strong. He seemed to have a wax tablet like I did, which would serve useful in marking down the times of the most suitable applicants. They all looked capable so I was somewhat sad to know that only ten of them would make it, but I had a limited budget to spend and I couldn’t pay for all of their salaries.

I gestured for Hasbel’s attention in a place where the men couldn’t see me, since I didn’t want to be connected to this business. He got my signal and told the men that he needed to step aside for a moment before coming to me.

When he got to me he looked visibly shocked by the object that I was holding— a large wooden pail. I found it difficult to use words to describe how weirdly large this bucket was, since it bordered on the awkward range of around the size of a small tub or barrel. Truth be told, I wasn’t sure if I could manage dragging it all the way from the warehouse to the location that Hasbel described, but luckily I somehow accomplished it.

“What is that?” he asked, shocked at its sheer scale.

I shrugged my arms, “A bucket?”

“That’s way too big to be one.” he said.

“Well, this is the only one I could find.”

“I’m sure that whatever this is, isn’t a bucket.” he concluded.

Now that I looked at it, it seemed more like an empty barrel that was broken in half than anything else.

“Oh.” I audibly exclaimed.

It was just then when I realized that it was a discarded alham barrel that was broken in half. Thankfully all of its contents were emptied and all it had inside it was air. But I couldn’t tell him this though, since I didn’t want to spread secrets about the smuggling ring willy nilly.

“Just make them pretend it’s two buckets or something.”

“Then you should have brought two buckets.”

“Well this is what we have, so they have to deal with it.”

“Fine, I guess this is what we have to deal with.” he said, with a deep sigh.

I only flashed him an apologetic smile as I watched him lug its heavy mass all the way to the main street where the men were, and I could see their confused faces as they laid their eyes on the object that definitely was a bucket and not all a barrel.

He said something to them, and one by one, they carried the “bucket” while running for about forty meters before returning. I didn’t tell Hasbel an exact distance since I wasn’t really well-versed in this world’s measuring system so I assume he just made up his own. I felt bad when I saw how exhausted the “bucket” made the men, but I reassured myself that they were much stronger than me and thus had an easier time with the “bucket”.

After around thirty minutes, the test was finally over and I saw fifteen of the men leave while ten remained. They each said something to Hasbel which he proceeded to write down, then they all left leaving Hasbel alone with his tablet.

When I was sure that there wasn’t anyone else around to see me with Hasbel, I approached him and asked him what he had on his tablet. He said that he managed to get the names and addresses of the men that had the top ten times. I then told him the location of my own testing facility and told him that we’ll be meeting there tomorrow night, three hours after dusk, so he’ll need to go to their homes and inform them of this fact.

After I finished talking with Hasbel, I went back to Halel’s old house and was pleasantly surprised to see carpenters already working on it. I greeted them but I was really there to make sure that the potassium nitrate was left undisturbed, and luckily it was.

I planned to train the firefighters at night so I had to make sure that they wouldn’t suspect that there was anything suspicious going on. I still made potassium nitrate by placing excrement in the ground, but only once a month. In order to not be spotted, I would have to be more careful in the future.

Speaking of the future, I wondered how their first training meeting would go and whether it would be successful, or would it all fall apart?...