Sorry for the late chapter, i had a lot to take care of and didn't have time to access my computer.
Enjoy
----------------------------------------
Chapter 5: Starting the plans
When the man in black looked into Alex's eyes, he felt dread. The only thing he could mumble was, “How did you know I was even here?” Alex answered with a cold face, “If you called that hiding your presence, you have a very long way to go. Now answer me, who are you and why are you here?”
The man just stuttered, “I-I-I” and tried to move his hand towards his knife discreetly. Seeing this Alex only sighed, “If you think that reaching the knife will get you anywhere, go ahead and try. However, should you fail I will most certainly break that arm of yours.” Since Alex gave away his only plan with a cold face, he didn't dare to reach for the knife anymore.
He realized that if he just answered his questions, he would have a shot at life. He reluctantly started,“I am called Panther and I am a freelance assassin. My job was to asses your strength and report it back to the Crown Prince. If possible eliminate you.” Hearing this Alex's eyes betrayed surprise.
He thought to himself, “Well, well, well. Seems like the Crown Prince doesn't like the Emily that much. His faction is most likely behind the blockage incident as well.” It all started to make sense to Alex. When Emily was tested to be a great magician, his faction felt his position as the next ruler was in danger. They took action and her meridians were blocked.
Alex looked at the man and asked, “Who do you owe your allegiance to?” The look in the mans eyes changed. It went from dread to angry as he barked at Alex, “I am my own man and owe allegiance to no one.” Hearing this Alex smiled and let his head go. He let the man stand up before making an offer, “If you are willing to join my organization I will both spare your life and also reward you heavily.”
The man thought for a second before asking in an irritated voice, “What's the catch? Until a minute ago you were ready to kill me, now you suddenly want me to join you, dream on. Even if I joined you, I would be a bottom feeder anyways, so no thank you.” He closed his eyes and prepared to embrace death when suddenly he heard chuckling.
When he opened his eyes, he saw Alex holding back his laughter, just as he was about to ask what was so funny to him, Alex looked at him and said, “I admire your conviction but I wanted to make you my direct subordinate.” When the man heard that, his face changed a bit. Alex smiled again and added, “Well, currently it would be you and me in the organization anyways but since I'm mostly confined to this place, you would be in charge for the most of the time.”
The man looked at Alex in puzzlement. He didn't understand what he was saying anymore. Alex just sat down on the ground and gestured for the man to do the same. In the beginning, the man was suspicious but he understood very well that he could neither out run or harm a hair on Alex's head. He was quite interested in Alex's proposal as well.
When he sat down, Alex started talking, “Well, you see, I wish to create a network of assassins, an organization if you will. With this network we will carry out target hits or gather information. One of the best sources of income in any world is information. I need you to gather the people you know who would be willing to join us as well. All the funding will be done by me. What do you think about this?”
The man thought for a second before saying, “If you mean organizations like that, then there are tons of them around, why should people join yours when there are more well known ones out there?” The man was doubtful of him, he had been in this business long enough to know that there are a lot of demerits to joining an organization.
Alex just smiled at him and said, “Well, for starters if a person wants out, we will allow the person to leave and we will look after them for a period of time. They will also retrieve a retiree token with which they can ask for our help should they need it.”
The man looked at him in amazement, this point alone would gather a lot of people. Every organization out there was for life. If you wanted out, you left in a box. Seeing the mans amazement, Alex just smiled a bit sinisterly and continued, “We will take care of our own, no matter who we have to go against and the tax fees will be a lot lower. If a person takes a job through our organization, we will take a 5% fee from the reward of the hit. We will also compensate the travel fees by 50%.”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The man thought over it for a second and realized one thing, the person in front of him is no average Joe. He sized up Alex and just thought to himself, “This guy will definitely rock the world, the organization he is building isn't for short term profit but for long term profit that will spam over generations.” He asked Alex, “How much starting capital will you have? An operation like this can not be done with just a few gold coins.”
Alex thought for a second before saying, “Well, if I cashed in some of my useless stuff, I will earn about 10 million gold or so. If I cash in most of it, I will easily earn 100 million or more.” When the man heard the astronomical numbers, his jaw fell open. Most of this useless junk was what he had gotten from the assassins that came after him.
He had accumulated a lot of things that he didn't practically need and could just cash in. From what he had talked with Yan, he priced the things randomly. This world had a very costly way of making things like inter spacial rings and those alone cost a fortune. He currently had 70 large inter spacial rings, 22 medium and 6 small ones. Even a small one that was 25 cubic meters in space, cost around 1 to 10 million here.
He had decided that he would sell 10 medium ones that were 50 cubic meters of space. He could earn more than enough money with those to start his organization. Alex took one large inter spacial ring from his and held it in his palm. He looked at the man and said, “This is a large inter spacial ring. It holds a 100 cubic meter space and it will be yours if you agree to join me.”
The mans jaw fell practically to the ground, an inter spacial ring was something he never thought he would own. He looked at Alex seriously and asked, “If I agree to join, what do I need to do?” This was a very important decision for him, this would decide if he could feed his family or not.
Alex looked at the man in his eyes and said seriously, “First I will give you a month to gather about 50 people. If that is done, we will make the organization formal and decide the ranks as well. You will definitely be one of the two aids of mine. You will be in charge of information. Can you do that?”
The man thought for a second and asked, “I understand that you will be the boss and I will be in charge of the Intelligence department, how many departments will you plan on doing?”
Alex just threw the ring to Panther and said, “In ideal I would like four: Intelligence, Assassination, Guarding and Special Ops.” Panther caught the ring Alex threw and when he heard about the departments, he understood well the principle behind it. Better to have a master of of one trade than a jack of none.
Specialized people had a higher chance of success than a person that did everything. Panther just smiled to Alex and said, “Instead of 50 mind if I bring 150, I would have no problem finding at least that many.”
Alex just smiled to him and said, “The more the merrier but in the beginning we have to make a name so I will have to bother you with finding targets for them. For the Intelligence department however, I will pay for all of their reports. You can assign them to priority targets like ministers and other wealthy nobles. The more valuable the information, the bigger the reward will be.”
The man nodded and asked a few more questions regarding the recruiting. Alex also gave him one of the mouse messenger to keep in contact with.
The man soon went to gather the people and Alex was just left sitting there. From a darker corner Yan stepped out and gave him a wry smile, “Well, you seem to be trying to rebuild Phantom Lord here, huh? Anyways, I want in.”
Alex just smiled to Yan and said, “Well of course you are in, who the Hell am I supposed to entrust the Special Ops Department to?”