Chapter 106
The Viper Guild was now officially known as Patty's Trading Company--named after the former guild master's daughter--and had given up on their criminal behavior. The idea to change the name came from Patty herself since the Viper name wasn't popular with the people. The other dismantled guild was the Golden Summer guild; the Adiers took control of it to liquidate the guild's a.s.sets and pay back its loans but couldn't open the vault so the casino was still closed. Gren still hadn't robbed the vault since there was no good opportunity to do so.
Most of the criminal guilds could be found in the slums but were very small. The largest in the slums now only had a couple dozen members if you ignored the Scarlett Guild. The real problem right now was the largest criminal guild located in the southwest section of Adierton: the Happy Homes Guild. It was in the real estate business, primarily, but used its properties to strangle the citizens with high rent which made their homes anything but happy. People that failed to pay on time were forcibly removed from the property. What they were doing was legal but that was only on the surface.
Even when people paid on time, the guild falsified doc.u.ments to make the payment seem late and increased the prices by claiming that they owed late fees. They also operated as a fence for stolen objects but it was on a small scale. If Gren chose to attack them over them being a fence then it'd be hypocritical since the Scarlett Guild was currently the largest fence in the business and he wasn't going to touch them.
The other criminal guild in the district was seemingly legitimate and only sold some black market goods in their shops. To Gren's surprise, the book shop that he frequented was a.s.sociated with it. They had the name of Windia's Magic Guild which seemed like a ridiculous name until Gren read that it was run by someone with the family name of Windia and that they were a mage. Other than operating businesses, the Windia family ran a small magic school that taught wind magic. The fact that Gren couldn't buy a wind spell book was probably related to the school.
Right now, Gren was in a meeting to discuss the fate of the Happy Homes Guild. "Just attacking them will bring too much aggression on ourselves we can't afford to get attacked at such an early stage in this mission. There's an easier way to deal with them if you're willing to spend some money." Annie came up with a plan after talking with Jade and Jessica. "The good news is that you will eventually get your money back. There are some houses you can buy; they are damaged but with some repairs we can rent them out for dirt cheap to undercut the Happy Homes Guild. Make sure to step in when their muscle tries to collect fraudulent late fees and we can quickly eliminate their main income stream."
"Money isn't a problem but will people trust us enough to move into properties owned by us?" Gren was worried that the plan wouldn't work. "I mean, I'll do it either way. I can just use those houses for future guild members and the families of trainees under the FMC Juniors program once it gets started. I
"It's not about trust. We'll leave the contracts with a bank and each payment will be paid into our account. We couldn't scam them even if we wanted to." Annie already thought about how to attract people to their property. "Just prepare for when the Happy Homes Guild finds out about us poaching their tenants. I expect them to become hostile since they view it as their territory. Now, let's get started on buying and restoring homes."
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Gren quickly found out that the level of damage to the homes was greater than he thought it would be. They all needed a lot of repairs before anybody could use them as a home. The one that Gren was currently working on had a flooded bas.e.m.e.nt which would have been difficult to fix if it weren't for his water magic. There was a drain but it had been clogged with dirt which would make it a tough job for some without earth magic. The leak came from the roof so there was water damage in the first floor as well and there was even mold that would need to be cleansed with fire.
"Will anybody want to live in this small house? I need to replace the roof anyways so why don't I just build a second floor?" Gren didn't think that a small one bedroom house wasn't large enough for a family so he had the system scan the area. He had to remove the roof brick by brick to make room for the new second floor but the system took care of that as well. "Wood for the second floor will be fine, right?"
"I don't know why you keep asking me things when you're just going to do whatever you like." Annie was getting annoyed by Gren's talking since he did this for the other homes that he had already renovated. "If you don't want my opinion then just work quietly."
"Sorry, I was thinking out loud. If there are some ideas that you've got then please let me know. I don't really know what people want from their homes." Gren was close to adding 'in this world' but stopped himself. "Even if it's just the layout of the furniture, suggestions are welcome."
Annie had been forced to watch as he decorated homes so she did have a few ideas. "Just get it done as fast as possible so that we can get started on the next part of the plan." She did not want to spend too much time on the homes so she kept her ideas to herself. Annie knew that Gren would take a lot longer if she opened her mouth.
"Alright. If you change your mind, there are lots of other homes to go." Gren might have spent a lot of money but it was only due to the number of properties he bought. Each one was cheap because they weren't able to be lived in. "Even if they're a bit destroyed, these places are still in decent locations. I don't understand why n.o.body bought them and fixed them up before us."
"We've already talked about this. Craftsmen are rare to come by and, even if you could find enough of them for a project like this, it would cost you more to hire them than it would if you just bought a different house." Gren could sort of remember talking about the situation with the craftsmen back during that elven fort request but didn't think that Annie was part of that conversation. Did he talk about them elsewhere with Annie? "It's only somebody like you that could restore these places for almost no cost."
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Gren felt exhausted so he fell asleep in one of the restored homes. He made sure to let Jessica know that he'd be working through the night so there were no problems there. Annie was still by his side so his usual habit of finding trouble didn't show itself. He just spent the entire day working on the homes and made a lot of progress.
Annie woke up before him and was sharpening her dagger with a whetstone while staring out of the window. Although Gren found the sight of her attractive right now, it was the same way that people would be attracted to works of art. The way that her red hair was lit by the light from the rising sun as she stared outside with a thoughtful expression made him want to capture this scene forever. It was cheap so Gren had the system create a painting of her in that exact moment. "You're up." Annie could hear Gren moving on the bed as he sat up to grab the painting. "Is that me?"
"Yeah. You looked really nice like that so I wanted to share the image with others." Ever since Gren had realized that he could use the system to make paintings, he had been using his own memories to craft them. The first paintings he made were of his family and the guild members. There was an image from back when Gren first bought the guild members and they had put on their clothes.
Gren's favorite image was of Ruby at the wheel of the pirate s.h.i.+p with light and fire attacking the water monster that he made. Each image had to be from his memories so they weren't always that good and this was extremely obvious in the s.e.xual paintings he created. While the painting of Jessica posing suggestively had a certain artistic look to it, the ones that showed him doing the deed were all awkward to look at. If the s.e.xual images weren't for his private collection then none of those scenes would get paintings. The family friendly paintings would be added to an art exhibit in the guild and Gren planned on using them to help entertain the women.
"This is the first time I've ever seen an image of myself without a notice that there's a bounty on my head. It's also the first time I've seen one that shows the color of my hair which might be why I wasn't caught for such a long time." Gren kept forgetting that there was a time when Annie was wanted. "Now, let's go finish this."
It took the rest of the day for them to complete the repairs to the homes. Jessica had already paid for independent mercenaries to go to the homes of people under the Happy Homes Guild's thumb and give them the news that they could move for free into fully furnished homes. They would be skeptical about it but once they see the contract then they should take the opportunity. The results of their actions wouldn't be apparent for a while and there were other things that they needed to do since the Happy Homes Guild wasn't the only problem that needed to be dealt with.