City of Desire [Kingdom Building]

The carriage stopped in front of the huge four-story building with huge glass windows, which seemed transparent, but was not. 
 
Carla and I walked out of the carriage and walked inside the building. The office of Nielson Guild.
 
We walked through the lobby and entered the elevator, which went to the top floor, and got out.
 
“Remus Silver, I have a meeting with Mage Valentina,” I said to the assistant, who looked to be in her early thirties.
 
“Yes, Mage Valentina has asked you to bring you in as soon as you have arrived,” she said with a professional smile and walked toward the door while Carla arched her brow at me as we followed behind.
 
There were still ten minutes to my appointment, but the personal relationship had its benefits.
 
Click!
 
The receptionist opened the door to the office, and we walked in; inside was Valentina, sitting behind a largely white, delicately carved table. It is not a normal table, the one which is heavily enchanted.
 
She is not the only one present in the office; there is also chief architect Davidson.
 
“Remus, Carla, take a seat,” she said, and we sat in front of her, “Thank you,” said Carla as she sat beside me.
 
“So, you want to expand the mansion?” she asked. 
 
I told her what I wanted when I asked her about the appointment.
 
“Yes, if you do the job,” I said with a smile. The construction guilds across the city are swamped with work, calling more people from the Empire.
 
Even then, it had become hard to quickly start new work; as people are one thing, the material is another.
 
A few days ago, when we went to attend the party, Valentina said she was diversifying her suppliers. 
 
Focusing more on suppliers from the cities of Meldhorn as they are capable of providing what she needs much sooner and bigger with better prices with quality.
 
“For you, we will,” she said and tapped on the runes of the table a few times, and a moment later, the emblem of her guild appeared; she tapped a few more times, and a huge projection of my establishment had appeared.
 
Seeing that, I smiled, and Carla handed me a file, and I took out a couple of pages with rough drawings from it.
 
“I want to expand the mansion to the left, right, and back. The basement also needed to expand greatly,” I said directly, making them both quite surprised as I slid the drawings toward her.
 
If I am doing an expansion, I might as well do it big, which is why I applied for a big loan, but it will not be enough. 
 
I will need to pour everything I have and earn in the next few weeks. As after the expansion is complete, I will earn huge money. 
 
A million crowns day, at least.
 
“You had said you were coming to discuss the expansion but did not expect they would be this big,” she said with a smile before her eyes turned serious, “It will be quite an expensive Remus, more if you want it quick,” she added.
 
“I have money,” I said. 
 
I don’t have it right now, and if the bank rejects me, I will have to move to another source, which I hope, I don’t have to.
 
It came with strings attached.
 
“Let’s begin then,” she said and began rapidly clicking across the runes so fast that I could not see her fingers as they moved. 
 
A little more than two minutes later, the huge projection of the mansion disappeared, and in its place, forty-eight small mansions appeared.
 
Each one of them has a resemblance to the establishment but are bigger and looks more beautiful.
 
All of them had the current building of the establishment in the middle, with them expanded left, right, and back, in a different variation of the harsoth style of architecture.
 
There are some which will require a minimum change to my establishment, while some will require a huge overhaul. I looked at each of them carefully, even asking Valentina to provide me with the view from all angles.
 
“Leave numbers 2, 9, 27, and 46, and make everything disappear,” I said, and she did. Soon, there was a projection of only four mansions have remained, which now have become even more bigger.
 
I began to analyze them further, discussing some things with Carla before turning to Valentina.
 
“Number 9, but I want changes to it,” I said. I want many ideas, and I want them to implement them.
 
“Of course,” she said with a smile, and for the next twelve minutes, we worked on the changes. These are big outer changes; we will work on the delicate ones with the other meetings.
 
A single meeting is not enough for such a big project; we will need to have multiple meetings till it has been finished.
 
“Do you want to change the garden and other things?” she asked, “Yes,” I replied. 
 
The gate, road, fountain, and garden need to change according to the mansion.
 
It took around twenty-five minutes to finalize all those details.
 
“Now that we have finished with external changes, let’s move to internal,” she said, and soon, the internal space appeared.
 
“What do you want to do with the hall; do you want to divide it or leave it open?” she asked, “Leave it open,” I replied, with the establishment expanding, the size of the hall also increased.
 
I want it to the size of a standard ballroom, which is neither big nor small, a perfect size.
 
After we decided on the hall size, we started with the rooms on the first floor; the makeup room needs to be much bigger right now, and so is the kitchen.
 
The bar is going to expand further, and Valentina showed me a few designs; I chose and made a few changes. The bar is really important; more than a third of earnings come from the liquor sold through it. 
 
After we finished with the hall, we started on rooms; there, I wanted to make some big changes.
 
Currently, all the rooms have the same price, but it is going to change. 
 
There will free rooms; there will be premium rooms of a different category, with amenities that will take the whole experience to a different level.
 
It is what I am selling in my establishment, the experience, something they have only found in my establishment.
 
It had been twenty days since the establishment had opened, and it only took a few days for others to start copying things from me. Despite that, they were not able to achieve the kind of sale I have with my limited number of girls and a small establishment.
 
Carla had been very worried since the two girls had left, thinking they had spilled all the trade secrets, but I was not worried.
 
They run the business through exploitation, and even though they want to make a profit as I do, they do not copy me in everything.
 
I would give it writing that they will not give 10% commission to girls; they will hire teachers, might even poach some of mine, but will not have a vision in which I am making them teach them.
 
There are many things such as this, and every little thing affects the picture greatly.
 
So, copying my ideas and even business models will benefit them without a doubt, but if they want to make a huge profit like me, then they will have to forgo everything they learned about this business.
 
Which they will not do; I am confident about that.
 
It took more than one and a half hours to make the internal changes; most of it took deciding the enchantment. Some of them needed to be laid during construction, so deciding on them is imperative.
 
“Now, only underground has remained,” she said and looked at me. “I want to expand it at least three times and have another floor below,” I said. To that, she nodded. “It is not a problem; we will be able to do it with our geomancers,” replied.
 
“The underground will be the living quarters of girls, right?” she asked, “Yes, I want the new room, a few recreational places like a common room, library….” I continued, and she wrote it all down.
 
They got surprised to hear some of my requirements. Last time, I was not able to do much, except for making the hall a little bigger and bringing some new furniture, but now, I have some budget.
 
Enough to make their living condition better than the simple bland.
 
Soon, we finished with underground, and Valentina finally started on things I had missed; she was successful in selling me many things, further increasing the budget.
 
“How soon do you want it?” she asked the main question, “As soon as possible,” I replied. “And you want it silent and hidden?” she asked, to that I nodded.
 
I want to run the establishment while it happens; such a big change is not easy to hide, but they could do it.
 
“It will take one and half months, Remus,” she said, and I had expected that, but still, I hoped it would have been soon.
 
“Can’t it be sooner?” I asked with hope. “I could do it in a month, but you will have to close down your establishment for that period,” she said, and a mirthless smile couldn’t help but appear on my face.
 
The original mansion took around nine-month to finish, compared to it; this project is bigger. 
 
I know I am lucky to be Valentina’s friend, which is the only reason why she is willing to do it so quickly. If I had been a normal client, she would have taken at least a month more and would have charged me more than whatever she was going to charge now.
 
“So, how much is it all going to cost me?” I asked, hoping it would not be over my budget.
 
She did not answer immediately and kept looking at me, likely using her skills to calculate the cost.
 
“It is going to cost you twenty million, six hundred thousand crowns,” she said finally, and for a moment, I felt relieved, as it had not gone above my budget, but it was still a big amount.
 
“Let’s agree to twenty million,” I said, to which she rolled her eyes, “Twenty million and five hundred thousand,” she said with her eyes twinkling.
 
“Twenty million and fifty thousand crowns,” I said, and immediately, she countered with her price.
 
We started negotiating, and this time, there were no skills involved, and despite that, it felt harder than the last time, where she drowned me with the power of her skill.
 
“Twenty million and two hundred crowns, you drove a hard bargain, Remus,” she said, and I could only smile.
 
“When will you begin?” I asked. “I will send my people for survey immediately, and the work will begin tomorrow after your clients leave,” she replied.
 
Fifteen minutes later, we left Valentina’s office. I have signed a few papers and paid a quarter of the price. 
 
It had emptied more than what I had, but there was a smile on my face as I was finally expanding.
 
A plan that I thought might take at least six months to begin had started in less than a month. 
 
It made me very happy.
 
…
 
“See, didn’t I tell you he had potential,” said Valentina to the old man beside her. 
 
“The project is not big; we should focus more on big clients,” said the old man, hearing that a smile couldn’t help but appear on my face.
 
“He is a big client; we are only doing some small work for him,” she replied, and an old man just looked at her for a moment before sighing.
 
“He did have potential, and really I hope he will not do something to lose your favor and friendship,” said the old man, with deep meaning in his eyes, seeing that Valentina had looked away.
 
“I hope so too; it had been a while since I had found someone who I felt like I could trust,” she said so softly that it was barely audible to herself.

An.

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