Nebulous Emperor

Nave stood up and closed a drawer holding many folders after a long day of reading.

'God, that was both very boring and extremely interesting at the same time.'

The area you lived in largely determined what information you were able to access. Nave lived in between the scientific and business sectors. Most of the books his mother was able to get him were related to those two things. Barely giving him the ability to somewhat understand some of the documents.

'I should've paid more attention to those books.'

His mother thought the same thing, but he was so much more interested in the scientific stuff.

Nave was even more interested in the sci-fi/fantasy stuff. He read so many fictional books it was crazy.

He read books about many things; one book was about a former football player whose world fell apart, and he used his advanced intellect to ascend dimensions. Another story was about a skinny, dark-haired kid who came from poverty, much like himself, who gained abilities and used them to gain power.

'He did technically become a slave to a god, but it was still cool.'

His favorite was a story about an old man who died and was sent to another world and used his expertise in martial arts to systematically annihilate his opponents.

He sat back as he thought about what his future would look like.

'Will I get into cool magical fights and wield cool weapons?'

...

'Nah, I'm too skinny. I'll just sit in this town and live in a mansion with supermodels.'

He shook his head to rid himself of useless thoughts and focused on his work again.

Nave wasn't able to learn as much as he wished he would from just searching through random drawers and documents, but he did learn a good amount.

'I wonder when that person Charles spoke about gets here.' Nave thought.

He walked out of his office with a single piece of paper in his hand and saw no more police officers outside. The yellow ropes were removed.

'Guess they're done. I can open the mine tomorrow. I feel bad for the workers.'

The workers had no way of knowing that the mine would be closed on any certain day; all they could do was walk to the mine and look to see if it was closed. Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail shall keep the miners from checking to see if the mine was actually closed. They couldn't afford not to be sure.

He walked through the mine, giving himself an actual tour using a detailed map he found.

'This place is a lot bigger than I thought.'

He found areas he didn't even know existed; 'None of the workers probably know it exists either.'

He found a storage area that held a few machines. The machine had a seat on it, four wheels on it, and a cache in the front to hold all of the pyr it was meant to gather and transport. Some workers from each branch were chosen at the end of the day to take wagons and load the pyr into said wagons and then take them into the desired storage area.

At a certain point, a transport would arrive at the mine and use these machines to conveniently and efficiently transport the ore from the pyr storage area to the entrance of the mine, where the transport workers would load it onto the even larger transport device. 'All to take it to who knows where.'

Nave neared the machine and investigated it a little more. It had a seat, steering wheels, pedals, and a bunch of levers to pull.

He opened the machine up and looked at its internals.

Nave was very curious about how it worked. Most of the books he had access to only talked about the use of the item. Nothing about the components and how they work.

'Wow, I love looking at stuff that I don't understand at all.'

He was disappointed.

'Can't wait to get my hands on some actually useful books; my new position should allow me to.'

Nave kept walking around gathering more information about the mine from what he could see.

He decided to go home, seeing that he wasn't able to get much more done.

'Time to call it a day.'

Before Nave went home, he used some information he found on a paper in the left-top drawer. It had several codes on it. One of them was to a safe in the corner of Harry's office.

Nave inputted the code, and the door opened wide.

'Woah. So much money.'

For the first time in his life, he spotted not only silver and gold cor, but also dor.

'I've only seen cor before.'

He reached in and grabbed a green piece of paper; it had the face of a king from the past.

Even though Rumian was no longer located in a kingdom, they still used the same currency they did in the past.

1 dor was worth 100 gold coins, 1 gold cor was worth 100 silver, and 1 silver was worth 100 cor.

He took way more money than he needed to and went to the market.

Nave went insane and grabbed so much junk food off the shelves before he heard his mother's voice in his head. 'You need to eat healthy Nave.' She said.

He reluctantly grabbed one red round fruit and proceeded to the counter to purchase everything.

Nave went home with everything and ate his food before going to sleep.

He awoke dark and early and got ready for work. Nave wanted to get there before everyone else.

He grabbed his red fruit and ate it on his way out the door.

He reached the mine, turned the lights on and started to get to work. Now that Sergei wasn't here, someone had to get things ready. Nave reached the general area and stood with his hands on his hips.

"What shall I get done first?"

...

'There's nothing for me to do, is there?'

Now that Nave thought about it, before Sergei unfortunately departed due to that horrible accident, he had finished everything that needed to be done for the next day. Tools were good, equipment was good, and the sign had even been taken down by some friendly police officer to let the workers know that the mine would be open.

'I'll just take a nap in my office until everyone else gets here.'

Before he could even fully turn around, an employee walked in. A man almost just a bit smaller than Sergei.

"Hey kid, where's Sergei at?"

"Sergei's not here; you can report to me."

"I don't have time for jokes; where is Sergei at or even Harry if he's not busy?"

"I'm not joking; neither of them are here actually. I own the mine now."

"HAHAHAHA. Okay, that one wasn't bad."

"I'm seriously not joking."

Nave pointed to a name tag he had put on his shirt that also said, "Owner!"

"Where's the proof?"

"UGHHH."

Nave trudged back to the office and grabbed the paper, came out, and displayed it to the man.

"Mayor's signature and everything. Is that proof enough?"

The guy read it very slowly.

"I guess." The man shrugged his shoulders and stuck out his hand with 2 cor on it.

Nave remembered the contract and said, "I don't want your money."

"What?"

"I don't want your money; you need it much more than this mine does. Trust me, I've seen the profit margins."

"The profit what?" The man asked with a tilted head.

"It doesn't matter; just get ready to work." Nave commented while folding the paper and putting it in his back pocket.

Even though it wasn't the most businessmanlike decision, the people of this town really struggled, and they had already had enough taken from them.

'Maybe if I buy some nicer clothes, people might believe me.' Nave speculated.

Then it struck him.

'If people don't believe me, why would they listen to me when I tell them to do things?' He considered.

"Wait."

The man stopped and turned around.

Nave smiled. 'Now I know how Charles feels; I think I like it.'

"How would you like a promotion?"

The man smiled hard before it dropped.

"I don't do dirty stuff."

Nave was perplexed.

"Who said anything about dirty stuff?!"

The man shrugged his shoulders again.

"I just thought you should know."

Nave shook it off.

"I'll pay you 15 cor a day."

The guy's jaw dropped. He also dropped to his knees.

"I'll do dirty stuff."

"No one is doing dirty stuff! Get your head out of the gutters! I haven't even told you what you really need to do."

He stood up and started listening.

"What's your name?"

"Darnell."

"Okay, Darnell, all you have to do is follow me around."

"That's all?"

"A few other things if I see fit; nothing dirty though." He clarified before the man could say anything.

"Okay, I'm down." Darnell agreed.

'So that's how Sergei got his job; that makes so much more sense.' Nave concluded.

15 cor a day was huge to someone in this town; it was a 750% increase from Darnell's previous pay. It would change his life.

'Sergei only made 3 cor a day, poor guy.'

Nave continued waiting with Darnell behind him; he didn't let him hold a pickaxe either. He didn't want to end up like Harry.

People continued coming in, not even asking Nave where Sergei was but Darnell, who explained that Nave was the boss now. Few believed him at first, but after telling the first dozen or so who came in, the information spread among them, and for some reason they started believing it then.

They tried to give him money or tell him that they would work for free today, but he refused.

The people did not complain at all.

Once they disseminated to their working stations, Nave got a piece of paper and something to write with and started walking around, taking note of who was most efficient.

He couldn't do much with this information, much like Harry couldn't either, but when he became mayor, he would lift that rule and use what he gathered.

Walking through all the branches, he got a glimpse at what being in charge was like.

'I really like it!'

If there was ever any trouble between employees, Darnell handled it.

He finally got to his office after a good amount of walking and sat down.

"I could get used to this."

Of course he wouldn't get used to it; he had bigger plans.

But one of his smaller ones was about to take place. He was going to solve a problem he had happened to spot on his first day working here.