The people of a district in the slums gathered around a pile of rubble with macabre expressions and grave eyes.
They didn't like what they were about to do.
But they had no choice.
They rolled up their sleeves as they knelt down and got to work, quickly unearthing the rubble that had fallen bit by bit. Every brick that crumbled like sandstone was moved out of the way, as were the sheets of metal that comprised the ceiling of a little hut.
CLACK
THUD
After shifting the last piece of rubble, they found what they had come for.
A corpse.
One of an old women.
Her eyes were lifeless, and her skin had already begun to change to a sickly color while a dried pool of blood had formed around her head. The expressions of the people soured as the reeking odor of feces grew stronger.
Death was not pretty.
More importantly, it was not hygienic or sanitary either.
This was why they had gone out of their way to unearth her corpse.
The slums were unhygienic and unsanitary enough as it was, letting a corpse rot would make the locality that much more unlivable. Accustomed as they were to the conditions of the slums, everybody had limits, and living beside corpses was precisely that limit for the people of the slums.
They swiftly dug a hole beside the corpse, before gently pushing the corpse into it and quickly burying it.
They heaved a severe breath when they were finally done.
"This year…" the man shoveling the dirt muttered with a hardened expression. "This year might be worse."
The men and women gathered around him darkened as the air tingled with an impending hint of tension.
He didn't need to elaborate.
Not a single person was unaware of what he was referring to.
"…what should we do?" A middle-aged woman asked with an anxious tone.
Dark bags hung under her eyes.
Her clothes were scrappy and messed up, while her skin was still moist from the rainwater.
"Drive a hard bargain," the man snorted as he shoveled dirt on the corpse. "Bastards build huts that collapse with just a little bit of rain. Tsk, I should beat them up next time I see them."
The primary adhesive used to hold bricks of a building together was a special mana-active substance known as manalica, which was extremely abundant across the Democratic Republic of Elendir, reducing the expenses for this substance to effectively almost zero. It was present in the gravel, mud, and sand across the entire nation with truly stunning abundance, and with some purification, it was remarkably adhesive.
It formed the foundation of the civil construction paradigms across much of South Gruonia, including Elendir.
However, while the substance was inherently adhesive in and of itself, it needed some minimal magical processing amid application with heat and other conditions to retain its adhesive nature in the long term. Due to the absence of the magigrid and their minimal purchasing power, this essential magical processing step simply couldn't be, and wasn't applied in the construction process of the slums.
This was the actual fundamental reason for the long-term instability of housing in the slums.
The man gritted his teeth as she shoveled more aggressively.
"Just how many buildings are going to fall this time?"
The desperation in his voice was fierce.
It was the kind of desperation that only came when even an indomitable perseverance had come close to cracking.
It wasn't as though this problem was new.
Certainly not.
Ever since the technology had been created and the slums had been deprived of it, they had known of this problem. And yet, back in the day when there was an abundance of forests from which they could fashion wood to build houses and huts of wood, it didn't matter nearly as much.
But those forests were long gone as Colohen City had expanded far and wide, deforesting the entire area to acquire more land for its civilizational expansion.
That left them with nothing but the modern civil magineering technology that, the partial incomplete utilization of which, had led to the current crisis of unstable housing in the slums. Of course, there were many, many regulations, permits, and even licenses that had been instituted and reformed to ensure that this couldn't occur in the slums.
The issue was that none of them were enforced in the slums due to the fact that institutional enforcement of civil regulations was funded by district taxpayer funds that were non-existent in the case of the residents of the slums.
This left them with one and only one flawed option of housing that risked their lives each monsoon and winter.
They had tried building homes without relying manalica or anything that required magineering, but all those attempts had failed, for they only had access to the scraps from a broken, human civilization and all their attempts to try and build a home with rock or some kind of clay had failed and led to even greater disasters.
They had no other option.
Year after year, they had no other option at their disposal.
CLACK CLACK CLACK
Their attention was drawn in the direction of Dlint, who dragged around the haven unit as his gait remained brisk and purposeful. His scrappy clothes fit in with the fits of the slums, perfectly well.
His expression remained hardened while his eyes were as determined.
He continued on about his little journey around the district, followed by the peering gazes of the residents of the locality gathered around the rubble.
"That's him, isn't it?" the woman asked with a furrowed brow. "The one who was perched up on Nave's Hillock? I heard he got into a shoot-out with the Melwin Brothers."
The man halted his shoveling, leaning on it as he spat to his side with a contemptuous expression. "Something about him pisses me off."
Another older woman stepped forward as she directed a curious gaze at the haven he carried with him. "That… is that a mini-house?"
They found it hard to believe.
And yet, none of them had missed the price tag.
[999—\]
The woman squinted, rubbing the dark bags under her eyes. "…That isn't the price, is it? It can't be."
The man leaned further upon his shovel as he cocked his neck, frowning as he strained his eyes. "…I'm pretty sure that is the symbol for leenars. Which must mean it is a price tag."
"…"
"…He looks quite dry."
"…"
"…Like he wasn't affected by the rain."
"…"
"…They say he slept in that box perched up on Nave's Hillock."
The people standing about stirred with a frown as a thought they had almost never considered before appeared in their heads.
Purchasing a commodity that was convenient was something that the people in the inner city were highly accustomed to, but for people in the slums, it was an almost alien concept.
Food. Housing. And security.
These three drained away at far too much of their savings, not to mention the times when it was stolen and robbed.
"Hah, don't even think about it," the man spat on the ground with a disdainful expression. "Those kinds of fancy items can only be found in the inner city. Those snobby bastards will shoo you just for standing in front of their stores. Bloody assholes."
They stirred at those words, nodding uncertainly.
And yet, the idea had been planted in their heads.
Just as Cæ had planned.
The ad campaigns across all forty-eight districts had made waves.
Of course, there was no doubt that the agents, former and even existing residents of the slums who sought a chance to escape the slums, had done a phenomenal job with it. There was also no doubt that the product in and of itself was very eye-drawing and attention-drawing.
It might not have stood out too much amid the cosmopolitan fashions and trends of the inner city and fancy extravagance that came with it.
But in the slums, it certainly stood out amid the bland, dull, and depressing visions that its residents were subject to.
"And when exactly do you plan to start the actual sales?" Feidin raised an eyebrow. "We need to start earning, well, cash."
On the second floor of the company headquarters on the outskirts of the inner city, Feidin couldn't help but probe at Cæ's intentions even further. He found some of the decisions that Cæ made to be rather strange, almost whimsical. If not for the fact that he had completely conceded the advertisement and sales strategy to Cæ due to the fact that he knew virtually nothing about the slums, he would have taken more issue with Cæ.
He gazed at Cæ to his left inquisitively for an answer, his legs extending over the table while he leaned backward in his chair.
"Soon," Cæ remarked, skimming through the reports that the agents of the advertisement team had filed. "Just a few more days of stoking fascination and demand for this product, and we should be able to commence the sales with a door-to-door daily sales model."
"…I-I thought you had wanted to do a base in each district," Seliphaz murmured from his right, buried in a blanket that she had decided to bring to the headquarters to bury herself within while balling up in her chair.
"Things have changed," Cæ closed his eyes as rich imagination stirred.
He was able to vividly visualize the scenario where he acquired a base and inventory in each district, allowing anybody to reach them at any time. But when he simulated his understanding of the psychologies of the people of the slums, the risks of conflicts, the liabilities that these would pose when he eventually expanded deeper and deeper into the slums.
Relative to this scenario, the door-to-door salesman's approach had few liabilities, required less traveling from his client base, and evaded physical conflicts and reduced company vulnerabilities.
"If you opt for a door-to-door salesman model, you will be limiting all sales to a particular part of the day," Feidin frowned with sharply knitted eyebrows. "Opportunity to purchase is directly proportional to sales and should be something that you should seek to maximize."
It was a compelling argument.
And yet, Cæ simply shook his head. "That doesn't apply when demand is highly stable and constant. Demand for housing and shelter cannot be compromised, no matter what, as not even the people of the slums are willing to simply sleep in the rain and storms. The absence of any other real alternative means that the demand is even more stable and unyielding than it may be a constant, rather than a variable. Based on my estimations…"
He closed his eyes once more, simulating a lukewarm initial wave of purchases, followed by a wide recognition of the value of the haven unit relative to the dangerous, decrepit buildings of the slums.
"It's the second wave of purchases that will be inflamed and passionate," Cæ calmly predicted upon opening his eyes.
Feidin gazed at him with deep confusion. "How in the world can you possibly know that?"
Cæ stirred at the question.
Unfortunately, the true answer was not something that he readily told anybody.
Not even Feidin.
"Tell you what…" Cæ offered a compromise. "If my predictions turn out to be wrong, then I'll let you have much more input on the advertisement strategy, deal?"
Feidin heaved a sigh with a nod. "Let's just hope this works, then."
They continued about their work as the advertisement campaign was well underway.