City of Desire [Kingdom Building]

Chapter 269: A Fine Opening

Deerpond
 
“Your son is barely eating and sleeping. Will you not do anything?” asked the woman as she walked into the beautifully decorated room, with fury in her eyes.
 
“What do you want me to do? The Lord had forbidden any action that could jeopardize the trade,” asked back the man angrily.
 
He is not just angry, but also frustrated. Despite all his power, his son had suffered great humiliation and he couldn’t even take the revenge.
 
“I heard that bastard’s whore is coming to the city tomorrow,” said the woman, to which the man shook his.
 
“I couldn’t touch the whore. She is too important for the trade, she has all the contacts in the Navr that we need,”
 
“Just yesterday, Statham had told me that he had personally given assurance to Silver for the safety of his whores.” “He didn’t want me to touch her until our merchants got completely familiar with Navr,” he replied, unconsciously crumpling the report, he was reading.
 
“So, we do nothing?” asked the woman, to which the man grinned darkly.
 
“For a while. It won’t be long before we will be able to take revenge on that whore and after that, Silver,” said the man-like promise, making a small smile appear on the face of the woman.
 
 
…
 
Mena
 
I looked at the beautiful pink building with a big smile. It is smaller than the establishment, but enchanting in its own way.
 
It may not have the charm of the establishment, but it is the first day. I have complete confidence; that this small building will develop its own charm in the coming days.
 
I will make sure it does. 
 
As madam, it is my responsibility to achieve that.
 
I looked at it one more time before I entered inside and looked at the preparation one more time. 
 
Everything is perfect; the girls sitting in their places wearing beautiful dresses; the bar is fully stacked, and the kitchen is running, ready to serve anything that patrons desire. 
 
Finally, it is six, time to open the gates. I couldn’t help but feel nervous. I took a deep breath, and controlled my emotions, before looking ahead.
 
“Open the gates,” I ordered, and a moment later, the guards opened the gates.
 
…
 
At Mena’s command, the gates opened, but unlike the Greltheaven, the carriages didn’t come rolling within seconds; nor they could.
 
Here, there is no space for the parking inside the building. Thankfully, the city of Owlspring is beautifully planned; there are big spaces beside the road for carriages to parks and parking lots in every popular area.
 
A minute passed, and nobody came. The girls sitting across three floors begin to get nervous.
 
What is happening now is a foreign to them. 
 
In the establishment, the carriages come rolling the moment, gates opened and within half an hour. The gates would close because there would be no space in the establishment for more patrons.
 
Another minute passed, and Carla turned to me, with nervousness evident in her eyes.
 
“Welcome to the big city,” I said with a smile.
 
It is not like; I am not worried; I am, but not as much as her or Mena or every other girl. 
 
I understand very well the advantage I had in the Greltheaven when I first opened. 
 
Greltheaven was a small city of less than fifty thousand people. It was easy to advertise the business. 
 
It also helped that my brother had become noble. The newspapers didn’t forget to point out that relationship explicitly. I heard Edwin had thrown a huge fit when read that in the news.
 
Compared to the tiny Greltheaven, Owlspring is massive, with over five million population. Here, my brothel is a mid-class establishment; not a high-class as it is in the home.
 
The building is also small. It might be eye-catching, but there are bigger and better ones around.
 
The competition is hundreds of times greater here and most important of all, some people are being intentionally naughty.
 
They had activated the skills that had made the establishment nearly invisible. These skills are so powerful that they had nearly completely suppressed Torch For Seeker, which I had activated on the building.
 
Everything is hyper-competitive here, and every new business needs to face it to succeed.
 
I welcome it because Owlspring isn’t the only place where I want to open the brothel and what I learned from here, will help me thrive in the other big cities.
 
It was in the sixth minute, after the opening, the first patron arrived. It is not a single person, but a group of three.
 
Which finally seemed to put some relief on Mena’s face. 
 
Two minutes after that, another person arrived, and a minute after that, another.
 
Slowly, people started trickling in and with each person, a little more tension on Mena’s face would disappear.
 
Some people who came are familiar. They are the patrons who come to our establishment. We had made sure they knew; we were opening our first in the Owlspring.
 
People are still coming like a trickle compared to the establishment, but this trickle has become faster.
 
I could feel those naughty bastards increasing the power of their skill. That they had suppressed my skills and the skills of the girls.
 
They are pretty powerful, and their number is also high. It didn’t feel like a common suppression. They seemed to be using their skills, with the intention of crushing me.
 
It made me worried, but I couldn’t do anything else against it other than hope, that the preparation we had made would be enough to attract the patrons.
 
It won’t be the first will face it, but I am confident we will make it through it.
 
Soon, it was ten and the worry on Carla’s face had eased a lot while I was smiling from ear to ear.
 
The patrons might come like a trickle, but they had filled the bucket.
 
The brothel is full, not the way, the establishment is, but it could be said to be full.
 
All the sixty-eight tables across the three floors are full. There are even four girls sitting at the bar with the patrons. 
 
There are many empty stools on the bars, on which the girls are sitting without companions, but that is normal, seeing it is a big city.
 
It is working better than I had thought. I was expecting a 50% occupancy, but it is over 75%.
 
Even if the business runs in this capacity, I will earn a considerable profit. Though, I am confident that the business will do much better; this is, after all, it is a first day.
 
Hun!
 
I was watching when suddenly one client shouted loudly, before standing up.
 
The girl opposite to him is Adez, a blond woman in her mid-twenties. She is from the second batch and came with Della and others. Had been in the establishment for over a year.
 
She stood up and spoke calmly to the man, which seemed to have made him angry, and he shouted with expletives.
 
Adez’s expressions changed for a moment before she controlled them and replied, keeping cool over her emotions.
 
To which the man laughed and not nicely and replied with a sentence full of expletives. Now everybody who had tried not to look had to turn to look.
 
Mena had arrived at the table and spoke to the man, and the man shouted again.
 
“They should throw him out,” said Carla, with clear anger; I am also angry, but like her, I have no intention of going there.
 
We have full confidence that Adez and Mena are more than capable of handling that and they did, seeing as they kept their expressions neutral, while hiding the blazing anger beneath their eyes.
 
The back and forth continued for a few minutes, before the man seemed to have lost control of his temper and tried to attack Adez when suddenly, two people appeared in front of him.
 
They immobilized him immediately, and Mena told him he was banned from the establishments forever.
 
The personals that are banned wouldn’t be banned in a single establishment but in all establishments.
 
We do not ban people forever unless they really break all the rules like this man did. 
 
He once again said something foul, but this time, both of them didn’t even give him the courtesy of a reply and asked the guards to throw the man out. They did just that, not caring about the threats, he was spewing.
 
The guards I had hired were from a top mercenary company.
 
They are not powerful, just above Lv. 20, but their organization had enough cloud, that they will be able to bear the threats of most of the patrons. 
 
I didn’t want any guards who would be threatened by the words of these men. Seeing how they didn’t even blink at the threat. The money, I had spent on hiring them was worth it.
 
Mina apologized to the patrons for the disturbance and sent free drinks across the hall.
 
“She did well. Both of them did,” said Carla, seeing the patrons focusing back on their company.
 
“They did,” I said and took out the diary and added the points to Adez. Every month, I remove some girls from the business. 
 
A week ago, I removed two.
 
I will not let them work if they don’t perform to the standard. 
 
It seemed to make many girls work harder. Especially those on the watch list; they were informed they were on the watch list and if they didn’t perform well, they would be removed.
 
Adez is on the watch list and eleven more girls. Eight of which I had brought here.
 
Looking at how Adez did; it seemed like it was already working well.
 
Sometimes, one only needs a change of scenery to bring out their worth. Let’s hope the same result happens in other girls too.
 
Soon, two hours passed, and the establishment was still holding a similar number. It had been a few hours ago. 
 
In the past hour, not many people had arrived, but not many had left either. Around 30% of the people still sitting, had been here for five hours and more.
 
This is a great thing because these people are one of the first who came and still sitting here. They are 60% of the people who had come between six to eight.
 
We are always looking for people like them. They are the ones who become our regular patrons.
 
“You should sleep, you have to leave early tomorrow,” said Carla. “It's fine; I will take a rest on the way,” I replied.
 
I will be leaving in the morning; there are a few important meetings, I have to attend tomorrow. I barely got this one day, after so much begging. If it was not for the opening, he wouldn’t have given me leave.
 
Sometimes, the work is too much; I have to be always present. I couldn’t even focus on my business properly, but it is the price of power.
 
I have become one of the most powerful people in the city, and that came with responsibility.
 
Hours passed and to my surprise; the patrons stayed longer than I had thought. The last one left at four and a half and not before speaking a few words of praises to Mena.
 
“It went far better than I had imagined,” I said as Mena and Carla sat in front of me, in a small office.
 
“It is, but we will need to work hard to take it to the height of the establishment,” said Carla, and I smiled.
 
“I will give my all to achieve that,” replied Mena, with resolve in her eyes.
 
It will be hard, but I have confidence in Mena. It is the reason why I had chosen her, over all the assistant madams.

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