Volume 3 Chapter 6: Banta City that has fallen into darkness

Qurik jumped out of the public transport carriage and was immediately scared by what he saw.

This was his second time at the Falling Rain Valley, but he found that it was several times more lively compared to when he delivered cargo with the Sundial Chamber of Commerce last time.

Not only were there a surge of people from the factories of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, creating a lively scene, even in the space across the Falling Rain Road were a bunch of factories.

Qurik looked over and saw the familiar symbol of the Sundial Chamber of Commerce among these factories.

Thinking of how he wasn't willing to go to a far place like the Falling Rain Valley, losing his job at the Sundial Chamber of Commerce, Quirk couldn't help feeling some regret.

The reason he wasn't willing to leave was other than being too far from his parents, he didn't want to be too far from Banta City. It was definitely remote and not lively, so it wouldn't be fun at all.

After coming here and taking a look, he found that although this place wasn't as lively as Banta City, it wasn't far off.

Moreover, based on the flow of people here, it wasn't impossible for it to become as lively as Banta City in the future.

Qurik was very clear on why this had happened.

It was because the new Lord City Lord was suppressing the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, so the Frestech Chamber of Commerce took the lead in leaving Banta City and developed the Falling Rain Valley.

Because the Lord City Lord also took out this agricultural promotion policy that everyone cursed in secret, it caused the other companies to follow the Frestech Chamber of Commerce and leave Banta City.

With the drive of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, not only did the large companies from before develop, there were several hundred medium and small sized companies related to magic machines.

There were over five hundred companies in Banta City now and because of this policy, over half of them had left.

Among them, almost all the small companies related to magic machines all chose to follow the Frestech Chamber of Commerce and set up factories outside the Falling Rain Valley.

Although in theory the Falling Rain Valley was outside Banta City's range, according to the report from the «Banta Times», the Frestech Chamber of Commerce's chairman Xu had recently become a viscount and what shocked people was that he had been granted territory.

That territory was the land of Falling Rain Valley and the surrounding land.

Because this was the private territory of Viscount Xu Yi, the policies that Count Stagg implemented didn't apply here at all.

In the statement that Xu Yi issued in the «Banta Times», he explicitly welcomed all companies related to magic machines to come to Falling Rain Valley to create a magic machine industrial base with the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.

So with the Ireland Chamber of Commerce taking the lead, in just a few months, the small component processing companies had all moved to the land outside the Falling Rain Valley in just a month.

Among them included the Sundial Chamber of Commerce Qurik was a part of before.

This sudden move naturally created serious economic losses for these small companies.

But Xu Yi had announced a compensation matter. The small companies would have reduced rent for the first five years to help them move over safely, allowing them to boldly develop here.

To many people, Xu Yi's method was forcefully stealing all the companies related to magic machines from Banta City.

But no one thought he was going too far, rather many people were excited.

Now that the Banta City Lord City Lord had announced he would be suppressing business development, these large companies were greatly affected and the small companies were naturally even more affected. Now that Xu Yi had given them this chance, how could those small companies not seize this chance to leave Banta City?

Rather because those large companies had many assets and were well established in Banta City, it wasn't easy for them to move.

The small companies had been here for less than a month and they had already resumed their normal production, this was clearly the flexibility advantage of a small company.

Following these small companies, there were many companies related to daily necessities.

On the sides of the Falling Rain Road, there were rows of buildings and there were stores opening.

Based on the dazzling amount of products, the prosperity of this place wasn't less than Banta City.

Qurik looked at the Sundial Chamber of Commerce's factory and the stores along the road and he shook his head. He suppressed the bit of regret in his heart and walked into the Falling Rain Valley.

After he entered the Falling Rain Valley, Quirk was stunned.

Compared to when he was here last time, the Falling Rain Valley had greatly changed.

Other than people, there were several more workshops in the valley. There was even an extra steel mill that Qurik had paid attention to the most last time.

The road in the valley was much better compared to before. In the empty spaces along the roads, there was grass laid everywhere, as well as many different kinds of flowers, creating a beautiful contrast in the valley. When people looked at it, they would even think they were walking through a large garden, rather than walking through an industrial district.

What Qurik noticed first was the three meters tall iron poles on the sides of the roads that were placed several meters apart.

Those iron poles had a beautiful Magic Lamp hanging on it, it was clearly being used as a street lamp.

Seeing the street lamps running across the road and not being able to see the end, Qurik couldn't help feeling emotional.

If it wasn't for that damn new Lord City Lord aiming for the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, stopping their renovation projects in Banta City, all of Banta City's streets would have had street lamps installed already.

But now that it stopped, the street lamp project was only half finished. In the end, when it came to night, only half of Banta City's streets were lit up and the other half were still in darkness.

What made people worried the most was that in the streets with lamps installed, for some unknown reason, there were some lamps that didn't light up at night.

The people of those blocks had gone to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce's service center to ask about this. They were told that city matters were the internal affairs of the City Lord Manor and the City Lord Manor ordered the Frestech Chamber of Commerce to stop meddling. So the Frestech Chamber of Commerce couldn't solve this problem and they could only ask the citizens to ask the City Lord Manor for a response.

However when the citizens asked the City Lord Manor, the response they received was that the City Lord Manor would investigate and they received no other response.

The «Banta Times» naturally wouldn't let go of this abnormal situation and specially gave a report, calling it «Banta City that has fallen into darkness».

This report focused on this issue and raised many questions that many people were worried about.

Banta City had many projects that were proposed by Xu Yi and were handled by the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.

Now that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had left Banta City and even specially ordered not to meddle in city affairs by the City Lord Manor, the street lamps that could chase out the darkness of Banta City would only be extinguished one by one until Banta City fell into darkness again.

After this article came out, the words "fallen into darkness" had a double meaning and different people had different views......

Qurik didn't think that deeply. He just knew that after the Frestech Chamber of Commerce left Banta City, the Banta City that had developed to become rich and prosperous in two years was now deteriorating at even a quicker speed, at a speed that even the naked eye could see.

"That idiot City Lord....." Thinking of this, Qurik cursed in his heart. Then he looked around and found a young man dressed in the uniform of a Frestech Chamber of Commerce worker as he asked, "Hello, do you know where chairman Xu is right now?"

The young man looked at Qurik in surprise, "Who are you? What are you looking for sir chairman for?"

"I am Qurik, I'm here to find work from chairman Xu." Qurik replied, "I heard that your Frestech Chamber of Commerce is opening a new post in Banta City to recruit people to publicize products, so I wanted to give it a try."

The young man had a surprised look, "Publicizing products? Why haven't I heard of it before?"

Qurik was surprised, "It can't be, big brother Cantona personally heard it from chairman Xu, it can't be wrong, right?"

"You're talking about chairman Cantona from the Cantona Chamber of Commerce?" The young man was a bit surprised, "Are you close to him? If it was he who said it, then he might have learned something from sir chairman."

"Then it's true?" Qurik immediately asked in an excited voice, "Then can you tell me where chairman Xu is? I want to ask him now."

The young man looked over Qurik and disdainfully curled his lips, "Who do you think you are, you can see sir chairman just because you want to? Let me tell you, sir chairman is very busy, how could he just see whoever comes?"

Qurik didn't care about this obvious disdain at all, he just said with a laugh, "Even if I can't see chairman Xu, it's fine if I can see the person in charge of hiring. Anyway I'm just here looking for a job, it's fine as long as I can achieve my goal."

The young man was amused by Qurik's optimism and couldn't help smiling as he said, "Your eyes are quite clear. Alright, since you're here looking for a job, just follow this road to the end and then turn left, you'll see the office building for our company there. If you ask there, there should be someone who can help you. I can't do anything else for you."

Qurik laughed as he patted the young man's shoulder, "Alright, thank you for your help. What is your name? We can be friends."

The young man shook his head, "Forget it, we don't know if we'll see each other again. Then again, I have to remind you, what time is it now? You still want to work in Banta City? If you want to work, there are plenty of companies in the Falling Rain Valley looking for workers, why don't you give it a try?"

"There's no other way, my parents are old and they only have me as a son, so I can't be too far from them." Qurik gave a shrug.

The young man's smile became solemn as he said with a nod, "I never thought that you were a filial son. But to be honest, Falling Rain Valley is only sixty kilometers away from Banta City, it isn't far. Right now it only takes the Fersen Carriage Company's public transport carriage less than four hours for a trip. Once our company's Magic Car is developed, it might not even take an hour, so it's not far."

"Magic Car?" Qurik's eyes lit up, "What is that?"

The young man suddenly realized he made a mistake. He gave an awkward laugh and quickly covered up his words, "I'm not too clear on this, I heard the other people mention this the other day."

Understanding the meaning of the young man, Qurik didn't keep asking. He said with a smile, "Alright, when I see chairman Xu, I can personally ask him."

The young man shook his head, thinking that this person was very confident.

The sir chairman was that important, how could just anyone see him?

But after that, he and Qurik turned to look at the sounds coming from the distance. Looking over, they were instantly surprised.

There was a group of people walking down the path and the one leading them, wasn't it Xu Yi!