The Martial Unity

"Damn it! He got me!" Chairman Deacon slammed the table with his fist with gritted teeth.

An outrage had erupted in the Shionel Dungeon with many Martial Squires suddenly reporting that esoteric mineral and organic ore deposits and extracts from the twelfth floor of the Shionel Dungeon had begun disappearing in large droves without any evident cause for their disappearance.

They were clearly dug and extracted, however, for some reason, this had happened despite the taipans, of the area over which they had been extracted, still being alive. It was as though the ghost had walked in and harvested all the esoteric ores and simply disappeared.

That wasn't all.

The net yield that was predicted for the day from all of the Martial Squires was far less than the norm. The Shionel Adventurer Guild published the daily amount of esoteric ores harvested and mined from the Shionel Dungeon. Since it was still early into the exploration of the twelfth floor, the industry experts had predicted a great increase in the supply of esoteric ore deposits, yet the opposite had happened, due to this strange phenomenon. The Martial Squires reported a stark absence of the presence of the esoteric ore deposits on the twelfth at an increasing rate as the day passed. As though someone was magically sucking them up without anybody else noticing.

However, what followed was even more surprising, a brand-new supplier company that nobody had ever heard about called Esosale Suppliers came out of nowhere and suddenly began selling quantities of esoteric resources to many large-scale manufacturers in the consumer market.

What was even more puzzling was that the company appeared to be in a heavy partnership with Bradt Distribution Services. The Bradt Distribution Services thoroughly and wholly liaised as a representative for any third party that wished to purchase supplies of esoteric resources from Esosale Suppliers.

The only way to contact Esosale Suppliers was through the Bradt Distribution Services. Many purchasers scoured the nation looking for some sort of main branch or even a small office for Esosale Suppliers, yet not a single person could find any trace of this company. This company did not have any presence in the economy in the form of employees, contracts and partnerships, a face for the company, any sort of establishment, or any interaction with any of the sectors and industries that an esoteric resource supplier company would inevitably get involved with. There was nothing out there in the nation for anybody interested in the company to tangibly interact with. Nothing.

In other words, it was what was commonly referred to as a shell company, a company that only existed in name, registered in the ownership of an anonymous merchant whose identity was unknown thanks to the policy amendment that the Guildmaster Bradt had passed with nothing else to it asides from a bank account, also anonymously registered.

This was a strange but ultimately inscrutable oddity to the market, and consumers quickly flocked to the Bradt Distribution Services to purchase substantial quantities of esoteric resource deposits from Esosale Suppliers, and the small imbalance that was caused between momentary lack of supply was stabilized.

People could not help but venture to wonder where this ghost of a company was getting a large sum of money from. After all, it was an inescapable fact that a large number of Martial Squires were required to harvest esoteric resource deposits from the Shionel Dungeon. Where were these Martial Squires coming from? It would be impossible to hide dozens of Martial Squires working for a company since every Martial Squire that entered the Shionel Dungeon was registered to the Shionel Adventurer Guild, and it was possible to track the general affiliations and patrons of the various Martial Squires attempting to clear out the Shionel Adventurer Guild.

Not a single Martial Squire registered with the Shionel Adventurer Guild was verifiably associated with Esosale Suppliers. Furthermore, there was no way they could enter the Shionel Dungeon without being registered to the Adventurer Guild anyways. So where exactly was the company getting such a large supply of esoteric resource deposits?

Furthermore, the timing of this was suspicious to many people who possessed greater information and insight. It seemed quite clear that it was highly likely that there was some connection between Esosale Suppliers and the missing esoteric ore deposits in the Shionel Dungeon on the twelfth floor.

"It's that bastard," Chairman Deacon's expression crumpled with anger. "It has to be him."

Chairman Deacon was not incompetent, the fact that Esosale was completely represented and even managed by the Bradt Distribution Services was a clear indication to him that Esosale Suppliers was an empty shell meant to draw attention away from Guildmaster Bradt. He was relatively certain that Guildmaster Bradt was the one who created Esosale Suppliers anonymously, and he was the one pretending it was another third party.

"That may have been why he passed that policy in the first place. No, it must be related at the very least," He murmured with a grim expression.

The only question was what the precise reason that he needed to hide the registered owner of the company was. Guildmaster Bradt had gone as far as to use his limited and precious decision vote to do so.

He could have just straightforwardly created a public esoteric supplies division in his company, or started a new company without having to rely on such deception. In fact, it would probably bring him even more prestige which yields him more political capital. Yet he went out of his way to change policies to allow the creation and registration of a company to be anonymous, specifically, the Esosale Supplier Company.

"The reason he didn't do that… is because he couldn't? But if this was his idea, and he created the plan and is also managing it then no one could stop him," He frowned, before his eyes widened. "Unless it wasn't his plan or his achievement in the first place…"

He felt as though he had come close to hitting the truth of the matter.