51 Seizing (1/2)

As the only millennial force of Thousand Sails City, the Monchi Family truly had a frightening amount of influence. Three days after Ryan paid a visit to Granger, the Gilded Rose was notified that the Alchemist Guild would seize their goods.

A small, middle-aged Alchemist who was about forty to fifty years old came to see them. He stood at the entrance of the Gilded Rose, looking up with a condescending expression on his face.

This wasn't particularly aimed at the Gilded Rose.

This was the normal attitude of a member of the Alchemist Guild. Those of the renowned Alchemist Guild tended to have this attitude toward all the alchemy shops of Thousand Sails City, including the one of the Flashing Gold chamber of commerce of the past.

In their eyes, even if these alchemy shops appeared impressive, they were only puppets of the Alchemist Guild.

Without the Alchemist Guild's authorization, they couldn't even recruit one decent alchemist, because the Alchemist Guild had control over the entire industry. The survival of these alchemy shops could be decided by a mere word from the Alchemist Guild.

Just like this Gilded Rose...

The Hope Potion unveiled a few days ago had put the Gilded Rose in the limelight, but now, with just a word from the Alchemist Guild, it was suddenly faced with the danger of having their goods seized.

”Alchemist Molin, what… What is this?” Lin Yun had been at the Sage Tower for the past few days, so only the old butler was left in charge of the Gilded Rose. Hearing that someone from the Alchemist Guild had come to visit, he hurriedly went out to welcome him. But once he got to the lobby, the face of the old butler stiffened.

Ten alchemists wearing black robes were sticking papers marked [Seized] on goods that lined the shelves. Each time they stuck a paper on something, the Alchemist taking the inventory would record it. And the one in charge of this was Alchemist Molin, who the old butler had dealt with a few times.

In the Alchemist Guild, Molin was in charge of market supervision.

When the Gilded Rose was re-opening, the old butler specially paid a visit to this Molin a few times so that the Alchemist Guild wouldn't make trouble for them. He even gave him a few generous bribes.

At that time, Molin patted his chest and guaranteed that the matters of the Gilded Rose would be his matters, and that if there was ever an issue, he would seek them out personally to resolve it before it became an official problem.

The old butler never expected that a month later, Molin, who had said those words so confidently, would be seizing the goods of the Gilded Rose...

”Please wait, this must be a misunderstanding…” After a quick glance around, the old butler knew that something had gone awry. Flustered, he hurriedly stopped the black-robed men from sticking more papers while requesting help from the person he had bribed. ”Alchemist Molin, can we have a few words?”

”You can say what you want to say here.” If it was before, Molin might have still agreed to chat in private because that would mean that he might potentially receive some more profits... but this time, Molin didn't even consider it and immediately rejected it.

”This…” The old butler suddenly understood how bad the situation was, but he still kept a smiling face. ”Okay, Alchemist Molin, can I ask why are the Gilded Rose's products being seized?”

”Why is it being seized?” Molin snorted, ”Don't you yourself know about what the Gilded Rose did? Old Pave, your Gilded Rose is in big trouble this time. For the sake of our previous friendship, I advise you to not ask too much about it and to quickly help my people take the goods before explaining everything in the upcoming hearing. Don't think that you'll be lucky, the problem with your Gilded Rose is very serious.”

”Hearing…”

”This is a decision from above. Finding someone to plead for you is useless.” Molin rolled his eyes and then glanced at the progress of his subordinates. Deciding that it was too slow, he grabbed a few of the seals himself and stuck the papers on some of the goods while instructing his subordinates, ”These, these, and these, bring all these back for me.”

The only difference was that the goods that the black-robed alchemists had seized were goods that they had been told might be problematic, while the ones Molin seized were all the most expensive items of the Gilded Rose.

Molin's favorite activity was closing down alchemy shops because confiscating the stock of an alchemy shop would bring in a large amount of income. Even now, the few goods he chose were worth a few hundred thousand golds. If he brought them back to the Alchemist Guild, they would be personally processed by Molin.

And if some of the goods were damaged and had to be disposed of, that definitely couldn't be blamed on Molin. Alchemical goods were very frail, so it was normal for some damage to appear, right?

Then again, who could look into that?

The shuttered Gilded Rose? At such a time, they would have to worry about their hearing first...

Molin quickly looked around the shelves. Every expensive item that fell into his gaze made his face expose a hint of excitement and greed.

One item, two items, three items...

In a short period of time, eight expensive items had been seized by Molin, but he still was not yet satisfied. His eyes turned toward the staircase to the 2nd floor. Molin's intuition told him that the truly precious items were most likely in the alchemy laboratory.

”You, you, you, and you, follow me up.” Molin pointed at a few black-robed alchemists and walked over to the 2nd floor with them.