Volume 4 Chapter 53 - Withdrawing from the city public transport system (1/2)

On the final day of year 3783, the «Banta Times» published a conspicuous piece of news on the second page of their paper.

“The Frestech Chamber of Commerce, the Mirando Duchy, and the Rudson Kingdom have signed a three way cooperation contract. According to this contract, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce will provide some technological support to the Mirando Duchy and the Rudson Kingdom. They will be constructing jointly owned household magic machine factories in these two countries and the Mirando and the Rudson Kingdom will be granting mineral rights to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.”

Although many people saw this news in the «Banta Times», to most people, this news didn’t create that big of a stir in Banta City.

In the end, because of the department’s ban, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce hadn’t been producing magic machines in the Lampuri Kingdom. Then with the new rules from the business department, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce sold fewer magic machines in the Lampuri Kingdom.

For the people of Banta City and the Lampuri Kingdom, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had disappeared from their world for half a year.

Although the Frestech Chamber of Commerce still operated their service centers in most of the cities, as well as keeping a canned fruit factories and a few research facilities open in Banta City, the only part of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce that was left in the lives of most people was the remaining household magic machines they had bought before.

People had bad memories and after half a year, most people in the Lampuri Kingdom had gradually forgotten the company that had created countless waves in their kingdom.

It was only in Banta City that many people would occasionally remember them, feeling fondly about the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.

The Fersen Carriage Company’s chairman Pompeii was one of the people who missed the Frestech Chamber of Commerce the most.

Although he was very unhappy being forced by the City Lord Manor to buy the Magic Cars that the Lafaye Chamber of Commerce produced, since they still made a profit from operating the public transportation system and keeping it open helped with the prestige of the Fersen Carriage Company, chairman Pompeii didn’t choose to give it up in the end after considering it. He followed the rules of the City Lord Manor and changed everything to the Lafaye Chamber of Commerce’s Magic Cars.

But less than four months after changing, chairman Pompeii found that not only had he not made any money from running the public transport system, rather he had lost over fifty thousand gold coins.

Before this, although the Fersen Carriage Company followed the idea of her highness Seveni and listened to Xu Yi’s advice of keeping the prices low, they were still able to make a profit.

The profit wasn’t much, it was at least ten to twenty thousand gold coins a month.

But now that there was a loss and this loss wasn’t small, after the Fersen Carriage Company checked everything, they found that this loss was all because of one reason. It was because the Lafaye Brand Magic Cars had problems with their quality.

Just last month, the Fersen Carriage Company’s three hundred and seventy four Lafaye Brand Magic Cars had been damaged one hundred and seventy six times. In order to maintain them, they had invested twenty three thousand six hundred and twenty five gold coins.

Because of this high rate of damage, it had seriously affected the public transport system. There were situations where they had to make replacements.

The Fersen Carriage Company had to pay at least three thousand gold coins in operation costs.

Other than this, there were cases of big damages. If it was serious enough, it caused rather serious accidents.

The most serious one was when one of the Lafaye Brand Magic Cars had suddenly lost control in the new part of the city, crashing right into a store.

Although it hadn’t been driving fast, so no one was killed, it had seriously injured thirteen people and lightly injured twenty four people.

The Fersen Carriage Company had to pay over five thousand gold coins in medical fees and compensation.

Adding this together, just last month, the Fersen Carriage Company had to pay an extra forty thousand gold coins to manage the public transport system.

Putting aside profit, they had lost over twenty thousand gold coins.

It had been like this for several months and now chairman Pompeii felt that operating the public transport system was a burden for his company.

But maintaining the public transport system not only helped the Fersen Carriage Company’s fame in Banta City, they also received preferential treatment from the City Lord Manor, earning a lot of care from them. Even if he lost money, chairman Pompeii still wasn’t determined to give it up and kept trying to maintain it.

However, there was a new rule from the City Lord manor in the past few days that forced him to make his mind.

The Fersen Carriage Company couldn’t continue the public transport system.

The rules were very simple, starting from tomorrow, Banta City would cancel the special subsidies for running the public transport system.

The City Lord Manor’s reasons were righteous. They said that to promote fair business competition in Banta City, they couldn’t give any company special subsidies.

But how could chairman Pompeii not know that this was all just the City Lord Manor not being willing to take out money anymore.

The reason why they didn’t change the rule this time was because the subsidies for the public transport system was decided at the beginning of the year, it was decided by the City Lord then, her highness Seveni.

If they changed it this year, it would be without a doubt disrespecting her highness Seveni.

But now that it was the new year, if the City Lord Manor changed this policy, it was a natural matter. Even her highness Seveni couldn’t say a thing about this.