Volume 1 Chapter 43 Payday
The burning hot weather continued and it was already the middle of August in the blink of an eye.
On this day, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s workshops were all filled with joy. Almost every person had a smile on their faces that was filled to the brim.
As for the reason? It’s very simple, it was because today was payday.
According to the rules Xu Yi set, the fifteenth of each month was the set payday. This time, the factory had been set up for a month, so this was the first official payday, so naturally it had to be official and could even be considered grand.
Sebas had arrived at the factory early and had given the financial report for last month he had made to Xu Yi and Heinz to look over.
Xu Yi believe that there was no need to doubt useful people and don’t use doubtful people. He only simply swept over the financial report and didn’t care about it at all. Heinz on the other hand carefully looked it over several times, only letting Sebas off after ensuring that every number was correct.
Xu Yi was helpless towards Heinz’s actions, but he didn’t stop him.
As the third largest shareholder of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce after himself and Viscount Leslie, Heinz had enough qualification and reason to do this. Moreover, with him carefully looking it over, it saved Xu Yi quite a bit of effort.
The nervous and exciting morning passed and it was the afternoon in the blink of an eye. All the workers in both workshops gathered and they began lining up to receive their pay.
The first to come up was the dwarf Camby.
As the manager of the magic machine workshop, Camby’s wage was naturally higher than the other dwarves. He was on almost the same level as Heinz’ receiving twenty gold coins per month.
The next one to come forward was Alex.
As Heinz’s assistant, Alex’s wage was ten gold coins, it was a bit higher than the normal worker.
Then came the dwarves excluding Camby.
Other than the dwarves that had been affected by trivial matters or health issues, the other dwarves all received eight gold coins a month as a wage.
When they opened the purses Sebas handed them and found eight gold coins shining inside, the dwarves all had smiles bloom on their faces. There were even some dwarves who began excitedly dancing.
It was like Master Lanus said, these dwarves had very poor living conditions before. When these dwarves had been living back in the tribe, although they didn’t starve, other than wine that they could brew themselves, they were lacking in other materials they needed.
After they came to work at the factory, not only did the factory take care of their meals, not letting them worry about their daily necessities, they also received eight gold coins per month!
Even if eight gold coins was not considered much, they could buy some needed items and bring them back to the tribe, letting their parents, wives, and children have better lives.
Thinking of the happy smiles their family members would have when receiving these things, these frank and straightforward dwarves were filled with joy.
When remembering that they could only enjoy this kind of life after coming to the factory, the dwarves all looked at Xu Yi with gazes filled with excitement and respect.
Compared to the dwarves, the wages of the students from the Baron Rickto Magic Academy was a bit lower. It was only around five-six gold coins.
They had this kind of wage because they were only still students, so the time they had each day to work was limited. Naturally they couldn’t compare to the dwarves who worked in the magic machine workshop all day.
The second reason was because they only had simple Magic Array making work. Although it was work on the magic side, it was a very simple and repetitive kind of work. It didn’t have a high requirement in terms of technique, so naturally their wages weren’t that high.
Xu Yi was a bit worried at first that the students wouldn’t be satisfied seeing that other people’s wages were higher than theirs, but after the students received their wages, every single one of them was filled with incomparable joy. There wasn’t a single bit of dissatisfaction at all.
Even a kid from a noble family like Orin, his mouth was crooked from smiling at just a trivial six gold coins. It was like he wasn’t holding six gold coins, but rather six hundred gold coins.
Xu Yi thought about it and couldn’t help but smile.
Actually the reactions of the other students were normal. They were only student still in school right now, being able to earn a wage with their own work was already enough to make them happy.
Not to mention that five-six gold coins to them was already quite a bit. It had to be known that the fee for each semester at the Baron Rickto Magic Academy was twenty five gold coins.
This meant that as long as they kept this job, these students could rely on their own hard work to pay their own school fees.
For most of the students from normal or poor families, this saved quite a bit of burden for their families. Once their parents found out about this, they would be very satisfied with this.
After they finished giving the students their wages, there was a portion of workers that didn’t receive wages, which was the hundred slaves.
When it was time to give these hundred slaves their wages, Xu Yi was actually troubled.
Based on normal logic, since these slaves worked in the factory, they deserved to receive wages, but slaves were slaves after all. Even if Xu Yi was not willing to accept this, he had to accept this. Slaves didn’t have any right or position on the Sines Continent and in normal conditions, no one would agree to slaves receiving wages.
The more important reason was that these slaves currently belonged to Viscount Leslie, Xu YI was only borrowing them.
Even if Xu Yi wanted to give them wages, he should give it to Viscount Leslie first. As for whether Viscount Leslie would pay these slaves or not, it would depend on his mood.
So after Xu Yi and Heinz discussed this for a while with Sebas, they finally decided not to give the slaves wages, rather they would receive welfare allowances.
Currently it was still the middle of the blazing summer, so Xu Yi gave each of the slaves a second generation Variable Speed Magic Fan. Other than that, he gave each person a clothing ticket for Metagen’s tailor shop in Banta City. With this clothing ticket, the slaves could have the Metagen tailor shop prepare one piece of clothing for them that didn’t surpass a value of one gold coin.
Other than this, he gave them some meat and fruit, as well as some random daily necessities.
When all the welfare allowances was added up, it was valued at around four gold coins.
According to the ideas Xu Yi had at first, the value of the slaves’ work each month should be at least six gold coins. He wanted to give them more welfare allowances, but this idea was stopped by Heinz.
No matter what, these slaves still belonged to Viscount Leslie. If Xu Yi was too good to them, Viscount Leslie would have some special thoughts.
Even based on these simple welfare allowances to Xu Yi, it had already overstepped a taboo matter.
When those slaves saw the dwarves and students receiving their wages from the side, although they were envious, they knew that they were just slaves, it was impossible for them to receive the same wages. So they could only watch them without saying anything.
Actually they were already very satisfied with their current living conditions.
Since they came to the factory, not only would they not be beaten or cursed at each day, they could enjoy three sumptuous meals a day and not worry about empty stomachs.
Although there was work to do each day, compared to the heavy work they had to do under Viscount Leslie, it was much more simple and relaxed.
Not to mention that they only had to work eight short hours each day and there wasn’t any extra work that was given to them.
Even when there was a lack of people working on the road last time and Xu Yi had them help, he had also given each slave a pound of meat as compensation.
It could be said that their current lives was like a dream to the slaves, they never thought that they would ever have such a comfortable and relaxed life.
If it was possible, they really wanted Viscount Leslie to sell them to Xu Yi.
With this kind of master, it was the best home in the heart of every slave.
So when Sebas announced for the slaves to come up and receive their welfare allowance, the slaves were all stunned.
Welfare allowance? What was this thing? Was it for us?
Only when Sebas raised his voice to repeat this and picked out the name of a slave were the slaves sure that they had not misheard.
The slave that was picked carefully came in front of Sebas. Heinz smiled as he placed the Magic Fan, the clothing ticket, the meat, and the other welfare allowances in his hands.
That slave looked at the things in his hands in a daze for a while before suddenly revealing a large smile. He eyes couldn’t help being filled with tears as he choked up. For a while, he didn’t know how he should react.
Seeing this scene, Xu Yi couldn’t help giving a soft sigh.
This damn slavery, it should be eliminated as soon as possible.
After the hundred slaves were given their welfare allowances, Xu Yi announced in a loud voice that he would be giving them the rest of the afternoon off, which was instantly met with thunderous applause.
With their wages in hand, whether it was the dwarves or the students, they couldn’t wait to show off. Of course, there were some that were already becoming impatient.
Xu Yi announced that they would be given a vacation, it was simply hitting them where it itched, causing it to instantly explode in their minds.
Seeing the several students charge out in a group while cheering, where even Orin wasn’t an exception, Xu Yi couldn’t help smiling.
This scene made him think of back when he was in university, he ran out of school with his classmates like this and went wild all day.
Turning around to look, the dwarves also scattered in groups, leaving only the slaves standing there not knowing what to do. Xu Yi thought for a bit before pulling Heinz to a corner.
“Heinz, start recruiting workers.”