Chapter 88 88 Conjecture

Just as he was wondering how his daughter had turned out to be so clever, Sarah continued her analysis of the situation.

"I think that the business families will be making their moves soon as well. The Sosis family businesses are too attractive for anyone in our circle whether they be the mage families or the business oriented families. As far as I know the Elizabeth family, they must be ahead of everyone else. If I am not wrong, they will try to lead the opposition against the Luther family." Sarah stopped and looked at her father who was pondering her words with a serious look on his face.

"What makes you think that? The things they stand to gain from the collaboration with the Luther family are far too big for them to oppose them." Calvin couldn't understand the logic behind his daughter's assumption.

"Of course, you are right. They would not want to oppose the Luther family at all. But one thing I am sure of is that the Elizabeth family would never compromise on their family reputation. As the pioneering family of this city, they don't endure a single blemish on their reputation. Therefore, they would try to oppose that dark mage in front of the general public in order to keep up their image and the goodwill of the public. But at the same time, they will try to make contact with Luther family for an under the table deal that stands to benefit the both of them. This way they will have room to maneuver as much as they want and still have the option of retreat available without taking any responsibility or any risk to their own situation." Sarah explained in detail as to how she came up with her assumption.

Calvin couldn't help but nod in acceptance of his daughter's brilliance that shone even brighter than his light attribute magic. She was definitely his pride and his joy. After the death of his wife when they were both young, Calvin had never even thought of starting another relationship. The wound left behind by his wife's absence could not be healed by the presence of another woman. Therefore, Calvin did the only thing he could. He concentrated all his efforts and all his love in bringing up his daughter who was the only solace for his sad, miserable and lonely life.

Thankfully, his daughter was a prodigy not only in the field of magic but also in anything she put her mind to. She was an all encompassing talent who was capable of reaching the top in anything she did.

The more she grew up, the more her beauty began to flourish. She now had a lovely face with razor sharp facial features and a petite figure that attracted the attention of anyone who laid his eyes on her.

As the number of men chasing after her began to increase, her interest in men slowly began to deteriorate as no man was capable of catching her attention because she was better than most men in everything she did. And those who truly had potential of surpassing her failed to satisfy her criterion for character and manliness.

Therefore, she began to believe that there was no man who was worthy of her consideration and hence there were countless men who still dreamed about the princess of the number one family of the city but none that actually managed to receive more than a look from the beauty in question.

"I think that you are right. As far as I know George, he is the most cunning snake to have ever existed on the face of this world. There is no way that he would stay so passive when there was a piece of such a delicious cake in front of him. The only reason for him to do such a thing is if he stands to gain even more from this turn of events." Calvin shared his point of view with his daughter after hearing her analysis. He cursed George in his heart for being such a vicious snake and thanked gods for his beautiful and smart daughter for lighting up the path for him at the same time.

"Dad, do you still want to take over the timber business? Even though George had ulterior motives, what he said about the deterioration of our existing businesses upon inclusion of timber business is actually true. We might suffer from those consequences since we don't have the capacity to handle it all at the same time." Sarah asked as if she already had the solution.

She managed to arouse his curiosity as Calvin hurriedly asked, "You already know the answer to that. I do want that business but how do I do it without causing chaos in our backyard?"

Sarah gave an enigmatic smile as she already expected her father's answer. She didn't know about anything else, but when it came to her father, she was confident in being right one hundred percent of the time. Therefore, she had already prepared a solution that would serve her father's interests best.

"Since George is aiming to get as much profit as possible without offending both the families, we just need to make an offer that he won't be able to refuse."

"Why would I give that snake anything? Wouldn't that just help him reach his goals faster? We would be playing right into his hands in that case." Calvin was slightly outraged at the solution but he couldn't exactly get mad at his daughter. Therefore, he looked like an old man who was grumbling at not being able to have his way in the household.

Sarah knew her father was going to be dissatisfied with the solution so she had her arguments ready to appease him.

"Then do you want to let go of this business opportunity?" Sarah smirked at her father knowing full well what the answer was going to be.

"OF COURSE NOT" Calvin yelled in frustration as he looked at his daughter for the answer.

"Then listen to me. George is a necessary evil. If we let it be, he will most likely cooperate with the Luther family and would still be able to receive the benefits he wants. Being the head of a business family gives him that much privilege. If you aren't ready to pay something in return, you can't exactly win that timber business without suffering from the consequences."

"Fine, tell me what you have in mind." Calvin at least opened himself to her suggestions regarding cooperation with the Elizabeth family.

Sarah and Calvin had already arrived at the conclusion that George's primary objective was to maximize profits without causing any offense to the concerned parties.

Therefore, Sarah wanted to help George achieve that objective.

"To do this we need to propose a strategic trade-off. It is going to be a strategic partnership between the two families; one with expertise in business and other with magic prowess. Basically, we will offer George 20% of our iron ore business in exchange for exclusive rights to the timber business. We will leverage the twenty percent of iron ore reserves to secure a steady supply of timber which has a yield of up to ten times the profit from the iron ore mining business. Through this partnership, we can not only involve him in our business and seek help in rounding out all the chaos in our business portfolio but we can also expand into the timber business without suffering from any of the managerial disadvantages of business expansion."

"I cannot accept that." Calvin utterly disagreed with Sarah on this point. He feared that his daughter was acting too naively. The real world didn't follow such principles. There was distrust, espionage, sabotage and predation at every turn. He couldn't just give easy access to his business on a silver platter to a snake like George. That would be like inviting a wolf into his own home.

"Why is that?" Sarah asked as she played along with her father. She knew that her point of view was too different for her father to accept easily. Therefore, she was revealing all the surprises in a step by step manner in order to convince her father using his own words.

"Why don't you just hand over our businesses to George for safekeeping? Wouldn't that solve all our business problems since your father is too incompetent to handle it?" Calvin retorted sarcastically as he tried to highlight the problems with her suggestion.

"Dad, tell me. If I do that, would George be willing to take over your business?" Sarah asked innocently as if she didn't understand the sarcasm in his tone at all.

"How would he dare? He would die before he dared to even think of such a thing."

And that was when Calvin realized that he had been playing around his daughter's little finger all this time. She wanted him to find the answer himself.

"This little imp…" Calvin released the breath that he had been holding in and let out a sigh.

"So that's what you are leveraging this on…your dad's prowess." Calvin realized the basis of Sarah's planning. The basis of this unreasonable plan was Calvin's ability to rein in the greed of the Elizabeth family and make use of the partnership to take control of their own businesses.

The more he thought about it, the more he felt that the plan was practically flawless as long as Calvin reigned supreme in terms of power in the Elizabeth city. As long as someone didn't surpass him, the partnership with Elizabeth family would be a golden egg laying chicken for times to come.