CHAPTER 355: CHAPTER 355: PRESS CONFERENCE

On the evening of the same day Russell and Vergil met with Lucas —which also happened to be the evening of the same day Lucas returned to Baylands City— a press conference was held at the Mertens family’s Dawn-Spring Arrow Company headquarters. In the Central Prefecture district, only regional headquarters could be opened by companies, but an exception was made for the top families. This was why the Dawn-Spring Arrow Company’s corporate headquarters was here.

The Dawn-Spring Arrow Company, or DSAC for short, was the Mertens family’s holding company that controlled all their other industries. The Mertens family mainly dealt in the buying and selling of desolate beasts and their parts, as well as the food industry. They also had a pioneer squad and a freelancer organisation under them. All these companies were managed and controlled by the Dawn-Spring Arrow company.

And today, that very company was going to be making an announcement.

The press conference has actually been scheduled the previous day and it was rumoured to be carried out by the current head of the family, Russell Mertens. Apart from that, the DSAC public relations head stated that there would be a major announcement taking place during the press conference.

The combination of that news alongside the possibility that Russell would be attending, made many journalists and media houses pumped for the press conference.

This was because just the previous day —the same day the announcement was held— the Cabinet had ended their meeting but didn’t reach a conclusion on the city lord topic. What’s more, none of the representatives of the top powers made any comment on the matter to the public. Attempts to even reach out to family heads for an interview by the various news networks all failed. Furthermore, most of them seemed to have gone into hiding and couldn’t be spotted in the open as easily as before.

However, Russell acted contrary to others and scheduled this press conference just a day before the second Cabinet meeting. Whether it was the timing or his presence in the meeting, it made the journalists and reporters hungry for answers.

"Good day, everyone." The head of public affairs and relations for the Dawn-Spring Arrow Company greeted the group of reporters in front.

"As mentioned yesterday, today’s event is a press conference to discuss the future of the Dawn-Spring Arrow Company for the final quarter of the year, while addressing certain topics related to the company."

The executive went on to talk a bit about the Dawn-Spring Arrow Company —it’s history and performance so far. Even though most of the reporters already knew about its history, they didn’t interrupt. This was because, they held a large degree of respect to the Mertens family.

The origin of the Mertens family could be tracked back to around three hundred and fifty (350) years ago. For context, Baylands City was six hundred years old and the city-state five hundred years standing. This might seem like a lot, but one should know that the average lifespan of a hyuman was one hundred years. The only exceptions were Pioneers and Freelancers, who usually dabbled with dangerous and risk-filled activities. Due to this, three hundred and fifty years was actually just three and a half generations ago, at worst four to five generations.

About one hundred and fifty years ago, Russell’s grandfather founded the first Mertens company, which was actually a food business. The company provided special canned food for pioneers and freelancers; individuals who tend to get stuck outside of civilisation for long period of times.

From there, the company evolved to begin trading more with these characters. For instance, they set up outposts outside the city and bought the skins, bones and even flesh of desolate beasts hunted by freelancers. The company would then resell these in the city for a higher price. Doing this made it easier for the freelancers who didn’t want to spend so much time and energy returning back into the city to sell their gains. Even though they had to sell their gains for less, it wasn’t much and was still more profitable compared to going into the city and doing it themselves.

The business ran by the Mertens expanded from just buying and reselling raw materials from desolate beasts to purchasing complete corpses. Russell’s grandfather even discovered a way to process some desolate beast meat and make it edible for weaker hyumans. This helped expand their food franchise and they began providing new cooking ingredients to restaurants and even the public.

By the time Russell’s father took over, the business was already quite big and well established. Russell’s father founded the Dawn-Spring Arrow Company in a bid to easily manage the two main companies of the Mertens business —the food industry and the desolate beast part. After putting in a lot of blood, sweat and tears into the company , Russell’s father propped the Dawn-Spring Arrow Company to a higher level. The company eventually began competing with Baylands City’s fourth strongest family’s company, who were their rivals in the desolate beast body parts market, in terms of market capital and value.

Before his death, Russell’s father had succeeded in taking the fourth place from their rivals. He even went on to squash them and absorb most of their facilities and businesses to form the structure of the current Dawn-Spring Arrow Company. By the time the old man had died, the Dawn-Spring Arrow Company was almost on par with the third placed family, the Oder family’s Prestige Star Ltd.

However, the Mertens historic rise didn’t end with Russell’s father’s death. Instead, Russell seemed to have been possessed by the same spirit as his father, leading the family to the third spot and taking down the Oder family.

The current Dawn-Spring Arrow Company was now a behemoth, and while it couldn’t compare to the companies of the Dufours and the Bergs, it was a miracle existence birthed entirely by the hands of a family of nobodies.

"With that well said, let me introduce a special guest and the star of tonight’s press conference. Please welcome, the current head of he Mertens family and board chairman of the Dawn-Spring Arrow Company." The executive introduced with a proud voice.

With the introduction done, Russell walked into the hall and onto the stage, pleasantly surprising the reporters as they could now confirm that the rumours were true.

Similar to the public affairs and relations executive, Russell spoke a bit on the Dawn-Spring Arrow Company’s financial performance. He also went on to talk about their projected earnings for the financial quarter, their target for the quarter, as well as hint at some new products of the company.

While all of these were interesting topics in their rights, the reporters were here for a different reason so they weren’t as interested as they normally would be. Instead, the reporters couldn’t help but want it to be over quickly so the Q&A session could begin.

Luckily, the heavens seemed to have heard their pleas.

"That will be all for today. Any questions?" Russell asked as he stared at the small crowd in front of him.

Multiple hands abruptly rose up, but in the end, Russell selected only one of them; a young man with black hair which was quite rare amongst hyumans.

"Thank you for this opportunity." The man bowed.

"Please, if you may." Russell nodded at him.

"I would like to ask, Sir Russell. What are your thoughts on the current city lord position issue and how do you think it would affect the Dawn-Spring Arrow Company? Do you think that the arrival of a new city lord would affect the company’s stocks negatively or positively?"

The reporter couldn’t simply ask about the city lord issue right out, after all, this press conference was to discuss about the Dawn-Spring Arrow Company. If he did so, he could easily be pursued out, losing such a valuable opportunity. Only a novice would do such.

Hence, the reporter cleverly phrased his question as such. He question might have seemed plain, but there were hidden meanings within it. By asking about the arrival of a new city lord, the reporter wanted to know whether Russell was in favour of that.

Everyone in the journalist circle knew that Russell had supported Noah’s rise to the position of city lord. If Russell answered that a new city lord would positively improve the company’s value, it would mean that he was in support of removing Noah and already intended on competing for the position either himself or by supporting an ally.

However, if Russell said it might negatively affect the company, it means that he would stand by Noah and was against changing the city lord.

Even if Russell’s response was that he couldn’t say for certain whether a new city lord would affect the company negatively or positively, it would mean that he was no longer on Noah’s side and would instead play a neutral role; or support whichever side profited him the most.

But if Russell disputed the arrival of a city lord, it would mean that he was still solidly on Noah’s side and would fight against the decision to change.

So, no matter how Russell responded, the reporters would be able to fish out his stance.