Season 2 chapter 9
The Bureaucracy of Sand
The steam-cab pulled up to the Sulwadiyan Land Registration Office. It was a miserable, sun-bleached concrete building that looked like it was slowly surrendering to the desert wind.
Malesh practically kicked the cab door open. He was in a massive hurry. The thick coating of unrefined crude oil on his skin was beginning to dry and crack in the desert heat, causing a severe, burning itch across his arms and neck.
I need this paperwork signed in the next ten minutes, Malesh's internal monologue raced as he marched toward the building. If this crude oil fully oxidizes on my epidermis, I am going to develop chemical burns. Also, I smell like a dead dinosaur. This is highly inefficient for a business meeting.
He pushed through the double doors and walked straight up to the front desk.
The government clerk, a middle-aged man sweating through a thin, cheap shirt, looked up from his newspaper and immediately recoiled.
"Good lord, son!" the clerk coughed violently, waving a hand in front of his nose. "Did you fall into a chemical toilet? The public bathhouse is three streets down. Get out of my office!"
"I am perfectly clean on the inside," Malesh stated, his voice completely deadpan and rushed. "I don't have time for a bath. I need the commercial real estate ledgers for the northern ravines. Specifically, the rocky sectors bordering the Sulwadi railway line."
The clerk frowned, looking at the dirty, intimidating teenager in front of him. "Those ledgers? Why? There's nothing out there but scorpions, rocks, and heatstroke."
"I have a deep, personal passion for scorpions," Malesh replied without blinking. "I want to buy the land. All of it."
The clerk laughed—a dry, raspy sound that echoed in the empty office. "Buy it? Kid, the northern sector covers roughly two percent of this entire country's landmass! You can't just buy a desert."
Malesh's eyes narrowed. He needed exact data.
"Quantify that for me," Malesh commanded, leaning against the glass partition and leaving a black, oily smear on it. "How many square kilometers of land is that exactly?"
The clerk nervously flipped open a heavy, dust-covered ledger. He ran his finger down a column of numbers.
"It is exactly 85,000 square kilometers of unbroken, unzoned wasteland," the clerk said, looking back up. "Do you understand what that means? Purchasing 85,000 square kilometers would instantly raise federal alarms in the capital. It requires environmental reviews, indigenous rock surveys, and months of administrative hearings just to make sure you aren't building a rogue military base!"
Malesh let out a slow, tired breath. He was really starting to hate bureaucrats.
"I do not have months. I barely have minutes," Malesh said.
He reached into his ruined suit jacket and pulled out a thick, heavy, oil-stained envelope. He dropped it onto the counter with a heavy thud.
"What is this?" the clerk asked, his eyes darting to the envelope.
"That," Malesh said, leaning closer, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper, "is a mandatory donation to the 'Save the Depressed Clerks' foundation. It contains 100,000 DI'an credits in untraceable bearer bonds. I know Sulwadiya uses a different currency, but the DI'an credit is the gold standard of the continent. That envelope is worth twenty years of your miserable salary."
The clerk stopped breathing. His eyes locked onto the thick stack of premium foreign currency poking out of the envelope. He knew that an acquisition of 85,000 square kilometers should immediately trigger a national security lockdown. He knew he should call the police.
But the money was right there.
"Now," Malesh continued, fully capitalizing on the man's greed. "I am going to explain the reality of this situation. You are going to open that drawer, pull out the blank deeds for the northern sector, and stamp them under the name Malesh Energy Limited."
"Malesh?" the clerk stammered, his hand hovering over the cash. "Isn't that your—"
"It is a very common name," Malesh interrupted coldly. "Do not overthink it. Just stamp."
"But... the environmental reviews..." the clerk weakly protested.
"I am the environment," Malesh corrected him. "Consider this an administrative fast-track fee. If you process this paperwork right now, you can walk out of this miserable building, convert those DI'an credits at a private bank, buy a mansion on the coast, and never look at a grain of sand for the rest of your natural life."
The clerk swallowed hard. He looked at the terrifying teenager, he looked at the fortune in foreign currency, and he looked around his depressing, ceiling-fan-less office. The alarm bells in his head were completely silenced by the DI'an credits.
"Malesh Energy Limited," the clerk whispered, frantically pulling a heavy stack of blank federal deeds from his desk drawer.
"Yes," Malesh nodded, scratching his neck as the oil started to burn. "And please, stamp it quickly. The oil drying on my skin is starting to itch, and I have a global monopoly to build before dinner."
The clerk didn't ask any more questions. He grabbed his heavy iron ink pad and started hammering the federal seal onto the paper with frantic, sweaty enthusiasm.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
The Bath, The Plan, and The Free Tomato
Malesh walked into the lobby of the Oasis Grand. He didn't look at the peeling wallpaper or the dusty chandelier. He just walked up to the counter, dropped a gold coin, and took the heaviest brass key they had.
He locked the door to Room 404, dropped his bag, and walked straight into the bathroom.
He turned the brass taps as far as they would go, filling the clawfoot porcelain tub with scalding hot water. He stripped off the rough canvas clothes and sank into the water until it covered his chin.
He stayed there for an hour. He scrubbed the last lingering residue of the industrial degreaser and toxic crude oil out of his pores. As the water slowly cooled, the sheer, crushing weight of his achievement finally hit him.
He rested his head back against the cold porcelain, staring at the cracked ceiling.
"Fuck," Malesh exhaled, a long, shaky breath leaving his lungs. "I actually did it. I own a fucking desert. Now I can just close my mind peacefully and sleep for a week."
He closed his eyes for exactly ten seconds. Then, they snapped back open.
"Bullshit," Malesh groaned, sitting up and splashing water over his face. "I can't shut it off. I have to keep this fucking mind open. I have 85,000 square kilometers of unrefined petroleum sitting under a rock, and zero ways to get it out. I need hardware. I need drills, pipes, pump jacks, and heavy transport."
He stepped out of the tub, wrapping a towel around his waist, his brain already running the logistics.
"Where the fuck am I going to buy industrial oil rigs in a transit country?" Malesh muttered, pacing the room. "The local hardware is garbage. If I import from the capital, the shipping tariffs will bleed my initial capital by 20%."
Then, it clicked.
"SuliBulli Construction Limited," Malesh said out loud, a sharp smirk crossing his face. "Kniya's elite academy hookup. They supplied the iron excavators for Kavilson Steel at a massive discount. SuliBulli makes heavy rotary drills too. I need to send a telegraph to Kniya tomorrow. Tell that idiot to order a massive SuliBulli fleet and ship it down the Continental Express immediately."
The hardware problem was solved. He fell onto the cheap mattress and passed out instantly.
The Market and The Lack of Desire
The next morning, Malesh didn't lock himself in his room to obsess over paperwork. The federal registry would take three days to process his deeds into Malesh Energy Limited, and the SuliBulli equipment wouldn't arrive until Kniya sent it.
He needed to understand the terrain. So, he went outside and just walked.
He wandered through the dusty streets of the provincial capital of Sulwadiya. He wore simple, clean clothes and blended into the background. As he walked, his highly analytical brain began to process the culture.
It was completely different from the Republic of DI. DI was a cutthroat, capitalist shithole where everyone was trying to stab you in the back for a promotion. The people in DI were driven by pure greed.
Sulwadiya was different. It was poor, it was hot, but it was real.
Malesh walked past stalls selling jewelry, fine fabrics, and imported watches. He didn't stop. He had billions of credits sitting in an offshore account, but he felt absolutely zero desire to buy any of it. It was a core part of his psychology—even as a kid in the Bulwadi mansion, he had never once asked his parents to buy him a toy or a luxury item. He found the concept of material desire to be a biological flaw. He only cared about what was strictly necessary for survival: food, water, and shelter and a lot of money for no reason. Everything else was just useless weight.
He walked into the open-air food market. The smell of roasted spices and fresh vegetables hung in the hot air.
He stopped near a small wooden stall where an older, weather-beaten woman was arranging a pile of vibrant red tomatoes and a steaming pot of local stew.
The woman looked up and saw the teenager staring blankly at her stall.
"You look hungry, boy," the woman smiled, her face wrinkling around her eyes. She picked up a small wooden bowl, ladled some of the hot meat stew into it, and held it out to him. "Here. Try this. It will put some meat on those bones."
Malesh looked at the bowl, then back at her.
"I don't eat meat. I am a vegetarian," Malesh stated flatly. He patted his pockets. "And I don't have any money on me. I left my capital at the hotel. I cannot engage in a financial transaction for this food."
The woman laughed. It wasn't a mocking laugh; it was warm.
"Hey, if you want some veggies, here is that," she said, effortlessly swapping the bowl for a rich, fragrant vegetable stew and pushing it directly into his hands. "And I didn't ask for your money, kid. You look like you've had a hard week. Just eat it. And take a tomato for later."
She placed a bright red tomato on top of the bowl.
Malesh stood there, completely stunned.
His brain, which was wired for absolute transactional efficiency, short-circuited. Giving away high-quality organic fuel for zero financial return was completely illogical. In DI, if someone gave you free food, it was poisoned or it was a bribe.
But looking at the woman's genuine smile, he realized something profound.
They operate on a massive deficit of resources, but an absolute surplus of community, Malesh analyzed, taking a slow bite of the vegetable stew. It was incredible. These people are not liabilities. If I hire them for the oil fields, I am not just exploiting labor. I need to pay them properly. I need to build infrastructure for them.