Chapter 25: Chapter 25

“Good morning, Sylas.” Roshanee called out as I opened the guild doors, without even looking at me.

“How do you keep doing that? Do you have eyes in the back of your head or something?”

“I’m a light druid, Sylas. I don’t even need eyes to see.”

“How does that work? I can only see vague shapes with my mana detection, not fine details. Is it your specialization?”

“Partially, but it should get better with practice and rank. Anyways, I called you over —”

“That was you? How’d you even find me? Actually, you found me in the library too. Have you been watching me?”

“No, Sylas. I wasn’t —”

“‘Cause that would be weird. Don’t do that.”

“... You’re your father’s son, alright.” She sighed heavily. “No, I wasn’t watching you. Or at least not you specifically. It’s part of my job to keep an eye out for trouble and send out messages. Anyways, I sent that message out to inform you that your first mandatory assignment starts today.”

“Oh, finally! What is it? Killing goblins and taking names?”

“Why would we send an E rank on a combat mission alone? That would be stupid. We’ve taken into account your abilities, and have decided to give you the job of delivering mail. Every morning for a week, you’re going to go down to the post office and deliver whatever they tell you to. I’ve already informed Geistig that you will be absent.”

“Oh, mail… I was hoping for something a little more exciting, but I understand your reasoning. Just wondering, why is the mail not being sent out by a stronger powered? Surely they could do this with just the snap of their fingers, rather than having me spend all day on it.”

“Perhaps, but those who could do so are usually more valuable spending their efforts elsewhere.”

“I see. Oh well, at least I’ll finally be getting paid for something.”

“Sorry to tell you Sylas, but since you enrolled in the mentorship program, your mandatory assignments go towards the city paying our mentors back.”

“So it’s unpaid.”

“Yes, Sylas, It’s unpaid.”

“I’ve been having money problems since I got here, and now I’m not even getting paid for my labor. Of course.” I grumbled as I stepped out.

---

After arriving at the post office, I was assigned over a thousand mailboxes to deliver to. Mostly scrolls and loose parchment, but quite a few packages too. Since most Aurelian buildings were apartment complexes, rather than individual houses, this didn’t translate to even one hundred buildings, but it would still take most of the day to do.

They also gave me an enchanted ring that I’d have to return at the end of the day. Most apartments in Aurelia had a mana detection enchantment rather than a lock. These detection enchantments would identify mana inserted into it, and if it matched one of the residents, would unlock the front door. Since deliveries still needed to happen, these mana detection security systems would also accept mana signatures from the city’s system of enchanted rings, which had to be replaced every morning.

Taking Roshanee’s advice, rather than carrying everything in a wheelbarrow or something, I phased the mail into my subspace to carry around. Specifically into the flytrap’s terrarium, as that space should have the fewest parchment-eating wildlife in it other than the Polypus terrarium, which was mostly water.

Phasing that much matter took most of my remaining mana, so I would have to remain in Rhannu’s form for the next two hours or so to recuperate my mana expenditure.

I walked over to the closest building from the post office, a residency of a few dozen tennants, and waved the mail ring over the scanner. The door made a loud click sound as the ring made contact, and it automatically slid open. Neat. I’d never actually seen that feature in Norbury, but I suppose it must be relatively commonplace in a city like Aurelia.

This building apparently didn’t have individual mailboxes for each apartment in the entryway, so I had to leave the mail in front of every door, on every floor. Thankfully it was a rather simple task to phase the corresponding mail for each apartment. I don’t even want to consider how long this task would take if I had to manually search through my subspace for everything with the correct mailing address.

A few scrolls had mud stains on the outside from what little dirt was in the Flytrap terrarium, but there isn’t anything I can do about that at this point.

A little over 20 minutes later, I finished delivering the last bit of mail for this building. I exhausted what little mana I gained via photosynthesis just from these few packages, and I really don’t want to deal with waiting for it to regenerate all day. Walking up those stairs also really sucks.

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I’d rather transform into a bird and fly to deliver all this mail. At least that way it might not take all day. But then I won’t be able to regenerate any mana at all.

I guess I have no other good options. I sat down cross-legged in the hallway and waited for my mana detection to reveal itself. With my last shred of mana, I phased out one of the mana crystals I made last night, and began to pull at it, decreasing its density to a liquid form, then pulling its mana into me. Since the crystal was already stabilized, this process didn’t carry the risks that creating the crystal did, so I wasn’t worried about harming Rhannu’s form.

Fully recharged, I walked outside and transformed into the carrier pigeon within my subspace. I gripped the ring in my talons.

I flew up to the scanner of the next building, and waved the ring across it. When the door opened itself, I found a nice open space in the hallway, and dumped the mail for this building there. Technically I should have delivered the mail inside of the designated mailboxes for this building, but you know what they say. Minimum wage, minimum effort. Technically I’m not getting paid at all, but the saying still stands.

---

Two hours later, I finally “delivered” the last packages for the day. I had just enough mana left to return to Rhannu’s form and buy the subspace inhabitant’s daily essentials. Afterwards, I made a portal to the subspace, where I planned to spend the rest of the day amassing mana crystals.

In Rhannu’s terrarium, he threw what appeared to be a ball made of wood towards the other side of the terrarium, bouncing it against the glass-like barrier. The slime rolled after it, enveloped it, brought it back to Rhannu, and left it at his feet.

“Good boy, Ci!” He affectionately whispered to it, patting it on the head. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a mana crystal, breaking a piece off, and giving it to the slime. The slime vibrated with an audible humming sound.

“Hey Rhannu, what are you up to?” I asked after shifting into his form behind him.

Rhannu turned to me, then looked away embarrassed. “Not much, really.”

“Not much, eh? That’s odd, I could have sworn that you were complaining about having to share your space with a monster.”

“Did that happen? I don’t remember it.” Rhannu lied.

“I think it did. Just a few hours ago, even. And somehow, in that short a time, you’ve already prepared treats for the little guy. And even made a ball to play fetch with, and did I hear you give it a name? Ci, was it?”

Ci turned back and forth between us, seemingly confused by the presence of another person identical to his new “owner”. Ci picked his ball up, and carried it over to me. I raised my eyebrow at Rhannu, and threw the ball towards the other end of the terrarium. Ci chased after it, making a humming noise as it rolled towards the ball. When Ci returned, it left the ball on the ground, and bounced into Rhannu’s arms.

“Not that bad, is it?” I asked Rhannu.

“No, I guess it isn’t.”

“Are you ready for more?”

Rhannu made a complex expression while looking at Ci. “How many more do you need? I’m not sure if I’ll be able to give them all the attention they deserve.”

“Already have that much of a bond, eh?” I couldn’t help but smile at that. “ I don’t actually know how many slimes we’ll need. Ten, at least. More if the space keeps expanding. Is that alright with you?”

“I’m not sure. I didn’t think I’d be okay with this one, but clearly I was wrong about that. Perhaps I’m wrong about this too.”

“Perhaps.” I agreed.

---

With Rhannu finally feeling something other than boredom, I was in a great mood. And you know what I’m going to do now that I’m in a great mood?

Meditate and make more crystals. The same thing I’d been doing for the last few days, and what I would be spending the next week doing as well. I’m not ready to crystalize mana while doing other tasks at the same time yet, nor am I sure if I’ll ever be.

Geistig was right. I do need more brains.

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