Chapter 182: Chapter 173 – The Postal Guild

"Oh, oh! Show her that weapon!"

"What weapon?"

"Oh, ummm..."

After a bit of hesitation at the sudden change in topic, I brought out my new scythe just as Orphne asked.

"This is...!"

"Yea, it's pretty nice. It's a bit heavy, but it holds its edge really well and can even cut through adamantium armour. And even if something happens, there's this enchantment which repairs it. I've tested it out a bit, but it's been holding on really well!"

"You...really like this weapon, don't you?"

"Ah, I guess. It really is Njordr's masterpiece."

"The titans made it?"

"Well, he got some help from some others, since he's not really one to do enchantments."

"..."

"Umm, is something the matter?"

I got a bit nervous with how everyone stared at the scythe so intently that they quieted up. It was rare for a fairy to get quiet. Usually it only happened because they got absorbed in a treat they liked so much they forget about the rest of the world.

"This weapon made by the craftsmen of the other city. Is this how you're fighting now?"

"Well, it's a big part of it at least. I've been relying on it for most of my physical attacks, and my [blood magic] for magical attacks. Then [dimensional magic] to cover for my weaknesses, I guess?"

If I had to summarize how I typically fought lately, that would be it. It was already common knowledge amongst those who were close enough about my [blood magic], so it wasn't a big deal to talk about it. Though people thought that it was some sort of unique vampire skill rather than something I invented.

With how things were going though, it was probably alright if I release the skill publicly, but I would need to do some more adjustments to prevent it from being overpowered.

After that, the elders asked me a few more questions about how I fought, and I diligently answered them.

After my talk with Aurae and the other fairy elders, I got to work getting the distance shopping and delivery system set up.

Negotiating with interested merchants, recruiting personnel, 'borrowing' Peitho's sub guild master, as well as the necessary advertising required to get the system off the ground.

While it didn't take long to convince enough groups to join in on the venture, actually getting it off the ground was a different issue.

First of all, there was the issue of the turbine engines. They were difficult to make, and that didn't take into consideration that we didn't even start with a proper design. Adding a counter-rotating axle to spin part of the turbine the opposing direction complicated the design even further, slowing down production again.

Though I did hope that putting Orphne full time with the one and only turbine to still exist would be enough, and at first it did.

Setting up the buildings for our new Postal Guild close to the centre of each city, then have Orphne fly back and forth several times a day between them to deliver anything which was requested.

We had the affiliate businesses make catalogues which were freely available to view at the postal office, then we had workers handle both personal deliveries as well as orders from the catalogues.

Training wasn't difficult. Garland who I 'borrowed' quickly adapted to her new role. I didn't know how, but Garland was one of the new immigrants I had brought in a few years back. Somehow, she managed to impress Peitho so much that she got to the sub guild master position which was vacant up until then. Then again, the fact that the position was never filled suggested there was some problems with the people Peitho had up to that point.

It really was an issue that the people on the dark side really were unused to the very idea of paperwork. While the ones we had hired could handle paperwork to a degree that there weren't any significant complaints in regards to their ability to work at the Hunter's Guild, it really seemed to amount to only that level.

Hopefully the next generation would be full of people who could handle both paperwork and managerial work well, rather than just one or the other as things currently stand.

"Scaaaaarleeeet~!"

"Orphne?"

While I was out having a walk with Alicia and Fate, the little fairy flew our way, wobbling a bit in her flight.

"Aren't you supposed to be working?"

During the day Orphne was supposed to be working for the Postal Guild until we could get a team of deliverers up and running. Unfortunately the time it took to develop a new design meant that she was still the only one transporting goods between the two guild buildings despite it being a month since we had started operations.

"I can't take it anymore!"

"I thought you enjoyed flying on the turbine."

But when I mentioned that, my attention was grabbed by the fact that she wasn't riding it. The little fairy loved the thing so much despite its flaws that she would fly it around even when it made no sense to.

"I'm tired! I flew back and forth so many times today I can't even count! And they're still asking me to do more deliveries!"

"So what? You left it behind because you're too tired to use it?"

"I am!"

The mana consumption for that thing should've been low enough that even a low level fairy should've been able to make a few trips between the postal offices without issue. Orphne had already gone to Edgeworth and back the next day before, and there was no indication of her tiring out from that much despite taking longer than a dozen round trips between the guild offices.

If she was pushed so hard that she had gotten tired from it, the postal services must've been getting quite a lot of business going on.

"Well, let's go check things out then."

"Ugh..."

But as expected, she made no move to follow me.

"I'll give you a whole cake after you're done today."

"A big one! A really big one like this!"

Orphne spread her arms as wide as they could go, but I knew that she meant a proper sized round cake. As to how such a thing fit inside her little body I still didn't know, but each time she somehow managed it.

"Alright. But only after you finish today's work, alright?"

"Alright! Bring it on!"

And with that, Orphne raced back to the postal office, no trace of the previous weariness could be seen.

(She didn't just bamboozle me, did she?)

Fairies, especially Orphne, generally weren't that good at that sort of acting, but some part of me felt like I couldn't discount the possibility.

 

"Ah, Miss Scarlet!"

When we reached the post office, I was quickly greeted by one of the three receptionists working behind one of the large counters at the back. But after giving her a wave, she quickly ran off to the back, leaving one of many customers waiting in line in the dust.

While I was wondering if that was really a good idea or not, she quickly came back with Garland, the 'temporary' master of the Postal Guild. At least, that's what I told Peitho she was. I felt sorry for the overworked elf, but personally, I couldn't see how I could afford to replace the woman.

After a quick greeting, I followed the guild master to the back room while Alicia and Fate pitter pattered after us. Orphne on the other hand floated over behind the receptions desks. The bright smile she had quickly inverted into a look of despair as she got a glimpse at all the bags and crates sitting there.

I barely got a look at the fairy's dejection as she slowly put one of the large crates into the magic bag I had given her for her work years ago before I crossed the doorway to the stairs leading to the second floor.

From there, we quickly ended up in the guild master's office. The rest of the space on the second floor was used for staff accommodations as the building was relatively small. It was on the main street near the centre of the city, so while it cost me a lot of money to purchase it from the previous owner, the place was still on the scale of a mom and pop store. I couldn't get any of the larger store owners to sell since I didn't want to appear like I was making a power move.

But the amount of paperwork on the desk and the boxes on the ground filled with more suggested that maybe I should've found a way to get a bigger place, even if I had to choose somewhere more than a few minutes from the centre of the city.

That said, the stuff on the desk wasn't anywhere near how much the Hunter's Guild handled even back when I was the only one doing the work, and the boxes seemed more to be archives rather than unfinished work. Most likely a proper place to store old paperwork hadn't been established yet due to how busy the people here were.

Entering the room, I put down a small Goddess's Realm board I kept on handy for Alicia and Fate. This might take some time, and the two were already used to our time together being interrupted like this, so they promptly moved to either end and placed their Celestials they were hugging down before starting a match against each other.

"Now then, Miss Scarlet."

Once I sat down on the seat opposing Garland's, the guild master started.

"I'm really sorry for interrupting your time here..."

"It's fine. I'm ultimately responsible for the things here, and it seems like things aren't going to plan?"

"Going to plan...I suppose technically that's true."

The plan was to slowly integrate the guild into people's daily activities. As it was quite different from anything which existed before, it was expected to take time before things would get busy. At the worst, it wouldn't ever take off to become mainstream and I might have to subsidize the cost of operation. But considering the long term benefits of such an organization existing, I considered it a worthy price.

"Considering what Orphne had already told me, I suppose that business is booming?"

"That's right. We've been getting near constant requests."

"Really?"

"Yes. And while we've been able to keep up with deliveries, that is only just barely."

There was three lines downstairs. One for making orders, one line for deliveries, and a third for pickups. All three of them had at least some people waiting.

"I'm surprised so many people are making orders. I figured it'll take a while before it would pick up. Or is it personal deliveries that's become popular?"

"No. Both of those still haven't gained much popularity yet. People are more curious about the entire operation and are still spending most of their time asking questions or just browsing through our services."

"Then...?"

"It's business deliveries that are taking up much of our resources."

"...Huh?"

Garland lowered her head in response to my own tilting to the side.

"It seems that there are quite a few businesses that had decided to use the Postal Guild to deliver goods in bulk between the cities."

"...You mean, they're storing their things in various warehouses and we're the ones ferrying them as they're needed between their craftsmen and stores?"

"That's right. By far the most numerous clients we are currently getting are craftsmen and merchants who require materials and goods delivered between our offices, and they almost always pay for instant delivery in addition to bringing large loads."

This certainly wasn't a direction I had expected things to take, and it certainly answered why Orphne was so overworked.

The Postal Guild offered several tiers of services, based on the speed of delivery. The standard point was within two days. It presumed that Orphne would do a circuit between the cities at least once a day. Considering the distance, the whole thing shouldn't take more than an hour or two, excluding loading and unloading. The length of time was for the unexpected, like accidents or malfunctions.

Above that was express delivery, or guaranteed same day in other words. Though we figured that most deliveries would be possible with same day, so this was merely a guarantee.

The top level was instant delivery. Though the name aside, the delivery time was put as within two hours under normal circumstances. While the first two tiers were set up to be relatively cheap, this tier was premium in price as it was in speed.

Of course, while the catalogue orders also used this same system, there was the caveat that it presumed that the product was immediately available on the other side. The fact that we only included ready made products in the catalogues meant that this shouldn't have been an issue, and if a particular store had issues reliably meeting this criteria, we could easily just remove their catalogue unless if they had a good explanation.

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If instant delivery was requested quite often, then Orphne would have to make a round trip every two hours all day. But that was if she could carry everything requested in her magic bag each trip. If the amount exceeded her capacity, she would have to make even more trips.

I didn't know how much they were bringing in, as most of the most affluent merchants owned and used magic bags of their own to do most of their work, and those that didn't used the back roads that ran between the major roads. These roads were designated primarily to be used for the sake of quickly moving goods without pedestrians being in danger of being run over.

While we didn't have any work animals to pull wagons, we did employ hand carts quite frequently, as magic bag production wasn't to the point that everyone who needed to move a large quantity of goods could afford one. In fact, after my failed jaunt with making a magically powered airplane, we redirected the innovations towards powered carts. By being controlled by the normal push/pull movements of the handle, the magical motor added additional torque to the two wheels to allow heavier loads to be moved by one person.

Hunters especially liked this product and various designs were being made and sold by a variety of craftsmen. Intellectual property laws were foreign to this world, and setting up such a system was too much of a hassle for this level of technology, rather than attempting to restrict people from copying our design, I had it freely given it away. This was one thing which we needed to spread as far as possible in our country.

That, and I had no money concerns in the first place. Nor did the people I worked with when coming up with the design, as I had immediately put them to work on other ideas.

"Hmmm...in that case, giving Orphne more magic bags could help but..."

"We've already done that. We quickly purchased several more magic bags and have them ready for Orphne when she arrives, but in the end, the number of trips she needs to take is taking its toll."

"So what you need is more turbines, and operators for them, is it?"

"That's right."

That really was a problem. Developing the production model of the turbine was taking quite some time, not to mention the issue that it was inherently a complex thing, so they took a while to make as well.

"If that's the case, I'll see what I can do to get the first few turbine engines built more quickly. For now, how about hiring a one or two operators and getting them trained on Orphne's model when you can spare the time?"

"I suppose that's all we can do."

With that plan put in place, Garland spent the next while giving me a report of the guild's operations.

It seemed like outside of this issue, things were going well overall. The workers were hard at work and there wasn't any major issues there nor with any other equipment. The closest thing to an issue was the fact that this building was already getting too small for the level of operations we were doing, but even with the current growth, we should be able to get away with things for another year or so before it would seriously impact the business.

On the other hand, a pleasant problem was that because we were doing so much business, my return on investment was already weighing down on my wallet more than before we came up with the postal idea.

"Ah, Alicia! That's mean!"

"Haha! The big sister can't lose to the little sister after all!"

"Again! I'll win this time!"

"I won't lose!"

Glancing behind me, a smile naturally drifted onto my cheeks as I saw them play before I turned back to continue listening to Garland.

 

With my talk with Garland done, the three of us left the Postal Guild and made our way through the city.

Before long, we reached a large building.

Well, large considering the owner. This building was owned by a fairy, but the fact that it had a suspended courtyard large enough to entertain human sized guests was telling just how enormous the whole tree-borne structure was, even if the attached house and workshop was more in line with a facility more suited to a fairy.

"Claret?"

But the one floating just above the wooden platform in front of the house was my ever faithful familiar. The greater dark spirit was fishing through one of the magic bags I used to store excess materials. Since I was worried about potential problems carrying too many things with me in my pocket dimension, I stored all the excess materials in magic bags like the one my familiar was holding.

"Ah! Master! What brings you here?"

Forgetting about what she was just doing, still holding onto the bag, Claret floated over to where I was.

"I was looking for Aurelia."

"Oh! I was just bringing her some stuff she asked for!"

Smiling brightly, Claret stretched open the bag.

"What did she ask for?"

"Ummm, orihalcum and mythril. One and ten bars."

Looking back into the bag, the dark spirit dug into it again before pulling the bars out with a smile.

"I see. Good work. I'm guessing this is for the turbines Aurelia's working on?"

"I think so. She didn't say. But she doesn't talk much when she's working."

That certainly sounded like the girl. Aurelia was one who get pretty absorbed in her work. It was great when you needed her to do a job. Less so when you needed to interrupt that job for whatever reason.

Overall, this constitution of hers was beneficial for me, though trying to get her to stop working on one of my other projects to improve the turbine engine was quite the work, once she got on track I could visibly see the improvements. Blueprint after blueprint as she iterated on the versions, scale models and even partially working prototypes to test the best of those iterations.

The materials she consumed to make these models and prototypes wasn't insignificant, but it wasn't something I worried about. I had more than enough to burn on things like this and had Claret deliver them as needed. Of course she also kept tallies of how much was used, but I only glanced at the numbers here and there. Technological progress was far more important than saving even these rare resources. After all, I didn't mind going into the dungeon to gather more if it meant that geniuses like Aurelia could continue their work.

"Well, let's check on her progress. We're really needing to get some version of the turbine into production, even if there's some issues."

The world waits for no one, not even geniuses and great technological breakthroughs, as unfortunate as it was.

*Knock knock*

I rapped one of my knuckles on the little door of the attached workshop while kneeling on the platform.

Alicia and Fate were playing on the Goddess's Realm board I had deployed once more.

I waited a good minute before knocking again. I had no doubt Aurelia was home, as she rarely left. In addition, I could hear the sound of clinking and the occasional vapid whirl even from outside the structure.

But unfortunately, my waiting didn't result in the appearance of a fairy.

Waiting a bit longer until my patience reached its limit, I knocked one last time opening the door myself and thrust my shadow through the little opening.

"Hey! What are you...?!"

Entangled by my shadow, a little figure was dragged out of the small building.

"It's me, Aurelia."

I looked down at the little person as I let go of her. While the figure was unmistakably a fairy, one wouldn't be blamed if they thought she might not have been one. Her long, unkempt sky blue hair was pulled back in a messy pony tail, covered with shimmering oil and dust, and even singed in places. Her skin, the parts that weren't covered in black smudges, was almost as pale as my own, or in other words almost deathly pale. Her butterfly-like wings were stained in so many splotches of soot and other chemicals that its original supposedly vibrant colours were no longer identifiable, and perpetually folded down to the point that one doubted that she could willingly open them to fly anymore.

The fairy known as Aurelia was the furthest thing from a fairy as I had every seen, and if it wasn't for others of her kind affirming her race, even I would've suspected that she was actually a different race that got involved in some sort of magical accident to cause her body to shrink to fairy size instead.

"Scarlet? Quit bugging me. I'm working."

But before I could start a proper conversation, the freak of fairy kind turned her back towards me and started marching back inside, forcing me to grab her leg with my shadow again.

"That's what I need to talk to you about. I need to see your latest version of the turbine engine."

"Fine, fine. I was just testing the latest prototype. Lemme get it."

"Alright then."

I let out a sigh. This girl didn't even talk like a fairy. A part of me suspected that her latest reincarnation might have had an issue when it came to wiping her soul clean. Though that did make her both interesting and valuable, so another part of me was thankful if that really was the case.

The moment I let go of Aurelia, she rushed off inside. The larger double doors beside the entrance to her workshop opened up and she quickly pulled out her latest work.

Floating through the air, a cylinder longer than the girl was tall and twice as wide as her body came out. The thing was distinctly bigger than the original prototype that Orphne was using, and likely barely small enough to be used by a fairy.

"The Mana-Turbine Mark 17! Let me whirl it up!"

"Hmm..."

I watched as Aurelia injected mana into the orihalcum handles. The engine whirled to life as the mana flowed though the system. I examined the airflow then checked to see if there was any induced torque caused by the turbine's rotation, but couldn't find any.

"Looks like you got the counter-rotating axle properly balanced."

"Yup! It turned out to be more difficult than I imagined. You couldn't just balance the mass of the turbine blades, but had to account for the airflow as well. It's worse when you realize that the balance changes depending on the quantity of airflow, so I had to make the system adjustable."

"No wonder it took you so long."

While the idea of the counter-rotating axle was mine, Aurelia was the one who took my description and made it into a reality, then did further to create the desired result. Though this iteration of the turbine engine had its own issues, it did look workable.

It was certainly better than to run a second turbine to fix the balance issue. That would've been far too costly to produce, in addition to the added difficulty to maintain.

"The mana usage had increased from the earlier iterations by 23%, and the additional size makes it difficult to reach the same top speed. But the lower speed performance has increased by 31%."

"That's fine. The top speed isn't as important, and we've made up for the lower efficiency by making the engine easier to use."

I was satisfied. All we had to do was add the control surfaces and link everything up.

"I think with a bit more work, we can get the efficiency back up, maybe even raise the top speed even further."

"...No. That can wait."

I had to shut her down. This idea could keep going on further and further, as the basic principal was similar to the ones used for the super-sonic jets of Earth. I know how far this could go if I just let this eccentric genius work her heart out.

But I needed a working product as soon as possible. Not the pinnacle of jet engines years down the line.

No, something like that would shatter the preconceptions of this world. The engine was already pushing that limit as things stood, and too quick of technological innovations could raise unforeseen trouble. It was better to spread the technological improvements across a wide variety of fields than to push a single one as fast as possible, even if I had to shatter this girl's dreams.

With a bit of work, I convinced Aurelia that this was good enough for now, and together we worked on the blueprints for the production version.

The sun was retreating by the time we were satisfied and I made a copy to be brought to the craftsmen I knew who could make this complex marvel into physical form.

As I stared at the details of the blueprints, my lips curled up as I thought about how incredible things would become in the near future, I felt a tugging on my robes.

Behind me, Alicia and Fate looked up at me with lonely gazes.

"Ah, sorry! Sorry. Let's go home then."

The two smiled brightly and leaped into my arms, the force of it almost knocking me onto my butt as we hugged each other.

The production of the turbines could wait.

I put the blueprints away before heading back home, my cute little twins in my arms as they buried their faces in my chest.

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