Delivery Department (5)
Whoosh! Thwip-shaaaaack!
Oscar slipped aside, deftly dodging the incoming whip.
Like a few days ago, catching it bare-handed was out of the question. Even if Breeze protects my hands, the whip Franc swung these days had become every bit as vicious a weapon as actual sword aura.
KA-BOOM!
The whip cracked against a bare training room wall—and simply smashed it to pieces.
Gazing at the wall crumbling in chunks to the floor, Oscar asked, "Can't go any further?"
"Hah… hah…"
Franc, utterly spent after just a few swings of the whip, flopped flat onto the training room floor.
"Ca… can't… I can't do any more……."
His panting body trembled visibly. He wasn't playing up his exhaustion—he had genuinely drained his stamina and mana in mere moments.
"Hmm. The power is certainly serviceable, but the endurance needs work."
This attack could fell anyone, no matter who they were, in a single clean strike. Its destructive force alone was beyond dispute.
Steel swung at transonic speed. It's barely even visible to the naked eye.
Not many intermediate mages or knights would be able to take that blow in stride.
"Keep practicing this consistently from now on. Let's set your target at… oh, about ten minutes of uninterrupted swinging."
"Hoo… hoo… I just swung it three times and my arms and legs are wobbling, and you're saying ten minutes?"
"You'll get there someday."
"Easy to say when it's not your problem."
Franc pushed himself upright, pouting. He'd burned through an enormous amount of energy in so short a time that his face looked noticeably gaunt.
"Still, thanks. You gave my training some direction."
"Glad to hear it."
Direction in one's efforts. To anyone who trained, nothing mattered more. A hundred years, a thousand years of work poured into something useless was still, in the end, nothing but wasted effort.
"But I keep feeling bad, only ever taking help from you one way. Is there anything I can do for you?"
"Nothing right now. But I'll consider it a favor owed—one I intend to collect someday."
The day would surely come when he needed Franc's strength.
"……Why does hearing you call it a favor owed make me feel so uneasy?"
Grumbling to himself, Franc raised a fist from where he sat. "Fine, deal. If you ever need my help, just call. What are friends for?"
"……"
Friends, huh.
Oscar rolled that word around in his mouth for a moment, then chuckled and bumped his fist against Franc's.
"See you around."
A few days later, thousands of bikes lined up in ranks before the White Magic Tower in Shilin.
Maxim clicked his tongue at the sight. "What a magnificent spectacle, wouldn't you say?"
"Indeed it is. Even I have never seen this many bikes in one place."
Deputy Tower Master Hamel Grimwiz nodded frankly in agreement. The rental company had serviced them all before shipment, so every single one gleamed as spotless as brand-new. The sea of bikes filling their field of vision looked for all the world like an army of machines.
"Hmm. So these are the bikes. First time seeing the real thing."
"I thought they'd be similar to bicycles, but up close they're far bigger and heavier than I imagined."
"More than anything, they just scream machine. A touch intimidating, honestly."
The dwarves were already licking their lips at the thought of dismantling and modifying the bikes. The schedule was punishingly tight, but this sort of work was exactly what they loved most.
"5,231 units in total. The quantity matches the order exactly."
"Seeing them up close has my hands itching. Right, lads! Move them to the workshop!"
Needless to say, they did not use the elevator to ferry the bikes to the 13th Floor. Moving more than five thousand units that way would have brought the entire Tower to a standstill.
"Magic really is a convenient thing."
"Well, it is magic."
They flung open the massive windows of the 13th Floor and swept the bikes inside with spellwork. Naturally, a great many mages lent their hands to the effort—and in the process, the workshop itself got a brief public reveal.
"Whoa, I heard they were building something on the 13th Floor, but it's a workshop?"
"Looks like the rumor about the little ones Oscar brought in being dwarves was true."
"Unbelievable. If so, Shilin is now the only place on the continent with the technology to produce dwarven equipment."
Everyone stood gaping, mouths agape, at the dwarves at work. Watching the operation, Oscar spoke up.
"Hagore, please make sure you meet the deadline."
"We haven't even started yet—quit yer rushin' already!"
Hagore grumbled, then scurried off at a hurried pace, no doubt fearing another round of nagging. Until the bike modifications were finished, Oscar would have no real part in the work anyway.
Oscar turned to Fidelina. "How is the civilian hiring for the Delivery Department coming along?"
"We passed forty thousand as of today. Applications are still flooding in—I'm barely keeping up with reading them all."
A pleasant smile played at the corners of her mouth. "Of course, we'll have to see how many of them actually prove useful."
Forty thousand already. However generous the wages, that was undeniably a remarkable turnout.
Then again, maybe it's only natural.
There was a common belief that ventures led by the magic towers rarely failed. And faded though its glory might be, the White Tower was still one of the Four Great Magic Towers. When such an organization confidently offered high pay, people had no reason not to apply.
How many of them are sincere, I wonder…….
It didn't matter. All he had to do was make them want to join the White Tower's new delivery division when the day of the interviews came.
The one I need to pin down right now is that man, though.
Oscar quietly approached the tall, thin man standing behind the assembled elders.
"Hello, Senior."
"Hmm? Oh, Oscar, is it?"
Pedro X—a 6th-level mage, currently holding the post of acting Head of the Delivery Department. According to the rumors, his one wish was to quit delivery work and devote himself to magical research. Naturally, his ultimate goal was to become a 7th-level archmage.
"Congratulations."
"Congratulations? On wha—… ah."
He nodded with a shy smile. "It's all thanks to you. I still don't fully understand it, but the idea is that ordinary people will be able to make deliveries using those bikes, yes? Thanks to that, I can finally go back to my research."
"You don't do any magical research at all normally?"
"I work on it in the cracks of my schedule, but there's never enough time. At this rate, I'll never reach the 7th level."
With his pure, earnest love of learning on full display, he looked like a wizard who had stepped straight out of a storybook.
And at the same time, a genuinely capable Delivery Department head.
What kind of temperament did mages usually have, after all? Eccentrics, almost to a man—stubborn, willful, insistent on their own opinions. Yet this man had coaxed, soothed, and occasionally raged at such people for months, and had gotten the work done regardless. That alone proved he was the right sort for the post.
All the more reason I can't let him slip away.
Oscar decided to simply postpone the man's period of 7th-level study a little longer. Hands clasped behind his back, he eased into the topic.
"But must you really resign as Head of the Delivery Department? It seems like your true calling."
"I only took it on temporarily because nobody else would. My goal is the study of magic. Even if I step down now, I'm sure at least one person will be willing to take the post."
"Still, wouldn't it be better for the one who's been doing the job to continue? Once the Delivery Department finishes its overhaul, the early days will be quite hectic, and someone new to the role is bound to make mistakes."
"……"
A flicker of wariness entered Pedro's eyes as he studied Oscar. "What exactly are you getting at?"
"Nothing at all. I'd simply like you to stay in that seat, Senior—just as you always have."
"I'll say it again: my goal is the study of magic."
"Heh."
Oscar let a smile of unreadable meaning cross his face, then continued. "The study of magic—wonderful. I'm quite fond of it myself. But did you know this?"
He pressed his thumb and forefinger together into a circle and wagged it. "Magical research costs a truly enormous amount of money. I'm sure you know that better than anyone, Senior. But—once this overhaul is complete, the salary paid to the Head of the Delivery Department will be……"
Oscar glanced around, then leaned in and whispered softly by his ear.
At those words, Pedro's eyes went round as saucers. "Wha— what? It's increasing by that much……?"
"Shh! Keep your voice down. It's a secret."
Once he'd calmed the man, Oscar pressed on. "And that's not even the end of it. You'll also be receiving what we call an incentive."
"An incentive?"
"Yes. The Department Head receives a fixed percentage based on the Delivery Department's monthly revenue and operating profit."
"Ah… well, if that's all it is."
Pedro, who knew the delivery business's revenue figures inside and out, replied with studied indifference.
Oscar didn't miss the reaction and flashed a grin. "You just calculated it, didn't you—and concluded it wouldn't amount to much?"
"Hmph. I merely ran the numbers without meaning to."
"Senior. You're well aware how rigorous Elder Fidelina is with the finances, aren't you?"
"……Ah, better than anyone."
How his stomach had churned every single time he went groveling to her, trying to squeeze out even one extra coin for his staff's operating expenses. It had made him think a scouting mission into the Red Mountains would be more pleasant by comparison.
"And that same woman has just invested a fortune to purchase those bikes. Why do you suppose that is?"
"……Because she's certain she'll recoup it?"
"Exactly. At this rate, the Delivery Department's revenue might even surpass the Potion Department's."
Oscar casually let slip just how much incentive he himself, as head of the Potion Department, received each month.
"G-Good heavens. You receive that staggering a sum?"
"It wasn't much to begin with. As you know, the Potion Department didn't start out doing well, did it?"
"Th-That's true."
"I struggled for a little over three months, right? But thanks to that grind, there's nothing left to fix now—I just listen to the monthly sales reports while doing my magic research in peace."
"Three months……."
Pedro X swallowed hard. The Potion Department had clawed its way up to that position from nothing but bare, empty ground.
Meanwhile, the Delivery Department already has its footing established. In a market with no competitors, for over ten years now—it was effectively a monopoly. In other words, endure just a few hard months at the start, and a golden future was all but guaranteed.
But Pedro still wasn't ready to drop his suspicion. "……But if that post is so lucrative, couldn't you just take it yourself? There's no rule against holding two departments at once."
"Come now, why would I? I'm one hundred percent satisfied with my life as it is. Besides, a pine caterpillar should live on pine needles, no? If an ignoramus like me took it on blindly and ran it into the ground, what then?"
"……"
"I'm only saying this for your sake, Senior. You've suffered all this time—you deserve to be rewarded. Just a few more months of hard work, and your life will blossom. I'd hate to think you might hand that honey-sweet opportunity off to someone else."
Suffering. Reward. Opportunity. Handing off.
He had deliberately packed the sentence with nothing but provocative words—like an ice cream shop stocking only its four best-selling flavors.
"Ahem."
What figure the calculator rattling away inside Pedro's head would ultimately produce, Oscar didn't need to see to know.