Chapter 189 – Contact Method
I chuckled and she explained how that worked. It was interesting, just like what could have come from an old spy movie.
“Cool, I’ll take care of that later. Let’s go to the final location on our tour.”
I teleported us to Alfiro, and she gazed all around, taking in the view of her first outer-world city.
“This is Alfiro, a city about six days away from 82. I wanted to take you to the closest city, Geola, but it’s currently under quarantine.”
“It’s extremely interesting. Are they all sentient, intelligent beings?”
“Correct. And this is just a sample of the variety that exists since most of the people here are from a specific subspecies.”
“Wonderful.”
There were indeed a lot fewer foreigners these days due to the war. As for me, I could avoid getting into trouble with the token handed by Zhuri, the Chian’s duchy chief of foreign affairs, which proved even more useful than I expected. Since I had come to the city many times now, I was even starting to be recognized by some locals and was slowly being treated as a normal sight.
I let Minsto enjoy the scenery for a while more, answered a few of her questions, and decided to move forward after that.
“Since we’re here, let’s buy the raw materials you’ll need. I’m relatively rich in the outer world’s money, so don’t hesitate to buy a lot.”
“That’s good.”
We did just that, moving from one shop to the other, even checking what was available in the market. Alfiro wasn’t the best place to get cheap raw materials, especially metals, but since Geola wasn’t accessible, it was the best we could do at the moment.
We came back to 82 when we were done.
“Thank you for taking me outside, Tila. I learned a lot.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I want to start working now.”
“Go ahead, I won’t disturb you anymore. Just tell me if you need anything. I’ll go take care of the water business while you’re busy.”
She nodded and sat at her desk, beginning her work with the design process. I teleported back outside, next to the river. Using one of the largest containers I had, I filled it with water before teleporting to dome 6.
I could have tried to contact the people running the alternative water market in 2, but since it was where we planned to run the factories eventually, I chose to do it in 6 instead, to avoid any potential future trouble.
The way of contacting them was very archaic, and yet, in a world without Rylnet, it made sense. To be exact, it wasn’t possible to directly contact them. It would be them who could contact me, for obvious security reasons.
I went to a café and ordered some snacks together with fruit juice. Beverages in the inner world were very limited due to a shortage of everything. Water was the most common, even in cafés and restaurants, and fruit juices were the best alternative, but also very expensive.
What I ordered wasn’t what mattered here anyway. I carefully positioned my plate, cutlery, and glass in predetermined geometric forms, and got myself ready to wait. It was obvious I wouldn’t be contacted instantly since whoever noticed my signal would need some time to alert other people and get themselves ready. Meanwhile, I savored my not-so-tasty snacks and relatively fine juice without any hurry.
The café was mostly empty at this time of the day, with only a few rich-looking patrons inside, the type that looked to be very idle in their lives. To compensate for mediocre food and drinks, the service was top-notch, and a single look at a waitress would have them running to you. It made a lot of sense since the folks who would use a place like this were almost guaranteed to be wealthy.
After almost three hours, a new client entered the café and passed by me. I didn’t pay them much attention until I realized a piece of paper was now on my table. I quickly pocketed it and asked one of the waitresses for the bill. Once I paid for it, I left the place and teleported away once I was certain no one was paying me any attention.
I was back at Suuru’s house and finally checked what was written on the small note.
[“Tomorrow, 11 am, address: xxxx xxxx xxxx.”]
This was a great success. I was a bit happy that these small spy-like games had worked so well, and I couldn’t wait to encounter these people rebelling against the association. There was also a risk that it was the association itself that tried to contact me for attempting to go against their monopoly. In that case, I could simply escape and try again in another dome. If there was one aspect the Trading Union’s enemies hated, it was that spatial mages who had learned the teleportation spell were almost impossible to capture. If someone wanted to do anything against a spatial mage, they had to avoid frontal assault at all costs.
It was now mid-afternoon, and there were still a few hours before the market closed. As such, I decided to teleport back to 6 and spend the rest of the time helping Suuru handle the food booth. She seemed to have handled sales well by herself, but was still glad to see me.
I used an opportunity when there were no customers to tell her that Minsto had found out everything about me. She wasn’t very surprised, contrary to my expectations. It felt like she expected this to happen sooner or later. Instead, she was glad about it since there was no need to hide stuff about me anymore.
We managed to sell everything we had half an hour before closing time, and this made me remember something I had forgotten. However, that would need to wait until after the water business was settled. Minsto wasn’t wrong when she pointed out that selling food wouldn’t finance the factories, even if we were buying it cheaply in the outer world. Especially since I now had two salaries to pay, including hers, which was no joke at all.
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