Night fell.
As the last customer departed, Lin Gui stood up and closed the door. The wooden door let out a dull thud behind him.
Silence settled over the post office, save for the faint glow of the magic glowstone, which cast a small, cool white halo over the counter.
Lin Gui turned and looked at Elvia.
"Tomorrow at noon, Monica will be heading to the City of a Thousand Towers with the returning Gold Rank adventure group."
"You can go with her."
"I'll handle the Gold Rank adventure group's compensation."
"They've returned at this crucial moment just to earn the currently exorbitant transport fees. They won't refuse."
After hearing this, Elvia's lips moved as if she wanted to say something, but she swallowed her words.
She was somewhat reluctant, yet she couldn't argue with him.
This was indeed the safest course of action.
A Gold Rank adventure group would certainly never take the ridiculous route Lin Gui did.
They would strictly follow the Golden Routes used by transport teams, bypassing all Forbidden Zones.
Though the journey was long, it was at least safe.
At the very least, it was far safer than following a lunatic like Lin Gui.
Such an arrangement seemed better for everyone.
Elvia let out a sigh, her shoulders slumping as if a heavy burden had been lifted from them.
"Thank you."
Having said that, she turned to push open the post office door and stepped outside.
The door closed behind her. The sound of her footsteps gradually drifted away before finally disappearing at the end of the street.
...
After Elvia left, Lin Gui returned to the counter and began tallying the letters received today.
From the moment they opened until now, people had been queuing all day, yet he had only collected a little over four hundred letters.
Compared to the Carter Royal Capital or Caran City, this was far fewer.
Furthermore, he was certain that he wouldn't receive many more in the following days.
He had closed the doors early today, and practically everyone who wanted to send a letter had already shown up.
Given the scale and population of Dragonbone City, this number was remarkably low.
Lin Gui could roughly guess the reason.
Dragonbone City was fundamentally different from the borderlands.
Located on the edge of the central continent, it was where the Dark Tide broke out most frequently.
Demons had cut off all the city-states long ago.
The lost relatives of most people were either already dead in the mouths of demons,
Or, even if some had survived in other city-states,
The vast span of forty years had long since left the residents numb. Most simply assumed their loved ones were deceased.
As seen by the customers today, the vast majority of those coming to send letters were elderly folk.
The borderlands were different.
Before that Great Evacuation ten years ago, even High Rank adventurers could safely traverse the wilderness.
Communication and transport had never been completely severed.
Moreover, the first influx of demons was merely a Dark Tide branch and hadn't been overly exaggerated.
A significant number of evacuees had survived.
Lin Gui sighed and placed the final letter into his bag.
The natural barrier of the Dragonbone Mountains had protected the borderlands.
However, other places beyond the borderlands had not been so lucky.
The city-states he was headed to next would likely be in a similar situation to Dragonbone City.
The number of letters received in each city-state wouldn't be very high.
However, the total number of city-states would compensate for that.
A few hundred letters from one city, several thousand letters from ten cities.
Slow and steady.
Lin Gui began to sort and categorize the letters.
To save storage space, he no longer used wooden crates to hold the mail.
Instead, he used messenger bags.
He pulled several canvas bags from under the counter and stuffed the letters into them based on their destinations.
One bag for Dragonbone City.
One bag for Whitecliff City.
One bag for Wind-Whisper Canyon.
One bag for Watchtower Keep.
...
Every bag was stuffed to the brim, piled on the counter like a small mountain.
As he was organizing, a glass bead suddenly drifted out from his mage robe.
A pale blue halo lit up the dim post office as a chibi version of Shadow Blade Lynn emerged from the bead.
She floated in mid-air, arms crossed over her chest, tilting her head to look at Lin Gui.
Her gaze was strange and subtle, as if she were looking at something beyond all logic.
"You... want to overthrow the City-State Alliance?"
She had been silently listening to the conversation between Lin Gui and Elvia.
From the moment that blond human first tried to force himself upon Lin Gui earlier, to everything they had just said.
Lin Gui activated his Eyes of the Netherworld, his gray eyes glancing at her as he nodded.
"That's right, Lady Shadow Blade Lynn."
Shadow Blade Lynn tilted her head, her tiny body spinning a circle in mid-air.
"Why?"
Lin Gui gave a faint smile and set the bag in his hand aside.
"Isn't that a normal thought?" he asked in return.
"Don't you want to?"
"Don't those city-states that are being oppressed and reduced to mere resource exporters for the core city-states want to?"
"Don't those laborers who give everything just to contribute to the rise of Dawn want to?"
"Far too many people want to overturn this City-State Alliance, which originally existed to protect everyone from the Dark Tide."
"So, it shouldn't be strange for me to be one of them."
Shadow Blade Lynn pointed a tiny finger at her chin and pointed out flatly:
"No one can shake the City-State Alliance, which gathers almost all the experts on the continent."
"When I died, there were thirty-nine Title Rank experts in total on the continent."
"Thirty-four of them belonged to the city-states."
"Including myself."
"We might have been dissatisfied with the city-states, but no one would actively try to shake them."
"Because..."
Lin Gui added with a smile, his finger lightly tapping the table:
"Because the City-State Alliance protects your interests, the interests of the nobles, and the interests of everyone at the top."
"Therefore, you might be dissatisfied with certain actions of the City-State Alliance, but you won't do anything against them."
For the vast majority of commoners, laborers, miners, and adventurers...
The Alliance's oppression was all-encompassing.
But for the high-level nobles, knights, and powerful Legendary pillars...
The City-State Alliance was heaven.
It provided them with everything they desired.
Resources, power, money, beauty, fame...
It was just that most of these things were squeezed from the oppression of the lower classes.
Shadow Blade Lynn nodded, her tiny body bobbing slightly in the air.
Then she warned Lin Gui, her tone becoming a bit more serious than usual:
"Therefore, your thoughts are extremely dangerous."
"As long as someone is at the top, not a single one of them will want the Alliance to be overthrown."
Lin Gui leaned back in his chair with a smile, his hands resting on the armrests.
"Then does Lady Shadow Blade Lynn, once a member of the Alliance, wish to stop me?"
Shadow Blade Lynn let out a soft chuckle, an indefinable expression appearing on her small face.
"If..."
"You can help me with my resurrection."
"I can take you away before the Alliance catches you and burns you at the stake."
"As long as I recover my strength, no one can stop me if I want to leave."
"So hurry up."
"You little mage who wants to stop a chariot with his bare hands."
After she finished, she shrank back into the glass bead.
The bead spun in the air before floating into Lin Gui's mage robe and becoming still, leaving only a tiny bulge on his lapel.
Lin Gui stood there, looking down at the bulge in his robe with a look of disappointment in his eyes.
He very much wanted Shadow Blade Lynn to join him.
A High-tier Epic...
There were only five such Apexes even in the City-State Alliance.
Merlin Ambrosius, the Great Sage.
Hugh, the Death God.
Alan von Granbell, the Invincible Hero.
Augustus Loredan, the Dawn's Judgment.
Goron Bloodaxe, the Beast King.
And Lynn, the Shadow Blade, who had died more than a decade ago.
Shadow Blade Lynn hadn't said she would join.
But Lin Gui wasn't discouraged.
In the early stages of the plan, top-tier combat power wasn't necessary.
By the time the day came when Title Rank experts were needed...
Lin Gui's eyes narrowed slightly, and a cold smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
If it truly came to that, he could handle them all by himself.
Rate on N.U.
