As the first person stepped into the post office, those bureaus that had seen no business for two days due to the City Lord's warning welcomed wave after wave of guests.
There were commoners, refugees, and adventurers in worn leather armor.
They hunched their shoulders and lowered their heads like thieves, their footsteps so light they were nearly silent.
But they all came.
Someone clutched a crumpled piece of letter paper, their fingers repeatedly rubbing the edges as if they were afraid it would fly away.
Another person stood at the entrance for a long time, taking several deep breaths before finally stepping over the threshold.
The departure date, originally scheduled for three days after arrival, was pushed back by two days.
However, the booming business did not last very long.
Over forty years of isolation was enough to sever many longings.
In Dragonbone City, with its population of tens of thousands, only a few hundred people ultimately had the desire to send a letter.
And in Whitecliff City, during the four days of their stay, the letters collected did not even exceed one thousand.
The booming scene that lasted for two days seemingly should not have resulted in only a few hundred letters.
Even in New Covenant City, when Lin Gui returned before departing for Caran again...
He had managed to collect one thousand six hundred letters in just half a day of frantic business.
And Whitecliff City was far larger than New Covenant City.
The reason for this gap was quite simple.
It was because the 7-Copper Post Office's counter staff had increased by one after the fire trial judgment.
A beautiful and charming blonde beauty.
That figure, those looks...
Were they something a tiny place like Whitecliff City could produce?
Were they something these bottom-tier people could usually see or touch?
Thus, Elvia's reputation for beauty spread far and wide.
She brought a lot of... useless crowds to the post office.
Among those crowding the entrance and peeking in, eight out of ten were not there to send letters.
They were there to look at a beauty.
Someone stood on their tiptoes to peer over the counter, their neck stretched out like a goose being lifted.
Someone else pretended to read the price list posted on the wall, but their eyes kept darting toward Elvia.
There were even a few young adventurers pushing and shoving at the door; none of them were brave enough to be the first to enter, but none of them wanted to leave either.
Their faces carried a type of embarrassment—the look of someone who wanted to take a few more glances but was afraid of being noticed.
When Lin Gui realized the problem, his face went dark.
Elvia, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle of people being conquered by her looks.
Left with no choice, Lin Gui had to establish a rule.
Anyone not sending a letter was not allowed to enter the post office.
At the same time, he had Elvia show a hint of her knightly strength.
She lifted the wooden sign at the door—which weighed over a hundred jin—with one hand and shook it expressionlessly.
The sign seemed as light as a single board in her hand, but when it slammed back onto the ground, the impact made the earth tremble.
The onlookers' eyes nearly popped out of their heads.
Some instinctively retreated two steps, while others hung their mouths open for a long time, unable to close them.
And then...
There was suddenly no one left in the post office.
It wasn't that they were scared away; it was just that the spectators no longer dared to loiter. As for those who truly wanted to send letters, everyone who needed to come had already arrived.
Lin Gui knew it was time to prepare for departure.
They had already stayed for many more days than expected, so it was time to go.
He instructed Elvia to stay and watch the shop.
Then he walked out of the post office and headed into the city to prepare supplies for crossing the wilderness, as well as the Golden Route map required for the journey.
Dragonbone City did not have a Transport Guild, so he naturally couldn't purchase a Golden Route map there.
However, Whitecliff City, as a transport node city-state, did have a guild.
He walked all the way across the main street and into the commercial district, finally arriving at Whitecliff City's Transport Guild.
The guild's building was even more magnificent than the City Lord's manor.
It featured massive stone pillars and a towering dome, with two stone statues standing at the entrance.
The statues depicted ancient transporters, shoulders carrying goods and eyes fixed on the distance with determined expressions.
They looked like relics left over from the Golden Age.
At this moment, there wasn't a single transport team inside the guild.
On the high-hanging transport board, the estimated arrival time for the next transport team was ten days away.
But arrival times were never accurate.
Accidents in the wilderness were countless.
Nearly every trip encountered one or two surprises, whether small or large.
Consequently, arrival times might be early—arriving a day or two ahead of schedule—or they could be delayed by a month or two.
Or they might never arrive at all.
Even with a Legendary expert leading the team, the mortality rate for transport teams remained very high.
The wilderness would not grant special treatment just because one was a Legendary practitioner.
There were even cases of Title Rank Epic experts dying in the wilderness.
Now, although no transport team had arrived, the guild hall was packed with people.
They were all merchants waiting for a team to arrive.
In this era where communication was severed and transport was expensive, the number of merchants far exceeded the number of transport teams.
Whenever a team arrived, those merchants would pounce on them like hungry wolves.
They fought for spots, fought for cargo space, and fought for every bit of pathetic transport capacity.
Some would throw down hundreds of thousands of gold coins just to snatch one slot.
Others would beg humbly just to get a single position.
Those who failed to get a spot could only wait for the next batch.
And no one knew when the next batch would arrive, or if it would arrive at all.
In the hall, several merchants were huddled together, discussing something in low voices.
Some sighed, some shook their heads, and some looked at the inventories in their hands with expressionless faces.
Their fingers traced slowly across the paper as if counting their last bargaining chips.
Footsteps echoed from the entrance.
A black-haired mage walked in.
He wore a gray mage robe and carried an oak staff and a bulging backpack.
It was the guy who had opened the post office.
The merchants in the hall all looked toward him simultaneously, and then simultaneously shifted their gazes away.
Their expressions were somewhat subtle.
They looked like people suffering from constipation, or perhaps like they had eaten something unclean.
Someone picked up a teacup and pretended to drink, the rim pressing against their lips while their eyes secretly scrutinized him from above the cup.
Someone else bowed their head to flip through a ledger, their fingers lingering on the pages for a long time without reading a single word.
Another turned to whisper to their companion, their voice so low that even their partner could barely hear them.
The news that Lin Gui had a transport team supporting him had already spread through the upper and middle levels of society.
As merchants, they naturally knew it too.
But they would not proactively offer prices or curry favor with this member of a transport team.
Because they still wanted to survive in Whitecliff City.
The status of merchants had been weakened far too much in the apocalyptic city-states.
The severing of transport had made free-traveling trade a thing of the past. The obstruction of commodity flow meant that the legendary wealthy merchants of the Golden Age who could rival nations were now history.
In terms of status, merchants were only slightly higher than commoners.
The division of the seven districts in the Carter Royal Capital was the most direct manifestation of the rigid hierarchy in these apocalyptic city-states.
Refugees, commoners, mercenaries, adventurers, merchants, knights, nobles, royalty.
Merchants? They were sandwiched in the middle, neither high nor low.
Therefore, they would not take the initiative to seek out a post office transport team that had experienced friction with the City Lord.
Even if that party's route included the largest market for Whitecliff stone—the City of a Thousand Towers.
Even if it was a route that could make them earn a fortune, they still wouldn't.
Because it wasn't worth it.
Offending the City Lord for the sake of a little money was simply not worth it.
Someone sighed softly and withdrew their gaze from Lin Gui, focusing once more on the cargo list they had already read countless times.
Rate on N.U.
