The World Dragon's Heir

Chapter 712: And Empty The Trucks

Dominic nodded at the guard, while others began shouting orders, and the residents of Albroles began to push forward with pillow cases in their hands and paper tokens outstretched.

The guards took the pillowcases and dumped a bucket full of potatoes in it, roughly five kilos per token.

"Larger families get multiple tokens, but they’ll send more than one person to collect it, as we don’t let them turn in multiples, to prevent obvious abuse. The exception to the rule is the healer’s Guild.

They can bring us a whole stack of tokens for their patients who can’t make it here, or shouldn’t for the sake of preventing infection.

But the patients have to either come get next week’s token, or be counted by the guards to be sure they’re still alive," the assistant Castellan explained before waving the rest of the trucks into the Palace’s long driveway.

Getting a hundred trucks into this space was going to be tight, but it was designed to hold a huge number of carriages, so Dominic thought that they should be able to get most of them in.

They would likely empty a good portion of the trucks today, as they were handing out a week’s rations at a time.

But the rest would get unloaded as fast as they could, into the Palace storage.

That warehouse at least had proper facilities.

There was a steep ramp to make unloading easier, and then a mechanical conveyor system driven by either magitech or wind turning a wheel. Dominic wasn’t sure, as he couldn’t see the drive mechanism.

But he had seen the style before, and the miller in Wistover used a windmill.

Trucks were already being led to the ramp, while the others were ushered in as quickly as possible. Getting them out of the public eye, so they could properly sort the delivery, was key to the success of this mission.

Dominic stood to the side, out of the way, and watched the process, while Amie scanned the area for threats and signs of deceit.

"You know, we should send it five kilos at a time in a twenty kilo sack next month," she suggested.

"That makes no sense."

The shapeshifter laughed. "A twenty kilo grain or flour sack made of decent linen is commonly reused by farm wives and slum residents to make clothing for the children.

The sack itself is valuable in this situation, and a five kilo sack is too small."

The realization dawned on Dominic. "You know, I’ve seen that, and just never realized it before. The filthy white dresses that the girls of the nomadic tribes wear. They’re made from flour sacks modified into clothing."

"Exactly. The nomads are usually too poor to pay for soap, so the white doesn’t last long. The pants and shirts that the boys wear are as well, but they stain them in clay to blend into the desert sands."

The first truck was quickly unloaded into the crowd, and moved out of the way for a fresh one to be shifted into position, much to the crowd’s relief.

Clearly, there was food, and it was going to be distributed.

But they were hungry now.

Once every truck was within the Palace walls, Amie smiled.

"Alright, let’s get a move on. They can take care of themselves from here out. Just get the delivery order signed off, and we can send it directly back to the Palace. I got a token from the Princess that will send small paper items through a portal to the mail room."

Not the most efficient way to deliver the news, but the Royal Mailroom should be pretty trustworthy.

Besides, who would question his word, and that of the Merchant’s Guild, that the delivery made it here, even if Dagos denied it?

"If you could sign off on the delivery receipt, we will be on our way," he informed the Castellan’s assistant.

"Of course, Your Grace. Here you go. Do you require an escort back to the portal platform?"

Dominic laughed and shook his head, then whistled to call Dave over.

"If they want to fight their way through a group of armoured Mountain Trolls to stop me from leaving, they’re welcome to it. Dave likes crumping idiots with his club."

"It’s a good club." Dave confirmed.

"How far out do we need to go to open a portal?" Amie asked.

"Most of the way to the portal platform. But opening one without the platform all the way to Wistover won’t be easy."

"Got it."

She could do it. She had a remarkable affinity for portals, especially to Wistover. But keeping up the pretense that their abilities were as limited as others was important to ensuring everyone thought that her role was largely decorative.

Sure, everyone recognized that she was Dominic’s personal mage, but his reputation was so scary that everyone just assumed that she was there for versatility, not for combat power.

It helped that she liked to shoot people.

When a mage pulled a gun in combat, nobody took their skills as a mage seriously. They just assumed that the damage they were doing was a result of the weapon, not their own abilities.

While that was usually true, Amie had mastered the art of stacking spells on mana bullets.

"Alright, we’re off. It’s been a pleasure. Please give our greetings to the King, and tell him that we will continue to keep him supplied with fresh vegetables for the foreseeable future.

I have designated farms specifically to making the payments to Albroles."

The young man smiled, nearly weeping with relief.

"Thank you, Duke Wistover. I will surely pass along the good news. If I could make a request to possibly continue to send potatoes? They don’t require any additional processing, and only a few of the granaries and flour mills have been repaired and sanitized so far.

Bulk shipments of grain have proven problematic for other regions."

"Got it. We will include other vegetables in future shipments as well, but I will try to keep them potato based. Wistover isn’t a major grain crop producer, anyhow.

We’ve got grain fields, but they’re not the most efficient of our crops."