Chapter 147: Courier Prep

  Location: Magicon Empire; Magicon System; Terra; Imperia; FBC

  I wake up with a start. Damn, what a weird dream… I vaguely remember dreaming about my life being part of a story… That sounds so weird. Also, the number 1000 was a very prominent part of that dream. Something about my story reaching 1000 followers. I laugh slightly, if my life was a story, it would deserve more than 1000 people reading it! Good thing it isn’t, I guess…

  Anyway, time flies by faster and faster the closer we get to the end of my first college year. As soon as I’m back from playing taxi for the Diplomacy course, I have to study for my final exam in the Leadership course.

  But even this is over so fast and another week has passed. My other courses continue as usual and I manage to learn a lot more things, especially when Professor Bishop slowly arrives at the more recent history of our nation.

  But all this fades into the background when my team manages to secure another Gravity Ball victory against Holtburn College. This means we’re now uncatchable at the top of the table. We’re the champions!

  Celebrations continue throughout the whole night and I’m way too intoxicated to attend any lessons the following day. Luckily, it’s a Wednesday so I only miss Improvised Combat as Leadership was finished with the final exam.

  Besides that, we have another reason to celebrate because Lydia managed to earn enough money to pay for an advancement of her Utility core to Senior level! I invite her and all my other friends to one of the few remaining restaurants I still have a coupon for. But it’s a very fancy one as their chef is famous for his cooking shows on television. I specifically kept the coupon for an occasion like this and all I can say is that it was totally worth it.

  Now before I enter the final stretch of the year and therefore have to study for the remaining final exams, I have one more thing to do: Play taxi for the Courier Course!

  Therefore, I find myself walking toward building 18 on Friday morning to meet up with Benny, Mira, and Peter who asked me to help them exploit the system almost a year ago. Apparently, they want to talk to me about a few things that have changed in their plans over the year before we enter the lesson together. I’m curious what this is about, especially when I think back to Grandpa John’s words when I told him about all this… How it probably won’t work and the solution to the problem. A solution I’ve already used before, apparently.

  So instead of taking the elevator straight up to the classroom, I stay on the ground floor in the lobby. I don’t have to wait for long, as the trio enters less than five minutes after me. Mira is immediately recognizable, as she is one of the few people wearing glasses for aesthetic's sake. Though I have to say it suits her. She’s got shoulder-length brown hair with bangs that perfectly accentuate her glasses. Next to her are two polar opposites. Benny is a few centimeters shorter than her with a stocky build and short blonde hair. Peter on the other hand is a beanpole… I think he stands at two meters tall and his black hair falls past his shoulders.

  They wave when they see me and walk over. After exchanging greetings, we take the elevator and ascend a few levels. Then they lead me to an empty room and we all sit down around a conference table in the middle.

  I decide to open up and smile slightly at them. “So I guess that our plan won’t work out as we wanted it to…”

  Benny frowns a little. “Yeah, how’d you know?”

  “Well, you contacted me to discuss a few changes beforehand, so it isn’t too far-fetched, no?”

  Peter chuckles and slightly shoves Benny’s shoulder. “She’s got you there, bro.”

  “True enough,” Benny grumbles. “Anyway, yeah, we have to change a few things… Our professor won’t let us escape all the paperwork. We’re also not entirely sure yet how we’ll do it exactly, so that’s why we’re meeting right now.”

  I lean forward and put my hands on the table. “Okay, hit me with it. What are your ideas?”

  Mira casts a spell which I quickly recognize as the Projection spell when a magical projection appears above the table. It shows a map of The Empire with the Magicon System marked in red right in the middle. The four Duchies and the Magicon Administration are outlined in a different color each. Another thing of note is the green dot somewhere in the Axtendus Duchy.

  Mira looks back at me and starts speaking. “Alright, here’s what we know so far…” She waves her hand and another projection joins the map. It looks like bags of grains stacked on a pallet. “Students from the Magical Agriculture course created a new type of wheat that apparently grows on planets with a less-than-optimal atmosphere. Those bags here,” she points at the projection, “therefore need to be put through some real-world testing.

  “That’s where we come in. Our assignment is to take care of the fastest possible delivery of those grains to the Zukan System, or to planet Omali to be exact. As you can see, it isn’t the shortest trip and to make things more complicated, the system isn’t on any trade routes that go through the Magicon System as well.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  “Now as you know, the original plan was to circumvent every issue and just rent a ship which you could jump to our destination as fast as possible. Unfortunately, our professor didn’t agree with our plan and shut it down hard. He even said that if we executed the plan as it stands he would have to fail us for cheating. So here we are now… We still want to use you somehow, but we’re not exactly sure how, so your input is always welcome. Anyway, Peter can walk you through what we’ve come up with so far.”

  He looks at Mira in mock outrage. “Why me?”

  She just shakes her head in reply and Peter chuckles slightly. “Alright, fine. So first of all we thought about having you teleport the goods over to the Webster System where a direct trade route leads to the Zukan System. The problem is that this probably won’t count as well because we’re circumventing almost every hurdle.”

  I nod along, he’s probably right. The Webster System is close enough for me to make a direct jump, but that is only because of my ridiculous range.

  Peter continues. “After that, we looked into passenger liners as most of the cheaper ones don’t have a Space Mage with them and only use enhanced wormholes. Benny had the idea to ask them if they could take our goods with them in exchange for providing them with a Space Mage for that one trip. This also didn’t bear fruit, as they mostly aren’t allowed to take on unaffiliated Mages, and the ones who are, didn’t have enough space for our pallet.”

  I wonder if I should feel offended as they always speak about using me as if I’m some kind of power tool…

  “And lastly we had one more idea, but it takes a lot of prep work to make it work. Just different prep work compared to booking freighter slots.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “Uh, huh, so what’s the plan? I have to say, your other two ideas don’t sound convincing at all.”

  Benny picks up the conversation with a big grin on his face. “We just make our own express service company!”

  Suddenly everything clicks together and finally it all makes sense. That’s what Grandpa John meant when he said I’ve done so before! He’s been talking about MARA Deliveries. Oh boy, why haven’t I thought of that before?

  The moment of enlightenment must have shown on my face as Benny stops speaking and shoots me a curious look. “You good?” He asks and I nod in reply.

  “Yeah, keep talking, I just realized something… But it’s not important.”

  He continues with a shrug. “Alright, so as I was saying, we’ll just create our own company. There’s just this teeny tiny problem… We’ll need a starship for it to work because we can’t use the ones from FBC for a new company even if it’s just a fake one.”

  “Fake one?” I reply a bit confused. He just talked about creating a company after all. Why is it a fake one so suddenly?

  “Fake one is a bit of a wrong word,” Mira chimes in. “What Benny means is that we’ll probably do all the paperwork you’d need to register a company without actually handing it in at the registration office. Instead, we give it to the professor… Creating and registering a real company just for this one delivery would be a waste of time and money after all. We’re planning on doing something like a proof of concept… A high-end delivery company that even flies out for single shipments like that pallet of grains.”

  Oh, yes, that makes sense. “Okay… And the professor is fine with that?”

  Benny nods. “Yeah, he was actually the one to tell us to give the paperwork to him instead of registering the company for real. He will grade that as if it were the paperwork we would produce when negotiating transportation contracts with real freighters as it’s a different solution to the same problem or something. That’s also where we learned that we need to find a cheap starship to rent. It can’t be more expensive than what we would pay the freighters to transport our pallet. And that’s our problem… Do you have an idea how to get a cheap starship? You’re close to Lisa Song, right? I saw you in the background of a picture of her in a tabloid. Maybe she can help us?”

  The apparent problem causes me to involuntarily let out a short laugh. When they start to scowl a little, I smother it. “Sorry, it’s just that you’ve come to the right person with your little problem. Didn’t I tell you that I own a starship?”

  Suddenly the scowls are all gone and replaced with hopeful expressions. “I vaguely remember something… But is it big enough to fit a little bit of cargo? Everyone we’ve asked so far only had a small yacht at best and there’s no chance to fit our goods,” Peter replies.

  This time I laugh for real. “Don’t worry, it’ll fit.”

  “If you say so…” Mira replies, sounding unsure.

  “Do you want to take a look? It’s only one jump away.”

  They look at each other, then Peter shakes his head. “No, we trust you. Are you ready to get started then?”

  I give a slight nod. “Sure, what do you need me to do?”

  A notification on my interface shows that I received a message. “I just sent you the link to our shared documents… Basically, you just have to take a look at them and fill in your details as the company must run under your name. We have to hire you to make it count after all. It should be self-explaining… If not, just ask. We’ll take care of the other paperwork in the meantime,” Mira replies.

  “Got it, thanks,” I answer and tap on the link in the message. A rather large document opens up and a small icon at the top indicates that three other people are currently working on the document as well. Alrighty, let’s get this done.

  I lean back in my chair and start reading. Reading quickly changes into skimming, as the first 20 pages are filled with boring legal jargon. Then it starts to get more interesting and I have to fill in a few blanks. Unfortunately, this is followed by another 15 boring pages until I can finally fill out a few things again. This time it’s about the company’s starship and I pull up the details of the Stargazer right next to it. I read a bit further, but before long I arrive at the end of the document and move it to the side of my vision.

  I look at the three others who seem to be deep in a discussion. I clear my throat to get their attention and Benny looks up a short moment later. “Yeah?”

  “I’m done, is there anything else you need me to do? If not, I’d like to leave.”

  “One second,” he holds up his finger and then starts tapping in the air. A few minutes later he focuses back at me. “Looks good so far… We probably won’t need you anymore this morning. It’d be good if you could join us again in the afternoon as we’d like to show the finished document to the professor. Better to have you with us if there are any issues.”

  I nod. “Sounds good, see you later then. Just give me a call if there is anything.”

  “Will do, see you later!”

  I wave the other two goodbye and leave the room and then the building. As soon as I’m outside, my stomach says hello with a rumble. Guess I’m going to eat something then.