Chapter 111
Chapter 111
Currently, the stores were located in five regions: Jedo and the nearby university town of Aldmang, the western port city of Haizen, the city in Count Isein’s territory in the south, and finally the southernmost coastal tourist city of Alias.
“Each city has at least one store, and all locations except Jedo report shortages of ice cream at least twice a week on average.”
“What about Jedo?”
“For Jedo, all inventory is actually managed by the flagship store. In fact, the flagship store tends to have surplus stock.”
In the case of Jedo, the system worked by shipping from Luwin to the flagship store, and then from there to each of the other stores in the area.
“What’s the most fundamental cause we’ve identified so far?”
“It seems the main issue is that Luwin’s teleport gates are too limited.”
“That’s right. Especially to the coastal city of Alias, there’s no direct teleport gate from Luwin. So every time we have to send it to Jedo first, and then through other regions to reach there, and items frequently get lost along the way.”
Ultimately, all problems stemmed from sending products directly from Luwin to the target cities.
“And we need to start thinking about teleport gate costs too. Usually, we send ice cream to each store once a week, and the cost is astronomical.”
That’s right. Cost was a major issue.
Because ice cream couldn’t melt, it needed to be delivered quickly, which was why they had been using teleport gates until now.
As a result, nearly half of the revenue ‘Lu & Cream’ earned was being used for teleport gate fees.
“Exactly. With teleport gate costs being so substantial, we continue to incur additional teleport gate usage due to ongoing shortages.”
Hah.
It’s not easy.
How should food that needs to be stored at low temperatures, like ice cream, be delivered? Especially in this world where there aren’t even things like cars.
I sighed once and asked, “What’s the situation with ice cream cones?”
“Cones aren’t as bad as ice cream. But the teleport costs are still too high.”
In this situation, it seemed like we needed to completely restructure our approach. There were many twists and turns because the business had grown so rapidly in such a short time.
“Currently, everything is being shipped from Luwin, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s move the hub… to Jedo.”
Production had to be done in Luwin. All facilities and equipment were set up there. Besides, teleport costs from Luwin to Jedo weren’t that high.
So it seemed better to produce ice cream and cones in Luwin, and then have Jedo handle distribution to each city.
“You mean distributing products to all regions from Jedo?”
“Yes. For now, we only need to ship to four regions, but later we’ll need to send them throughout the empire. Thinking ahead, it seems better to make Jedo our base.”
“Then Jedo will… handle Jedo’s volume first.”
It seemed better to manage Jedo and the university area of Armang together. Plus, it only took half a day by carriage to reach the university area from Jedo.
“The southern market is quite large, so it would be good to establish another base city somewhere in the lower region…”
As I spread a map on the table and pondered, everyone gathered around to look at it.
That’s when Yen spoke up.
“But Irina, teleport gate management is handled by the imperial court, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. Only the Luwin gate is exceptional, with Luwin having full authority over it.”
“…Then, since the imperial court doesn’t particularly like ‘Lu & Cream,’ isn’t this risky?”
I hesitated. He was scratching a rather painful spot.
“But there’s no way around it. That part will have to wait until relations with the imperial court improve or—”
“Do we really need to use only teleport gates?”
I looked at Yen, wondering what he meant.
Yen looked at the map and said, “If they impose restrictions on teleport usage for absurd reasons like they’re doing now, we’ll just have to sit and take it. We’d be dragged along.”
“That’s true.”
“Besides, you mentioned that teleport costs are high.”
That was correct. The imperial court was preventing us from using teleport gates at every turn while charging exorbitant amounts.
“What if we use horses for transportation instead?”
* * *
Yen’s opinion was this:
Since the teleport gates in Jedo and Isein, the central city of the south, were large and had many routes, we should maintain those for now, but deliver to other areas by horse.
“Once things stabilize a bit, we could also switch to horse transportation between Luwin and Jedo, and between Jedo and Isein.”
“Ice cream cones would be fine. There’s a risk of damage, but they won’t melt or break. And they have a long shelf life. It’s not a big problem.”
But ice cream was different. Using horses and carriages to move ice cream would take too much time.
“It takes merchant caravans about a week to go from Isein in the south to the port city of Haizen.”
“If you ride without stopping, it takes only a day.”
“That’s true. But in reality, it’s impossible to ride continuously with such an enormous load. Both horses and people would quickly tire.”
At that, Yen smiled knowingly.
“That’s why we need to build stables along the way.”
I blinked.
“Irina, you’ve made a lot of money anyway, right?”
* * *
“Yen Kavitz.”
“Yes?”
“This is the first time in my life I’m spending so much money.”
I was still looking at the stables and inns being built with the thought, ‘Is this really the right thing to do?’
[First time, huh?]
[Right…]
‘I opened stores nationwide, but I’m spending even more than that.’
In reality, teleport regulations in the empire were becoming increasingly severe. They kept saying things like “we’re suspicious for nonsensical reasons” and “is this smuggling?” followed by “Banned for now!”
And then after some time passed, and they checked, “Ah, there was nothing. You may pass!” How frustrating.
Moreover, after hearing from Isiel that the emperor was continuously reviewing ‘Lu & Cream’s’ movement records, I had no choice but to accept Yen’s opinion.
It seemed absurd at first, but upon listening carefully, it made sense.
[Why are they building stables?]
[Right. Baron Ashley’s territory? There’s not even a store here.]
‘This will become the hub for southern logistics.’
[Why?]
‘First, transportation costs from Jedo to the teleport gate are the cheapest. And Ashley is located in the center of the south, so it has good accessibility to most major cities.’
“Yen, have you finished selecting the intermediate villages?”
“Yes, that’s done, and we’re in the process of selecting affiliated inns.”
“Good.”
‘Starting with Ashley, we plan to properly establish horse roads to each city.’
Until now, most cases involved one person or one group riding horses straight to their destination.
But this way was too inefficient.
For this reason, the method ‘Lu & Cream’ devised was to divide the routes into smaller segments and assign dedicated teams.
[So there are branches between each city?]
‘That’s right. People from the Ashley branch only need to deliver to the first-level branches. Then people from the first-level branches deliver to the second-level branches. This repeats until reaching the destination.’
[That would definitely tire the horses less.]
[People wouldn’t get tired either, I think.]
[It seems better since they’d only be traveling short distances frequently.]
‘Exactly. The best part is that by breaking it up into short segments, we can send goods dozens of times a day.’
This could be seen as a system similar to a modern factory.
Like a conveyor belt, dividing the production process into multiple operations and assigning people to each operation, enabling mass production.
Delivery was divided in the same way, with specialized personnel assigned.
“If we had built new structures in every region, it would have cost a lot. Thanks for the good idea.”
“You’re welcome.”
Yen’s idea was to build new structures only in important regions and utilize decent inns and stables in each village for the rest.
So we dispatched personnel to each village and formulated a strategy to use the facilities there.
As a result, ‘Lu & Cream’ gradually reduced the amount of teleport usage and increased delivery via horses.
Magic circles and magic stones that could maintain low temperatures for about a day weren’t too expensive.
“Or we could install preservation boxes at each branch.”
“Will Isiel invest in that?”
“…”
By the time things were somewhat established, ‘Lu & Cream’ was able to reduce teleport usage by about 70%.
The resulting enormous cost savings brought a smile to the face of Isiel, the investor.
“Good job, Irina.”
“Thank you.”
“How’s the volume? Can you handle it well?”
“Of course. At this rate, we might even be able to increase the number of branches.”
Setting up proper bases in several locations like this reduced the burden of delivery.
“Irina, we’ve received inquiries about supplying from some restaurants in the southern region.”
“Really?”
Originally, supplying to places like restaurants or cafes was a service provided only in Jedo.
“This is the amount they’re offering, and they’ve expressed interest in purchasing for about two years.”
“Not bad? Go ahead with it.”
Instead of areas outside Jedo getting supplies directly from Luwin, the process was now handled by ‘Lu & Cream’ stores in each respective region.
That was much easier for managing deliveries.
I signed the documents I had been reviewing, put them down, and rested my head on the desk for a moment.
Haah. Now that we’ve done this much, I can probably step back from ‘Lu & Cream’ for a while, and it will run smoothly on its own?
It had been almost two months since Cassis left for the east, so I thought I could relax until he returned.
When he comes back, he’ll surely bring big news, and then I’ll be busy running around with demonic beast matters again…
However, no sooner had I thought about taking a break than the system ominously chimed.
[SYSTEM | You have achieved part of the goal for the sub-quest ‘Business Items’ of the main quest ‘Repayment of the Grand Duke Luwin Family’s Debt’.]
“Oh…”
I stared blankly at the quest and closed my eyes again.
But the quest apparently had no intention of leaving me alone, as it arbitrarily expanded the quest window.
[‘Business Items’
This quest is a sub-quest of ‘Repayment of the Grand Duke Luwin Family’s Debt’.
…An excellent entrepreneur needs excellent items.
>’Ice Cream’
>(new!)’Transportation Business’
>Register Item
+Add
Reward: Hints for business direction according to items]
I blinked.
“Transportation business?”
[Um… Irina.]
‘Yes.’
[I know you don’t like quests, but this wasn’t something I just gave you…]
[It’s an automatic update!]
“It’s okay.”
Still, I wondered how new work got thrown at me just as I was about to take a break…
“I was just trying to sell ice cream properly and created a proper distribution network, and now I’m about to start a delivery business.”
[SYSTEM | YES.]
[SYSTEM | As Irina said, ‘You can’t repay debt just by selling ice cream!’]
‘That’s annoyingly accurate.’
Still face-down on the desk, I buried my head deeper into my arms as I thought about how to develop this new business in this situation.
