Yuri Empire

When Yuri put out a call on the [Broadcast] for merchant associations that would like to produce a strategy book for the “Labyrinth”, we received six submissions, led by the Rostine and Tormark merchant associations, with whom Yuri has a close relationship.

Two days later, one of the letterpress machines made by the children of <Rindou> was loaned to each of the seven merchant associations, including the Theodore Association, of which Sofia was the president.

Letterpress is a printing technique in which convex letterforms are lined up to form typography, and ink is applied to it.

Since phonetic letters are commonly used on the continent of Mekia, there are only a few types of letters in use, just like the alphabet.

Therefore, unlike the Kanji cultural sphere like Japan, there are only a few types of letterforms, which makes it easier to spread the use of letterpress.

Also, in this world, ‘Paper’ is easily made by processing wood with magic.

With the abnormally high quality of paper available at a low price compared to the level of civilization, the environment is already in place for publications to be spread cheaply in the market as long as printing technology is spread.

At the suggestion of Yuri, the Chamber of Commerce was lent a printing press by the government, and as a trial run, they produced a kind of ‘Tile-Block Print’ of information on the “Labyrinth” and distributed it at the Explorers Guild. This was surprisingly inexpensive to produce.

(TN: Tile-Block Print is a newspaper from Tokugawa Period (1603-1867) in traditional Japan.)

In addition, there was a tailwind that Yuri hadn’t expected.

The <Maid> class can acquire the <Maid Bag> skill, which allows them to store many items in the other space according to their level.

In addition, the holder of this skill can instantly take out any item from the stored items into her own hands.

―――This skill has made typography, the most important part of letterpress printing, incredibly easy.

After all, if you imagine the characters you want to insert during typesetting, you can retrieve the exact letterforms from the storage area in one shot.

The most difficult part of the typesetting process, though, is to select the letterforms of the characters to be inserted and incorporate them one by one into the typeface. The <Maid> were able to do this work ten times faster than the others, and with great accuracy.

Therefore, by employing a few people who had chosen the <Maid> class, any merchant company could immediately use a letterpress like a skilled craftsman.

Five days after they started lending the letterpresses to each business association, publications began to appear rapidly in the city.

Perhaps because of this, the number of people who wanted to come to the cathedral to learn how to read and write was suddenly increasing rapidly.

It is not our intention to put a burden on the cathedral, so if there are too many people who want to learn literacy, perhaps we should prepare a specialized facility to learn it.

(Should we, as a nation, at least provide an institution for primary education…?)

At the very least, Yuri doesn’t want her people to be stupid.

However, it is not difficult to imagine that the cost of building an educational institution from scratch would be enormous―――both in terms of money and labor.

It’s a rather welcome situation for Yuri to reduce the amount of money from the treasury, which has accumulated too much… Well, it would be good to at least give it some thought.

In any case, if Yuri wants to go into the field of education in earnest, Yuri should consult with Rubetta, Ados, and Sofia.

―――While Yuri was pondering such a thing.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door of the office.

“Come in.”

Yuri called out from the door, and the door was immediately opened.

“Excuse me, Sister.”

“Ah, it’s Meteora. How is the building process going?”

The one standing there was Meteora, the captain of <Kikyou>.

“I have something to report to you, Sister. The construction of the Mining City, including the tunnels, was completed this morning.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through all that. I’m sorry for always leaving you to do the hard work.”

“No, not at all. We had a hard time making the tunnels safe enough for explorers to use attack magic, so it took longer than expected. I apologize for the delay.”

Meteora then bowed deeply to Yuri.

Today’s date is the 32nd day of the spring month. The mining city was originally supposed to be completed ‘by the end of this month’, which means that it was completed a little earlier than planned.

So it would be out of line for Meteora to apologize.

“No, Meteora and everyone at <Kikyou> has done a great job, and please tell them that I’m truly grateful.”

“Thank you very much. I’m sure they will be pleased to hear Sister’s words.”

Meteora bowed her head once more and spread out a large sheet of paper on Yuri’s desk.

“Here is the completed map of the mine.”

“Hmmm… There are three entrances, each with a separate tunnel.”

“Yes. The other thing we need to do is to make sure that the level of the demons that Sister places in the tunnels are in the same level range as that of the “Labyrinth” in Ulysses, the tunnels can be used as three different labyrinths.

“I see…”

The second-in-command of the <Rindou>, Cuna, advised that if I use【Purification Wards】to protect against dust, the toxicity of cobalt can be ignored if the explorer’s level is roughly 30.

So I think we should limit the number of explorers who can enter the labyrinth of tunnels to only those whose vocation and class levels are at least 30.

Or perhaps we should allow a little more leeway and raise the level limit a bit.

“There are three tunnels: the lower, middle, and upper tunnels. The recommended levels are 41~60, 61~80, and 81~100, respectively.”

If we set the lowest recommended level at 41 or above, no one will try to come here with a level below 30.

“I’ll leave that decision to Sister. Our job is only to finish the place.”

“Well, you guys have done a good job. I’ll put the rest to good use, please look forward to it.”

“Yes, I’m looking forward to it. And―――if possible, after finished deploying the beasts, I’d be happy if you could do a explore test, just as you did once in the Labyrinth in Ulysses.”

“All right, I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Thank you, Sister. Then we will start the design work of the “Divine City” from today. If you need anything else, please call me anytime.”

“Thank you for your hard work. Please lend me your help again when the time comes.”

“Yes!”

After seeing Meteora leave the office, Yuri looked at the map of the mine again.

The original tunnels in that mine were not large enough to allow for ventilation and drainage. The map Meteora showed us showed that the tunnels had been expanded to a considerable size.

Incidentally, it seems that all three tunnels have been made into an eight-story structure by adding stairs.

The six “Labyrinth” in Ulysses have five floors, so the tunnels have three more floors. That seemed to extend to a great depth when you went to the deepest floor.

This is because the deeper you go, the more powerful the beasts are likely to be. The shallower the deposit, the more people will dig it, and the deeper the deposit, the more likely it is to be left untouched by others.

The difference between the two will be directly related to the income of the explorer.

(Well then, let’s think about the placement of the beasts―――)

I’ve already decided on ‘Kobolds’, ‘Fairies’, ‘Spirits’, ‘Magical Creatures’ and ‘Undead’ to be placed in the Labyrinth of the tunnels.

That’s why, unlike the time I spent deciding which demons to place in the labyrinth of Ulysses, which took a lot of time. This time it didn’t take much time to look at the map of the tunnel and decide on the layout.