"Let's go for the hundredth time!

With a shout, a metal cage was dropped from a height of about 20 meters, hitting the ground and making a loud noise.
While I was away from Fotoren on a small errand, Trapper ......, or rather the first demon material mass production factory, was completed.
It was being tested, and Mercia and I had come to check it out.

Is there any distortion in the cage?

...... dimensions unchanged, no problem!

The experiment is a success!

The first step was to check the strength and basic structure of the cage without the demons in it, but this seemed to work.
Now it's time to experiment with the demon.

I'm a little worried about this one. I've added a few things to .......

Mercia was right, there had been quite a few changes made to the first demon material mass production factory (let's call it the tower for the sake of convenience) in order to operate this facility with small item boxes.
The most significant of these changes is the automatic lifting mechanism of the cage.
The cage, made of 100% metal lizard metal to withstand prolonged abuse, was not something that could be lifted by the staff.
On the other hand, there was no way to secure an item box with the capacity to hold such a thing.
To overcome this problem, the tower was built along the river, and the cage was lifted by the power of a waterwheel.

Kaede, the magic stone.

"Okay. Here, use this.

It was also an experiment to see if the equipment could work without me, so I was supposed to be left out of it, but the ...... item box carrier wouldn't arrive at Photoren until tomorrow.
So I'll be in charge of storing the magic stones for today's experiment.

First set, hurry up!

I know!

After receiving the magic stone from me, the staff hurriedly put it on the pulley and pulled the rope to raise it up.
Because of the power output, it takes a while for the cage to go up, and the stones will get old if they are kept on it.
For this reason, nine cages are used for every three magic stones.
It seems that the engineers had a lot of trouble with this structure. ...... I don't know much about it, so I can't explain it. For the time being, I've offered a generous reward.
While I was watching, a demon was summoned (or more accurately, revived) from the demon stone, and soon after, a cage was dropped and a roaring sound was heard.

Kill!

The ones who thrust their spears into the cage were a pair of E rank adventurers hired by the guild.
I could have hired higher-ranked adventurers for the cost, but I decided to go with this rank to make sure I could finish them off even if they were weak.
The cage seemed to be functioning well, and the attack went smoothly.
The adventurers took the magic stone out of the corpse's belly, handed it to the pulley operator, and then sent the remaining corpse to the dismantler. Now the magic stone has gone around.
After the adventurers have finished with the cage, the next cage is dropped from the tower after a safety check, and the two other adventurers finish with it.
There were six people in charge of the cage, three pairs of two, plus two backups, for a total of eight.

It's a big deal. ......

Mercia, who was watching the situation, muttered.
The number of people in charge of dismantling the tower is twice as many as those in charge of stopping it, and the number of staff operating the equipment is even greater.
As a result, when the tower is up and running, there will be about fifty people working here. The same number of people would be available for transportation, so the total would be 100 people.

I'd like it to be this large, considering the amount of metal lizard metal consumed. ...... Huh?　Isn't that too fast a pace?

A wolf weighing about 60 kilos is dismantled every 30 seconds.
That's 120 wolves an hour, 960 wolves in eight hours. Even if only 30% of the meat is edible, that's 19 tons of meat and 960 pelts a day.
Just by building one of these, the food problem of Photoren will be solved in one shot. ...... will not be enough, but it will be almost enough to meet the demand for meat.
You can still have a surplus of furs, but the meat will go bad.
I had left it to Mercia to make the adjustments, but now I'm starting to worry.

I'll let you keep the stock for now, but I assume you'll be exporting it outside of Photoren in the future.

Oh my god. I didn't realize that things had progressed that far without my knowledge.

How are we going to export it?

We've discussed that with the Chamber of Commerce. ......

Oh, so you've already decided on the measures?

I've come to the conclusion that the returning maple will take care of the transportation equipment. ...... If it doesn't work, then it doesn't work.
If not, you can reduce the operating hours of the equipment. You'll get your investment back a little slower, though.
Hey. No plan, huh?
Sure, we've managed this kind of problem before, but shipping food long distances is a little different.
Canned or bottled food is hard to come by in this world, and the consumption of dried meat is not that high.
Another way to make mass transportation possible is to use ......

Freezer ships?

I knew you had an idea!

The efficiency of a freezer increases with the size of the freezer.
Considering the power and duration of the artifact, an entire large ship could be used as a freezer to transport large amounts of meat without it spoiling.

"It's there, but it's Catherine's domain. Let's go back to Photoren.

The experiment is going well, and a B-rank adventurer from Decibatore has been hired for emergencies. There's no need for us to be watching.

That's right. ...... "Mr. Gadde, we're going back to the city, please send a ship.

Roger that.

The tower is on the river near Photoren (called the Photoren River. The tower is located at the upper reaches of the river that flows near Photoren (called the Photoren River, which is an inaccurate name), so it is accessible to Photoren by boat.
Since there is no way to enter the river with a large ship that can cross the demon's domain, we use an ordinary wooden ship.
It's a rather small boat, so I thought it might rock, but the boatman seems to be very skilled, so it didn't rock too badly.

"Catherine. I've got an idea for the transport!



I knew it!

Catherine seemed to have expected me to come up with the idea for the transport, and was already standing by with the experiment ready to go.
Or perhaps Mercia had anticipated it and had her on standby.

I'll need a cooling artifact for now. I want something with a long duration.

"Cooling!　I've got it ready!

It seemed that Catherine had thought of cooling as a way to transport meat, and she had prepared a pile of cooling artifacts.

What are the specs?

The duration is two hours for each one, but the output was not enough to keep ...... a large amount of meat cool. If you put 50 kilos of meat in a crate, it wouldn't be underpowered. ......

You've already tried that.
If every 50 kilos of meat consumes one magic tool in two hours, it's impossible to carry it properly.
Even a magic stone weighs a kilo, and if it takes four days to transport it, the baggage and the magic stone will weigh the same.
If you consider the time it takes to recharge the magic power, it's not worth the trouble.

What we need is insulation.

"Thermal insulation ......?

Catherine asks back. It seems to be a word that is not well known in this world.

It's a word that's not very well known in this world. "It's a partition between the outside and the inside with something that doesn't conduct heat easily. ...... For example, if you wear a lot of clothes, you'll be warm, right?

Yes. Especially with fur, it's very warm.

This is because the fur interferes with the transfer of heat and traps the body heat. ...... The same can be said for cold things.

The same can be said for cold things." "It is precisely the air that the fur contains, but I don't think I need to explain that much.

So you dress your meat?

...... I hadn't thought of that.
How do you cool it?

"No, we should insulate the whole container. ...... No, basically, the bigger the vessel, the more efficient the insulation. So let's insulate a whole ship and use it for transport.

The surface area to volume ratio is not something you should talk to a mage craftsman about.
I'll just tell them the structure and Mercia will order the ships.

I'll experiment with the ship when it's finished. ...... I'd like a freezer on the surface too. It's not good to load them raw.

Are you going to use elasticity for that too?

Just stuffing them with demon hair should make a big difference. For example, .......

I don't remember when I put it in, but I had some good iron ingots in my item box, and I used magic to press them together to make a kind of box.
I made two boxes: one that would hold about 1.5 tons of meat, and one slightly larger than that.
First, place the larger one on the ground and cover it with the hair of demons (mainly green wolves).
Put the smaller one in there and fill the space in between with hair, and you are done.
It is a very hastily made piece of work, and the processing is very crude, but it should be enough for the experiment.

"Try the experiment with this.

"Okay. It's going to take some time to get results from .......

Oh, ...... you can make another box of the same size and put the same magic stone in that one without insulation. We can compare them and see the difference in performance, right?

As I said that, I took out an additional block of iron and made another box of similar size.
On closer inspection, the dimensions may be different, but ...... it won't have much of an effect.

I didn't know iron was that easy to form. ......?

Pressing is great, isn't it?

If you try to make a complicated shape, it will break, but you can easily make a plate.
If you bend it, you can make a box, so it has become very convenient.

I don't think it's a matter of processing technology. ......



The results of the experiment were carried over to the next day, and I went back to the inn to sleep. ......

The next morning, just after I woke up, there was a knock on the door of the inn.
That was unusual. I wondered if something had happened during the insulation experiment.

"Kaede, please help me. ......

With that in mind, I greeted my visitor, but to my surprise, it wasn't Mercia or anyone from the Kaede Chamber of Commerce.
It was a familiar guild receptionist with tears in her eyes, asking for help.

Did you encounter a pack of demons?

No, sir. It's about a request. ......

Without really understanding, the receptionist took me into the guild.
At that moment, I felt a strange atmosphere in the guild.
The guild was crowded with adventurers.
There was also a sense of urgency and wariness in the area.
This alone is understandable. If there was a strong enemy, it would be possible. But there was something else that was fatally wrong.
The sense of urgency and the will to fight - or perhaps we should say hostility - was not directed at the outside of the guild, but at the inside.
It was as if to say, "Everyone is an enemy except me.