The night passed without incident and Blue Rose descended as a group to find demihumans of various sorts eating around the tavern, they were surprised to find that the smell of cooking was...very good. They looked around and, as before drew many curious looks, but no comment. On tables there were drinks that were mostly water, but some juices and even some hot drinks were not uncommon. On the tables themselves they expected to awaken to nightmare and see them eating human meat, but this was not the case. The familiar smell of beef, chicken, and other nonintelligent animals filled the air, and a familiar multiheaded snakewoman was at the bar.

"Good morning Blue Rose." She said politely with one of her heads, while the others barked orders to various servers and looked around for things in the tavern that needed doing. "Slept well I see, no one disturbed your rest?" She asked sardonically.

"So, you know who we are?" Lakyus said with a smile, adroitly avoiding the latter question.

The snakewoman shrugged, "It wasn't that hard to figure out, you're fairly well known for both good and bad reasons, a few questions after you left and when one of you was recognized, the rest fell into place." One of her heads replied.

"What actually IS our reputation among demihumans?" Evileye asked curiously.

The snakewoman put out five cups, pulling one away when Evileye politely declined, and placed it in front of each of them, and began to fill it with a hot, sweet smelling beverage. "Good, if you want to know the truth, we've heard that you fought against the Sunlit scripture to protect demihumans. But...you've also killed demihumans in the course of your contracts."

That caused them to tense up a bit, and the snakewoman let out a soothing hiss from one of her heads. "That matters less than you might think," she reassured them, "most of us price strength highly, and fights happen, wars happen, maybe the ones you killed were right, maybe you were right, but fighting it out was all that could be done. And if it matters, I have heard you don't torture us for fun, so...while some might bear grudges if they lost a few friends to you, don't expect to be mistreated by most of us." She finished, and mixed milk in with the warm drink, "Please help yourselves to some tea, its on the house, but breakfast you'll have to buy."

"Where can we pick up some supplies around here?" Lakyus asked.

"Down the street one block around the corner, look for building 22A. That shop is called 'The stationary Cart', they supply most travelers" The snakewoman said.

"Those numbers? What are they?" Gagaran asked.

"Oh that is another innovation of the Sorcerer King." She said. "Each building has a number and dual use buildings have letters for each segment, for example 22B sells farming goods and is a different store. If you wanted to convey a message to somebody, you simply put the message on something that identifies the city, street, and building number, and then couriers carry these things from one city to another, then at each town we have a different building where those messages go, then they have their own couriers who go around town delivering messages to different buildings." The snakewoman said.

"That's..." Tia said.

"Genius..." Tina finished, and they looked at each other in surprise.

"Can anyone use this system?" Lakyus asked with eyebrows raised.

"Yes." The snakewoman said, "But you have to pay for the seal to be affixed at the central building for distribution, the price is one copper coin for letters, one silver for small packages, one gold coin for large packages. Also it is only in use in the Sorcerous Kingdom. I heard that they've started expanding this to the Baharuth Empire, but that is going to take a substantial amount of time, for now it is only going in the Capitol and, oddly enough, one noble's township. The list of locations is at the distribution building if you want. Look for a sign that says 'Post Office'." She said.

Lakyus thanked the snakewoman as they finished their tea. "That was delicious, we'd best be on our way, thank you for the lovely stay." She said, and walked out with a pale expression her face at the fresh revelation of an Ainz Ooal Gown backed innovation.

As they walked, they took note of their surroundings, the streets were being cleaned by a small number of orcs on either side of the street who carried bags for garbage and brooms for sweeping, a patrol passed between them without notice, and Lakyus noticed that there were medium sized containers at regular intervals, which were evidently used for refuse as she saw the orcs emptying them and putting them back into place.

It was the little things like this that disturbed her the most, the minute attention to detail, even more than the broad changes like this 'post office'. The shop they wanted was open, and they entered quietly, keeping their thoughts to themselves as they moved around the store and gathered goods. A bearman was at the counter and stared at them open mouthed in a way that was...quite frankly more cute than insulting, as he obviously had not expected humans to visit, his black fur seemed to stand on end and his eyes followed them everywhere, he seemed very tense. However Blue Rose politely ignored his discomfort gathered supplies like jerky, bread, and simple disposable goods, approached, and paid in silver without saying a word.

When they left the store, they walked towards the other end of town, still drawing funny looks, but doing their own share of gaping in return, it wasn't until they had gotten all the way to the other side and walked out the other gate...and gotten out of hearing distance, that Lakyus spoke her mind.

"Have you thought through the implications of what we learned?" She asked her team as she walked with such swiftness that even the very tall Gagaran had to take long steps to keep up with her.

"What do you mean?" Gagaran asked.

"Think about that message distribution system." She said.

"What about it?" Gagaran asked in confusion.

Evileye's face changed its expression behind her mask, and she answered as the other three were clearly still thinking. "Currently who sends messages routinely?" She asked.

"Nobles, merchants, guild leaders, that kind of thing." Tia answered.

"Right." Evileye said. "What do all of those have in common?" She asked.

"They can all read and write." Tina said.

"OK, so who would benefit from having their building labeled for these messages to easily reach them?" Lakyus picked up where Evileye left off.

"The nobles, merchants, guild leaders...and so on." Gagaran said, still confused, while behind her the twins expressions said that understanding had begun to dawn on them.

"So...why bother labeling EVERY building...unless he expects that EVERYBODY will be able to use this system?" Evileye asked Gagaran directly.

"But...they can't?" The not the sharpest tool in the shed said.

"Right, but if he promotes literacy to everybody...then everybody can. Can't they?" Lakyus asked Gagaran, leading her to the answer.

"Wait...you mean he plans on having everybody in his domains learn to read and write?" Gagaran asked incredulously.

"That is the most reasonable conclusion I can draw." Lakyus said. "I can barely believe it myself, but...why else would he bother?"

That was a sobering thought, a thought that kept them silent well into the long walk over the border into the Holy Kingdom, but the silence was not the unhappiness of atrocity or misery, instead, for modest to very well educated members of Blue Rose who had come to appreciate the value of learning to various degrees, it was a positive thought that did not square with expectations.

It was the first really relaxing thought they'd had in awhile, and Lakyus loved feeling relaxed. It wasn't something an adventurer got to feel all that often. "Can you believe that?" She asked. "We stayed in a demihuman inn, in a demihuman village, we didn't have to fight, we didn't have to argue, and the village didn't even care that we were there. When was the last time that happened?" The morning sun felt good on her as she rode with her team around her.

"Last time that happened, was when I had to fight the Sunlit scripture over their attempt at massacring demihumans." Evileye said. "I mean its not unprecedented, but its...unusual at least, not without something significantly beneficial to them."

"Do you know what the hell the innkeeper was talking about though?" Gagaran asked.

"You mean with that whole 'social contract' thing?" Tia asked. "No idea. I didn't sign any contract, though I guess we did accept this one going into the Holy Kingdom...but that doesn't have anything to do with the Abelion hills."

"How was it that he said it?" Tina asked.

"Under the rule of the Sorcerer King, all who accept the social contract may pass in peace." Evileye repeated.

"At a guess," Lakyus said, "it refers to the expectation that everybody will follow the law of the land, but he's an undead, so who knows, for now it is enough to know that it got us a roof for the night in total safety, and now we're getting in some very useful and very profitable work. By this afternoon we'll be at our first village...kind of odd that it would be so close to the Abelion hills now that I think about it...but that is a question we can ask about on arrival."

There was a collective shrug among the team, and they went quiet as they felt the air change around them, it became oppressive, dangerous, their senses tingled. They tightened their grips on their horses, and then they saw it as they crested a hill. A towering undead monster carrying an enormous shield and a sword almost as long as a man was tall, behind it were twenty or so skeletons, and in front of the monster stood a single black clad human.

"Blue Rose! Danger! Protect the human!" Lakyus snapped and drew her dark sword and spurred her horse forward, the others were only a half a breath behind her, she knew that without even looking, her sword was held out beside her and she lowered herself close to the neck of her horse, every instant, every fraction of an instant, counted when it came to the threat posed by the undead towards ordinary people.

The black clad man turned towards Blue Rose as the sound of hooves and shouting reached him, and his confusion became shock and fear, "Bandits! Death knight, DEFEND ME!" He shouted and the undead stepped in front of him, and let out a terrifying bellow. Blue Rose was not even twenty yards away when they saw what happened, and they reared their horses back suddenly in shock as the towering legendary undead got in front of the human being.

"Halt! Wait!" Lakyus shouted, and the rest of her team, a half a hair slower than herself at realizing what just happened, reared back on their horses as well. Lakyus sheathed her sword and looked to the rest of her team and said very carefully, "Put...your weapons...away."

They looked at her like she'd gone mad, but out of regard for a long built sense of trust, they did as she said.

Lakyus called out, "Wait! We're not bandits, we're adventurers. I mean you no harm, come out please." She said, and the man poked his head out from behind the undead knight, and then seeing that their weapons were away, he stepped out. "You can come closer," he said, "He won't attack without my say so." The man reached out and touched the death knight, placing one palm on its arm, and the monster did not react even a little.

"Did you...summon that thing?" Evileye asked incredulously?

The man actually laughed. "Oh by the god of justice and commerce, no. "I'm no magic user, I'm just a farmer taking a delivery."

"A WHAT?!" Gagaran, Tia, and Tina asked simultaneously.

"A farmer taking a delivery." He said again.

"A delivery of...what?" Evileye asked.

"These." He said, gesturing to the skeletons. "I rent undead labor from the temples to use on the farm. They're not smart, but they take direction well, it makes the work go faster and they're completely reliable."

The mouths of the Blue Rose team dropped in collective shock.

"You have...got to be kidding me." Lakyus said.

"No, its becoming a pretty common practice among us." He said.

"Us?" Evileye asked.

"Black Justice followers, we've adopted the faith of our founder, Pope Neia Baraja, who follows the Sorcerer King, her temples to him rent out the undead provided by his majesty, but only to members."

Several pairs of eyes turned to Lakyus. "Are you still sure about this contract?" Gagaran asked.

"Lets just say I now want to know a lot more than we did when we started." Lakyus replied. First we see a mixed demihuman town, figure out at least one future plan of the Sorcerer King that defies expectations, see a construction project my Kingdom couldn't even imagine using tools we've never seen, and now we see an ordinary peasant taking a delivery of skeletons from a legendary undead that I don't know if we could handle." She shook her head, "This is all too much." She said, to a round of agreement from her team.

"Can we follow you to your village?" She asked.

"To my town you mean?" He said with a small but friendly laugh, "Sureyacan." He said, "Follow me, it’s only a few minutes from here." He said.

"Wait...what do you mean only a few minutes?" Evileye asked. "Commonton isn't that far away. Do you not realize how close you live to demihumans? You know, the same ones who invaded your kingdom?"

The peasant stopped in his tracks and turned back to Blue Rose and looked them over. "Yes, I know where we are, and yes I know where they are. But the Sorcerer King asked us to move to a place bordering his Kingdom, and we were honored to fulfill his request, he expressly bought that land from King Caspond for us to settle, our savior would never put us at risk lightly, he gave us our lives back, and if you plan on insulting his majesty, then you will not be welcome in our home." He said firmly.

Lakyus was quick to respond, "No insult is intended sir," she said warmly, "Its just, well the war was devastating enough that even we heard about it, and its just hard to imagine you'd live close to the same people who were responsible for it." She said.

His expression softened and he noticeably relaxed. "I understand, now way you'd have known all this, but listen, Jaldabaoth is the one who did all that, he forced them, now I'm not going to say there are no hard feelings, but the way of Black Justice is to call the guilty, guilty, not those who only look like the guilty, and pretty much everybody who took part in that invasion is dead or in hiding. The ones over there," he gestured back the way Blue Rose had come, "they fought for the Sorcerer King, and the Sorcerer King came and rescued us all the way up to the final battle, and he marched with them. There's no one left I'm allowed to hate for that war, not as far as I know. So we trade with them regularly, and we're even sending up a petition to his majesty to put a road between Foundoton...that's my town by the way...and Commonton." The man said enthusiastically.

He'd started walking again, the skeletons following behind him, and Blue Rose flanking him as they walked together, it wasn't long before they reached a farm and the a house, and could see walls similar to those of Commonton beyond it, and out of the house came several young men, evidently laborers, the peasant farmer had a brief conversation, gave the wand to one of the men, and the skeletons followed the laborers to the field to begin work. They paused for a bit to watch as the skeletons began to work under human direction, and then resumed walking with their new companion.

"So...why do you call this Foundoton?" Gagaran asked.

"Because here is where we 'founded our town'" He said with a smile, and they rolled their collective eyes at the pun. He laughed, "Zeka is to blame, see we got the request to build a town of Black Justice believers from Neia Baraja through Robel and Gilcrest, two important leaders in the capitol, it was supposedly passed to her through the Sorcerer King, and when we were told the area to choose from, which was easy, then we got to arguing over what to name it, and Zeka, my wife, said it doesn't matter if we named it "boiled shit" as long as somebody started building and we finally founded our town. Someone thought she said, 'Foundoton' and it stuck, and that was that. It was funny at the time." He said with a wry indulgent grin as they drew closer to the gates.

"So how many live here?" Lakyus asked.

"Around three hundred families, maybe fifteen hundred people, but we have so much land around us that we've sent out notices that any Black Justice follower who settles here will get fifty acres of farmland to himself and the town would pay for the first season's rental of undead labor. As a result, we're expanding by a family or two every week. We even had a Commonton resident ask about buying land here, but the crown is still taking a dim view of that, so we had to express a reluctant and apologetic no, but we did promise to hold some land aside for a year if the policy changes." He said with a sense of pride. As they moved through the gate, the first thing Lakyus noticed was that there were letters and numbers on the buildings, even the wooden buildings had an inlaid stone panel with numeric identification.

"Are you...part of the postal system of the Sorcerer Kingdom?" Lakyus asked in surprise.

"Sure are." He said proudly, "Though for now we're only using it with Commonton and the Capitol temple. We recently requested a series of priests be sent out, one for ourselves, and then some to go in to the Abelion Hills."

The collective mouths of Blue Rose dropped open. "You mean to have demihumans in the same religion as yourselves?" Lakyus asked.

"Why not?" He asked curiously.

Lakyus closed her mouth, she could think of no answer, and instead they focused on looking around them, the children they saw were well fed, and the soldiers, all humans, seemed to be well disciplined, they marched in a formation that was curiously identical to the demihumans, and similar to what they saw in Commonton, small groups of humans seemed to keep the streets cleaned by walking on either side and looking for rubbish. The streets were not paved, but they'd obviously been made with that in mind for the future.

"So...you can all read and write?" Lakyus guessed.

The man shook his head, "Nah, but we're getting a teacher, they should actually be here tomorrow if you'd like to stay the night, I'll betcha the mayor would be happy to show yah round." He said with a smile.

"I'd like that, I think we'd all like that." Lakyus said, looking at her team, their faces, save Evileye who was hidden behind her mask, wore expressions of some relief to be surrounded by their fellow humans.

"Great, I'll show yah to the inn, but then I've got to get to the square, I do have business to conduct doncha know?" He said in a friendly sort of huff, and Lakyus took out a few gold coins from her pouch and pressed them into his hand, "Call this an apology for earlier, and an expression of gratitude for helping us out now." She said, and he looked surprised, then slowly put it away, "My pleasure." He said, and started walking down the street, "Please, walk this way." He said, and though they followed at his back, their eyes were everywhere else as they saw the construction, the expanded work, the signs of growth that would, as if they could see the future, surely one day turn Foundoton from a town, to a mighty city...it gave them much to contemplate, which they still had not finished thinking about, when they arrived at the inn a short while later.