Chapter 532: DragonTong Express, Part 2

Chapter 532 -332: DragonTong Express, Part 2

Zog had once considered using Dragon Beasts for freight transport. However, after some experiments, he found they had no advantage over short distances and weren’t cost-effective for long ones, so he had to shelve the idea.

He’d never seen anyone run like this White Dragon.

“Are you tired?”

“Not at all.”

“You’ve still got almost three hundred kilometers to your destination. Are you sure you can make it all the way?”

“Three hundred kilometers… how far is that?”

“It means you’ll probably have to run for another four or five hours.”

“I can make it. I can run like this all day long!” the White Dragon answered confidently.

Zog almost lost his composure. ‘Is this White Dragon running on patriotism or something?’

“Are you sure?”

“Of course.”

“Have you been a great runner since you were little?”

“No. We… can all… run like this.”

Zog was stunned. ‘What in the world? Since when do young adult Dragons have this much stamina?’

“Well, keep running then. If you reach the destination without any issues, I’ll give you a better job.”

“Better? More… food?”

“More.”

Hanging up, Zog was still puzzled. ‘This can’t be right. What does he mean, “we” can all run like this?’

‘Did the Dragon Race secretly evolve without telling me?’

Out of professional diligence, Zog contacted Furin.

“What is it? Spit it out, I’m in class!” Furin’s tone was anything but friendly. Anyone who disturbed her class was making an enemy of an Ancient Golden Dragon!

“Can you carry a load of cargo, without flying, and run from here to the Northern Domain in six hours?”

“Are you insane?!” Furin snapped, followed by the BEEP-BEEP-BEEP of a dead line.

“Quite the temper,” Zog grumbled at the phone.

「A few hours later.」

Zog received a message from the Northern Domain. The White Dragon had arrived, and he looked completely relaxed.

The team in the Northern Domain rustled up some food for him.

Feeding a Dragon wasn’t actually that expensive. Although they ate a lot, they’d eat just about anything.

Meat was obviously great, but if there was none, they could get by just fine on carbs. Carbohydrates were cheap, and they could gnaw on all the big bones nobody else wanted.

Overall, it was cheaper than fueling a car with gas.

Bio-energy. Amazing, isn’t it?

After a hearty meal, the White Dragon started making all sorts of gestures, and the people in the Northern Domain finally figured out he wanted to carry something on the run back.

He’d already formed a reward loop in his mind: finishing a run meant getting to eat.

To test just how far he could run in a day, they granted his request.

And so, that evening, Zog brought the Green Dragon to the station to welcome this phenomenal long-distance runner.

In the darkness of night, two ghostly white orbs appeared: the glowing eyes of the White Dragon.

He had made it back. Over seven hundred kilometers in a single day, all while carrying a load. He didn’t even look the least bit tired. In fact, he was practically buzzing with excitement, certain he was about to get another meal.

‘When had he ever had two meals in one day before?’

Zog also noticed the White Dragon’s peculiar running style. With each stride, he flapped his wings backward and out to the side.

‘What kind of running form is that?’

The White Dragon unloaded his cargo and cheerfully ran to the side to chow down.

“Ahem,” Zog turned to the Green Dragon and asked, “He said you can all run like that?”

The Green Dragon didn’t know why Zog was asking this, but he answered truthfully, “He’s the best runner among us, but the other Dragons aren’t far behind him.”

“Why is that?”

“Why what?”

“Uh, if you made me run like that, I’d get tired too. How does he make it look so easy?”

Zog asked, somewhat awkwardly.

‘For a great Ancient Dragon like him to be asking such a question of a young dragon generations his junior was a little embarrassing.’

“That can’t be right…” The Green Dragon initially thought Zog was joking, but his serious expression suggested otherwise. After a moment’s hesitation, he realized. “Oh, I get it. You must have never used our running technique.”

“What running technique?”

The Green Dragon immediately demonstrated, moving in the exact same way the White Dragon had.

“Like this. When you run, you release a little Magic from your wings. It gives you a boost, making it much easier. It’s not fast, but you can run a long way, and it doesn’t use much Magic Power.”

Zog imitated the Green Dragon’s movements and tried it himself.

He had excellent body control, and he quickly mastered the somewhat bizarre running style.

It wasn’t fast, but it was astonishingly easy.

‘Incredible.’

As Zog ran, his red eyes filled with confusion. “But wait… why has no Dragon ever thought of running like this before?”

He no sooner asked the question than he answered it himself: ‘Of course. Dragons in the past had no reason to run like this. They’d just fly long distances.’

And then he realized how this technique must have been developed.

“You don’t have enough Magic Power to fly continuously?”

‘Zog had known this group of Dragons had it rough in the past, but he never imagined it was this bad.’

‘Dragons can replenish their Magic Power by eating. This proved that they must have been constantly starving before.’

‘That’s why they didn’t fly directly to Deepwater City back then. They stopped in the wastelands outside the city first because they didn’t have enough Magic Power for the whole trip.’

‘It was the kind of ingenuity born from desperation, like soldiers developing a weird, sideways firing stance because their standard-issue pistols had too much kick and they couldn’t get better ones.’

‘A Dragon like him, who’d always lived comfortably, would never have come up with such a method.’

‘Or rather, before he had indirectly made life difficult for the Dragon Race, no Dragon would have ever thought to run like this.’

‘There was simply no need for it.’

“Actually, it’s not just about not having enough Magic Power,” the Green Dragon said, a little awkwardly. “Flying makes you a really obvious target. It’s easy to get spotted by the Dragon Hunting Adventurer Corps.”

‘Yikes. That sounded even more pathetic than not having enough Magic Power.’

Zog ran back and forth several times like a child with a new toy, only stopping when he had played to his heart’s content.

“Draconic talent, my friends,” Zog exclaimed, grabbing the Green Dragon’s shoulder. “Truly draconic talent! The work you’re doing now is an utter waste. I have a much better job for all of you.”

“What kind of job?”

“You’ll find out tomorrow!”

Zog left them in suspense.

It was actually quite obvious. The delivery service he’d been dreaming of could finally get started!

He had been waiting for this day for a long time, but there had been no way forward because he lacked a suitable method of transportation.

Teleportation was too expensive, trains and ships weren’t flexible, and trucks were still in development. Even if he had trucks, they could only be used in a few major cities. To achieve widespread use, an intercity highway system would have to be built.

But Dragons didn’t have to worry about that.

Not only was it cheaper than burning gas—their fuel consumption was just a dozen pounds of flour per hundred kilometers, with a couple of bones thrown in as a bonus—but they also didn’t have to worry about road conditions at all.

Four legs are much more flexible than tires. Any path they could cross counted as a road, and any incline under ninety degrees was just a slope.

The Dragon Race?

‘They were natural-born all-terrain vehicles!’

Once the delivery business was launched, the e-commerce business could also be developed.

Business for the entire Zog Group would become much easier to conduct.

In fact, Feilin did have a kind of online shopping, but it was extremely niche—a privilege reserved for Mages.

On the Mage forums, there was a special trading section where one could buy all sorts of casting materials, Spellbooks, Scrolls, Magic Items, and all kinds of other rare and bizarre items.

The transactions worked with the website acting as an escrow service. The seller would teleport the goods, the buyer would teleport the money, and once the third party confirmed both were received, it would teleport them to the correct party.

Clearly, this kind of “online shopping” was completely out of reach for Ordinary people.

For Feilin to have true online shopping, two things were essential: a reliable online payment system and a way to get the products into the buyers’ hands.

And now, a solution for the most difficult link in the chain—delivery—was finally in sight.

The next day, the Green Dragon brought his friends to the location Zog had arranged.

It was a building with an open area behind it, which was now covered with rows of neat sheds.

The building was just something he’d found, but the sheds were new dens Zog had ordered built overnight to serve as the headquarters for the future delivery business.

“Everyone, I have found a bright path for the future of the Dragon Race!” Zog said excitedly. “DragonLink Express!”

He pulled the red cloth off the sign on the building behind him. The glittering gold sign proudly displayed the name: “DragonLink Express.”

All the dragons from the group were present, with a few exceptions: the Blue Dragon, the Silver Dragon who was Zog’s designated acting partner, and a Black Dragon the research institute had strongly requested to keep.

Although they had no idea what “DragonLink Express” was, they followed the Green Dragon’s lead and applauded with forced smiles.