AK - The Alchemy Kingdom

Year 5, Summer, First Month, Third Week.

Said calmly sipped through her tea while appreciating the colorful view. The secretary sitting across the exquisite stone table impatiently shifted on his chair to demonstrate that he was waiting for her permission to speak. Ignoring him, she graciously placed the cup on the table and took a deep breath. The fragrances perfectly completed the lingering aftertaste of the herbal tea, first something refreshing, then sweet. Finally, the smell hid even a fruity scent.

The Minister of Living loved coming to the recently opened tea garden. Ignoring the protests of her staff, she practically abandoned the Ministry’s building and was passing most of her time drinking tea at the shop’s garden. Said wasn’t running from her duties. She just preferred to work in a calm and pleasant environment, though sometimes she would request complete silence from the staff.

In her 50 years working as a healer, she was never so confused, maybe because she was confident and understood her limitations, but now, everything was a mess. That’s why Said would come to the garden, to calm her mind and try to make the best decisions. When she took over the Ministry, it was supposed to be temporary, and the work shouldn’t be that hard.

The Ministry’s obligations didn’t look so different from what she did her whole life, simply caring for the well-being of others. As AK’s smallest Ministry, they only employed 20 people, who basically worked with supervision and communication. Said’s first mistake was overpromoting the importance of giving suggestions, seek help and guidance.

Initially, everything was going smoothly, but suddenly they were flooded by all sorts of complaints, requests, and conflicts. And worse, apparently, their citizens mistook suggestions for demands. Some people went as far as asking their friends and family to register the same complaint, trying to pressure them by numbers. Naturally, there were many legitimate complaints and problems amongst the nonsense, but they had to listen to all anyway.

From misuse of magic tools to allegations of labor abuse, they had to check and solve a dozen of those weekly. They also faced logistic problems, like the giant list of people waiting for a house or the growing demand for specific imported goods. She wondered how the villagers, who used to starve under the Kingdom’s oppression, suddenly became so willful.

Sometimes, she even caught herself laughing at how the whole thing was so comic. Just last week, they received almost one hundred requests for improving their sleeping conditions. People were outraged at how the Adventurers in AP lived so much better than themselves.

What about the bathtub episode? How could she even explain that? She was told that it started when people saw the bathing room Mage Johann commissioned, then the rumors spread, and everybody wanted a bathtub. People renting the public houses demanded its installation, claiming that it was essential. The citizens who bought houses also asked for it, but how could they add more services when the construction team was already swamped in work and couldn’t keep up with the demand?

Fortunately, someone saw this as an opportunity and opened a bathtub shop. Now, even Said was considering installing one at home. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every time they had a problem, someone could find a solution and do a business out of it? Sadly, this wasn’t realistic, not because their citizens lacked the drive or the creativity. In fact, with Alchemy’s constant expansion, people would come up with better ideas every day. The problem was people. They didn’t have enough of this resource.

The Ministry of Living was also responsible for finding a suitable job for everyone. Still, even though demand for workers kept growing, the number of available hands was close to zero. For now, the problem was still manageable, but soon they would face a significant shortage of people. Fortunately, this was a problem for all Councilors to solve, not only her.

“Now, we can start.”

The secretary didn’t mind hiding his at last sigh.

“Ma’am, we started receiving another surge of requests again… Even the planners are being approached.”

Said sipped the tea for mental strength and asked:

“What is it this time?”

“Clothes, ma’am… Apparently, people want better clothes, like the ones Karl and the others that came back from AP are using… They’re complaining that ours are… too plain.”

Said wasn’t as shocked as the secretary expected. Actually, she could understand their reasoning. Although better clothes might look like a needless luxury, it was a silent statement of their pride and development. How many times had the Kingdom’s Guards looked at them with disgust after scorning their dressing conditions? Even if it was just an external accessory, it represented their inferiority, their social status as quasi-slaves.

On that front, they had already advanced by leagues. Everybody now owned at least a simple set of garments and a pair of shoes. The clothes not only protected them against the cold and sun exposure but also represented their pride as free AK citizens. How much they valued their plain clothes was evident. Regardless of the time, one wouldn’t find a single stain on their garments. As a healer, she knew they had a long way to go in terms of hygiene, but everyone was extremely tidy with their clothes.

From a child to an elder, every person would clean their garments at the end of the day. The parents wouldn’t allow their kids to rest until their clothes were spotless. Often, one would see people who don’t have a private water system going out late at night to get fresh water to clean their attires.

Said would laugh or sometimes even scold their exaggerated requests, but her people were in no way spoiled. On the contrary, if the cost were high, they would clench their fists and work until they could afford it. Their unreasonable behavior resulted from eagerness to participate in their Kingdom’s development and lack of experience in being free.

“Maybe we could work out something with Keller to get a bigger volume of clothes…”

The secretary nodded but looked like he wanted to add something. Finally, after Said urged him, he decided to speak up.

“What if we sent someone to learn from the seamstress in AP? Importing would work for now, but I don’t think we should rely on the Kingdom to get something so basic…”

The Minister smiled while praising the young man on her mind. Maybe he would be able to replace her soon. But, unfortunately, anything that required a workforce wouldn’t be so simple.

“Your idea is good… Sadly, we don’t have available hands to send… Maybe the Council would agree to invite the woman from AP. As I recall, she’s Keller’s employee or married to him…”

They discussed a few more things before it was time for the store to close. The tea garden was trendy right now but still didn’t have a store, just a stall beside a 25 square meters garden with 12 tables. The shop was the same tea stall owned by Johann, but he decided to transform it into a tea garden once he realized how popular tea was.

Initially, he wanted to build a proper store and a bigger garden with a fountain, just like the one he saw at Sound City, but his money was only enough to buy the land and build the garden. Even so, the tea garden was another success, and they were serving almost two hundred people every day.

When her secretary joined the line to pay for the tea, the shopkeeper wanted to give them preference but Said promptly refused it. They had to avoid any rumors of preferential treatment. Otherwise, people might have some wrong ideas. Either way, since they were second in the line, it wouldn’t take long.

“One crystal, miss.”

Instead of using her badge to pay, the girl took a small crystal from her pouch and gave it to the cashier. The man took the crystal but soon returned it.

“Miss, I’m sorry, but this crystal is practically unusable. Even if I went to the crystal exchanging office, they wouldn’t accept it. I’m not an expert, but it should disintegrate in a week or two… I’m really sorry.”

One of the problems with their monetary system was that LQ energy crystals lasted for a little more than a year, so everyone had to pay attention to the situation of their crystals. So the suggestion was to exchange the crystals for new ones as soon as they started to dim, which happened after half a year of usage.

Nobody would dare to complain because most of the crystals were also used to power their tools. The business owners, for instance, used a lot of crystals to power their tools hundreds of times in a day. For now, the common citizens only had a few tools, like the magic stove, the WET, knives, and other standard tools. However, the number of magic tools grew by the day.

The Government also didn’t lose anything by collecting the old crystals since they could be transformed into explosive arrows and throwing bombs before being given to the Ministry of Defense. So, aside from being used as currency, the crystals powered tools and could be converted into explosives.

Said heard the girl’s plight and decided to help.

“Excuse me… Young girl, you could try to exchange it with the blacksmith, I heard he’s using the crystals in some tests, and he doesn’t mind if they’re old.”

The girl, who started to smile again, thanked Said many times before leaving in a hurry. In a way, the Minister was just doing her job, helping the citizens live better lives.