Volume 3 Chapter 10 Plastic arrow
“Furio didn’t believe you?” Elder Illusia revealed a faint smile, looking as bright as a human girl with that smile. It made people unable to imagine her real age, “It seems like I need to find some time to talk to him. If his thoughts don’t change, he might not be able to keep up with the changes in the world.”
“You can’t blame him, after all, one had to be quite prudent when shooting arrows before. For an elven archer who has strict discipline to suddenly be wasteful when it comes to shooting arrows, it really is a bit hard.” Xu Yi said with a smile.
“It’s a good thing that this matter won’t happen again in the future.” Elder Illusia looked at the plastic processing line not far away making arrow shafts, “With this assembly line, we can make over three thousand plastic arrows a day, so there’s no need to worry about wasting them.”
“A daily output of only three thousand arrows isn’t enough.” Xu Yi shook his head, “The thirty Magic Repeating Crossbow I sent to the northern army received high praise and now the army headquarters has sent an order for five hundred Magic Repeating Crossbows which I’ve accepted. But because of how many arrows the Magic Repeating Crossbows consume, if they used arrows when they were fighting the Sack Kingdom’s Hungry Wolf Regiment, it really would be too much of a waste. So I’ve suggested these new plastic arrows to the army headquarters and I think it won’t take long before they send someone to inspect them. If nothing unexpected happens, it should be a large order.”
“Alright, I’ll Amelud and Delil to properly take care of this.”
Xu Yi looked at elder Illusia and suddenly asked, “Elder Illusia, I always wanted to ask, why didn’t you choose yourself to negotiate for the Night Song Tribe, why did you send out Delil? With your intelligence, if everything was taken care of by you, it would make things much smoother.”
Elder Illusia said with a shake of her hand and a sigh, “I’m already old. The Night Song Tribe’s future will be in the hands of young people like Amelud and Delil, so I didn’t take the post of negotiating for the tribe. I will also give less orders to the tribe in the future, so they can adapt to not having me ahead of time.”
Xu Yi looked at elder Illusia’s face that seemed like a beautiful young human girl in her twenties and knit his brows in surprise, “I don’t think that you’re old at all. I feel that based on your appearance, you are like a young person to us humans, there’s no need to consider your retirement yet, right?”
“Many thanks for your praise, but my age is a fact. No matter how my appearance looks, I’m already old for an elf. The reason I look like this is because of the specialty of us elves.” Elder Illusia paused before suddenly asking Xu Yi, “Chairman Xu, do you think Agnes is beautiful?”
Xu Yi was surprised, “Agnes is indeed beautiful, why?”
Elder Illusia just nodded and didn’t continue this topic.
Xu Yi kept his confusion inside. He followed elder Illusia’s lead and continued discussing the problem of producing the plastic arrows.
The new plastic arrows were made from a new plastic material that the Night Song Tribe had made through their experiments. It had a very hard characteristic and when used to make arrows, it wasn’t worse than arrows made with the best wood.
Moreover, because they were using batch production, whether it was the length, thickness or weight of the arrows, they were all the same. Adding in the custom made arrowheads, the arrows were all the same.
Like this, when firing them, the arrows could adapt to any situation easier. They were more suited for Magic Repeating Crossbows that had a stricter requirement for arrows.
When the northern army fought the Sack Kingdom in the Muerto Mountains for several months, although the northern army had displayed powerful battle strength to steal back the mountains, this all came from their powerful equipment.
Putting aside their weapons, armours, and the Magic Trebuchet, in all the fights, the most important thing that wasn’t the most dazzling was the consumption of arrows.
Because they shot arrows without caring about the costs, they were able to press down the Sack Kingdom, making them unable to fight back at all.
But this kind of suppression had a terrifying consumption when it came to arrows.
In the final confrontation, although it was less than half a month and there were less than twenty battles, they had consumed a total of over a hundred thousand arrows.
The northern army could have this many arrows because the weapon factory had created large amounts of steel arrows, which guaranteed the massive consumption of the northern army.
The problem with these steel arrows was that they cost too much and they had to spend a minimum of thirty silver coins per arrow.
A hundred thousand arrows, that was over thirty thousand gold coins.
For the poor royal army, winning this war and capturing the important Muerto Mountains was without a doubt encouraging, but the cost of thirty thousand gold coins for a hundred thousand arrows was not something they could support.
Adding in the expense of the Magic Trebuchet and the complete sets of armour the soldiers had, in this battle against the Sack Kingdom, the army headquarters had invested a hundred thousand gold coins into the northern army.
Not mentioning the other things, at least the armours and Magic Trebuchets could be reused. But after the arrows were fired, even if they could take back the ones on the battlefield, they still consumed over half of them.
In the end, the army headquarters counted everything and they found that they spent over ten thousand gold coins in arrows.
Last time Xu Yi saw major MacConley, he had heard him discuss this problem, his mind turned and he suggested replacing arrows with plastic arrows.
Although plastic arrows weren’t as deadly as steel arrows, blotting out the sky with arrows was mainly for suppression and the might of the plastic arrows weren’t bad. They were even stronger than the iron or wooden arrows that the Lampuri Kingdom’s royal army used before, so they could be used on the battlefields of the Sines Continent.
After a few days, major MacConley received the plastic arrow that Xu Yi sent. After learning that the arrows only cost eight gold coins each, he immediately decided that the army headquarters would use these plastic arrows in the future.
Based on the reply major MacConley sent Xu Yi, as long as the army headquarters was satisfied with the plastic arrow, the lowest number in their order would be at least five hundred thousand arrows.
According to the price of nine silver coins per arrow that the army headquarters gave, five hundred thousand arrows was forty five thousand gold coins.
For the newly established rubber processing factory that the Night Song Tribe had established, it really was a grand opening for them to have such a large first order.
“Actually, according to my real thoughts, I don’t want to receive this order.” Elder Illusia picked up one of the plastic arrows and after looking it over, she said with a sigh, “The goal of establishing this rubber processing factory was to let my clansmen have deeper contact with humans, not to participate in the wars between you humans.”
“For humans, war is eternal and you can never avoid it.” Xu Yi said with a helpless sigh, “You and I both hate war, but I don’t resist it when I can’t avoid it. If you don’t want the next order, I can accept it under the name of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce. As long as you send out several technical personnel, I believe that our company can smoothly make the plastic arrows.”
“No need. Since we have already decided to join human lives, we can’t avoid it. Although doing this can be considered being involved in your human wars, if it is treated as just selling normal products, it isn’t too hard to accept.” Elder Illusia said.
Xu Yi revealed a faint smile. Elder Illusia wasn’t a pure hearted little elven girl like Agnes, she really didn’t simply hand over important plastic processing technology.
“How about this, elder Illusia, when I head back to Banta City tonight, you can have Delil come with me and I’ll introduce her to the chairman of the large companies. As for how you should introduce the business of your rubber processing factory, I won’t interfere and let Delil handle it. What do you think?” Xu Yi suggested in a thoughtful voice.
“According to the customs of us elves, this is giving us something and I should reject it.” Elder Illusia revealed a smile, “But since we want to join your human society, we should follow your human methods. This can be considered cooperation between us and I’m very happy that chairman Xu is helping us.”
Xu Yi laughed, “That’s right. We’re all partners, there’s no need to treat it as a gift. If you want to make it fair, then you can just repay for this later. Wouldn’t this become a very simple transaction?”
“Yes. I’ll go tell Delil and have her learn from you on how to become a human merchant.” Elder Illusia said with a nod, “When she went to Banta City on business for the rubber processing factory, I wasn’t satisfied with her work. I hope that this time her gains will be greater when she goes with chairman Xu.”
“It’s an honour.” Xu Yi revealed a faint smile.