Ankoku Kishi Monogatari (WN)

「Is something the matter, Chiyuki-sama? Are we going to increase our cultivated lands again? The likes of lizardmen are no match against the power of Hero-sama.」

The noble of Big Land spoke to me.

He was 60 years old and originally a noble from the Holy Republic of Lenaria.

When he heard that we were creating the country of Eld, he gave up his position as the patriarch of a noble family of the Holy Republic of Lenaria to his son and came to our country with a small part of his family.

By the way, Big Land was his nickname. This nickname came from the fact that he managed so many lands back in the Holy Republic of Lenaria.

The development of most cultivated lands in Eld was in his hands. Most of the ox needed to cultivate the field was provided by him.

「I've said it before. Big Land-Dono. We're already self-sufficient, and currently we have no urge to reclaim the wetlands. Our current focus is to maintain the city without increasing the number of cultivated lands.」

I said so while shaking my head.

In fact, I wanted to increase the number of cultivated lands for emergency situations. But, I didn't want to disturb the lizardmen, who lived at the waterfront, more than we already have by increasing the number of cultivated lands. That's why there was no plan to increase them.

But, there was a reason why we couldn't continue doing that too.

According to the faith of the Goddess of War Rena and the God King Odis, increasing the living space of humankind and subjugating monsters was the right thing to do.

Big Land was the priest of Gena, Goddess of Agriculture, but he also worshiped Rena.

From his perspective, the lizardmen were also monsters. I couldn't tell him that the only reason I didn't want to increase the number of cultivated lands was because I didn't want to fight the monsters.

Big Land would surely frown if I said those words to him.

Well that was only natural since he didn't have to be scared of the lizardmen thanks to Reiji's power. And his privilege and status would get a huge boost along with the increased cultivated lands.

That was the reason why he wanted to increase the cultivated lands.

「Big Land-dono. Chiyuki-sama is right. I do think that we have to stop the expansion of the cultivated lands for now and focus more on the maintenance of the city.」

The Noble of River-Side rebuked Big Land.

He was the noble who was profitting from the water transportation business. His River-Side nickname came from that fact.

Unlike Big Land, River Side didn't want to increase the number of cultivated lands more than what we already had.

The reason was simply because his water transportation business kept getting raided by monsters who live in the water, such as lizardmen.

Ships that stopped for no reason, cargo that would rot out of nowhere. Though the cause was unknown, it seems that it was the work of lizardmen.

Though we left it alone since it was just trivial harassment, River-Side, who received such harassment for no reason, was the one who suffered the most.

「Big Land. Are you dissatisfied with Chiyuki's judgment?」

Reiji then asked Big Land.

Big Land was at a loss for words upon hearing Reiji's question. In the first place, Reiji's power was necessary for reclaiming the land.

Reiji followed through with my plan.

Despite what had happened, Reiji took my opinion seriously and easily persuaded Big Land to give up.

「That's absolutely correct, Big Land-dono. Now is the time to manage the city. The land reclamation for cultivated lands should be stopped for the time being.」

The Noble of Trees also voiced his opinion.

He was called the Noble of Trees since he handled the matter of wooden construction and timber.

It would benefit him a lot if we move our focus to city maintenance now.

Thus, it was only natural for him to agree with the plan to maintain the city and suspend the land reclamation.

Big Land had no choice but to agree silently with the Nobles of Tree and River-Side.

「Chiyuki-sama. If your next plan is to maintain the city, then I think that we're the most suitable people for the job.」

「Inner Mountain-dono.」

A woman spoke up.

The woman who spoke to me was by no means a noble.

She was the representative of the Dwarf Women's Association.

Since dwarves were a race that was composed solely of men, they took another race as their wife. And most of their wives were human.

And though dwarves were excellent craftsmen, they sucked at politics.

Thus, their wives formed the so-called Dwarf Women's Association to back their husbands. In short, the dwarven race was guaranteed to become hen-pecked husbands once they got married.

In this case, Inner Mountain, the chief’s wife, was attending the meeting.

Most of the dwarves gave their wives nicknames that revolved around the word "Mountain" such as "Great Mountain" or "Revolving Mountain".

They weren't nobles but no one could file a complaint even if the representative of the dwarves who live in Eld attended this meeting.

Dwarves were rich, that was the reason why it wasn't strange, even some of the nobles who attended this meeting borrowed money from some dwarves.

Not to mention that the tools made by them were of high quality. Even the believers of Thos' faith, which were mostly composed of muscle brains, didn't want to make enemies out of the dwarves.

And we were also the same, we didn't want to turn them into our enemy.

Reason being we had to trade with the dwarves too.

Us aside, no human owned a mine.

And if we wanted to issue a currency, we had to import gold and silver from the dwarves, too.

Though it was still possible to issue a currency with paper money instead of precious metal, it was nothing more than useless paper if there was no trust.

Even if we wanted to use the gold standard system, it was literally impossible since we did not have enough gold.

Though our blood or hair that carried traces of our magical power might be valuable in the market, this was the last of the last methods.

And if possible, I didn't want to crush foreign currency by issuing our own currency incorrectly.

That was the reason why our country used the Renal currency which was issued by the Holy Republic of Lenaria.

Naturally, I still wanted our country to grow big enough to issue our own currency.

「Thank you very much Inner Mountain-dono, we will do our best to cooperate.」

I expressed my gratitude to Inner Mountain.

After that, the nobles' opinions continued on.

The hearing revolved around the current development of Eld and our future plans. Naturally, they didn't forget to make sure that they got profit from this.

But well, that goes without saying. I mean, the nobles were cooperating with us exactly for that profit.

The problem was the aftermath.

It just happened to be a good coincidence that the nobles’ interests and Eld's development were aligned, but there was a possibility that their interests might be hindering the future development of Eld.

Moreover, the disparity between poor, rich, and noble would only widen.

And it was our job to think about that.

I glanced at Kyouka and Kaya.

Kyouka was looking at the nobles with a bored face. When Reiji and I were absent, Kyouka would attend the meeting in our place.

But the one who really made the decisions was in fact Kaya.

Being able to give calm judgment made her more suitable as a politician than me.

Moreover, she might've already come up with a plan to restrain those nobles in her head.

The meeting continued on.

And I heard the opinions of the nobles.

====

◆It's Chiyuki again

「Ha~h. So tire~d.」

After the meeting ended, I stretched my body as I walked along the corridor of Eld's palace.

By the time the meeting had ended, it was already the evening. I wanted to plop into my pillow once I got back to my room.

「You're overexerting yourself, Chiyuki. You should relax a bit.」

Said Reiji who walked by my side. Sure enough, I overexerted myself a bit today.

I mean, the reason we created Eld was so that we could take it easy.

And yet, we ended up with more troublesome matters instead.

「Reiji-sama is right, Chiyuki-sama. Properly speaking, all we have to do is to reap the profits after we throw the bait to the nobles. You're overly worrying about the citizens of Eld.」

The way Kaya spoke honestly scared me.

For Kaya, Kyouka and us were her top priority while the citizens and nobles of Eld were below that.

She tried to balance between the development of Eld and our profit.

「Indeed, but that's a bit…」

Reiji was smiling wryly when I told him so while Kaya looked troubled.

Though I feel bad for those who worry about me, I ended up carrying the burden.

I remember when Reiji saved me in the past when I overworked myself.

When I was feeling nostalgic about that, Kyouka who was walking in front of me suddenly stopped in her tracks.

「That seems to be Rino-san and Nao-san. Why are they coming I wonder?」

I looked at the passage ahead of us.

Sure enough, it was Rino and Nao. Why do they seem to be in a hurry?

They never welcomed us back before.

「Thank you for the hard work.」

「Good job.」

Rino and Nao consoled us after they arrived in front of us.

「Is something the matter? I mean, it's rare strange to see you two coming to welcome us back like this.」

「Chiyuki-san, there's a rare guest visiting to meet Reiji-san.」

「Yes, that's why we came to call you.」

Rino and Nao spoke in turn as they nodded.

Thought it was okay now as the meeting just finished.

If it was done wrongly, Reiji might slip out from the meeting.

Did that mean the guest was more important than the meeting?

「What kind of person wants to meet me?」

Asked Reiji, tilting his head in puzzlement.

Surely, even if the other party wasn't asking to meet Reiji, I couldn't help but feel curious about their identity.

「It's the elves, Reiji-san.」

「Yes. And the kind of elves that we have never seen before. Shirone-san is keeping them company right now, that's why we came to call you since things might get out of hand.」

Both of them looked at each other and nodded before they said so.

「The elves want to meet me? Why though?」

Reiji was tilting his head in confusion.

Yeah, honestly I'm also curious about that.

The elves never came to meet us before. I hope this won't turn into a troublesome matter.

Thus we returned to the palace in a hurry.

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