Once our talks were all settled, Cliff massaged the corners of his eyes.
「Cliff, you seem really tired.」
He had been doing the same thing for a while now.
He must be even more tired than he looked.
「Thanks to a certain someone, the amount of traffic around Crimonia has increased, so I have a lot more work to do.」
Oh right, Mylene-san had mentioned that a lot of merchants from other towns had been coming to Crimonia these days to do business, and things were getting out of hand.
Since it had nothing to do with me, I didn’t look into it to much. I did wonder who the certain someone was, however.
「Being a feudal lord sure is tough, huh.」
「Yes, thanks to a certain someone.」
「You keep saying a certain someone, but who are you talking about?」
「Are you seriously asking me that?」
「…?」
Cliff looked at me in shock.
Why would he look at me like that? I turned to Noa for an answer.
「Yuna-san…」
Noa had the same expression as Cliff.
Did something big happen and I was the only one left in the dark?
Until recently, I had been at the Elf Village, so it couldn’t be helped that I wasn’t up to date on the happenings at home.
「Did something happen while I was out?」
「While you were out? No, it was before that! Have you somehow forgotten that you dug a tunnel to Mireera?! Thanks to that, Crimonia had a huge increase in traffic.」
Cliff said in a higher pitch.
「Oh right, that.」
Yup, I had completely forgotten that happened. Lately, I always used the Bear Gate to travel around, so the tunnel never came to my mind.
Well, that should also be thanks to the fact I had been forced to make stone statues of my Bear-self at both ends of the tunnel and wiped out all the memories connected to it.
「Of course, the tunnel is very beneficial to us as there are now more people passing through Crimonia. More and more people want to see the ocean, and the sea trade has also hit a big rise. Yet, thanks to that, we don’t have nearly enough lodging available. Crime is also on the rise due to the influx of people. We need more people for security, but we don’t have enough personnel. This is happening in Mireera as well. We have expected this, of course, but it’s happening faster than we anticipated.」
「It increased that much?」
It sounded like a big problem just hearing about it.
His job didn’t sound glamorous at all. I was glad I hadn’t reincarnated into a royal or noble family when I came to this world. If that had happened, I wouldn’t have had much freedom, would I?
「Yes, most people have never seen the ocean before, so a lot of them come through just for sightseeing, escorted by adventures of course. Merchants from everywhere are going in and out to do trading with Mireera. The sea of people is endless.」
I had had no idea that was going on.
I wasn’t staying at the inn anymore, and I hadn’t been to the Commerce Guild or the Adventurer’s Guild recently, so I hadn’t been informed at all.
「Sounds tough.」
Now I understood why Cliff was so busy and tired. And, I had learned so without getting in trouble for asking.
「So, is this still someone else’s problem?」
「Yeah, it should be, why?」
While I had been the one to make the tunnel, what happened after wasn’t my fault.
It was Cliff’s job to manage the traffic. I didn’t have anything to do with it, as I was just a commoner.
「While it isn’t your problem directly, this did only happen because you made that tunnel. How about being a little more apologetic? Thanks to you, I now have less time to spend with my daughter.」
Basically, he was mad at me for taking away his time with Noa.
「Okay, do you want me to seal the tunnel shut, then?」
I tried joking with him. I had no intention of doing that, of course. If I did, we wouldn’t be able to get any more seafood, and Anzu would surely be troubled.
「No. If you do that, I will be ruined for good.」
He clearly didn’t catch my joke, responding like that. I almost felt bad.
「Yuna-san, you can’t close it. If you do that, we won’t be able go to the ocean anymore.」
Even Noa missed my joke…
「I was just kidding, you know? I wouldn’t actually seal it shut.」
I tried to calm them down.
「Well, the only thing we can do is to hold on until we have the personnel. Once I have more people I can rely on, my workload will decrease. Mylene is doing her best as well, so the situation should improve soon. Well, as long as a certain someone doesn’t bring in even more trouble for us.」
He was referring to me again, wasn’t he. I would prefer if he didn’t talk about me like I was some anime or manga protagonist who only brought trouble with them.
In detective dramas for instance, even more murders would trail in the footsteps of the detective or police protagonists. Or, in action movies, strong enemies would always appear to cause problems with the heroes. Just by being the protagonist of any genre, trouble would always happen nearby. So, I really didn’t appreciate him putting me into that group.