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Several days had elapsed since the completion of the arena, which had been celebrated while the construction of the castle gates was underway.

The arena was constantly full of people, and during the usual time scheduled for large-scale cleanup and maintenance, shogi tournaments and other similar events were held instead.

I wondered whether it was alright to do that in such a bloody place, but the actual participants actually felt thankful that the tournaments would be held periodically.

Incidentally, regarding the monster battles, the matter was currently on hold and it was decided that a local referendum would be held after a thorough explanation of the problem.

As it was under the direct control of the Union Guild, the chief executive of the arena was Frank, but the management personnel were hired separately. So our branch had particularly no changes in what we did.

For the time being, it’s better to focus my vigilance on the outside world.

…Or so I thought, but things didn’t play out as I had hoped.

“It seems you are acquainted. But still, this is Illya who works at our branch. Illya, this is Pastor Bernard Gartman and adherent Sofia who will be moving to Luneville’s church of Lathovester Religion.”

I exchanged greetings with the two in the reception room.

Bernard was urged to sit down again, and Sofia and I stood behind our respective superiors.

Sofia was blinking in surprise at my social position, but Bernard said nothing as he didn’t know about my cheats.

“Err… where was I again?”

Bernard said with a wry, confused smile and Sofia quickly whispered something into his ear.

“Ah right, I was talking about how the previously planned construction of Luneville’s church had been at a standstill”
“The suspension itself was decided quite early on, however…”

I heard the setback was caused by the Thieves Guild, so Frank was not at fault. But he still looked awkward, which showed how overly earnest he was.

He really needs to be more proud of his achievements.

“Although I’m ashamed to admit… the church had faced difficulties at the time. The setback matter reached our ears at quite a late stage, and Sofia and I somehow ended up in the hands of Acradist’s royal capital church. That said, we went on traveling throughout Acradist to propagate the religion afterward.”
“Then you came to Rondoville with the refugees from before?”

Acradist’s royal capital wasn’t at the coastline but slightly upstream of the Rakaba Canal that connected to the ocean.

Though they managed to control it to a degree using the watergate they developed, the damages from the water rising were still considerable.

“No. We were doing nursing work at the royal capital’s shelter. It seems there were many who moved to support the evacuees, after all.”

They came here once the other side’s situation settled to an extent.

Thus, Bernard finished up the details of how they came here with that.

After that, we went out to the city and headed to Ector’s mansion who had returned from a business while also showing them around Luneville.

We were led to the reception room where we waited for Ector, though Sofia still had flushed cheeks from the lingering excitement.

“(Is something wrong?)”
“(A-Ahaha…)”

When I asked for the reason she scratched her cheek in embarrassment.

“(How to put it… I was very moved! Acradist’s capital was also pretty with its canal and all, but it still had darkness among its brilliance… But Luneville is both pretty and bright!)”

She answered by skillfully emphasizing her voice despite speaking in whispers, praising Luneville highly.

Perhaps the atmosphere, rather than the city itself, would be more accurate.

The cityscape was the achievement of the people who built it, but the atmosphere was something only the residents could create, so I was quite happy with her words.

As I was moved at how wonderful it felt to have something you like praised, Ector finally arrived.

“Apologies for the wait.”

He bowed as soon as he arrived, confusing Bernard and Sofia who were seeing him for the first time.

They should have seen gentle-mannered and polite people, but probably not any lords who would act as humble as him, so it was but natural.

Even I was the same.

“I am Ector, lord of this region.”
“I am Bernard who has been moved to Luneville’s church.”

After their greeting, they finished signing the application to register the assumption of the church, and with that their official matters were done for the time being.

The topic changed to the review of the recent situation which was closer to chatter.

Sofia was grinning happily, but it was clear that she didn’t understand any of it. Actually, I wasn’t sure why they were having the two of us present during such an important conversation.

…For my part, I had already half-given up on questioning it at this point.

“—Cities of similar scale generally have the tendency to suffer from poverty, but there is nothing like that here. How I hope that the rest of the world is like this city…”

Bernard spoke with a bitter smile.

Unlike my previous world, this world had a guild where everyone could accept commissions and get paid in return, so I was convinced there would be no unemployed people.

However, the reality was that registering at a guild required passing a test, and if at one point you could no longer continue your job, you would have to subsist solely on the severance payment or pension based on your contributions up to that point.

Mercenary Guild had people losing their jobs due to injuries, while the Trade and Industrial Guilds had ones doing the same due to debts and such. Agriculture Guild experienced both physical injuries and financial setbacks, leading to the unfortunate circumstances of them being forced to sell their lands and, in some cases, becoming homeless along with their entire families… Let’s just stop. I’m getting depressed just thinking about it.

At any rate, unemployment and poverty were normal things here. There was no guarantee that Luneville would continue to be as is either.

Now that I think about it, the three present here are the top three powerhouses of Luneville. I thought this was a good opportunity, so I waited for their conversation to come to a pause and spoke.

“What do you think about making a school?”
“A School?”

Bernard was the first one to ask back.

Maybe the other two just got used to hearing me bring up strange things, they were less surprised and more urging me to continue.

“In every capital of kingdoms, there is usually an education institution that is managed by the kingdom or the guild. The reason they are in such central locations is partly that there are many opportunities where they require academics such as civil servants and staff, but it’s mainly because the standard of living is high there and there is no need for kids to work.”

That was of course just a public pretext.

The underside of it was that it was an agency to raise convenient human resources, and even the Thieves Guild that was particularly inclined to do that had a level of education as high as that of nobles of regional cities.

Even if it was impossible to make it mandatory like in my previous life, there was no better environment than Luneville for it when it comes to neutrality.