Tiffania and I are working hard every day to make Luxenberg a better place to live, with our location, some types of food are hard to gain, as we can't rely on the merchants to sell us wheat and rice. They do come from time to time, but because of the war, they only come once a month to trade with us.
What we have is only a small farmland, among the mountains that happened to have a plain in between, but this amount is not enough to meet the demands of the people especially with the influx of people that Owain is bringing with him time to time with his reports of the progress of the war.
This situation is causing some stress to our people. We have livestock and meat, but the prices of bread have been rising. According to Tiffania, we have to solve this or the people would be dissatisfied and may cause them to leave the territory, lowering the population further.
"Ahhhhhh…. Tiffania, do something about this"
I sighed as I laid on the table where she was writing. It's technically my desk so I could do anything with it.
"Can't you see that I'm writing? If I mess up, seriously I'm going to splash this bottle of ink at your face"
She told me flatly as she checked the papers at top speed.
To be honest, I'm grateful to her, she doesn't have any obligation to help me, but without conditions, she helps me.
Maybe it's bad that I'm bothering her so much?
Feeling guilty, I stood up and leaned at the table facing her.
"You're awfully quiet today, did something happen?"
I asked her as she continued scanning the documents one by one.
"What? Do you want me to yell at you? Even I don't have that much energy to spare with these paperworks"
She told me as she flipped through the pages.
"How's the aqua farming process going?"
Because of the shortage of goods, and the fish caught in the sea nearby was scarce, I worked on the first aqua farming in the country. Wait... maybe in this world? To solve the food shortage problem, however, it will take time for it to have some results.
The fishermen were also weirded out of the method, as we bought the small fish that they got and threw it again on an enclosure at the sea, the ones who dived for me to make this enclosure was the former street rats that I have hired some of them are used to diving with no equipment at all.
Could they be called now, "sea rats"?
With the technology in the world so limited, I can only think of a few things that I can make, as long as it doesn't have that much-complicated science in it.
Meanwhile, Tiffania who learned the craft of being a money thei— I mean, moneymaker with her economics course(and aiming for an MBA) in the other world, started a plan to buy and sell armor from other countries using the connections of her duke father, with just one dusty ship that needed renovations.
She is doing so much paperwork to order some repairs and materials and payments for the labor and recruitment for sailors.
"Tiffania, why armor? Not swords and other stuff?"
"Because it sells more, the soldiers here value their lives than their swords"
"And, to which faction are you selling them?"
"To both"
"T-T-To both?! How are you going to do that?"
Whoa, as expected of the daughter of the president of a conglomerate, if I can remember one of their companies also deals with arms deals in the other world, and some of them were in collaboration with my dad's space technology in rockets.
"Yes, this is to fully take advantage of the war which is our market if we will be a country, we should have influence over the war.
The general armor will be shipped here and will be modified by the merchants who will buy them from us we will be the supplier of those merchants and those merchants will be the suppliers of the soldiers.
Amazing, right?"
She stopped writing for a moment and put her hands on his cheek and stared at me.
Such a balance between cuteness and maturity, as expected from the woman I love.
"Yeah amazing… to add to that can you also purchase the magic gems? Military-grade ones?"
"Why?"
"Well, it's just the rumors, but the merchants have been saying something odd, about monsters migrating, is that even possible?"
"Hmmm… I'm not sure, remember that the old Tiffania was a sheltered girl before?"
"Yeah, that's why I need to get at least a few of those to our temporary army"
"Are you sane? Do you know how much one of those costs? It's 100,000 Gold, each! If we buy a few using our profits, we will go bankrupt! Do you even know that countries are banning the sale of these stones outside of their territory? This means if we trade at the black market it will be even more expensive!"
"Then, how about we buy one? Just for prototyping? I want to investigate this gem and see its potential used to upgrade the technology here. What do you say?"
"If you say so I might… hmmm"
I stared at her intently, to get her to buy these magic stones, if I could buy it, my flames magic that I learned from Gavin would be upgraded, and I could use them like those heroes in the anime.
I stared at her intently at her grey deep eyes, as I smiled the way she liked it my old world, adding to my new looks, it would be two times more deadly.
On three counts, she would give up.
One…
Two…
Th—
"PRINCE WALTER!!! WE HAVE AN EMERGENCY!"
I jumped out of our staring contest as Gavin suddenly screamed behind me as she opened the door with a bang.
Damn, this old man ruined just ruined the situation. In a few seconds, Tiffania would have given up and used the profit to buy me those gems.
"What is it, Gavin? And don't just pop out like that"
Tiffania's eyes widened, having the same expression as ours. As usual, I'm the easier one to startle.
"Prince Walter! Monsters are attacking us!"
What did he just say? I heard rumors about a monster attacking, but according to my memories this should be the farthest area from the area that has monsters!
I just used that rumor as an excuse to get her to buy me that magic gem!
Karma is scary!
Putting that aside… Gavin is heavily breathing from his nose, as he held his cane leaning at the door. Maybe I should have him retire soon? He doesn't have that much stamina.
"Gavin… calm down and tell me everything that's not enough information"
"Prince Walter, at the fields, the farmers were harvesting our crops, they suddenly heard something crawling beneath the wheatgrass and what showed was… Goblins!"
Goblins, creatures that I only saw in fairytales. They are always the villains of those fairytales; I didn't expect them to be unfriendly here too, based on Walter's memories who only wanted to see the beautiful side of the world, his memory is useless with this. Damnit!
"Really? How many? Tell me, Gavin"
"That is… unconfirmed, but it's an army of them, and now they have taken over our fields and built cottages as if they plan to make it their dwelling place, and eat all the crops"
Hearing this, Tiffania stood up from her seat.
"Really?! How about the farmers? Were they caught?"
Those farms are our one and only source of wheat, while I introduced a smarter way of planting them and different crops per season that should be planted in intervals to keep the soil healthy, Tiffania worked hard to buy the seeds, and much more some farmers there belong to his father's domain.
"The farmers have been able to run back immediately which was why we could get the news, although they suffered some wounds it's not life-threatening"
Hearing this Tiffania fell back to the chair with a sigh of relief. She must really care about those farmers.
"So how do we deal with this dear prince? Isn't this the time for you to make your move?"
She gave me a menacing stare. She was awfully docile today due to her focusing on her work, but if I push it further, she may start yelling again at me,
"I got it, I got it, so stop looking at me like that"
I turned towards Gavin to give my orders.
"Gavin, can you please get Pierce immediately and have him gather the guards, I'll also set off along with him"
"He's already waiting for you outside Prince Walter, together with the guards you hired"
Wow, as usual this old man is useful, but Piere is impressive. They really know how to take care of these types of emergencies.
"Okay, let's go"
As I stepped forward to go towards them, Tiffania stood up from her seat.
"What about me?"
"You? You hold the fort. There's no point of us setting off together. Who will manage things if I accidentally go down? You should know that, right? As a daughter of the president of a conglomerate"
Fortunately, Gavin had already gone ahead of me.
"But… "
She looked down with a sad expression on her face. Perhaps is she worried about me? That's really touching — if this wasn't an emergency.
"Got it? I'll go ahead, okay?"
I left Tiffania for her own good, with that sheltered body of hers, no matter how strong willed she is in her mind, she might do something risky.
If this world gives us these challenges, it's way better for me to take it alone, rather than having her do all this stuff. She's already helping me lots, I would get cursed by that fickle God who reincarnated us here if I kept taking advantage of her kindness like this.
This is a fantasy world, and instead of enjoying her status as the duke's daughter, having an easy life, and exploring this new world in which she has been reincarnated in, right now she's stuck here with me in this town, because of the insanity of my brothers.
Well, partly it was my fault she got kept here, but if I didn't do it, I'm afraid that Zack's men would have already assassinated her.
When I was almost gone from her sight, I stopped for a bit and looked at her over my shoulders, she's still sitting there with a slightly dejected look on her face.
"TIffania, when this is over, these annoying goblins and this annoying war made by my annoying brothers, let's continue the promise that we made on the other world.
Let's explore this world, although there won't be an Eiffel tower, Venice, or Hawaii in this world, but it will be more exciting.
Just you wait"
I winked at her and continued walking.
To make that dream come true, first I have to take down these little shits that are eating away our minor source of wheat.