第１３３４堀：お仕事は順調かな (Part1)
Chapter 1334: Is Work Going Well?
Side: Yuki
I’ve spoken with the forest spirits, but as expected, I didn’t hear anything particularly decisive.
I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a waste of time, but it’s at a level where I feel I’d have learned more academically by talking to Narjia or Queen Seraria.
Above all, my compulsion doesn’t work on them.
If they don’t like something, they simply vanish. They turn into magical energy and erase their own existence.
It’s not that I can’t capture them, but chasing after someone who goes to such lengths to escape—and risking a counterattack—is far too much of a hassle.
When it comes to spirits, the risks just don’t justify the rewards.
More than anything, the information you get from an uncooperative party is worth very little.
As for the forest spirits, since they’ve been living within Weed lately, I’ve been able to gather data on them, which makes the situation slightly better.
Besides, they are the only spirits I’ve ever had contact with anyway.
In that sense, I do want to get along with them.
While I was thinking about such things and working on documents, a stack of papers was suddenly placed in my "pending approval" tray.
It’s a routine occurrence, but the pile never seems to shrink.
I looked up just as the person who placed them—likely Yayui—was returning to her seat.
Yayui seemed to notice my gaze and gave a polite nod.
I raised one hand to give a light acknowledgment in return.
Having confirmed that, Yayui immediately returned to her work without looking my way again.
The other members were the same.
Orelia and Hovis were handling miscellaneous tasks while primarily processing petitions from commoners of the smaller nations.
Fiora was handling petitions from the dignitaries of those same small nations.
Cleena, Samantha, and Jessica were negotiating with the major powers they were assigned to.
Ria was assisting with my work, sorting through the documents.
She was currently sorting the papers Yayui had just handed over.
Incidentally, it’s impossible for members with children, like Ria, to work at full capacity.
They operate on a rotation where half look after the children while the other half go to work.
Today, Jessica and Cleena are on duty.
In times like these, whoever is slightly less busy usually helps me out, but both of them seem swamped, so they aren’t doing any sorting.
That means I have no choice but to process them myself.
For now, the documents regarding the forest spirits are finished, so I’ll start on Yayui’s paperwork.
When I picked them up to check, I found they were mostly related to the Intercontinental Exchange Alliance and the student exchange program.
I suppose that shows just how much interest there is among the common folk.
Well, it’s mostly tied to trade permits, though.
I’ve left the task of confirming the details for my final approval to Orelia, Hovis, and Yayui.
Usually, it would take a long time because we’d have to confirm everything with Ratz or Eris before giving an answer.
Or perhaps it increased because we established a foreign ministry window for commoners in the small nations?
Originally, diplomatic processing for the general public often moved at a snail’s pace.
Well, it’s a low priority, after all.
That’s precisely why it was a department considered both a potential loophole and a nuisance.
Especially since we’re talking about small nations, not major powers.
After all, if your own citizens go to another country, there’s a risk they might just defect.
In this world, while it’s a bit difficult to manage villages, in towns, people are often not permitted to move their place of residence as they please.
After all, it would mean a decrease in the poll tax.
There aren’t many places that collect complex taxes like in modern society.
The residents wouldn’t understand it, and even the officials wouldn’t grasp it.
And above all, taxes aren’t something that is returned to the people in a way they can see.
They are used for town defense and to build up the lord’s power.
Perhaps the only exception is something like a harvest festival?
Well, it’s not that this system itself is inherently evil.
It’s just what passes for common sense.
As for occupations, it’s common for a baker to remain a baker forever.
Farmers stay farmers.
If you don’t fix occupations like that, you quickly run into shortages, and more importantly, you can’t calculate resources.
For those at the top, having the harvest fluctuate every year due to the changing number of people in various professions is something they absolutely want to avoid.
That is why occupations are fixed.
Of course, because of that situation, there is the benefit of being able to live in a town and receiving protection.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Especially in a world where monsters and bandits roam freely.
For these various reasons, tourism to other countries by commoners was generally not permitted, but with the recent movements of the Intercontinental Exchange Alliance, not knowing about other countries has become a disadvantage in the international community.
Since a nation’s face is more important than anything else, they are pushing for this awareness, but when it comes down to it, they often have no idea what they should actually do.
Above all, if a resident visits Weed for tourism and then decides to live there, or move to another major power, it leads to a decline in their own national strength.
They want to avoid that.
But they want to spread awareness and teach their citizens that they are members of the international community.
So, what do they do? That’s where the foreign ministry for commoners comes in handy.
It’s not that the building is different.
To put it simply, it’s a foreign ministry that applies the rules of modern Earth.
No, the foreign ministry was modeled after Earth from the start, but the perception was that it was something only for nations and dignitaries to use.
The idea is to open that up to the commoners as well.
Not just merchants, but the general public too.
In Earth terms, it’s the creation of passports and the issuance of visas.
Dignitaries and great merchants are fine because they already have credibility, but commoners lack it.
So, the idea is to issue identification cards and manage them.
I proposed that this would prevent unauthorized migration and defection.
You might wonder if something like that could actually prevent it, but it works in the modern era, and even with these rules, illegal entry can’t be completely stopped.
In other words, we have no choice but to make entry more difficult.
We’re just adopting it because it’s better than the current situation.
The allied nations didn’t exactly welcome it with open arms, but after various modifications, Orelia and the others are now compiling the processing for commoners and reporting it to me.
Above all, the fact that the major powers are following these rules carries a lot of weight.
For a small nation or an individual merchant to break these rules requires a great deal of resolve.
That said, we are utilizing the identification system that uses magic, which was originally issued by the Adventurer’s Guild, so it’s actually more convenient than the modern version, if one isn't careful.
And this at the bottom is the general window for the foreign ministry.
Well, I’d like to say there’s no "top" or "bottom" to these things, but in terms of priority, the general public falls there.
Hovis and the others are the ones gathering and processing the petitions regarding that.
Of course, Sota-san, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and his assistant Enora-san look through them too, but as the nation’s number two and the one with ties to other countries, I cannot avoid checking them myself.
Ah, Seraria also looks through them in the end.
Being a queen is truly exhausting.
Thinking about such things, I turned my eyes to Yayui’s documents.