[V13C8] A Man Awful At Tourism

Falling into the sea had given Cyril a fever, leaving him bedridden. However, thanks to the dedicated efforts of the weasels and Isaac’s nursing, his symptoms subsided the next day.

Once he recovered, Cyril felt guilty about occupying a room in the Mage Association. Everyone there was busy handling the aftermath of the incident, and he was only adding to their burden.

While eating breakfast with Raul, Cyril mentioned that he wanted to find an inn, but Raul disagreed with that approach.

Apparently, all of them were fully booked after the recent chaos.

Several inns were rendered inoperable due to comatose employees from the black rain, or suffering damage from Throth’s magic. In addition, there was a surge of people looking for accommodations now that the gates had reopened.

As a result, Cyril had little choice but to remain at the Mage Association. That said, he was not going to simply loaf around empty-handed.

Once he finished breakfast, Cyril went around the Mage Association asking for something to do, even chores such as cleaning, peeling vegetables, or taking out the trash. However, he was unable to find anything.

After all, he was the son of a marquis, a member of the Library Society, and a prime contributor to solving the incident. Not to mention how he had been bedridden with a fever until yesterday. Of course there was no one bold enough to assign him miscellaneous chores.

Still, Cyril was determined to help in any way possible, so eventually, the Branch Director relented and decided to give him a simple errand.

His task was to deliver a set of documents to the Sazandol Medical Association, sharing an outline of their future plans with the doctors there.

And so, Cyril headed into the crowded streets of Sazandol for this delivery.

“Wow, there’s so many people,” Thule muttered.

“Crowded,” Pikeh followed.

“Yeah, it really is.”

“Thule, Pikeh, there’s other people here, so be quiet.”

Cyril silenced the excited weasels as he walked through the crowd. He did his best to avoid getting swept away, as well as not squish the bag containing the weasels.

Now that the gates were open, all of the delayed merchants flooded into Sazandol at the same time. As a result, the main street was overflowing with people.

Of course, the merchants were only a fraction of the population. Many were checking on the status of comatose family members, or headed into the markets in search of scarce food and medicine, etc. The sounds of the crowd could be heard from every direction.

Cyril did his best to minimize the damage, but even so, countless citizens had lost their livelihoods. Perhaps getting overwhelmed by the crowd was making him a bit pessimistic.

He decided to quicken his pace through the congested streets.

“Oh, Ashley-sama.”

Suddenly, Cyril heard a familiar voice in front of him.

He looked up to see Lana approaching him with brisk steps. She was wearing a light-blue dress that looked very fitting for early summer, and equipped with a lace parasol.

“Good day to you, Ashley-sama. I’m relieved to see you unharmed.”

That last time Cyril saw Lana was when he left Monica’s house, just before heading into the battle with Theodore.

Since Lana had stayed behind, it’s easy to imagine how worried she must have been.

“Miss Colette, I apologize for the delayed report.”

“Oh, please don’t worry about it. By the way, are you currently busy? Have you been resting properly?”

Lana’s ability to voice her concern so naturally was truly remarkable. This reaffirmed Cyril’s belief that Monica was very fortunate to have her as a friend.

“You must be far busier than me,” Cyril replied. “I heard that the recent turmoil has caused significant damage to Sazandol’s economy.”

The shutdown of the gates and port had brought logistics to a complete halt. Not to mention the casualties from the black rain and the property damage from Samuel Throth’s imbuement magic. The economic losses were expected to be on an unprecedented scale.

As the president of a trading company, Lana undoubtedly suffered significant losses.

“Well, yes, that is true…”

Lana nodded, glancing at the envelope she was holding against her chest.

Her face was not the frown of a maiden in sorrow, but rather, the smile of a resilient merchant who could turn adversity into opportunity.

“You see, the Sazandol Merchant’s Guild is planning a special event regarding that.”

Lana took several documents from the envelope and handed them to Cyril.

While reading the documents, Cyril widened his eyes in surprise.

“This is…”

“We are considering an event in the commercial district based on the roses left by the Thorn Witch… I supposed you could call it the Rose Festival.”

This event featured the beautiful roses of the Thorn Witch, as gratitude to the Sage who expelled the darkness from Sazandol.

The documents listed various items to be sold during the festival, such as rose seeds, cut flowers, rose-themed clothing and trinkets, rose water, perfumes, and more.

Cyril could not help but chuckle a bit.

(How bold of them.)

His first thought was to tell Raul about this project. The Thorn Witch would probably give his full support.

In the past, the Rose Fortress was a symbol of destruction to the people of Ridill.

However, Sazandol was filled with people who loved new ideas. Their interest in the present surpassed their fear of the old.

“My company is also interested in producing rose-themed dresses and accessories… I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject, Ashley-sama.”

“I am… not very knowledgeable about such things…”

Cyril voiced his hesitation, but Lana simply chuckled and handed him one of the proposals. The sheet of paper depicted various rose-themed dresses and accessories, all with extravagant designs.

Rather than those dresses, Cyril’s attention was caught by a summer vest drawn like an afterthought on the far corner.

It looked like a normal vest, except there was a huge rose drawn right on the center of it. The way it stood out like a sore thumb made one doubt the sanity of the designer. Naturally, it was not to Cyril’s taste either.

(But wouldn’t the tourism industry prefer something eye-catching over something plain and safe…?)

In that case, Cyril thought that the summer vest might be a perfect souvenir.

This was a textbook-like mistake of someone unfamiliar with the tourism industry.

“This seems like it could catch some attention,” Cyril said, pointing at the vest.

“…Eh?”

Lana glanced a few times between Cyril’s face and the summer vest.

Cyril remained oblivious, but Lana was trying to subtly determine Cyril’s preferences in order to offer advice to her friend Monica.

He also had no way of knowing that the hideous-looking vest was drawn by Clifford Anderson after Lana said, “You come up with something too, Cliff!” The sketch took him five minutes.

Due to Clifford’s impressive artistic skills, Cyril mistakenly believed that Lana drew the design herself. A rather rude assumption on his part.

“Um, Ashley-sama… I’m afraid this vest might be a bit too… assertive. It may not suit the tastes of many people…”

“Is that so? Perhaps it would look cuter if we put eyes and a mouth on it?”

“E-Eyes and a mouth!?”

Cyril truly believed that anthropomorphizing anything would increase the appeal to children. This was another mistake from his lack of knowledge about the tourism industry.

To Cyril’s defense, he did not think that the vest was particularly well-designed. He was simply doing his best to brainstorm ideas benefiting Sazandol’s tourism industry.

As a reminder, Cyril served as Vice President of the student council at Serendia Academy, where he often performed behind-the-scenes roles. Tasks related to publicity and venue decoration were generally handled by Elliott and Bridget.

The very capable Student Council President was to thank for this assignment of roles.

Cyril handed the paper back to Lana, who received it with trembling hands.

“T-Thank you so much for your valuable input…”

“I’m glad to be of assistance.”

Cyril was undoubtedly the model case of a man awful at tourism.

Sazandol’s Summer Rose Festival:

  • Buy stuff, get points!

  • Everyone gets a stylish rose-patterned plate, just for participating!

(Extremely lame summer vest not included)

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