It was now two days after Haley's group had come back from Alandal City.
The store was slowly being built, but with how big Haley wanted to make it, it was going to be a while before it was finished.
But Haley didn't mind this and she was excited since this was the store of her dreams.
Back in Alandal City, the store that she had was just a store that she had rented. And with the strict rules of Alandal City, she hadn't been able to renovate the store to what she wanted it to be.
So she had no choice but to suck it up and use the store that she rented.
But now…in this place, she had a connection with the baron and baroness, as well as being invited by them. So she was able to make the store however she wanted to make it.
Haley hadn't held back and had created a giant store which really didn't fit in a town like this.
Still, everyone seemed to be having fun with it, so it wasn't as if they could stop them.
Right now, the base of the store had been finished and it was gigantic.
It was multiple times the size of any other house and was even close to the size of Baroness Rose's manor.
A building of this size had to be built at the edge of the town, but with how small the town was in the first place, it was still within walking distance for most people. So there wouldn't be a lack of business for the store.
The future plans for the development of the town revolved around this store because of how big it was.
Baroness Rose decided to make the area around the store the new town center and develop around it to expand the town.
This created even more hype for the store and many people came out to see it.
There were also those that volunteered to help, but this was rejected by Haley. This was her baby in a sense, so she didn't want just anyone messing with it. She only had the most skilled carpenters in town working on it and the best materials that she could get.
And that was where the problem was.
On this day, as Baroness Rose and I went to inspect the building site, we suddenly heard someone shouting.
"What did you say? We can't get the materials?"
We immediately recognized that this was Haley's voice, so we went over to see what was wrong.
We found that she was with Clark, the person that we put in charge of this matter. He was supposed to help her get all the materials and organize all of the carpenters so that the building of her store would go smoothly.
At this moment, we could see that Clark had a difficult look on his face as if he was facing some kind of problem. With the way that the two of them were standing there, it was as if they were having some kind of argument.
Without any hesitation, we came over and I asked, "What's going on?"
The two of them saw who it was and Haley was the first to come over to say, "Clark here says that there's a problem getting the materials. However, he told me just yesterday that he would be able to get everything on time."
It was easy to tell that she was a bit annoyed about this from the tone of her voice, but I didn't play favourites here.
I knew that there had to be some reason Clark had said this, so I turned to him to ask, "What happened?"
Hearing this, there was an awkward and difficult look that appeared on his face as if he was hesitating over whether he should speak or not. In the end though, he took a deep breath and said, "We have a problem in the forest where we're getting the wood from."
"Problem?" I repeated before asking, "What problem is it? Could it be that it's the monsters again?"
Ever since the monster wave, there has been an increase in monsters in the surrounding area. However, it wasn't at a level where we couldn't handle it yet and they made good training targets for Cecilia's subordinates, so we hadn't done anything about them yet.
Clark shook his head when he heard this before hesitating once more.
Seeing this, I couldn't help feeling a bit annoyed, so I said, "Spit it out already."
With this, Clark gave a deep sigh and said, "There's been a dispute in the forest that's stopping us from getting more wood."
I slightly knitted my brows before asking, "Dispute? With who?"
Clark said with a bitter smile, "The elves."
If it was anyone else, then it would have been easier for them to handle because they could at least negotiate. However, elves were famous for being closed off from other races and being impossible to find.
Unless they wanted to talk to you, it was normally impossible to find elves.
But when I heard that it was the elves, I couldn't help revealing an excited look.
Elves, it was elves!
They were a staple of the fantasy world and I had been looking forward to meeting one…or rather, I'd been looking forward to getting to "know" the elves.
After all, they were also famous in this H-game.
The elves had one of the best storylines out there and the women were all beautiful, so there was no downside to meeting the elves.
But I could also see the bitter smile that was still on Clark's face, so I could tell that something was wrong.
After being asked what was wrong, Clark explained the situation to me.
The elves had attacked our loggers and had claimed that we were hurting the forest with our excessive logging, so they wanted us to leave their forest. Since the elves were expert marksmen and skilled magic casters, our people had no choice but to run.
But I couldn't help focusing on something else, "They said that it was 'their' forest?"