The protesters weren't angry at him,<em>specifically,</em>but they did have legitimate complaints about the teleportation circle and its effect on the economy, especially amongst the smaller towns, about halfway between his new city, and the capitol. Ever since he allowed for instantaneous and effortless travel, at a price so low, it cost less than a good inn room, countless merchants had remapped their routes, expanding into new territories that were previously unprofitable, due to the time and travel costs... and ruining the economies of the small towns who'd come to rely on these merchants, traveling through them, regularly. All of these men and women represented a different town that had been affected, some more seriously than others, but all suffering, forcing people to move away, or risk being unable to support themselves and their families. One town was seriously talking about abandoning it, completely, due to the rewritten trade routes, as they used to operate a fairly major trade center, on the border between this country and the next, only a day and a half from his valley, and now too close to a major trade center to be a destination, but merely a stopping point, if that.