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Translator: Kazumi
Editor: Kabur & Silavin
Christophe was breathing a sigh of relief after finishing his scheduled work for the day.
As the crown prince, Christophe was not assigned too much work, so he basically had more than enough time on his hands.
Instead, he had free time to study and learn martial arts.
However, one business deal that he began working on with his father about four years ago is now almost entirely left to Christophe.
What is it? It is a deal for Frier Weed, which is very important for the Summit Kingdom.
Frier Weed is a medicinal herb used as a special medicine for a certain disease that occurs on the southern continent where Summit Kingdom is located.
The disease itself has existed for a long time, and there is a special medicine for it, but a certain problem made it very troublesome until four years ago.
The problem is that the Frier Weed used for the cure can only be obtained in Christophe’s country, Summit Kingdom.
Summit Kingdom is only one of the small countries on the southern continent.
Nevertheless, because of the existence of Frier Weed, it has a certain amount of influence on the continent.
Under normal circumstances, it would not be surprising if a powerful country were to take away the areas where the Frier Weed is grown, but no country has ever taken forceful measures when it comes to Frier Weed alone.
The reason is simple. In the past, small countries that were able to collect Frier Weed as well as the Summit Kingdom were unable to do so as soon as they were invaded by a powerful country.
If it had happened only once, the powerful nations would not have given up, but if it always disappears after an invasion, it is a different story.
There are various speculations as to why the Frier Weed is no longer available, but even today it is not well understood.
There are various factors, such as the disappearance of a country that was invaded and destroyed by a powerful nation, or poachers taking it up by the roots where there was little to gather in the first place.
Even so, until about a hundred years ago, it was still possible to collect it in a few countries.
Each of the remaining countries was surrounded by powerful countries, and because they were protected for their own use, they managed to remain without being invaded by other countries.
Nonetheless, the Frier Weed was no longer harvested one after another, and Summit Kingdom was the last one to remain.
For some reason, Summit Kingdom is the only country that has been able to collect the grass without reducing the amount collected.
However, it is not possible to collect enough to give medicines to all the patients in the continent.
In such a case, it was only natural that a political bargain with other countries would arise.
Furthermore, each of the nations surrounding the Summit Kingdom country was a powerful nation and recognized the importance of Frier Weed, so they kept each other in check and the Summit Kingdom, which was in between them, was uneventful.
It can be said that the existence of those countries was a remote cause of the Summit Kingdom’s survival.
The Summit Kingdom has managed to get by so far by taking advantage of this, but even so, there are limits.
They have struggled to increase the amount of their extraction, but they have been unable to do so.
They tried various means, including searching and bounty hunting, to see if they could get it on other continents, but there was no improvement at all.
It was four years ago that a light shined on this situation.
An organization called Crown, which was based in a tower, reported that it had found Frier Weed in the tower.
Immediately, the Summit State dispatched a civil official.
Since similar reports had been made many times, little was expected from the upper echelons at this time.
However, when the civilian officer who went to investigate returned home in a hurry, he reported in a trembling voice, “It was genuine,” which caused a great deal of panic in the country’s upper echelons.
A task force was immediately formed.
Of course, King Assar was at the head of the team.
Frier Weed is such an important product for the Smit Kingdom.
Once it was confirmed that the friar grass presented by the Crown was genuine, the negotiations came together very quickly.
Since there was no country in the Central Continent at that time, the Crown was the organization with which the deal was concluded.
Later, the executive branch was established and became the negotiating partner, but the content of the deal was the same as the one concluded with the Crown.
The Summit Kingdom does not intend to monopolize the medicine made from Frier Weed.
In the southern continent, the existence of the medicine is too influential, and they wanted to disperse its power as much as possible.
Based on experience, there was also the prospect that there would be no armed conquest of the country that could result in the disappearance of the Frier Weed production area.
There is no nation on the southern continent that would be foolish enough to think that it would be okay to lose all the medicinal herbs that are the source of medicines for a disease that occurs on the southern continent.
Even if there were, they would be crushed by neighboring countries.
Therefore, the Summit States were willing to sell the drugs as they pleased, but the Crown declined the offer.
The ostensible reason was that there were no sales channels, and they wanted to leave it to the Summit States.
The real reason, however, was that they did not want to deal with the Crown as an organization since they were dealing with a nation.
Christophe heard this from his father, King Assar, with a bitter smile.
For the Crown’s part, it used the Summit Kingdom as a shield from the other countries on the southern continent.
For the Crown’s part, it had no problem with this as long as it could monopolize it.
The Crown was willing, if not completely willing, to accept the Crown’s offer to deal only with the Summit Kingdom.
The condition was simply that they would only deal with Summit countries, and would refuse any other country’s request to deal with them.
Other than that, there was no difference from ordinary commercial transactions.
The countermeasure team finished the negotiations more easily than expected and returned to the country.
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The basic relationship remained the same even after the establishment of the state of Razequa Amamiya in the Central Continent.
While the two nations were responsible for deciding the volume of transactions, the Crown was in charge of distribution.
More precisely, Razequa Amamiya requested Crown to transport the goods.
Since the start of trading, Razequa Amamiya has gradually increased its trading volume, but it is still not a volume that can be distributed to the entire southern continent.
The situation is still better than it was before we started trading.
One of the biggest changes during the several years of trading was the change of the head of the Summit Kingdom from King Assar to Christophe.
Since Christophe was the next king, King Assar wanted to entrust him with the relationship with Razequa Amamiya, with whom he would continue to do business.
However, this was only a situation on the Summit Kingdom side, and there was a possibility that the Razequa Amamiya State would think that he was not important because of the transfer of power from the king to the crown prince.
However, such concerns on the part of the Summit States were unfounded, and the change of responsibility to Christophe was easily approved.
As a result, Christophe became the chief executive when dealing with Razequa Amamiya.
He was given the authority to make decisions, almost to the point of being out of the hands of his father, the king.
Christophe has almost the same authority as the king only when dealing with Razequa Amamiya.
Something even more significant happened after Christophe received his authority from the king.
The first Crown branch in the world on a continent other than the Central Continent was to be established in the capital city of Summit Kingdom, the first in the world.
After being secretly approached by the Crown, the Crown was astonished, but also examined the situation from various angles within Summit Kingdom.
