Page 246 of The White King's Favorite

“Tessa, can you and Darsan go ahead? I have an idea I need to discuss with Lady Bastat and Nana.”

Her cousin nodded without asking for another explanation. Tessandra knew Cessilia enough to figure that if she didn’t ask her to stay back, she didn’t need to. Moreover, she had regained her full strength now.

“See you later, Nana!” Darsan happily waved, before leaving behind Tessandra.

Cessilia chuckled, and turned to Nana, who got even redder, caught waving back.

“Do you like my brother?” she asked.

“W-well, Sir Darsan is really quite nice...”

“He is,” Cessilia nodded, without teasing her any further.

“What did you want to talk to me and Lady Bastat about?”

“Do you know where we can find her first?”

Nana nodded, and guided her outside, just a couple of streets away. There, Bastat was busy chatting with another man from her tribe, arguing about some fabric she had in her hands. When she spotted Cessilia and Nana coming toward her, she frowned, and dismissed him with a sigh.

“Everything alright?” Cessilia asked.

“I wish my father was here,” murmured Bastat. “My tribe is a bit restless with everything going on, and they have a hard time relying on me so fast... but I can’t bother you with that. Is there anything you need?”

Nana turned to Cessilia, a bit curious to know as well. The Princess took a deep breath, and nodded.

“I think we need to build a city,” she said.

The two young women exchanged a glance, confused.

“A city? How so...? Aren’t we supposed to rebuild the Capital first?”

“I think we need to rebuild the Capital and build a new city at the same time,” said Cessilia. “This morning, I had breakfast with my grandmother, and she gave me an idea. She wants to build herself a palace here.”

“A palace?” exclaimed Nana, shocked.

“Yes, but there is literally no space left in the Capital to build more, right? So, Grandmother will have to build her secondary residence outside, farther than the Outer Capital. ...What if we used this opportunity to create a new city?”

“But, building a whole city will require a lot of funds,” muttered Bastat, “and workers...”

“If we provide jobs, people will come,” said Cessilia, confident. “My grandmother has a lot of money, she could pay forward for her residence, so the workers would be able to be paid for building it! But what if we applied this to a whole city? We can create jobs and get people to settle. It would reduce the traffic into the Capital and provide new opportunities to everyone who was trying to get there!”

“...That would be great,” muttered Nana, “but how... I mean, where will we find that amount of money to build an entire city?”

“Even with requesting the cost for the repairs and damages be paid by the Yekara, I doubt that will be enough,” nodded Bastat.

“My grandmother can easily pay forward for her palace,” said Cessilia. “What if we asked the Dragon Empire, my aunt the Empress, to lend the money for the new city?”

“You want the Kingdom to take out a loan?!”

“We are going to reestablish trade between the two countries,” smiled Cessilia. “What better way to reopen communications than a mutually beneficial deal between them?”

Nana’s jaw dropped.

“That’s...” sighed Lady Bastat. “I can see your goal, but would that really work? I mean, for a deal to be mutually beneficial, we need to give something to the Dragon Empire, what could that be?”

“The Dragon Empire’s capital is starting to have an overpopulation issue,” explained Cessilia. “Not only that, but there are many crafts and domains which haven’t evolved in a long time as well. Reopening trade between the two nations would be a big opportunity for the Dragon Empire to improve its own economy. Many merchants and artisans could move between the two nations. Moreover, that loan isn’t much for the Dragon Empire, but if the Eastern Kingdom caught up in terms of economy...”

“It would spare them a future financial crisis,” nodded Naptunie. “In the past, there were many cases in which the Empire or the Kingdom’s economy was improved simply by introducing new trades. Moreover, an economy doing too well for too long isn’t good either, it creates stagnation which is bound to collapse at the first crisis!”

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