Chapter 147. Maritime Trade Monopoly
By the time Princess Juliana left the Adventurer Guild, one of her golden rings was no longer on her finger.
“Damn it, I've heard the Adventurer Guild’s notorious high fees. But I never felt them directly before.”
Just to borrow a horse, Princess Juliana was forced to sell her golden ring.
Of course, not all of the money was used to borrow the horse. Most of it went as a deposit, which she could reclaim once she returned the borrowed horse to the Verdana City Adventurer Guild, which is her destination.
Using her remaining funds, Princess Juliana guided Baldus to purchase camping gear and fresh clothes before their departure.
Upon leaving the city, Baldus controlled the horse, while Juliana kept watch for threats.
Luckily, the adventurer guild’s receptionist wasn’t that heartless and offered a free basic map to Verdana City.
When magical monsters or demons appeared, Juliana would unleash a strong water jet to fend them off or eliminate them instantly.
Occasionally, they would rest using the camping equipment Princess Juliana had bought after finding a relatively open space.
It wasn’t until ten days later that they reached Verdana City.
Unlike the previous town and villages, Verdana City is a massive city, surrounded by walls of living trees and vines.
After paying to enter the city, Princess Juliana immediately went to Verdana City’s adventurer branch to return the horse and collect her deposit.
With her bulging pocket, Princess Juliana brought Baldus to the building next to the adventurer guild.
Looking at the massive sign above the building’s entrance, Princess Juliana read it: ‘Dragon Internet Cafe, is it?’
Entering the glass door, Princess Juliana went to purchase some food, drinks, and borrow a computer plant.
While eating, she sat in front of a computer and opened a chat site.
Princess Juliana tried to log in to her account, but it only responded with ‘wrong password’.
She hesitated briefly, then decided to create a new account and sent a message from it to her father’s private account.
“Father, please send me some money. I’m stranded in elven territory and really need funds to return.”
It took some time to get a reply from her father's private account.
“Damn it, after this account got leaked, so many people have been trying to scam me! You bastard who has even hacked my dead daughter's account should just die in a ditch!”
“Huh?” Juliana was dumbfounded and thought she had messaged the wrong person.
After her brain processed the message, she panicked, ‘Damn it, so my account actually got hacked. No wonder I couldn't log in.’
Juliana wanted to send more messages, but before she could, her father blocked her account.
‘Damn it’. Juliana scratched her head and thought a moment before creating another new account.
This time, when she messaged her father, Princess Juliana quickly added some private details to convince him.
Her father’s account didn’t respond immediately; instead, it took some time before asking a few private questions known only to the real Princess Juliana.
Seeing Juliana answer all of them, the other side finally believed her. “Juliana! Thanks to the creator, you're still alive! I’ll send a knight immediately to bring you back to the kingdom.”
“Then I’ll be waiting. I am currently at the Elves’ Verdana City. Except for Baldus, all my subordinates are dead,” Princess Juliana finally sighed in relief.
Juliana then remembered the mermaids and made an additional request: “Father, please send an experienced sea navigator with the knights. It’s best if the navigator has crossed the human and elven sea routes multiple times. I believe I can find a way for our kingdom to survive this economic crisis without surrendering to that dragon.”
Far away in the human territory, the king dispatched a knight and a sea navigator as Juliana requested.
Meanwhile, Juliana patiently waited for the knights to arrive. Each day, she either fed the turtle given by the mermaid, analysed the elven market, or went shopping.
She also browsed the elves' internet and found out about mermaids.
When Juliana saw it, she fell into thought, ‘Although the elves have also come into contact with mermaids, the mermaids who have come into contact with the elves seem to come from a different community from the one that helped me.’
‘The elves seem pretty knowledgeable when it comes to the mermaids’ language. Although I am unsure whether the mermaids the elves found and the ones I meet speak the same language, there's nothing wrong with trying to learn it.’
With that conclusion, Princess Juliana spent her remaining money to hire a teacher of the mermaids’ language and added learning it to her daily schedule.
Thankfully, the men finally arrived after more than a month.
Princess Juliana looked at the five knights and one sea navigator kneeling in front of her and told them to rise. “We won’t immediately return to the kingdom. We’ll need to visit somewhere else before that.”
The knights followed her command, and together they went to the sea, where Princess Juliana parted ways with the mermaids.
‘Thankfully, we marked the path before,’ Princess Juliana watched the sea and sighed.
Princess Juliana asked the navigator for her current location and how to reach her kingdom from here.
After she had fully understood, she motioned to the knights and the sea navigator. “Go back for a moment. I have something to do. Follow Baldus's command for now.”
Princess Juliana glanced at Baldus, who immediately understood what the princess planned to do.
With Baldus leading the others away, Princess Juliana placed the turtle on the sea.
It immediately struggled to face a certain direction before opening its mouth to release a sound barely audible to human ears.
After a few hours passed, a shadow appeared on the nearby water before heading to the surface.
The mermaid, Elden, rose from the surface and wrote on the ground in front of Juliana, “Waited so long.”
Princess Juliana can only write “sorry” as a response.
Then both sides immediately got down to important business.
After some difficulty, Princess Juliana told Elden that she had strayed and that they should meet near her kingdom's port.
She remembered the massive lighthouse near the port and told Elden to report to the old healer that she would send people to wait near the lighthouse.
Elden stared at the image of the lighthouse for a long time before writing on the ground, “I’ll tell the others. Keep the turtle. We’ll communicate using it.”
After giving her an affirmative response, Elden immediately swam away to her home.
Meanwhile, Juliana also set out on her journey home.
Once she returned to her kingdom, Juliana rested for a moment before she went to her kingdom’s port along with a few other trusted subordinates.
For the next two weeks, Juliana waited patiently, occasionally dipping the turtle she had received into the water near the lighthouse.
When Juliana began to suspect the mermaids might have gotten lost, she finally received a response.
Soon, Elden, the old healer, Seaton, and two other mermaids swam to the shore.
After Princess Juliana bowed and expressed her gratitude, they began discussing cooperation.
The old healer and Seaton represented the mermaids, while Princess Juliana herself represented the humans.
After back-and-forth negotiations, both sides finally reached terms that satisfied them.
The overall conditions were that the mermaids would send several members to help navigate a safe route between the human and elven ports. In exchange, the humans would provide resources according to the mermaids’ needs. The mermaids could also trade their own resources in exchange for humans’ resources.
Of course, there are also restrictions, such as the mermaids from their community not being allowed to work with other forces, or humans not being allowed to injure, capture, or intrude into a mermaid’s private territory.
With the discussion complete, Juliana gave a ship full of resources to the mermaids as a thank-you gift.
The ship, filled to the brim with food, clothes, and other supplies, sailed under the command of Juliana’s trusted aides, who dropped their cargo on a certain island before returning.
Thanks to the kingdom’s cooperation with Seaton’s mermaid community, Juliana secured safe sea passage between the humans and elven territory.
Because only Seaton’s mermaid community, which has lived near the krakens, knows about the safe area and the kraken’s hunting grounds, Juliana effectively monopolised the maritime trade between the humans and the elves.
Using the private maritime trade route as her foundation, Juliana’s power quickly rose. She rejoined the succession battle for the throne and won by a landslide, becoming the crown princess of her kingdom.
Two decades passed quickly, and Juliana rose to the throne following her father's abdication.
Under her leadership, the kingdom grew increasingly prosperous even amidst the chaos of the changing times.
A few years ago, news of Juliana’s success reached Catherina’s ears.
When she heard it, Catherina, who had now become the de facto leader of the dragons, also wished to monopolise a sea route, especially because ships can carry more cargo than carriages.
Furthermore, the Dragon Island lies in the sea northwest of the continent. It sits directly on the sea route between the dwarves’ territory and the humans’ territory.
As the de facto leader of the dragons, those waters are her home ground.
Still, it took Catherina a long time to find a suitable route.
Unlike the mermaids and the kraken in the sea between humans’ and elves’ territory, the sea between dwarves’ and humans’ territory is blocked by natural barriers.
Initially, Cedric had created a few natural disasters to block the path. This makes the waters northwest of the continent often visited by massive storms.
Coupled with the repercussions of Cedric’s earthquake attack, when he tried to kill the giant ants beneath the dwarven territory, the sea to the north is now filled with storms, random islands, areas with water vortexes, and many areas with calm winds, effectively leaving any sailing ship entering those waters stranded.
By the time Catherina found a suitable route that bypassed dangerous areas, a major historical moment occurred in the human territory.
As the only human kingdom that conducts maritime trade with a mermaid community, Juliana was able to gather water-element magical materials to fuel her advancement.
Almost thirty years since she rose to become a queen, her personal strength finally reached Level 4.
To obtain a Level 4 training method, Juliana shared her trade route with the elves, specifically with Elisa.
In exchange, Elisa gave her a Level 4 training method and other magic-related knowledge.
With her rise to Level 4 and the growth of her kingdom, Juliana’s ambition grew, especially thanks to support from her ministers.
Amid the massive changes kickstarted by Catherina and the internet, Juliana used the resources she had accumulated to put pressure on one of the neighbouring kingdoms, which had been crumbling after being unable to keep up with the times.
After bribing the opponent’s nobles, some political manoeuvring, and other direct or indirect battles, a decade later the kingdom finally collapsed.
Before its collapse, the royal and noble family, pushed to the brink, launched an all-out war that killed many people in the process.
Although not enough to cause a demon king’s birth, especially since the world has levelled up and its resistance against NE has grown, the war was enough to give birth to many demons and force Cedric to stop his holiday.