"Lilim, how did the talks go?"
"Ten baskets of iron ore for one bolt of cloth weighing about fifty kilograms. How does that sound?"
"Sounds fair."
Lilim turned back to the chieftain and the Witch and continued, "That settles the cloth trade. Next, we need to discuss recruiting people and trading other goods."
"This is the flag of Aningsbe. We've added a set of scales to it to symbolize fair trade. When you see this flag, it means the caravan belongs to Aningsbe. Neither side may attack the other."
The Witch took the flag. "Understood."
"By the way, if possible, could you get in touch with the tribes you know?"
"We in Aningsbe want to trade with all of them."
"For every tribe you bring into Aningsbe's tariff system, Aningsbe can provide your tribe with a financial subsidy."
Lilim went on to make her request.
"This..." The chieftain looked troubled. Ever since the Demi-human Kingdom had split apart, everyone had fought for themselves for a hundred years. Aside from the many deaths at the beginning, once things had stabilized, the various tribes had mostly settled into a pattern of fighting and making peace in turn.
Originally, "demi-human" was a name humans had given to these people.
There were actually many different races among the Cat demi-humans. Lilim, with her folded ears, belonged to the Holy Tribe, while their tribe belonged to the Blue Cat Tribe.
There were divisions like this among the Dog Demi-humans, too. For example, in this frozen wilderness lived a group of Dog Demi-humans who were rather dim-witted, yet somehow managed to survive. They were the husky kind of Dog Demi-humans.
They could even run off to hunt in the middle of a frozen wilderness.
The chieftain didn't understand.
What exactly did this royal want by contacting the other tribes?
"All right, Chieftain Karl. I hope you'll contact any Demi-human tribes you can reach and ask them to choose representatives to come to Aningsbe for negotiations. We need trade. When Demi-humans go to human fortresses, don't they sometimes find that even when they have goods, there's nothing they can buy?"
"If you join this system, we'll issue a kind of currency in the future. That will make commercial exchanges more convenient, so everyone can get what they need."
"And if you can help Aningsbe bring other tribes into the system, we can pay your tribe."
The proposal was extremely tempting. Demi-human trade was mostly conducted through barter. As for exchanging goods for money, they could forget about that.
History showed that this was how things worked in ancient times, too. Metal currency was used only in more advanced civilizations. In less developed areas, barter was the norm.
"All right."
"I'd like to ask you one last question. Why have you sided with the humans? Did he threaten you?"
"Chieftain, I think we should put an end to discrimination between humanoid races. After all, according to history, humans were once called the Human Race. 'Human' was a general term for humanoid beings. Only later did it become another name for the Human Race alone."
"Please don't betray the demi-humans, Princess. What you're saying sounds far too much like something a human would say. I don't understand." The Cat demi-human chieftain gripped his cane. "Humans are sly and fickle. They call it being clever. We demi-humans are no match for them in that regard. Many of our people have been deceived and plotted against. It's not just the demi-humans; every race in the world has suffered the same."
Lilim nodded. "In any case, let's work together and get to know each other for a while before we decide anything."
With the Cat demi-humans as a precedent, the negotiations that followed went much more smoothly.
A later count showed that each tribe had anywhere from a few hundred people to several hundred.
To Lynn, they were each like a village.
There were several hundred tribes like these. That was only because Aningsbe was so small, and most of the tribes Lynn had visited had been within a week's journey of Aningsbe.
It was obviously impossible to build roads to all of them. Lynn focused on building roads to tribes with important resources, mainly by hiring demi-humans to do the work.
The Wooden Track was mainly for transporting goods. It saved a lot of effort and would also be useful in the future.
Lynn deliberately offered a very high price for the tribes' warriors to build the roads. Since they were trading with nearby settlements, the routes wouldn't be very long. It took only a few days to walk to Aningsbe, and most of the road construction could be finished within a month.
Tribal warriors and Battle Qi practitioners had plenty of strength to spare.
The so-called Wooden Track only had to meet the required dimensions. They could even use whole logs. They just needed to lay crushed stone and wooden boards underneath as sleepers, then secure everything with iron spikes.
After dealing with the most difficult Demi-human tribes in the east, Lynn turned his attention westward.
The southwest had been devastated by the Wolfkin, leaving it barren in every direction.
The people were gone, but there was still plenty of land. Lynn sent out survey teams to explore the southwest.
At the same time, he organized people to visit merchant associations outside the Empire's sphere of influence and trade with them.
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