Unlike the three previous Bunta City Mayors Xu Yi had dealt with, the new mayor, Count Kaneino Kamadu, did not require Xu Yi to keep coming to the City Lord's Manor to request an audience. Instead, during his three months in office, he had frequently sought Xu Yi out himself.
As Kamadu had told Xu Yi in private, this was because the magic industry represented by the Xinfei Merchant Guild was Bunta City's most important pillar industry. As the guild's president, Xu Yi was naturally the person he most needed to befriend and win over.
That was what he said, and that was what he did.
Over those three months, he had not only frequently sought meetings with Xu Yi, but had also been exceedingly courteous every time, nothing like the usual attitude a distinguished City Lord would take toward an ordinary merchant.
Moreover, on many public occasions, he had called Xu Yi Bunta City's "business leader," claiming that the responsibility for developing Bunta City rested entirely on Xu Yi's shoulders, while he, as mayor, merely played a supporting role.
No one had really objected to this claim. The Xinfei Merchant Guild's contribution was plain for all to see, and virtually everyone in Bunta City already acknowledged it as fact.
Xu Yi, however, had always firmly refused to accept that description.
He knew perfectly well that, although the Xinfei Merchant Guild was growing rapidly, it had only been established a short time ago. Compared with the long-established major merchant guilds, its foundations were still lacking.
For example, when Xu Yi wanted to expand the Xinfei Merchant Guild's Guards Corps, he could only recruit scattered fighters. But an established major guild like the Falkor Merchant Guild, backed by the Joseph Family, could recruit a powerful force of several thousand guards at