The opening of the Xinfei Merchant Guild's Product Service Center in Bunta City marked the guild's official return to the Lampari Kingdom.
Despite her busy schedule after her recent coronation, Her Majesty Queen Servini had made time to attend the opening ceremony in person, demonstrating how much importance the Lampari Kingdom placed on the Xinfei Merchant Guild's return.
Under the agreement signed between the Xinfei Merchant Guild and the Lampari Kingdom, once the guild returned, the kingdom would restore all the assets previously seized from it by the Ten Merchant Guilds.
In practice, however, some involvement from the Lampari Kingdom inevitably crept into the management of those assets.
For example, Falling Rain Valley, formerly the Xinfei Merchant Guild's central base, had now been returned to the guild in its entirety. Yet the Lampari Kingdom had established a Bunta City Special Administrative Office within the valley, specifically to manage and coordinate administrative affairs there and in the surrounding areas.
Nominally, this was intended to handle the administrative needs of the merchant guilds in Falling Rain Valley and its vicinity, making it easier for them to complete necessary procedures and thereby saving them time and effort.
In reality, however, the office had administrative authority over Falling Rain Valley and the surrounding areas. This meant that both the Xinfei Merchant Guild and the dozen or so guilds that had followed it back from the Black Rice Wasteland were subject to its management.
For the other merchant guilds, this change was fairly acceptable.
For the Xinfei Merchant Guild, however, the difference was considerable.
Previously, Falling Rain Valley had been Xu Yi's private fief, giving the Xinfei Merchant Guild tremendous freedom and autonomy in how it developed the valley and what it did there.
Now that the administrative office had been established, however, anything the