CH 36

The preconditions of having them eat the food I made with the ingredients I produce are complete. It looks like we’ll finally be able to negotiate.

“These dishes and sweets are made using the ingredients I directed my farm and ranch to produce, based on the recipes I have created,” I said. “I have come here today to ask a favor of you all.”

King Wilhelm and Duke Dietrich nodded at my words. It seems that they have guesses about what that favor will be. The two children are still obsessed with the sweets on the table, and they probably won’t be able to intervene in money or business negotiations, so it would be helpful if they stayed silent.

“My House would like to sell these ingredients as new products,” I said. “However, nobles cannot enter the business of the Merchant’s Guild without friction. Also, I’m certain that even if our products will eventually be imitated by others, there will be a problem unless we can monopolize it until we earn a certain amount of profit.”

“So you want the royal family to protect you?” Wilhelm interrupted before I reached a conclusion.

However close he is to my idea, he’s still slightly off.

“No, even in my House, we are not able to mass-produce these products yet,” I said. “So, first of all, we would like to sell all the products that we can sell to Ms. Victoria’s company. I will teach the recipe to the cooks there.”

“I see. These dishes, no, these sweets, should I say?” Wilhelm asked. “If you want to eat these in the future, we’ll have to buy the ingredients, is that it?”

“That’s what will happen if we aren’t careful with our words,” I said.

If I sell these on a large scale, the sharp-thinking merchants will quickly investigate the source and discover it’s me. And then they’ll steal and imitate the processes for these products. In this country in this world, there are no copyrights, patents, or so-called intellectual property rights. Even if something was created by someone else, you can imitate it without permission and sell it without being charged with any crime.

In the end, whoever has the capital wins. Even if an individual comes up with a great idea and develops a new product, as soon as they know that it will sell, if a major company with money and power mass-produces it and sells it at a lower price, the person making it by themselves cannot compete.

All of my products are not that difficult to imitate as long as you know how to make them. If you sniff around my House, it won’t be long before someone steals the recipe and imitates it.

Of course, if free competition becomes active and new products become popular and can be purchased at a low price, it will be helpful for me as well. In addition, when it comes to competition, efforts should be made to improve the product and sell it better than others. This is how products and services evolve. Even if I monopolize it, innovation won’t march that much, so if I want the product to be even a little closer to the modern equivalents, it’s better to announce it to the public.

It’s not like I’m going to monopolize these recipes forever and make money off the exclusivity. To begin with, I decided to make these myself because the diet in this world was poor. If it can be improved, there is no need to make it myself.

However, I also need a lot of money when I think about the current situation, no, the future. I can’t live with just the knightly pension. It’s still good now since I’m living at my family’s home, so I’m not paying for living expenses. However, in the future, if I was told to become independent of my family as Sir Caan, I would run out of money.

Weak and small noble families fail and their Houses go bankrupt usually because poverty often causes them to try strange things, fail, and end up in debt. What I’m trying to do is probably the kind of thing that people would think is right. In preparation for the future, I’m thinking of creating a source of income, some kind of business, etc. The first step is this current negotiation.

If the royal family becomes a good client here and I build a good relationship with Victoria’s company, it will definitely be a plus for House Caan in the future.

However, even if it goes well, I will be indebted to the royal family and Victoria. I don’t know how it will affect me in the future, but I can’t see a good future even if I keep my fingers in my mouth and keep quiet, so I have no choice but to go ahead.

“Your Majesty seems to be troubled,” Duke Dietrich said after William is silent for a while. “In that case, my family, no, I will personally buy these products. How about it, Princess Flora?”

“Father! Don’t get taken in by this Country Girl’s sweet words!” Rutger yelled. “In this case, there’s no guarantee that the country girl won’t lie to you, so let’s tell her to reveal the recipes to us at our mansion right now!”

Rutger… I don’t really understand what you’re saying, you know? If he’s the son of a duke, I’d like him to at least speak a little more wisely… just now, his words might be taken as if he wanted to invite me to his home, right? I know he doesn’t like me, but he should think a little more before he speaks.

“Come now, Dietrich,” Wilhelm said. “I will not allow you to spirit away my beloved daughter-in-law without permission.”

Hey… who is the daughter-in-law…? If someday in the far future I really do get married to Ludwig, I’ll be his daughter-in-law, but that future won’t come. Whatever it takes, I will firmly stop it. I want to have “tee-hee, haha” times with another girl. The thought of marrying Ludwig horrifies me.

“Is that so? It seems that you were at a loss for words for quite some time…” Dietrich said.

“I am at no such loss,” Wilhelm said. “The value of these products, these new dishes, and these sweets are immeasurable. Rather, I would make them a royal secret.”

Wilhelm grins, Dietrich shrugged his shoulders in exasperation. Does this mean… that Dietrich has been covering for me? He may have forced Wilhelm’s hand to make a decision.

“Then, the Knight of Caan will wholesale the products to the Kruck Trading Firm and the royal family will purchase them,” Wilhelm said. “Also, the Knight of Caan will disclose the new recipes to the royal family and allow the royal family to make them as well. Are these terms agreeable?”

I don’t know the reason behind the latter, but it doesn’t matter. As far as I’m concerned, if the product sells and I get some money, I’ll be happy.

“Yes. It’s been a pleasure to do business with you. But, there is a little problem…” I said.

In this way, my products were safely sold to the royal family. And I have a new proposal. Even if I fall, I have no intention of getting back up for nothing. In this way, if I start eating poisoned food, it will be the whole plate of it. There is also the phrase, “the ship has set sail”. The meaning may be subtly different, but since we’ve come this far, let’s go as far as we can.

The next day, I was back at the royal castle. The reason, of course, is to teach the royal palace cooks my cooking and sweets recipes. I gave Ludwig a present today as well. The contents of that package are croquettes and sugar rusks. 1

Anyway, I will make them captivated by eating dishes that use a lot of sugar and oil from the first course to the last. Once I make them unable to live without sugar and oil, they’ll buy my sugar and oil all on their own. As a result, the royal family may all become fat, but that’s none of my business. Manage your weight yourselves.

That’s why I was thinking of teaching the recipes to the chefs in the royal palace kitchen using the sugar and oil brought in by Victoria’s company, but I’m getting a lot of confusion and flak over it

I guess this was inevitable. How would you feel if a child who was completely unfit for the job came to your workplace and told you that she was going to give you instructions and an education? Little wonder they would rebel.

However, if they don’t listen to what I say, the conversation won’t progress, so I decided to make something easy to make and have them taste it. If I can’t convince them of my skill, they won’t listen to me, but if I can get even a little recognition, they might at least listen to my recipes.

“(Her knife handling is quite…)”

“(Skilled, she’s used to it.)”

“(The knifework is also good. Is she really a noble’s daughter?)”

He-ey… cooks… I can hear you all? Well, it’s okay, but…

“Before the other dishes and sweets are ready, please try this first,” I said, immediately serving tempura to the chefs.

First of all, I have to make sure that they listen to what I say before making them try it themselves. That’s why I decided to try making tempura while I was making the time-consuming dishes and sweets. Tempura also uses a lot of oil and can be created with various ingredients, so I think it would be easy to serve it as a royal meal.

“What is this?!”

“How did you make this?!”

I don’t have time to listen to the cooks who are talking in the background. While I’ve distracted them with the tempura, I have to finish the other dishes and sweets… anyway, I need to hurry up, it’s a race against time.

After that, the cooks seemed to be interested in my recipes after I fed them baked sweets and other simple dishes. On that day, it took time to build a relationship of trust with the cooks, so I wasn’t able to teach them much, but from the next day until the day I returned to Carruzan, the chefs kept calling me in to teach them how to cook my creations.

After seeing that Flora had left the room and that Ludwig and Rutger had followed after her, the three adults looked at each other.

“How did find my adorable daughter-in-law?” Wilhelm said.

“You’re still saying that, Your Majesty…?” Dietrich said, shaking. “But be that as it may… that Princess is a monster.”

“She acts like an innocent child among other children, but inside, she’s a lot smarter than those conniving elder ministers…” Wilhelm said.

“Isn’t she?” Dietrich said. “While pretending to have a casual conversation, she guessed all of our intentions and made us all dance to her tune. I’ll be honest, I couldn’t measure the bottom of that Princess.”

The man said to be the smartest person in all of the Kingdom of Ploiss, Dietrich, said all of that about Flora, Wilhelm both felt a chill down his spine and the same time, warm reassurance.

“That Princess seems to live up to His Majesty’s expectations, doesn’t she?” Dietrich said.

“Mmm,” Wilhelm hummed. “It’s worth admitting her as a full-fledged citizen, not a child.”

King Wilhelm recognized Flora as an adult, full-fledged Knight of Caan. That’s why he ordered her to debut as Sir Floto von Caan.

Ordinary children’s public debut is nothing more than an introduction and face-to-face meetings with other families under the protection of their parents. However, the fact that Flora had already received a peerage and was given permission to debut as a full-fledged aristocrat meant that the King recognized she was equal to the adults even though she was only 10 years old.

How honorable and amazing will it be? As he imagined the reactions of those around Flora during her debut, Wilhelm can’t help but look forward to it as if she were his child.

“Above all, that last suggestion… I couldn’t believe those were the skills of a child who isn’t 10 years old yet,” Victoria said as she drank some tea to moisten her lips.

Both Victoria and Wilhelm thought that buying sugar and oil would be the end of the discussion. But Flora has another suggestion. It was as if she had accepted all of Wilhelm’s conditions until then, so they should also accept her conditions in turn…

According to Flora, these dishes and sweets require large amounts of fresh eggs and milk as well as sugar and oil. However, livestock farming is not very popular in the Kingdom of Ploiss. So, she asked for permission to open a ranch near the royal capital to be run by Flora, who has a lot of experience in running them in Carruzan, House Carruthers’s territory.

For the royal family, the sugar and oil brought by Flora, as well as the epoch-making dishes and sweets that make use of them, would be outrageous tools. From now on, if these are served at night parties hosted by the royal family, or even at conferences with foreign countries, nobles from both inside and outside the country will all want to eat them. Their value becomes immeasurable and the influence of the royal family becomes enormous in turn.

Flora’s devotion to the royal family is wonderful, as she easily presents both ingredients and recipes that can be powerful cards for the royal family to play on the negotiating table. They now owe Flora a big debt after forcing her to hand over such things for free.

However, Flora does not yield for nothing. Not only does she provide them for free, but she also calculates the profits properly. She doesn’t trust anyone who doesn’t think of her interests in turn. Flora has the strength to secure her own profits while improving her impression of the royal family after considering the profit and loss.

And then there’s the matter of the ranch. New technologies such as sugar refining and new oils are made in Flora’s territories and monopolize the formulas and profits. On top of that, the eggs and milk that don’t last long, are easy for anyone to imitate and can be obtained anywhere if livestock farming flourishes, so it should be made in the vicinity of the royal capital.

At first, the farms and poultry farms created by Flora will monopolize the profits. So if someone notices that those products sell well, other people will follow suit and enter the livestock industry. However, there are no special techniques or secret recipes for livestock farming. Earn a large amount of profit at the beginning, and even if others enter, you can sell more volume at a certain market value. Above all, the royal family has promised to buy anything Flora makes, so even if others enter the market later, even if the market price drops, it won’t affect Flora’s sales volume.

How utterly terrifying. How far ahead did she think, going into this negotiation? Such power of forethought and action. They can’t imagine she was a child before the age of 10. Rather, it even makes them think they were the ones forced to dance in the palm of Flora’s hand now. It would be difficult even for the king of another country to be able to openly express his opinion in front of King Wilhelm, Prime Minister Dietrich, and Chairman Victoria of the kingdom’s largest trading firm, all three of whom are responsible for controlling the politics and the economy of this country.

“Even still… my son’s heart has already been completely captured by that Princess…” Dietrich said.

“She’s such a clever and beautiful girl,” Wilhelm said. “It can’t be helped. Ludwig is also completely enamored with Flora.”

The adults knew that Rutger was interested in Flora from his messing with her. Up until now, Rutger had been reluctant to get involved in engagement talks no matter how many times they were brought up, and now he’s fallen in love with the girl he met for the first time today and was seriously trying to steal her away from Ludwig.

“It seems I’ve reached that age, so I wonder if the successor to the Kruck Trading Firm has finally appeared,” Victoria said calmly.

“—-!?”

Wilhelm and Dietrich both gasp. If Flora has been officially appointed as the Crown Princess, in other words, if she marries Ludwig who will become King, and she even obtains control of the Kruck Trading Firm, a person with absolute power will arise. An absolute monarch who has acquired political strength in the capital, control of the economy of the entire kingdom, and the military strength of House Carruthers at her call.

If a monarch with that much authority and power is born, this country will change greatly, for better or worse. If an absolute monarch appears, the country can easily take a turn for the better or worse depending on the monarch and the subordinates who support this country.

It’s terrifying, but at the same time, it’s possible to see so many paths to the future. If you think badly, it’s certainly possible for a tyrant to do something outrageous and disastrous. On the contrary, if a benevolent monarch establishes a good government, the country will develop more prosperously than ever before.

Dreaming of such a future, the three indulged themselves in their thoughts as well as the sweet treats lined up before them.

T/N: In this sense, we are reminded that Wilhelm may be a king but he is still a father, completely out of touch with how the kids think.