While Sungjin was discussing their future plans with his party, Alberto also spent a busy day reviewing the prince’s proposal.
“Abolish the magic tax? Are you serious?”
Flustered by the administrators’ incredulous expressions, Alberto secretly flushed beneath his white face powder.
“O-Of course I’m not saying we should implement it immediately. I merely heard rumors that another territory is considering abolishing the magic tax as one of its economic revival policies…”
“What? What kind of idiot seriously considers a garbage policy like that?”
When every administrator reacted in much the same way, Alberto belatedly began to regret bringing it up.
Perhaps he had been taken in far too easily by Prince Morres’s slick words.
“Right? I thought the same thing. But there must be some reason such rumors are circulating, wouldn’t you agree? So all I’m suggesting is that we examine what kind of gains and losses we might see if we applied the policy to our own territory.”
“There’s nothing to examine. Young Lord Alberto, you know perfectly well that this year’s harvest in the territory was poor. If the magic tax stops coming in properly on top of that, we’ll probably start facing serious difficulties in administering the territory as early as next year.”
At a loss for words, Alberto began repeating whatever arguments he could remember hearing from Prince Morres.
“B-But if the magic tax disappears, wouldn’t the number of trading companies traveling through our territory…