“Your highness, this is the latest financial report from the store, please review it.”
Seveni looked at the Seveni Chamber of Commerce’s financial report in the hands of the deacon and gave a sigh. After looking it over, she gave a bitter laugh.
“I never thought that in a few months, I would earn several tens of thousands of gold coins. It was no wonder those people did everything they could to chase out the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.”
The deacon looked at Seveni with a confused look. Why would her highness mention the Frestech Chamber of Commerce after seeing this financial report?
Could it be that it was like the rumours, her highness had an intimate relationship with the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s chairman, that’s why she cared about the company that much?
“Take out the tens of thousands of gold coins and buy grains, then appoint them to the people in the villages outside the city. They were hit by a flood recently, so these grains should help support them over this time.” Seveni said.
“Yes.” The deacon nodded in response before praising with a smile, “Your highness truly is benevolent. The people in those villages aren’t the people of our territory, but you still think of them. If the lord of Tag City knew about this, he definitely would feel ashamed.”
“Although they aren’t citizens of my territory, they are people of the Lampuri Kingdom. As the princess, it’s normal for me to care about them.” Seveni casually said.
“But your highness……” The deacon paused before finally swallowing the words he wanted to say.
Seveni looked at him with a bit of a warning before waving her hand, “Alright, you can go prepare those things.”
The deacon quickly nodded before leaving.
Watching him leave, Seveni gave a sigh before revealing a bitter smile.
Closing the Seveni Chamber of Commerce wasn’t her original intention.
Seveni was planning on using her own work to let the Seveni Chamber of Commerce be a window that connected the magic machine companies led by the Frestech Chamber of Commerce that were expelled, allowing them to continue this relationship with the Lampuri Kingdom.
But a while ago, Eric had summoned her and had a long talk with her.
During this talk, Eric had clearly told Seveni that he hoped she wouldn’t involve herself in the internal affairs of the kingdom because it would make his rule hard.
Although Seveni said that the ten companies only represented the benefits of the large nobles. Expelling the Frestech Chamber of Commerce and the other companies was very bad for the Lampuri Kingdom, she was just doing this to soften the losses.
Eric didn’t support Seveni’s ideas at all. He said that the ten companies gave him the support of many conservative nobles in the kingdom, so this situation wasn’t something that he could go against. Even he as the king couldn’t do anything, not to mention Seveni who was the princess without much real power.
But Eric also said that he was clear on the current situation of the kingdom, he was currently beginning to control this situation.
Eric told Seveni that he was currently taking back power bit by bit from those nobles led by Duke Stagg, trying hard to control the Lampuri Kingdom. He hoped that Seveni wouldn’t make any moves during this time that would ruin his plans.
Although Seveni didn’t approve of Eric’s ideas, Eric was the one sitting on the throne now. As Eric’s little sister, she should fully support him, so she listened to what Eric said.
After that, Seveni stopped the Seveni Chamber of Commerce and closed all her stores in the Lampuri Kingdom. She also transferred her factories to the ten companies.
Up to this point, all of the hard work Seveni put into the Seveni Chamber of Commerce had gone down the drain.
Compared to before the Seveni Chamber of Commerce was set up, the Lampuri Kingdom was controlled by the ten companies, or rather the large nobles.
To Seveni, the situation in the kingdom was only getting worse.
This naturally filled Seveni’s heart with frustration.
She thought that she could change the situation with her strength, but she never thought that she would stop midway.
Thinking of how Xu Yi had called her “naive” before, Seveni couldn’t help giving a bitter laugh.
“I hope that Eric can smoothly put his plan in action and take back control of the kingdom step by step.” Seveni gave a sigh and shook her head, throwing this problem out of her mind.
Because the Seveni Chamber of Commerce closed, the refugees Seveni planned on having work in the Seveni Chamber of Commerce needed new arrangements.
Of course Seveni wouldn’t send them back to their original places to be exploited by their lords.
But keeping them on her territory broke the rules between nobles, which others could easily use to target the royal family and make Eric even more passive.
So after Seveni thought about it, she found that she could only ask Xu Yi for help.
It was a good thing that Xu Yi always accepted Seveni’s requests. After receiving this request, he agreed to help take care of these refugees for her without another word.
Adding in the fact that there were more refugees wandering into Seveni’s land, there were over two thousand refugees that had escaped to Seveni’s territory.
Even the Frestech Chamber of Commerce would find it hard to digest all these people. Xu Yi worked with the other companies on the Black Rice Wasteland to take away all these refugees.
But these refugees had been forced to work in magic machine factories by the nobles that ruled over them, so they had a bit of skills and it was easy to integrate into those companies.
The problem that Seveni had to consider now was how to give those refugees a suitable status.
Although many of the refugees came with their entire family, some of them still had family and friends back home. They might never return to the Lampuri Kingdom after leaving, so if they were all sent away now and if they wanted to come back, they might lose their legal identity in the Lampuri Kingdom.
This question wasn’t that hard for Seveni. With her status, it wasn’t hard to ask for some citizenship status from the kingdom’s parliament at all.
The only problem was that there were too many of them.
When she was considering whether she should split them into batches to solve this problem, the door that the deacon had closed before suddenly opened.
Seveni looked up in surprise to find that the the deacon was back and there was someone else with him.
This person didn’t seem to have any strength and he could barely stand while being supported by the deacon. His clothes were a mess and his hair was all over the place, he didn’t look that different from the refugees that escaped to Seveni’s territory.
But if one looked seriously, they could tell that this person was different from those refugees.
This person’s clothes were messy, but they were made with a very high grade material. It was finely crafted and the design was quite new, it wasn’t the kind of clothing that a refugee could wear at all.
Moreover, he was slender and even though he was covered in blood and dirt, one could tell that his skin was quite fair. He didn’t seem like those rough and dark skinned refugees at all.
“Your highness.” The deacon said to Seveni before preparing to help this person to sit down on the side.
Seveni was currently wondering who this person was. How could he be this close to the deacon that he would be brought here? That person heard the deacon’s voice and suddenly looked up.
When his eyes met with Seveni’s, Seveni revealed a shocked look. This person was suddenly filled with strength and broke free of the deacon, rushing in front of Seveni and kneeling down. He hugged Seveni’s leg and cried out.
“Your highness! Save me! Save me! My entire family……was killed by those damn fellows…..I was almost……also killed too…..Save me……”
Seveni was surprised before quickly helping him up. She looked at that face covered in dirt that had a line in it from the tears coming down and found that she hadn’t been wrong. This person was manager Dema’s youngest son, Jarvan.
Because manager Dema was serving Lampuri Thirteenth when Seveni was young and his youngest son was close to Seveni in age, they played together when they were young. Seveni and Jarvan were rather close.
Even if those two became more estranged later when they grew up since there was a difference in status, they met frequently.
At manager Dema’s funeral last year, Seveni had attended and chatted with Jarvan for a while, hoping that he would have a good life.
Although Jarvan seemed quite sad since his father had just passed, he was still the standard image of a noble young master.
She never thought that in a year, he would suddenly become like this.
What surprised Seveni more were the words he said.
“What did you say? Your whole family…..has been killed?” Seveni looked at Jarvan in shock, “You’re saying they were killed? Who is bold enough to kill your entire family?”
Jarvan shook his head, “I…..I don’t know……I was still sleeping when I was suddenly woken up by people screaming. Then there were a bunch of people who came into my house and killed my family. I…..I was forced into hiding by one of the servants……”
Seeing that Jarvan couldn’t speak properly, Seveni couldn’t help knitting her brows.
“You don’t know anything at all?”
Jarvan shook his head in a daze, “I don’t know…..I don’t know any…..No! There should be some clue in here! Father told me before he passed that if something happened to our family, I should come find you and give this to you.”
Jarvan dug in his chest and took out a small package that was wrapped up in leather.
The leather was covered in sweat and blood stains, looking very dirty, but Seveni didn’t care at all as she took it from Jarvan.
Manager Dema said these words to Jarvan before he died, there must be something wrong here.
Opening the leather, she found that there was a sealed letter, a bound book, and a small bottle inside. There was an unknown purple liquid that filled half the bottle.
Seveni looked at the bottle and couldn’t see what it was, so she put it on the side. After thinking about it, she opened the sealed letter.
Once she opened the letter, Seveni’s eyes suddenly shrank.
