Shota's Isekai NTR Adventure

Chapter 703 A poor country (3)

When we were done inspecting the village, the next place that we went was one of the copper mines near the capital.

This time, it was much more restrictive.

The prime ministers and ministers did all that they could to keep us from going to certain parts of the mine. At the same time, they did what they could to stop us from talking to the people working at the mine.

It was as if they were doing all that they could to stop the mine from catching our eyes.

This was most likely because they didn't want to give up these ores.

They were happy to give up crops as compensation, but it wasn't the same for the ores that they obtained from this mine.

These ores were important for not just creating weapons and armours, it was also what they used for creating the tools and items that they exported. It wasn't just important for the military, it was also important for the economy.

But the most important thing was, it was their benefits that would be hurt if the ores were taken.

The one that benefited from these ores and the sale of the items created from these ores were the nobles of the Beirut Kingdom. They were the ones that pocketed most of the money that came from the sale of these items, so naturally they didn't want to give up these things.

It wasn't a small amount of money that they were siphoning from this.

At the same time, it could also be said that it was a large amount of money that went to support the Beirut Kingdom.

So they didn't want to lose any of this.

But more importantly, the fourth prince and I noticed that there was something very wrong with this mine.

It was that the people who worked here were all clearly malnourished and overworked.

It almost seemed like they would fall over at any moment at this rate with how much it seemed like they were being abused.

It made it very clear that the working conditions in this mine were not very good, but it seemed that the people working here didn't have any choice. After all, there was a large number of guards that were standing all around the mine.

The prime minister and ministers all said that this was to protect their precious mine, but it was clear that this wasn't the case.

"It seems like the situation in the Beirut Kingdom isn't even worse than we thought."

The fourth prince secretly said this to me and I nodded in agreement to this.

The other reason that we had requested to see the mines and farms in the Beirut Kingdom was because of the rumours that we had heard.

Well, it really wasn't the rumours that I had heard, but rather the rumours that the fourth prince had heard.

These rumours had given the fourth prince an idea of how to take care of the Beirut Kingdom, which was why we had to inspect these places first.

And after inspecting them, I had to say that I was far more disappointed than I thought I would be.

It was clear that this place was not a good place for its citizens to live in.

Once we had finished inspecting the mines, the prime minister and ministers looked like they had somewhere else that they wanted to take us.

However…

"We have seen enough. We want to go back and rest for now." I suddenly said this when they asked us where we wanted to go.

The prime minister and ministers were all surprised to hear this, but they couldn't help feeling that something was off.

If it was anywhere else, they might not have been as worried.

But in this place where their interests were, they had no choice but to be worried.

After all, since they wanted to stop after seeing the mine, didn't it make sense that they had already decided on taking the resources from the mine?

But they couldn't let that happen since it would hurt their benefits if the things from the mines were taken.

So they had to do something to distract them.

In the end, they had no choice but to give up.

We were the ones that held all the cards, so the only thing that they could do was try to give suggestions to us. They couldn't force us to go anywhere that we didn't want to go, so they just had to accept that we didn't want to go and bring us back to our residence.

But along the way, they still tried to make more suggestions.

So I had the wyvern riders give them the same treatment as before.

When we arrived back at the residence, the prime minister and ministers were just happy that they could touch the ground.

We didn't give them any time to say anything else before quickly heading into the residence.

With this, they had no choice but to give up on trying to convince us otherwise.

But the one thing that they could do was report this to the king and try to figure something out.

So they didn't bother us anymore and immediately headed to the castle.

That didn't mean that we were idle during this.

The fourth prince and I gathered in one of the rooms of the residence alone.

That was because everyone else that was with our group was standing guard outside this place.

They were completely focused on making sure that not a single thing could enter or escape from this room. They were making sure that no matter what happened, no one would be able to hear our conversation.

That was because we had something important to discuss.

"It seems that this country is much poorer than we had expected." The fourth prince opened up with this.

I nodded in agreement without saying a thing.

"Not only that, it seems that those at the top are quite tyrannical."

It wasn't just the fourth prince, I also knitted my brows when I heard this.