Chapter 627: Talia’s Idea

Later that evening, as she tried to cultivate, Talia found it difficult to concentrate as Landon’s answers continued gnawing at her, especially his words about only money that was circulating being part of the economy.

Talia simultaneously felt she understood, and didn’t understand what Queen Natasha, or perhaps Lucas, was trying to do.

Everything seemed to point to the idea of uplifting commoners at the expense of nobles and even royals.

But... why?

The nobles were the ones who ruled over the commoners, that was always how it had been. What’s more, it was the strong who fought in war and who protected the people in peace time.

Why favour the masses while damaging the interests of the powerful?

And why were those powerful forces who were being hurt not raise louder objections?

Was the Rockwell Family’s control of their nation just that strong?

Or was Talia still missing something that prevented her from comprehending what was going on?

Opening her eyes, the Darr Kingdom’s Crown Princess slumped over slightly as she sat on her bed, shaking her head.

All of these mysteries were giving her a headache, as was the idea that Landon had originally brought up in their post-council-meeting.

Talia knew that when her son advised them to go to war immediately, he wasn’t really serious. If anything, it sounded to her like Landon was no longer interested in fighting with the Rockwell Kingdom at all.

For Talia, the decision to go to war strictly a matter of weighing the pros and cons, with the current situation leading her to believe that there were more cons to engaging in an all-out conflict.

For her son, however, Talia suspected that his reasons for not wanting to fight were much more personal.

Landon might have been careful to keep his tone neutral when talking about Lucas, Eris, and Christina, but as his mother, Talia could tell he didn’t think of those three as ’fellow members of the younger generation’, like he did basically all the other youths his age.

With the exception of Zara, of course.

"To think my son’s first real friends would be from the Rockwell Kingdom," Talia mused, thinking that the Heavens really had a bad sense of humour.

Regardless of his personal feelings, though, Talia was also confident her son had given his honest opinion of the situation; unfortunately, that didn’t actually make things easier for her.

After all, if Landon was being earnest, then he really believed that Lucas was the one behind much of the radical developments occurring in the Rockwell Kingdom.

Those developments might not have had much effect yet, but Talia could tell that something was stirring in their neighbours to the west, something that did not bode well for the Darr Kingdom should it remain hostile to them.

"Perhaps we should... get rid of that boy," Talia muttered to herself, a ruthless light flashing across her eyes.

The idea of trying to ’remove’ an 11-year-old boy from the picture didn’t exactly sit well with Talia, but if that was what was necessary for the Darr Kingdom to prosper, then she would not hesitate to take such extreme actions.

However, after contemplating the idea for a bit, the light in Talia’s eyes receded as she shook her head, "No, if Lucas really is that important to the Rockwell Kingdom, then Marquess Balfour has probably already taken measure to guarantee his safety."

In fact, if everything her son suspected Lucas of was true, Talia felt it wouldn’t be far-fetched for Celestina to be willing to sacrifice everything to keep him alive, which meant trying to assassinate him would be as difficult as trying to assassinate Celestina herself or to conquer the entire Balfour March.

"Haaa..." Letting out a long sigh, Talia grumbled for a bit before slapping her cheeks and re-focusing.

If taking out Lucas wasn’t possible then perhaps they could at least learn something from him.

Landon was right that there was no way to replicate what the Rockwell Kingdom was doing in the Darr Kingdom.

Putting it simply, the Darr Family didn’t have enough control, nor did they have someone like Natasha Summers who could single-handedly push through and oversee such radical economic reforms.

"That said," Talia began to ponder, "We may not be able to copy everything the Rockwells are doing, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing we can do with the information we have."

Getting up and walking over to her desk, Talia flipped through a few documents there before coming across a certain proposal which had been submitted to the Royal Council some time ago.

One of the Royal Family’s newest sugar plantations had grown faster than anticipated, so keeping it watered was becoming something of a problem. In order to resolve this issue, it was suggested they build a new dam and channel system, one that would be able to collect and divert enough water to support further agricultural development.

Talia was already planning on approving this project and was currently just waiting for the Royal Council to allocate an appropriate budget.

Once the go-ahead was given, other than receiving regular progress updates, Talia hadn’t been planning on getting involved as it was a relatively small matter, but now...

"Perhaps I can use this as a test," Talia mused to herself, a sharp glint flashing across her eyes.

She had never been one to just sit back and watch when her rivals or enemies made a move. She always had to understand why people did the things they did, especially if she didn’t comprehend their motives or goals at first glance.

This dam project, which would probably involve around 1,000 workers and have a budget of 10 to 20 thousand Gold, was the perfect opportunity to see for herself what kind of effect some of the Rockwell Kingdom’s new policies had.

If these new policies had a positive impact, Talia could hold up the project as proof of concept and push for such reforms to be more widely adopted at least in the regions the Royalists controlled.

If they had no effect at all, then nothing more needed to be done.

And if they had a negative effect, the fallout wouldn’t be significant.

Unfortunately, Talia wouldn’t be able to dedicate too much time or effort to this experiment and would probably have to pass off responsibility for it to someone else in short order.

Putting it simply, she was just too busy.

Trying to maintain the balance between the Royalist and Noble Factions was becoming increasing difficult, not to mention the mysterious organization which had been plaguing the Darr Kingdom’s western border for some time now.

This group might have gotten quieter after the big incident in Sabre Point, but Talia wasn’t na?ve enough to believe they had been destroyed or had given up whatever ambitions they had.

Any organization that was willing to commit multiple Spirit Initiates, and, according to Celestina Balfour, even had a Spirit Adept among its ranks, would not be so easily deterred.

Thinking of Celestina and the Rockwell Kingdom’s united and coordinated response to this exact same issue, Talia couldn’t help feeling a bit frustrated with her own country.

So far, most of the attacks and damage had been suffered in the territories of Royalist nobles, and while it wasn’t enough for Talia to suspect the Nobles were the ones actually committing these assaults, she didn’t doubt they were trying to take advantage of the situation.

Whether they were blaming the attacks on the Rockwell Kingdom to stir up support for a new war, obstructing the investigation of events to damage the Royalist Faction, or both, Talia wasn’t certain, but she wouldn’t put it past the Noble Faction to use such methods to achieve their goals.