Perhaps the profits were simply too great. Hudson had only just returned to his territory from the Royal Capital when the Dark Elves' envoy arrived with gifts.
They were all "local specialties" from the underground world.
Ever since the tax officials had taken up station, gifts prepared for Lord Hudson had become the only goods exempt from taxation.
"Elder Luthesia, tax rates are an exceedingly complicated matter.
"The tax laws of Snow Moon Territory were established only after comprehensive consideration from many angles.
"The seventy percent tax rate you mentioned is not a single tax, but the combined total of many different taxes.
"These include the kingdom's import tariff, the territory's import tariff, transit tax, carriage tax, road construction tax, transaction tax, the kingdom's export tariff... as well as the rarely seen otherworld import tariff and continental import tariff.
"The rates for each individual tax are not high. The main reason is that your circumstances are special, concentrating numerous taxes upon yourselves.
"If you wish to make adjustments, the tax laws must be revised anew. That is absolutely not something that can be completed overnight."
For the sake of the gifts, Hudson explained patiently.
As a moral great noble, he would not levy arbitrary charges. Every tax had a legal basis.
Although he had drafted the laws himself, they had still been enacted through proper legal procedures.
Yet when those words reached Elder Luthesia's ears, their meaning changed entirely.
Merely borrowing passage through Snow Moon Territory required them to bear more than thirty different taxes. It was simply murderous.
The other taxes were one thing, but there was even an otherworld import tariff, as though there really were cross-world trade.
It was clearly a tax law created specifically to target them.
And beyond that, there were plenty more bizarre tax