The two protagonists of the banquet were naturally the two crown princes of Hadhratah, Harold and Hattar, who were surrounded by the crowd. This also made the originally lively banquet more tense.

On the main seat in the palace, Bazel, the monarch of the Kingdom of Hadhrata, was left aside. However, he did not seem to care about the offense of the nobles. He watched the dispute between the two princes indifferently, as if he was watching a boring drama.

Just as the banquet was gradually reaching its climax, the door of the hall was suddenly opened.

It was like a disgusting maggot had inexplicably appeared on a delicious meal. Upon hearing the extremely presumptuous sound of the door being pushed open, the nobles present all turned their heads towards the door, wanting to see who was so bold.

The person who broke in was a middle-aged man with dishevelled hair and a dirty face. His exquisite clothes were covered with dust and mud, forming a sharp contrast with the people in the banquet hall. The guards guarding the door were trying hard to drag him out...

"Earl Joyce, what's wrong with you?" The eldest prince Harold walked up quickly and said with an unchanging expression.

Joyce was one of his supporters. Not only did he miss the banquet today, but he also barged in at the critical moment in disheveled clothes, without any aristocratic manners, which was a disgrace to himself.

"Your Highness, the miners...those miners are crazy!" Joyce clutched Harold's sleeves tightly with his dusty hands, and tearfully accused those damned miners of suddenly breaking into his territory, burning, killing and looting, so that his castle and manor were occupied by those miners.

Listening to Joyce's story, the nobles almost laughed out loud.

Before, when they saw Joyce in such a miserable state, they thought that those vicious followers of the evil god had come out to cause trouble again, but it turned out to be just a riot of miners?

Of course, this is not to say that similar things are rare.

In fact, just the opposite is true. Miners' riots are common in the Kingdom of Hadrata.

Once these lowly poor people have enough food and strength, they will begin to be dissatisfied with the status quo. You have to know that every miner was bought by them, and mining ore is their job.

However, no matter how many people there are, these miners are just a mob. Usually, it only takes a few rounds of volleys from a hundred or so guards armed with crossbows, and they will scatter. It is as ridiculous as a group of rats trying to provoke a fire lion.

"This time... this time is different!" Joyce said in a hurried tone.

"How is it different, Earl Joyce? Can those miners fly into the sky and shoot arrows at you?" Hattar asked with a sneer.

"Not only did they occupy my castle, they also destroyed the church and smashed the statue of the goddess..." Joyce said in a trembling voice.

The banquet hall, which was originally filled with laughter, immediately became extremely quiet, and you could hear a pin drop. There were cases in the past where cowardly nobles gave blind orders and were killed by rioting miners, but this was the first time that the church and the statue of the goddess were attacked.

"How dare they!" "Mad men, absolutely crazy!"

A cold voice suddenly sounded, and it was Cardinal Ansruk who spoke.

The nobles who had gathered around Joyce immediately dispersed. Anruk, a burly man in a red and gold robe, walked in from the gap made by the crowd. He stood there like a towering mountain, making everyone present feel a huge sense of oppression.

Each earldom has at least one bishop and several priests stationed there, plus thousands of soldiers guarding the castle. A group of rioting miners alone are not enough to capture it, and destroying the statue of the goddess is not something the miners would do.

"I'm not sure, Lord Anruk, but the only ones I saw were the miners." Joyce responded hesitantly.

He had received news before that a group of rioting miners had captured one of his baronies and killed Baron Elvis. Joyce naturally could not tolerate this, so he assembled a guard of a thousand men and personally went out to suppress the riot!

As a result, the damn miners had no martial ethics at all. They came and went like the wind, appearing and disappearing like ghosts. They used poisoning, digging traps, and using internal collusion to do everything they could, leaving them no chance to fight head-on.

His guards were lured into a trap by these miners and died under falling rocks and sharp spikes in the pit.

Joyce finally fought hard and managed to fight his way out under the protection of the guards. However, when he was about to return to the castle and summon the army to fight again, he found that those shameless miners had occupied his castle by making a feint to the east and attacking in the west. He was almost ambushed on his way back...

Joyce, still frightened, could only run to the capital to ask for help, and he also found out a piece of news.

After conquering the Baron of Elvis, the leader of the miners, named Redel, distributed all of the baron's money and land to the poor in the territory. He also captured the local church and killed the local priest.

As for the current situation of the Earldom, Joyce still didn't know, but he estimated that the end would not be too good...

After Joyce told the whole story with exaggeration, anger and a little fear welled up in the hearts of all the nobles. Grand Duke Rickman roared that he would immediately send out a large army to kill those lowly miners. There were several large mines in his territory, so he would naturally not allow such a thing to happen.

"These blasphemers will be punished and fall into eternal purgatory!" Anluk said in a deep voice, then turned to look at King Bazel who was sitting in the main seat and had not said a word so far.

"Your Majesty Bazel, I heard that you have been hesitating about appointing a crown prince recently. Now the mining slave riot that has affected the southeastern part of the kingdom is the best opportunity for the two princes to demonstrate their abilities and use this to decide who will become the next crown prince. What do you think?"

Anluk's words were immediately approved by all the nobles, who echoed him one after another.

King Bazel just watched the nobles and priests shouting one after another, and after a long while he finally responded. "Yes!"

(End of this chapter)