Why Does Money Keep Coming In So Easily?
The money had multiplied.
But these were funds I'd pulled in through gambling. It was hard to call that my own ability. In other words, I still hadn't shown a single competent side of myself.
This was pure luck.
If luck had gone the other way, I would've lost every last coin and been summoned straight home. Father would have sighed and cut off my allowance. Then I would have lived the freeloader's life, secretly pocketing pocket money from my older brothers and sisters.
Damn it. To miss out on a dream life like that. Gambling really was this dangerous. So this was why people said gambling ruined families and fortunes.
It's fine. I can still recover.
All I had to do was show how incompetent I was, starting right now. I had money, so I just needed to spend it as incompetently as possible.
"Young Master. How should we allocate this budget? First we ought to expand the processing magic tools—"
"Put every last coin into buying spent magic stones."
"What? But we don't have the capacity to process that volume. We're short on magic tools as it is. Storing all those spent magic stones would rack up warehouse fees... and demand for industrial magic stone powder has been falling lately."
"I take full responsibility. I swear it on the name of Otto Lothringen."
"The name of Lothringen..."
If it went under, I'd have to take the blame? Even better. If necessary I could stake Grandfather's name too. Unfilial? Who cares—as long as I took the fall.
"A-Alright!"
Overwhelmed by my force of will, the manager nodded.
"As Young Master commands, we will focus everything on securing spent magic stones. It goes against our merchant group's philosophy, but after all, it's the money Young Master earned."
"Not earned. Won."
"Pardon?"
"Anyway, buy the spent magic stones."
The uses for magic stones were expanding every year. Even the processing magic tools of a recycling merchant group all ran on them. That meant vast quantities of spent magic stones were being produced.
On the flip side, spent magic stones with no mana left had extremely limited uses. They were closer to industrial waste than anything else. Even if processing could recycle them, their price had nowhere to rise.
In the end, the longer time goes on, the more losses I'll take.
Warehouse storage fees. The falling price of spent magic stones. Opportunity costs. All of it would look like pure incompetence on my part. A perfect, self-created loss. At this rate Father would never even dream of entrusting a merchant group to me.
"Sweep up every spent magic stone supply contract you can. As factories multiply, plenty of outfits are struggling with disposal. If we offer to handle recovery ourselves, a lot of them will hand the stuff over for free."
"A-Understood."
After issuing the orders to the manager, I went back to my own work. Ugh. I hated working. Right now I was just stamping documents, but what I really wanted was to do absolutely nothing with far more intensity. I wanted to live as a resting youth, collecting allowance from my brothers and sisters and doing jack-all.
"Haa..."
Manager Kissinger let out a long sigh. His arms were piled high with spent magic stone recovery contracts.
Is this really the right call...?
Spent magic stones were, fundamentally, discarded resources. Process them and you got industrial magic stone powder, but the quality was so abysmal it only found use in a handful of specialized trades.
Demand was naturally low. You could buy them cheap, but at the end of the day they were still garbage. We were hauling in what other people paid disposal fees to get rid of, and paying storage and transport on top of it. Creative loss, pure and simple.
...Young Master must have a plan.
Wasn't he the man who had multiplied the merchant group's capital several hundred times with those miraculous schemes? He claimed he'd won it all gambling, but he clearly had solid information.
Right. Trust Young Master.
And so, leaving only enough cash to barely cover warehouse costs, they poured every remaining coin into spent magic stones. As a bonus they even bought up several of the existing spent magic stone landfills—if warehouse space ran short, they could just bury the stuff.
In effect, every scrap of spent magic stone from the industrial zones would now flow into their merchant group. Monopolizing trash was still monopolizing trash, of course.
"Manager, is this actually right...?"
"Heheh. Young Master surely has a plan."
"We're not a trash landfill business!"
"We are now."
"A business that pays money to buy trash and bury it—what a trashy business."
"Oh. Poetic. I like it."
"I'm insulting it."
"Then it's a poetic insult."
Financial Director Lovelace was cursing, but what could you do? When the top said jump, you jumped. If she hated it that much, she shouldn't have taken Lothringen investment. That was just how business with other people's money worked.
"Heheh."
"Don't laugh. It's getting endearing."
"Getting endearing is a good thing."
"If this merchant group goes under, I'll just re-employ at another Lothringen affiliate."
"Then we simply won't go under."
"How do we not go under when we're throwing money into the dirt?"
"It's still money Young Master brought in, isn't it?"
"Buying spent magic stones means our operating costs are about to balloon. Before, even if money came in slowly, almost none went out. Now it's a time attack."
"You think Young Master doesn't know that?"
"He looks like he doesn't."
"I say Young Master has a plan."
"What plan?"
"That, I wouldn't know."
"Oh, for heaven's sake."
Lovelace kept grumbling, but Kissinger only smiled, knowing it came from worry. She was a founding contributor—an employee from before they ever sold shares to the Lothringens. She was already as good as family.
"Well, Young Master Otto is a Lothringen, after all."
"Yes. And?"
"There's a rather famous saying among merchant lords."
"What saying?"
"Lothringens never make the wrong choice."
"What? That's a saying?"
"It actually comes from an incident about ten years ago—"
Just as Kissinger was about to launch into the story, the merchant group's communication magic tool chimed and cut him off.
Chase Merchant Group is requesting communication.
"Hm? What's this about?"
"I'll take it."
Lovelace rose from her seat and answered the communication magic tool.
"Yes. Kissinger Merchant Group."
"Ah. Chase Merchant Group here. Is the person in charge of spent magic stone recovery contracts available?"
"That would be me. Go ahead."
"Well, the thing is, we'd like to withdraw the spent magic stone recovery contract we signed a few days ago."
"What? That's going to be difficult. We've already paid out warehouse leases and transport fees."
"Is there really no way? We'll compensate any losses, of course."
"Hm. One moment. Let me check internally and get back to you."
"Yes, yes. Please contact us as soon as you can."
Chase Merchant Group ran factories of considerable size—far larger than Kissinger Merchant Group. Yet their tone had been oddly deferential. That meant something felt off. Was there something special about the spent magic stones they were supposed to hand over?
"What did they want?"
"They want to cancel our spent magic stone recovery contract."
"What? Out of nowhere?"
"Yes. And their attitude was a little suspicious—"
Before she could finish, the communicator rang again.
Demeter Merchant Group
Another merchant group this time. Same request, though.
"About that spent magic stone landfill you acquired last time—would it be possible for us to buy it back?"
"What?"
Contract withdrawal. Repurchase. Cancellation. Takeover. The line disconnected, reconnected, disconnected, reconnected. The same story repeated again and again. Everyone wanted spent magic stones—as if they had found gold inside them. What in the world was going on?
"There really must be something in those spent magic stones."
"See? Glad we trusted Young Master, aren't you?"
"No—spent magic stones are just mana-less waste, aren't they? Why is everyone suddenly desperate for them?"
"Maybe they aren't waste."
"What?"
"Must have some use we don't know about."
"What use?"
"How would I know?"
"Unbelievable."
"Still, something's definitely there, right?"
It was the same back-and-forth as before, but this time there was no playful joking in it. Something was happening. Somewhere beyond their knowledge, the value of the spent magic stones they held was rocketing upward. Lovelace thought for a moment, then yanked the magic stone clean out of the communication tool. The furiously ringing communicator fell silent as a corpse.
"First things first—we need to hire people to dig the spent magic stones back out of the landfills."
"Already?"
"If we wait until everyone else starts moving, it'll be too late."
"Fair point."
They still had no idea what was going on... but they could smell money. A thick, sweet, intoxicating smell of money.
My steps on the way to work felt light. By now the manager was probably staring at a warehouse stuffed full of spent magic stones and heaving a sigh. Sooner or later word of my incompetence would reach Father's ears, and I would be free of merchant-group work forever. Ahh. The day I became a full-time resting youth was almost here.
"I-Is this real?!"
"Holy hell..."
I walked into the merchant group still lost in pleasant daydreams—and the atmosphere was wrong. Everyone was staring at something with the vacant look of people possessed. The moment Manager Kissinger spotted me, he came sprinting over with something clutched in his hands.
"Y-Young Master! You have to see this!"
"What? Did the warehouse catch fire?"
"We've hit the jackpot!"
"Excuse me?"
What Kissinger was holding was a newspaper magic tool—a device that delivered economic breaking news faster than anyone else. What on earth had happened to cause this much chaos—
"What the hell is this supposed to mean."
What the fuck. Spent magic stones were just waste. Right?
"Uwahaha! Young Master truly had it all planned from the start!"
"Haha..."
Why does money keep coming in so easily?