Sorting Things Out
The bid had failed.
Technically, we'd only been pushed down to the second-place contender — but there was zero chance the preferred negotiator would walk away from the deal. After all, even if you won the bid and just carved up the assets to sell them off, you'd still come out several times richer than what you'd put in.
They'd claw their way to a full acquisition no matter what.
So this is what failure feels like, at last.
I'd succeeded at failing — so did that count as a success? Or had I failed at succeeding — so was this a failure? A rather philosophical puzzle, really.
Of course, I couldn't let my guard down until the very end. What if the preferred negotiator suddenly went bankrupt and the chance swung back around to us?
"My lord! The competing merchant group burned down and went bankrupt!"
"GAAAAAH!!!"
Something like that happening wouldn't even be strange at this point.
Still — we'd succeeded for now, so I ought to savor the leisure of failure—
"My lord!"
"What is it now, for fuck's sake."
"Pardon?"
"Ah, nothing. What is it?"
Haa. Why is nothing ever easy? My head was already throbbing. Please, please don't tell me the preferred negotiator just abandoned the acquisition. I don't want to do anything.
"Well — the Ministry of Commerce has requested that we take over several merchant groups."
"Excuse me? Out of nowhere?"
"Yes. Since we failed every single bid we entered. In exchange, it seems they want to push a few of the groups we never bid on over to our side."
"Excuse me?"
No. This wasn't some middle-school field trip. Was there a losers' bracket now? A last-chance comeback with five hundred cheer points? Didn't this kind of thing have fairness issues?
"However, the conditions are a bit strict. For the next five years, we're not allowed to liquidate any real estate, cash-equivalent assets, equity, or facilities. And employee employment has to be inherited as-is."
"Hm?"
"Well — if companies broken up under the Anti-Monopoly Act completely collapse and stop functioning, it causes problems for the Empire's industry as a whole. Especially since the companies they've asked us to take over are, in various ways, rather important to the Empire."
"…So why, exactly, are they asking us to handle something so important?"
"Because you have a great deal of cash, my lord."
"I do?"
"Ah. More precisely, the merchant groups you own have a great deal of cash."
"Ah. I see."
Maybe I should have just spent the money like water after all.
I'd told them to pile it up in the warehouse because I was sure real estate would rocket skyward if we bought any — and I never imagined the universe would smack me in the back of the head like this.
No, hang on. If you stack up that much cash, doesn't most of it just go out the door as taxes?
I was giving money to the country, wasn't I? So why was the country kicking away a chance to make money? Wasn't this, like, a breach of fiduciary duty or something?
"Acquiring a company and restoring it to normal operation requires an enormous amount of cash, and almost no merchant group can manage that without selling off company assets. And then, my lord, you failed your bids. Every merchant group you own is a cash cow that prints money — so they judged you'd never be in trouble for lack of liquidity."
"I don't have much money. I'm broke."
"For reference, refusal is not an option."
"Excuse me?"
"The Ministry of Commerce's prestige is on the line. If they brandish the Anti-Monopoly Act and the imperial economy ends up a wreck instead, they'll never be able to swing that law again. From the Ministry's perspective, that is an utterly unacceptable scenario."
"…Ah. Right."
These lunatics at the Imperial Ministry of Commerce.
Was there no such thing as a free-market economy around here? Why did I have to buy merchant groups? Huh? Just inheriting the ones my father already owned was more than enough busywork, thank you very much.
No — I didn't even want to inherit those.
Seriously. Why wouldn't the world just leave me alone?
Sniff. I can never be happy…
The merchant group the Empire had asked us to acquire was one that specialized in magic-tool manufacturing.
"Ah. So this music-playing magic tool was made by them?"
"Yes. Beyond that, every magic tool compatible with this one can be considered a product of theirs as well. They monopolized the compatible standard, crushed the other merchant groups with it, and seized the market."
"Ah. I see."
It had been a company that made all sorts of magic tools — audio devices, storage devices, and so on. Once it locked down the market, it unified its product lines under a proprietary standard that wouldn't work with anyone else's tools, and every competing merchant group that couldn't use that standard went under.
Which was exactly why the Anti-Monopoly Act had taken a cleaver to them. As a result, the acquisition conditions included fully opening the licenses for that standard and providing technical consulting to other merchant groups.
In other words: don't monopolize it — share it. The group was valuable now because it still held the market, but once the technology transfer was done, its profitability would naturally shrink.
Which made it, in every sense, a white elephant of a merchant group. There was a reason no one else had casually stepped up to buy it.
"What we've been given are the divisions that specialize in small-scale magic tools. The large-scale magic tools used in performance halls and public works went to other merchant groups."
"Ah. Right."
The original merchant group had already been carved up under the Anti-Monopoly Act. Naturally, we couldn't take the whole thing.
Which meant we were acquiring only a few core business units… or a particular branch office… or just the research lab…
Anyway, it was a rather complicated situation. Like splitting open a kimbap roll and walking off with only the ham and the pickled radish.
Ugh. Me, Dummy Otto. Management is hard.
I had no idea what to touch, where, or how.
Without Miss Elise — the elite of elites who'd graduated from business school — I'd have been completely lost.
"Miss Elise. Uh, please just sort out the traffic for me somehow."
"Understood."
Even when I asked like an idiot, she delivered like a genius. Thanks to her, I was at least saved from dying under a mountain of paperwork.
"First, we'll fold the research institute and development division under our Cave Merchant Group. We already maintain cooperative relationships with a number of Magic Towers, so I expect there will be synergy."
"Ah. Right."
"And the production division will be integrated into the Kissinger Merchant Group. The most critical factor in magic-tool manufacturing is the supply of magic stones, and the Kissinger Merchant Group owns countless landfills of spent magic stones. Manager Kissinger — I'm leaving this to you."
"Pardon? Me?"
"Yes. You."
"I know absolutely nothing about magitech engineering. Will that be all right?"
"What does a manager need to know about the technology for?"
"Ah. Right."
Hmm. Miss Elise was being a little sharp today.
Come to think of it, she had seemed faintly jealous that Manager Kissinger got to run a merchant group under his own name. Especially after the new one had been named the Lotte Merchant Group after my sister Liselotte — she'd been even more conscious of it since then.
Well, we still couldn't just rename the Cave Merchant Group the Elise Merchant Group.
I'd honestly love to just hand the whole merchant group over to Miss Elise…
But since that wasn't possible, I could only feel regret.
If the Imperial Family ever came to shake me down, I was confident I could smile and hand everything over. Maybe I should quietly float a deal to Miss Elise later. If I asked the Emperor, wouldn't it be possible?
Father would be furious, of course — but he was just a merchant lord. What could he really do against the Imperial Family?
I'll save that as a last resort for now.
Anyway, Miss Elise kept right on sorting out the traffic.
"As for the sales and distribution divisions, I think the Lotte Merchant Group can handle those. They already have inventory management and after-sales service know-how, plus connections with various public institutions. Opening up sales channels should be several times easier."
"Yes, ma'am!"
And just like that, the merchant group that had been smashed into pieces was reassembled under Miss Elise's direction. Wow. Having a competent employee really did make life easy.
Did they even need me? Couldn't Miss Elise just handle everything by herself? Why was I standing here? Mm-hmm. Right. Better not get in the way — if I slipped out now—
"In that case, my lord — if you would."
"Pardon?"
"Final approval and review of the acquisition has to come from you, my lord. You'll also need to coordinate various matters with the Ministry of Commerce, and since employment succession was a condition, you'll have to go around meeting the workers' unions as well. There's also the matter of your personal accounting. You'll likely be quite busy for a while."
"GAAAAAH!"
Ah. Aah. Aaaaah.
This can't be real!!!
At this rate I was going to end up with a hole in my head like Father! A little circle forming right on the crown of my skull! The kind you deliberately comb your hair over to hide! And because you comb it the wrong way, even more hair falls out!
This world had virility tonics but no hair-loss medicine…! No — originally it didn't even have virility tonics either. Anyway, at this rate my hairline was in danger…! Aaaaaargh!
…Just in case, should I invest in developing a hair-loss cure?
I absolutely, absolutely, absolutely hated the idea of more work… but I'd just felt a threat to my life. With my luck, a hair-loss cure development project would probably work out somehow. No. Deliberately creating more work for myself was still wrong.
I'd save that as a true last-last resort.
"I'll attend you at your side."
"…Yes. As expected, there's no one like you, Miss Elise."
"Heh heh. Thank you."
Ah. I want to quit.