Chapter 347 [Illustration]

Yuria recognized who I was just from what I’d said. There were few in the world who could introduce themselves not just as a friend, but in a way that only Airi could understand. I wasn’t just family, but her

last remaining

family.

Lucinil and I were led into the building, where employees were quietly conversing in offices, possibly conducting loan consultations, even at this hour. There were those who didn’t appear to be succubi among them.

We were led into a restricted area, inaccessible to outsiders, and saw several things behind the scenes. A succubus employee was briefing several armed individuals on various precautions they were to take.

“Be careful not to cause any problems. Of course, most of what we do is legal repossession, as you all know. Let’s keep it within bounds.”

“Yes!”

“Yes!”

“Yes, ma’am!”

They seemed to be debt collectors. The succubus employee, who appeared to be in charge, nodded with her arms crossed.

“We don’t care if people get hurt, but if the seized goods are damaged, that will be considered a loss. Remember, if you break something like a statue to intimidate someone, you’ll be liable for damages.”

“Yes!”

“Yes!”

“Understood!”

“Of course, I assume you know there will be problems if you don’t resolve the collections within the deadline...”

‘Could it be that even these debt collectors are slaves?’

The gentle tone with which these ruthless words were being said made my head spin.

‘Des Airi have a talent for this? How on earth did she get to be this way? I only just wrote about stuff in my room for a living. I can’t fathom it!’

Yuria led us through the building and up the stairs. We went up to the fourth floor, and stopped in front of a room with a sign that read “President’s Office.”

Clang!

Yuria rang the bell to announce our presence and carefully opened the door.

—What is it? I’m busy.

A voice, recognizable but with an unfamiliar sharpness, came from beyond the door.

“President, a very important guest has arrived.”

—I said I’m not meeting with any fleet owners or royalty yet. Tell them to leave.

‘What’s this about?’

“The last remaining family member... has arrived.”

—Family? What do you mean by family... oh...? Could it be—?

Before she finished speaking, hurried footsteps approached the door from the other side, and it swung open.

Since we were in a private indoor area, there was no need to conceal my identity, so I used Sarkegar’s ring to return to my original form as Baalier.

The pink-haired Succubus Queen, Airi, stood in front of me.

“Ah.”

Airi regarded me in my Baalier form and then pulled me into a hug.

Wham!

“Baalier...!”

“Uh, uh... Yeah... Have you been well?”

I knew how much Airi cared for me, but I still felt awkward around her. Airi, overwhelmed with joy, held onto me for quite some time.

***

Despite being named Angel Capital, the moneylending business seemed to lean more towards the demonic than the angelic.

In the president’s office, Lucinil, Airi, and I sat at a guest table. After a moment, a secretary brought out some tea.

Lucinil covered her cup with her hand as Airi tried to pour tea for her, shaking her head.

“Oh, I’m not going to drink. You don’t have to serve me.”

Airi seemed puzzled. “Oh, this is...?”

“If you know about Eleris, then you should also know about the Vampire Lords. I’m Lucinil, head of the family of Wednesday.”

“Vampire Lord...?”

Airi nodded blankly at Lucinil’s introduction. Though I didn’t fully understand why, Airi seemed quite surprised that I had secured the help of another Vampire Lord.

“... I’ve managed to acquire some help, somehow,” I said to Airi.

Come to think of it, I wasn’t sure what positions Sarkegar, Loyar, and Eleris held within the Demon King’s army.

I only knew that they had infiltrated the capital as part of a covert operation. In hindsight, I realized how little I knew about the Demon Realm and my subordinates. Airi regarded Lucinil for a moment before bowing her head slightly.

“It seems you haven’t formed a bond of allegiance with Baalier. I’m Airi.”

With that brief introduction, Airi turned to me. “You must have a lot of questions, Baalier.”

“... Yeah. I thought you were just running a tavern. How did all this come about?”

I had no idea what kind of business she was running, its scale, or how it was being conducted.

“A simple business has its limits when it comes to seizing financial power.”

That was a given, but pursuing such a lofty goal and achieving it was no simple task.

Airi’s ambition was to seize control of the empire’s financial system and trigger an economic crisis. I had suggested it as a purpose for her to live, without expecting much, but Airi had taken it seriously and achieved far more than I had anticipated.

“At first, I knew nothing. I sought a lot of advice from my patrons.”

It started with the tavern. Taverns naturally attracted people. In the early days, there were many issues with unruly customers, but Airi and the succubi had no trouble handling drunken troublemakers.

As word spread and more people began to frequent the tavern, Airi established a VIP system. A special service for those who spent outrageously on drinks.

Through conversations with them, Airi deepened her understanding of finances. How to earn money, how to manage it, and how these wealthy individuals had made their fortunes. Some inherited wealth, others were naturally gifted, but many had started from scratch and succeeded.

“I considered real estate and investments, but I judged that no other business could rapidly increase capital like this in the short term. So I started this venture.”

“... Is it that easy to start such a business?”

“More important than money are the connections one has with those who hold it.”

While running the tavern, Airi had not only made money, but had also built a crucial network. She borrowed when needed and received investments when necessary. All of this seemed remarkably easy for Airi.

“Of course, it’s not just about the money. Money is a tool that can be used to bind people.”

Airi took a sip of her tea and then set the cup down with a sinister smile.

“By binding someone with debt, you can make them your slave, regardless of their status.”

It didn’t matter if these people were nobles, royals, or wealthy merchants. Money and debt were themselves powerful. By binding someone with massive debt, you owned them. Everything they had became yours, and they became a slave to your words.

The Succubus Queen, who had lost her horns, was doing something bizarre—enslaving others not with allure and temptation, but with money. While moneylending itself had a negative image, Airi was doing it in a slightly different context.

She wasn’t doing it to make money. She was doing it to bind people, to make them her slaves.

“... So what’s going on now?”

“We no longer run the tavern, but we provide moneylending services to those former VIP clients. Rajak is a port city, bustling with ships heading to and from the continent. Captains and trade fleets aim to maximize profits by securing contracts for the most valuable goods headed to the continent, and they do the same when returning to Rajak. Traders make money by selling these goods, earning anywhere from four to five times to several dozen times the market price.”

“... I see.”

“Of course, they can’t do it with just their own money, so they take massive loans to secure the most expensive goods or secure investments. In return, they offer a share of the profits later on.”

It was a means of receiving dividends in exchange for investing in trade fleets. I was familiar with such practices.

“People are greedy. Once they’ve made a huge profit from a single trade, they don’t just settle for trading safely by using their existing ships without incurring more debt. After seeing a profit, they take on more debt or seek out more investments in order to increase their fleet, hire more sailors and captains, and the cycle repeats endlessly. There are no exceptions.”

Airi must have observed this behavior repeatedly. She’d gotten a sense of the endless desires that humans had from listening to these captains who returned from their long voyages.

“Ship captains and fleet owners have such ambitions, and what moneylenders do is lend money at exorbitant interest rates to these greedy fleet owners. If they can’t repay the debt, the lenders then seize the ships or trade goods. Since the interest rates are high, it’s still profitable whether they get repaid or not. As long as the fleet isn’t wiped out by a storm, they can’t help but make money.”

Airi didn’t just observe the captains. She had listened intently to many influential figures who had visited from around the region.

Captains who set sail on long voyages for the purposes of trade, fleet owners who hire those captains to captain their ships, and moneylenders who lend money to those fleet owners... Airi had learned about the complex hierarchy of organizations involved in making money from this industry while running the tavern.

In Airi’s case,though, there seemed to be a slightly different goal than just making money. She was enslaving them. That word carried a certain resonance.

“So I lend them money, and if they can’t meet the interest deadlines, I raise the interest rates or charge additional fees. If that doesn’t work, I demand shares in the fleet or additional shares of profits from the sale of trade goods.”

It was clear that Airi was making a massive amount of money by managing capital.

“At this rate, though, it would take too long. So I’m using a slightly different method.”

Airi’s dream was to seize control of the empire’s financial system. Even though she had already achieved incredible success, it wasn’t enough.

“I’m intentionally manipulating the financial situations of captains, fleet owners, trading companies, and merchants who borrow from us. I make them borrow to their limits and ensure they have no spare funds when it’s time to pay the interest.”

“... What?!”

“Simply put, I’m forcing them into bankruptcy, through default after default after default. I brand them as unable to pay, and reduce their credit to zero. Then I can execute forced seizures.”

I was stunned by the unexpected revelation. If one controlled the flow of money in the market, one could do such things by simply squeezing a financial channel.

“If I simultaneously bankrupt about three large trade fleets, the moneylenders, merchants, and local fleets tied to the Edina Archipelago will collapse along with them. It’ll be a chain reaction of bankruptcies.”

If large trade fleets went bankrupt and seizures began, not only would the moneylenders expecting payment lose their income, but the local fleets who were contracted to transport incoming trade goods would also lose their cargo, and everyone involved in the business would collapse together. It was like subcontractors going bankrupt following the collapse of a major corporation.

Airi calmly drank the last drop of tea from her cup.

“Once all the large fleets are gone, the merchants can’t buy or sell traded goods. Captains lose their ships. Sailors lose their jobs. Sailors without money can’t drink. Then, taverns can’t sell alcohol and go bankrupt. Like dominoes, they all fall in a chain reaction. And then the economy becomes paralyzed.”

‘Was all that talk of enslaving others not her real goal? Bringing down a national economy? Why on earth...?’

“So you’re not out to make money, but to cause an economic crisis? Why?” I asked, bewildered.

Airi smiled slyly. “The goal is to dismantle the trade fleet cartel of the Edina Archipelago.”

“... Huh?”

Another unexpected revelation...

“No matter how much money I have, it won’t be enough to control the entire market. I could never raise enough capital on my own to do so.”

Airi looked out the office window. “This is all possible only because the Edinan Royal Bank is backing me.”

She was essentially a moneylender with unlimited credit.

“It’s not that it’s impossible to construct a mega warp gate to connect the Edina Archipelago to the continent; it’s that they can’t build one even if they want to. If it were just a matter of distance, building another mega warp gate on an uninhabited island along the route would solve the problem, wouldn’t it?”

“... No way.”

“Yes. It’s impossible to build one because of the constant lobbying and obstruction led by the representatives of the trade fleet cartel.”

The reason why the Edina Archipelago did not have a mega warp gate was not because of practical reasons. It was because of opposition from large interest groups whose profits depended on maritime trade.

Despite all her previous talk of royalty and such, Airi had made a secret pact with the Edina Archipelago’s royal family.

“If the chain bankruptcies triggered by the collapse of the trading fleets lead to an economic crisis, they’ll have no choice but to accept the construction of a mega warp gate to improve the overall economic outlook of the Edina Archipelago. This will give the Edenian royal family the mandate to collaborate with the empire to push for the construction of a mega warp gate.”

“... Wow.”

It was both shocking and surprising. I had purposely sent her to a place far from the empire’s reach, and now, she was trying to build a bridge herself.

I was at a loss for words.

“In return, I get about ninety percent of the profits from the operation of the mega warp gate.”

What she was after was not the control of these large trade fleets, but their collapse. And after that, a near monopoly on the trade rights between the Edina Archipelago and the continent. That was the picture Airi was painting.

***

“I sent you here, a place far from the empire’s reach, and now you’re trying to build a bridge. How am I supposed to take this?” I grumbled.

Airi flashed a grim smile. “You’re walking on thin ice in the imperial capital, and I don’t want to believe that you’ll solve everything for me while I sit safely here without taking any risks.”

Airi believed there was something she could do and wanted to do something, anything. She had even talked about selling themselves as slaves to humans to raise capital.

Airi wasn’t just relying on her own strength; she had connections with the Edinan royal family. Without that, she couldn’t have pursued a business of this scale.

“Anyway, the Edina Archipelago relies too heavily on maritime trade. But if a mega warp gate connecting the continent and the archipelago is built, the social costs incurred by the need to operate these fleets will decrease, and the economic situation will improve significantly. That’s why the royal family has been pushing to build a mega warp gate for a long time.”

“And those involved in the maritime trade have been blocking it continuously?”

“That’s right.”

Without the warp gate, those involved in the maritime trade were indispensable in the Edina Archipelago.

“When discussions about building a warp gate began, the maritime trade cartels threatened to strike and paralyze the national economy. They’ve done it before, and each time the economy has faltered. A mega warp gate can’t be built overnight, so the question was always whether the economy could weather the complete paralysis of maritime trade during that time.”

The maritime trade cartels had a stranglehold on the Edina Archipelago, and had complete control over their economic fate. Though their practical utility has diminished, they managed to maintain their dominance over the Edina Archipelago through strikes and the threat of strikes.

“Because of this, the royal family wants to eliminate the maritime trade cartels altogether. They believe that, despite the bloodshed and chaos that could ensue, it’s better to build a mega warp gate and completely dismantle the cartel. And if I fail, the royal family can simply cut ties.”

If Airi’s intentions to dismantle the entire maritime trade cartel become apparent and she becomes their target, the royal family could always withdraw their support.

“It’s too risky,” I said.

“Perhaps.”

“Even if everything goes as you say, there’s a real possibility that the Edinan royal family might betray you later on.”

If things went wrong, they could always cut ties, and even if things went according to Airi’s plan, it was possible that the royal family would discard her once she served her purpose. She was shouldering an excessively large risk.

“No, Baalier, that won’t happen,” Airi said confidently.

“Why is that?”

“You know why.” Airi gave a subtle smile. “We’re just too easy to love.”

The fleet owners she intended to bring down and the members of the royal family who were secretly collaborating with her... She knew that they would never abandon her because they were utterly infatuated with her.

The Queen of the Succubi... Even without her horns, Airi hadn’t lost that kind of confidence.

“Some might already see my actions as suspicious or think that I’ve crossed a line. That’s why I don’t do business with civilians who don’t know me well or haven’t seen me much.”

To her, it was just a matter of playing with those already enamored with her.

Airi reassured me that there was nothing to worry about.