"Drugs, huh?" Luka placed a hand on his chin and deliberated on my words a bit. It was nice to see him start accepting people for who they were. Transmigrator rights, people.
"Why are you asking me though?" Luka asked. "I mean, I don't think I was involved with any small businesses or any big public health crisis like this. And honestly, with invaders all around, some people were better off with drugs."
"Nope," Albert shook his head. "We don't mean small stuff like that. As much as I hate to admit it, Eugene's Dark Moon truly is better at gathering information than most I have seen. That they could understand that they could trace the few shipments and rumors and deduce that the Fonias are also dealing in drugs was pretty impressive."
Albert had quizzed the two glasses like a professor checking if the submitted project was truly completed by the student or not. They were really weirded out, but managed to answer everything.
"If it was small drugs like that then they would have found out. Something scarier, worse."
"Probably something that can't be in the hand of commoners and won't be of use to anyone but a strong niche."
Luka raised his head and thought a bit more.
"Drugs like that, huh? Reminds me of one of the displeasing demons."
I slightly flinched.
"There was one that gave people a potion that could increase their strength rapidly. It was somewhat of a popular item amongst demon worshippers…"
"Demon worshippers? Again?"
"You think they are involved?"
Intriguing.
What was the reason that they couldn't be? A niche market, possibly highly paying clients, and considering that the Fonias had three hundred years of history as being the big bad of this country, it wasn't far off.
I licked my lips.
It seemed I was going to get another chunk of hell for myself.
It was going to be helpful for me to unify all the realms before the outer gods made their way inside.
"What was the name of the demon?"
"Bathym," Luka answered.
"Drugs and devil worshippers, money lending, and lastly a black market. Guess we have something we need to bring down right away."
Albert stretched his hands.
"How are you planning on doing it?"
We had a month long time.
And three businesses to take care of. Doing it legally would be troublesome, and I still did want to win over their business and take their influence over the kingdom for myself.
One of them was too shrouded in mystery.
"Albert," I called. "Do you think you can handle the money-lending business with everyone here?"
"Sounds good," Albert nodded.
"I'll go and personally sniff into the drugs thing," I said. "And then we can handle the black market later."
And then.
We'll just go ahead and swallow the entirety of Schwarz. The princess would have no choice but to help us as well.
"Money lending, huh… I guess it's time to show the power of modern day business strategies."
"Woah, scary…"
I guess he must have been grinning evilly.
Well, the same one was falling on mine too.
"Scary!"
***
That evening, I had called everyone together to share dinner. It felt strange for me to not eat with the people living in my house, even without them living in the same house, I always felt a need to eat with others, but maybe it was about time I got used to that strangeness.
"Blah blah blah."
"Blab blab blah."
"What? I can't hear you?"
"Speak louder."
It was fine with two, or maybe even ten people, but this here was a giant ass circus troupe that I was stuck with. All of them were worse than circus clowns as well, which made hearing one over the other tougher.
Well, at least the table was lively.
Keith and Albert did seem greatly annoyed by the large crowd though. And the two Fonias twins were extremely uncomfortable.
I spent most of the time chatting with Lethe and telling her about my plans in the future. Eventually, when everyone finished up, I decided it to be a good time to intervene their conversations.
"Alright, all of you, ears here please."
"Heh? Why would we do that—"
I threw a fork at Luka and he shut right up.
"You might know or not, but we're planning to purge this country of some serious evil."
"Excuse me?" This time Princess Hoya spoke out, Anatolia and Adelia next to her flinched slightly. "What do you mean evil? In this country, lord of Apollon."
Did she think she could use her title in front of me by calling me the lord of Apollon? What an idiot.
"I believe it is not my job to explain your and your families incompetency to you, Princess Hoya, but I can give you a crash course at a later date for a steep discount of being spared from your blabbering and petty attempts at power play."
Did I go too far for nothing? Who cared.
"Anyway, coming back."
I placed my spoon down and smiled out brightly.
"Since all of you have eaten my food and slept in my beds, you all will be repaying me."
Miss Rio, who was about to bite into a slice of her steak, slowly pulled her fork away.
"P-pay you back… how much?" Sophia asked.
I smiled brightly.
"Manual labor. You're going to help us out."
"No chance," Dawn muttered. "I would, but I dislike your way of asking."
"Nothing in it for us…" Hoya growled as well.
"Alright, then pay up 30 million gold coins."
"Pfft!" Anatolia spewed out the wine she was sipping on and Adelia patted her back.
"That's 3 million more."
"Ahak! Ahak!"
"Hey, hey!" Irina jumped in this time. "What kind of meal is worth 30 million huh? What kind of price is that?"
"It's the price of warmth and not just meals!" I slammed the table and stood up. "Would you put a price tag on your mother's love? Would you? This is the same! Do you have any idea how tough it was to bear with all of you all's bullshit the last few days?! Huh?"
"What an ass…"
"He's the worst…"
I sat back down and crossed my arms.
"Either pay up, or agree to work."
"Kuh…" Irina screeched. She seemed to have been considering going at me right away, but instead lowered her head. "Fine."
Hoya sighed too.
"I'll see if your words truly hold any weight."
"Oh, I am not gonna do anything, you'll be running at Albert's beck and call."
"You bitch!"
"Fucker!"
Curse all you want losers. I'll be sucking all of you for all you're worth.
This content is taken from fr(e)ewebn(o)vel.𝓬𝓸𝓶