Our Family Has Fallen

Chapter 513: Chapter 322: Merciless Capital_2

If not for the arrival of many Lords, I probably would have starved to death. What’s the difference between what I am doing now and what the farm owners were doing back then?

Vick felt a wave of heat on his back, and his mind trembled slightly.

”Then let’s just forget about it...”

”No!” Walter slowly shook his head. ”I had planned to do this all along, just without involving you.”

Walter was well aware of the money lying just within reach if one simply bent down to pick it up. After all, he was also a merchant.

It wasn’t that Walter intended to exploit the conglomerate’s reorganization, shuffling funds to enrich himself and stage a comeback. Rather, he knew Vick probably wouldn’t accept it, so he didn’t plan to tell him. Instead, he intended to do it stealthily. Once the money was ready, he would simply place it before the Lord, and he wouldn’t need to say a word.

Because he, too, wanted to make his mark. Since taking over the conglomerate, it had been quickly restructured and had reopened the trade route between Ovando and Hamlet, transporting materials back. However, the reality was that he had always been asking the Lord for money. The conglomerate was now merely a transport brigade for Hamlet, and a money-losing one at that.

Now, with his daughter and son rooted in Hamlet, he had to keep going. To do this, he had to accomplish something to prove his abilities to the Lord and carve a future for his children. He didn’t want his family to be looked down upon by the Lord because of his incompetence.

But Vick didn’t understand him, frowning as he posed the question.

”Why? You’ve starved before. Why not give ordinary people a way to survive?”

Vick had always been wholeheartedly protective of Walter, and the two had never had a falling out—on the contrary, they even shared a bond akin to that between a teacher and a student. This was the first time Vick had adopted such a tone.

Walter, however, had long known he wouldn’t accept it; he understood the naive idealism of youth well enough. Faced with this questioning, Walter countered with a question of his own.

”Do you honestly think those ordinary people have the money to buy grain right now? Their money has been wrung dry long ago. Whether it’s the current grain prices or the massively inflated prices later, it’s all the same to them—they can’t afford either.”

Vick didn’t rush to retort upon hearing this; instead, he fell into contemplation. He knew Walter was telling the truth. As he’d mentioned, he had investigated the situation in Ovando City. Current grain prices had already soared beyond what ordinary people could afford. Moreover, this spike in grain prices wasn’t recent; the common folk had been squeezed dry long ago.

”But...” Vick’s brow furrowed, and after a brief pause, he continued, ”Can’t we wage a price war to drive the prices down? The grain prices in several farms around the city have also been raised in response, and we can go further afield, where the grain we acquire is much cheaper than theirs.”

Vick, having nearly starved once and possessing a youthful idealism, couldn’t bear to see so many ordinary people in the city suffer from famine.

Walter looked at him, shook his head with a hint of helplessness. The young man is still too naive, Walter thought. But it’s understandable. He’s never dealt with these things, so it’s natural for him to have illusions about the market.

”Drop the price? Do you have any idea how much money they’ve made on this? If we show our hand, we’ll definitely become the enemy of all the grain merchants. No amount of money from the Lord will sustain the losses you’re proposing, and placing yourself in such a situation would be foolish. And you don’t really think it’s just these grain merchants inflating the grain prices, do you? There’s much more going on behind the scenes, and the real profiteers are above us. We’ll have to deal with them in the future.”

As Walter spoke, he lifted his hand and pointed upward, his meaning self-evident.

The conversation had reached its limit. There were some things Walter couldn’t say outright; Vick would have to figure them out himself.

Why would the Lord want him to find a way to control the grain in Ovando City? Because the Lord also wanted to drive up the prices; the higher, the better. It wasn’t about making money but about causing chaos here. Those without food would naturally leave to find a way to survive. Where would these people go? In the end, they would fall into the Lord’s pockets and become a part of Hamlet. This strategy would drain Ovando City of its population. Without people, could it still be called a city?

Now, food was no longer just food, but a bargaining chip.

Walter and Vick were conversing, specifically about using information from the Romani to set a trap for the city’s other grain merchants.

Originally, the main players in this trade within the city were the Walter Conglomerate and the Gene Commercial Group. Because of Gene’s connections with the city defense force, he was able to suppress Walter locally, but that was the extent of it. Walter, with his sales channels in Totnes, didn’t care about making money from the poor.

This situation persisted until Walter’s conglomerate rapidly declined under Tiffany’s management—aided, of course, by traitors planted by Gene. Later, Lance intervened. Although he salvaged a portion of it, in his bid to absorb the conglomerate, he covertly pushed Tiffany to abandon the highly sought-after Totnes channels. By then, the Walter Conglomerate had completely lost its markets and channels, forced to depend on Hamlet. Many of its personnel had also been poached by Lance; what Walter inherited was essentially a wreck.

Fortunately, financial support was robust. The chaotic situation had also caused many competitors to collapse, giving him the chance to recover by ’feasting on their corpses’. But the lost market share had been seized by others. He had to find a way to recapture Ovando’s grain market. This was the task given by the Lord, hence today’s arrangement.

This was not a conspiracy but an overt scheme. Because no merchant can refuse profits several times over.

Just as Walter anticipated, news that a certain city, still holding firm despite refugee attacks, was massively purchasing grain—with prices quadrupling compared to local rates—quickly reached the ears of the major grain merchants in Ovando City.

「At the Gene Commercial Group headquarters, several managers had convened, seemingly by prior agreement.」

They had all received this news through various channels; a merchant’s instinct was their sensitivity to the profits hidden within such information. Like Transcendents, without this instinct, they couldn’t possibly have reached their current positions. Gathered together, they all understood that everyone else was present for the same reason.

But no one spoke, for one person was still missing: the current boss of the Gene Commercial Group—Young Gene.

After Old Gene’s disappearance, his son Young Gene took over the position. It had to be said that Old Gene had been more successful than Walter in one respect: he had cultivated his heir quite effectively.

Following Old Gene’s disappearance, the group faced a crisis. Some seniors were dissatisfied with Young Gene, almost trying to sideline him. However, Young Gene showed no deference to these veterans who controlled various parts of the conglomerate, revealing a decisive and forceful nature. First, he appeased the obedient, then suppressed the defiant, and finally, he won over the neutral parties. To put it simply: feast, execute, and enslave. This series of moves swiftly consolidated his control.

From then on, he was no longer ’Young Gene,’ but simply Gene.

And that wasn’t all. After taking over the conglomerate, despite the granaries being full, Gene restricted grain distribution. He exploited speculation about refugees and war causing shortages to rapidly inflate Ovando’s grain prices. Once prices had doubled, he released his stock, manipulating the market and amassing a fortune from the disaster. The ordinary folk, their hard-earned savings plundered, were left to live in constant fear and uncertainty.

This maneuver firmly established Gene’s reputation. The staggering growth in the conglomerate’s profits rapidly earned him immense prestige, even overshadowing that of the disappeared Old Gene. Those old-timers who had been forcibly suppressed finally abandoned their machinations; as long as he led them to profit, no one would object.

Finally, after a short wait, the man himself arrived.

Unlike Old Gene’s ’ten-month pregnancy’ physique, this Gene was perhaps only in his twenties. He was of average build and in the prime of his youth. As long as one wasn’t overtly unattractive, youth itself was appealing. His neatly styled blonde hair and elaborate, expensive attire lent him an air of arrogance. However, having just won two crucial victories—reclaiming the conglomerate and solidifying his position—he had earned the right to his pride.