“It isn’t quite a scam. It was just a slightly sophisticated creative economy.”
“How on earth is that massive shell game a creative economy?!”
Limon gritted his teeth.
Lee Ching-wei’s words were just that absurd.
If everyone believes a stone is more precious than gold, you can buy gold with a stone found on the street.
Similarly, the Seven Dragons Group resolved their debts by inflating the value of dungeon byproducts hundreds or thousands of times, triggering a controlled inflation.
Simply put?
“You intentionally created a bubble!”
Just as the tulip bubble once caused the price of a single bulb to exceed tens of thousands of dollars, or as the prices of internet-related companies soared hundreds of times during the IT bubble, the Seven Dragons Group had artificially sent the value of dungeon byproducts skyrocketing.
It was a so-called Dungeon Bubble.
‘Damn it, no wonder a single item cost tens of billions…’
In this case, the players seemed like the biggest beneficiaries since they were the ones who mined and sold the dungeon byproducts.
But in a cold assessment, even high-level players were ultimately just primary producers. In short, they were nothing more than miners.
Furthermore, given the nature of players who constantly seek to level up, no matter how much they earn, they spend most of their profits on acquiring more expensive items.
They even go deeply into debt.
Whether a miner digs for gold or diamonds, it is the mine owner who gets rich.
Similarly, in this Iron Age, it was the Association and the Seven Dragons Group that truly profited from the Dungeon Bubble.
Being able to artificially manipulate the bubble provided countless ways to make a fortune.
In that sense, the common expression that the Seven Dragons Group “owned all the wealth in the world” was surprisingly accurate.
Of course, it could not be called legal. Creative accounting, stock manipulation, hoarding, and monopolies—it was harder to find an illegal act that hadn’t been used.
Yet, even after confessing to that unprecedented fraud, Lee Ching-wei did not look intimidated at all.
She simply offered a calm excuse.
“Anyway, thanks to that, we were able to prevent the global economy from collapsing.”
“Didn’t you say that itself was because of the stupid things you did while claiming to protect world peace?”
“Yes, but if we hadn’t poured all the profits we earned back into those stupid things, the world wouldn’t be as peaceful as it is now.”
Lee Ching-wei spoke with a soft smile.
Limon could not bring himself to deny her words.
If the Seven Dragons Group had not been active behind the scenes, several wars would surely have broken out over the last few decades.
Perhaps there was a high possibility that a world-encompassing war between the establishment and the players would have erupted at worst.
Honestly, it was a remarkable feat—the fact that they stopped all of that with money.
The only thing that was absurd was the means of earning that money.
Intentionally creating a bubble is not something usually possible, let alone managing that bubble for decades to ensure it had no major impact on society while generating stable profits.
The financial power accumulated over many years, the organizational strength that once ruled the world in the distant past, and the know-how built up as a criminal organization—it was a feat possible only for the Seven Dragons Group because they possessed all of those things.
“In fact, even with all that, it wasn’t enough, and we had to overcome several crises,” Lee Ching-wei confessed honestly.
She explained that while maintaining the world economy and peace was possible for the Seven Dragons Group, it was difficult to sustain.
Every time they blocked a major incident, they had to scramble to secure a budget.
There were times they lost huge sums of money failing to adjust the bubble.
There were moments when war nearly broke out because they missed certain information.
They even suffered sacrifices because of unexpected powerful enemies.
It was truly a period of unspeakable hardship.
“Most of the clans felt skeptical about how long we should continue this nonsense.”
“Of course they did…”
Limon muttered with a groan.
It would have been different if they had protected world peace openly.
But the Seven Dragons Group, which used all sorts of illegal means including dungeon bubbles, bribery, and assassination, could not boast of its achievements.
They were suffering losses without gaining anything in return.
No matter how much the Seven Dragons Group dreamed of being a utopian organization, they couldn’t have liked that situation.
Especially for the current leadership, who had become more sensitive to profit and loss than religious convictions as they moved into the public eye and transformed into a corporation.
“But our Black Dragon Clan was the only one that didn’t give up until the end.”
There was only one exception—excluding the Black Dragon Clan, which had first proposed the plan.
“So, in order to continue the plan despite the opposition of the other clans, we had to pay a significant price.”
“A price?”
“Yes.”
Limon’s expression became complicated, as if he were afraid of what might come next.
Unfortunately, his premonition was correct.
The price Lee Ching-wei revealed with a bright smile was once again enough to make his head spin.
“Our clan decided to take responsibility for all the losses incurred in the process of protecting world peace.”
“That…”
This was what it felt like to be speechless.
For a moment, his mouth hung open like a goldfish gasping for air.
Barely recovering from the shock, as if he had been struck in the back of the head with a hammer, Limon asked incredulously, “And those people accepted such an absurd condition?”
“I made them accept it.”
“How?”
Limon felt a sense of mystery.
The World Peace Project was something even the entire Seven Dragons Group struggled to handle.
And yet, a single clan would take on all the losses?
It was a proposal no sane person would accept.
Just as a bank would not lend money to someone without the ability to repay, the other clans must have known the Black Dragon Clan had no way to handle those losses.
Even so, how did she make them accept the condition?
Lee Ching-wei revealed the secret.
“I put up the shares of the Leviathan Hotel as collateral.”
***
Seven holding companies represent the Seven Dragons Group.
Lee Ching-wei spoke as if telling a joke, saying that once she offered the shares of the Leviathan Hotel—the very foundation of the Black Dragon Clan—those other clans who had been actively opposing her suddenly transformed into enthusiastic supporters of the World Peace Project.
She looked at Limon, who stood frozen with his jaw dropped, and gave a bright smile.
“Fortunately, since the other clans competed to lend us money every time we offered shares, we were able to continue the plan.”
Of course they had.
The shares of the Leviathan meant control over the Seven Dragons Group.
Even for members of the same group… no, precisely because they were members of the same group, it was a treasure they couldn’t help but covet.
“Though I lost the support of my clan because so many shares were taken away.”
From the prestigious families that had produced successors of the seventy-two types of martial arts for centuries to the low-ranking members who had only recently joined the clan, already, many had turned their backs.
Many had even transferred their allegiance to other clans, she said with a smile.
Limon listened blankly for a moment before something occurred to him, and he asked instinctively, “You’ve already lost that many shares?”
“Yes.”
“…Didn’t you tell me you would give me a 49% stake in the Leviathan Hotel as a dowry?”
“I did.”
“Then how many shares are even left?”
If the loyal clan members had turned their backs, it couldn’t have been just a mere one or two percent.
He asked with a sense of dread, wondering how much would be left if 49% more was given away.
The answer was clear.
“1.1%.”
“…”
“Don’t make that face; you heard me correctly.”
As if he couldn’t believe his own ears, Limon blinked with a dazed expression, and Lee Ching-wei said with a grin, “Adding the 49% for you, Master, and the 1.1% left for me makes 50.1%. That is our clan’s last remaining asset.”
Roughly half of the Leviathan Hotel’s shares.
To be clear, it was a massive fortune.
So much so that even combining the market capitalization of three or four major corporations wouldn’t equal half of it.
However, looking at it another way, it meant the assets the Black Dragon Clan had lost until now were just as immense.
“Yes, our clan has already fallen,” Lee Ching-wei confessed.
It simply hadn’t been revealed to the outside world.
The Black Dragon Clan was essentially half-ruined.
“No one believes we can rise again, and the Elders are only planning how to sell me off to another clan for a high price.”
As if telling a funny joke, Lee Ching-wei spoke of her clan’s downfall in a light tone.
She asked the stunned Limon calmly, “Master, you said that if you hadn’t met me, you might not have fought the Infinite Monarch, didn’t you?”
Lee Ching-wei affirmed the hypothetical Limon had made before she confessed her scheme.
But at the same time, she denied it.
Her visit was merely a trigger; since the Black Dragon Clan had fallen, it was something bound to happen sooner or later, so she wasn’t particularly sorry about it.
The fact that he had never had to fight a monarch until now was itself an achievement the Seven Dragons Group had accomplished by pouring in funds and manpower without stinting.
No matter how hard they worked to maintain peace, if Limon had simply blown away a monarch, all their efforts would have become meaningless—so they had blocked all friction from even occurring.
However, the Black Dragon Clan, having lost nearly half its stake, no longer had the strength to support the World Peace Project.
That was why the fight with the monarch had happened.
It wasn’t that the Seven Dragons Group had plotted the friction.
It was the result of the Seven Dragons Group being unable to prevent the friction.
Lee Ching-wei spoke calmly, as if presenting research results at an academic conference.
Limon remained silent as he looked at her.
In silence, and silence, and yet more silence.
After staring intently into Lee Ching-wei’s eyes, which shone as beautifully as obsidian, Limon finally spoke.
“Why?”
He had pondered it several times.
Yet, it was a question for which he could not find an answer.
With a doubt he had rarely experienced in his long life, Limon asked again, “Why did you go that far?”
She had distorted the doctrines at will.
The Seven Dragons Group had faced the risk of bankruptcy.
She had changed the economic structure of the world itself.
The clan had fallen, and she had lost her standing.
A wise person would have just made a show of it at the beginning and stopped there.
An ordinary person would have given up after understanding the hardships.
Even a fool would have withdrawn once the clan fell.
“Even while knowing you would gain nothing from it?”
He asked in a serious voice, wondering why she had spent thirty-two years protecting world peace while walking such an absurd tightrope despite everyone’s opposition.
“There was something to gain.”
Lee Ching-wei smiled as she looked into those deep golden eyes.
And the reason she had gone to such extremes, the result of having stood firm in protecting world peace while losing everyone’s support by essentially selling off half of her clan and becoming an object of ridicule to the other clans—the single benefit she had gained—she stated it cheerfully.
“Because you accepted my proposal.”
World peace, which the Seven Dragons Group had mobilized all its power for yet could only maintain for a few decades, was something the absolute being had protected for hundreds of years with only a single sword.
If she could gain Limon, it was a profitable deal even if she sold off not just the Black Dragon Clan, but the entire Seven Dragons Group.
Looking at Lee Ching-wei, who spoke with a beaming face, Limon couldn’t help but look stunned.
“…Just for that?”
“It’s not ‘just’.”
Lee Ching-wei shook her head slightly.
Then, after glancing up at the starlit sky from the moment Limon arrived, she confessed for the first time the reason she had to secure the strongest human weapon in history, even by proposing marriage—a reason she could tell no one else.
“In this age where the lineage has been cut and the Sword Towers have vanished, you, Master, are the only Sword Master in existence who can face the Constellations.”
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