Chapter 56
There were so many complaints that they had to hire more staff, but no one new subscribed.
We thought that if we started now and gradually raised the price, the money would eventually come back… but—
“People are really upset about the price being fifteen times higher…”
“So what? It’s not that much money anyway!”
Even if they charged fifteen times, they would still be in the red for a while, and they weren’t even getting that.
They had already produced a lot of video stones, too.
On top of that, the labor costs were ridiculous even if they did nothing. What about the cost of renting the warehouse to store the video stones?
“…sigh.”
The problems kept piling up and growing. Josephine had no idea how to solve them.
“Please take care of this issue first.”
“Please sign this one first…”
Day after day, the problems accumulated—one headache after another, and the pressure from loans kept mounting.
“Josephine. Maybe we were wrong. Maybe we shouldn’t have meddled in business…” Polius only whined in that difficult situation and did nothing useful.
Under the onslaught of hardships, Josephine bit her nails.
Even returning to the Marquis house didn’t put her at ease.
“‘The Thirteenth Knight’ is in shambles and the quality of the video stones is falling—do you have any alternatives?” the Marquis Ingda demanded.
Josephine squeezed her eyes shut. She had nothing to say.
“Th-that’s… I’m sorry, Father.”
“Don’t apologize—give me an alternative. Didn’t you take loans in the family’s name as well as use your dowry?”
Josephine couldn’t bring herself to speak against the Marquis Ingda’s sharp words.
She was the one who’d suggested taking out loans in the family’s name; what excuse could she possibly have?
“How do you plan to resolve the copyright issue with ‘The Thirteenth Knight’?”
“….”
“How many additional titles can you secure after ‘The Thirteenth Knight’?”
She had nothing she could properly answer to Ingda’s questions.
Polius had spoken confidently at her side, and hearing Clara’s remarks had made Josephine somewhat convinced by the vague persuasion. Besides, she had never once stepped forward when there was something to be said before—Polius and Clara had always handled those things.
“Uh, our and Polius’s taste in content is far more—”
“Is that your answer right now?”
“…That’s it.”
Josephine was nothing like Melanie, who prepared thoroughly and even brought a business plan when meeting their father. She’d never seriously studied business.
‘I put everything on “The Thirteenth Knight.”’
She’d arrogantly assumed that because Melanie did it, she would naturally do it even better.
“Josephine, at this rate you might lose not only your dowry but the Ingda family as well.”
“N-no, that won’t happen! I’ll work much harder from now on!”
“Do you really think hard work will win against that despicable Clotilde?”
Josephine drew breath in short, anxious gasps.
The Marquis Ingda closed his eyes tightly, then opened them again.
“There’s only one way to break through this. The video-stone business itself isn’t bad—get investment, hold on, and secure more content.”
It was an obvious solution, as essential as saying that preparing and reviewing are important to do well in studies.
But the Marquis Ingda seemed to have some ulterior motive, and Josephine couldn’t read his mind.
“But the content is already under an exclusive contract with the Black Moon, and the Red Sun’s image has already soured…”
“Then we knock Clotilde down.”
“I’ll work hard and bring the video-stone business down on them—”
“No, the order is wrong.”
The Marquis Ingda grinned viciously, showing his teeth.
“If we topple Clotilde first, the whole video-stone market will come to you.”
“Eh?”
“You say there’s a first mover who’s at an advantage? Inversely, if that first-mover ruins themselves, it’s an opportunity for you. You can take over the market they built.”
“But how would we do that—”
“A good idea just came to me. How are the video stones being made?”
“We’re entrusting them to a foreign mage introduced by Miss Martis.”
“A foreigner? Even better.”
The Marquis Ingda burst into a broad laugh as Josephine explained. Josephine was stunned by the pleased expression on her father’s face—one she’d never seen before.
“You say it’s better because he’s foreign? I found him inconvenient until now—”
“They won’t understand the danger of what we’ll have them make.”
Josephine blinked, puzzled, then asked, “Do you mean we need to produce a video to bring Clotilde down?”
“Hmm, you’re not completely stupid.”
Josephine’s mind started turning fast.
If they destroyed Clotilde, if they wrecked the Black Moon’s reputation—
All eyes that were currently on the Red Sun would shift to that. If the Black Moon collapsed, the exclusive contract would vanish.
Understanding Ingda’s plan, Josephine brightened. Then she cautiously added, “But father, that must be done secretly, and the mage I’m working with only speaks a foreign language—without Miss Martis, we can’t communicate…”
“Tsk. If you’re that naïve, how do you expect to take on Clotilde?” Ingda clicked his tongue with a look of pity.
“The basics of business are communication. You always negotiated through Miss Martis, so you couldn’t make proper deals, right?”
“That’s true, but—if we’re plotting to topple Clotilde, what if the interpreter betrays us?”
“Easy. We’ll take a weakness of theirs and make sure that bastard can’t betray us.”
A low, despicable smile spread across the Marquis Ingda’s face. He sank into the sofa with an arrogant posture.
“If you need to keep the video-stone business from collapsing, you’ll take out loans. You’ll put the family heirlooms and the mansion up as collateral!”
Bang!
The Marquis slammed the table down.
“It’s ridiculous to shoulder such a burden just to prop up one video-stone business, but if it can bring down Clotilde, it’s not a loss!”
Overwhelmed for a moment by her father’s intensity, Josephine nodded when he said he would grant the loan.
In a way, she didn’t realize she was embarking on something even more dangerous.
At first it was to not lose her dowry; then to make sure the previous loan wouldn’t be wasted; now even the family heirloom and mansion…
‘But if I stop now, we really will lose to Clotilde!’
After a brief hesitation, neither Josephine nor the Marquis Ingda stopped the other.
“All right—call the mage and the interpreter right away!”
“So… Miss Ingda asked for a ‘special video,’ right?”
I listened to the recorder the mage had given me and thought it over.
Then I replayed in my head what I had just heard on the recorder.
—You’d better forget what you see and hear here. Otherwise…
—Oh, I don’t know Imperial. Is it snack time now? Bread, please.
—It was needless worry. He wouldn’t understand anything anyway.
Of course, the mage Clara had found wasn’t truly ignorant of the Imperial language.
It was a device I’d set up so that Polius couldn’t carry on a fluent conversation and so negotiations would proceed under Clara’s control.
He only pretended not to understand and squeezed more money from Polius.
But he was indeed a foreigner, and I thought—since the Marquis was meeting him, maybe topics would come up that a foreigner truly wouldn’t know about… so I asked him to bring a recorder.
—Josephine, with this video we can topple the House of Clotilde. Be extremely careful.
—Yes, Father!
Since Polius’s plan to take the mana stone from me had failed, it was a predictable scenario that Josephine would ask the Ingda house for money to pull in funds.
But I hadn’t expected the Marquis Ingda to seize this as an opportunity to bring down the House of Clotilde.
‘To touch the imperial family—this isn’t just an attack on my business; it could ruin the Clotilde house entirely.’
From the recording, I learned the Ingda family’s plan:
The Duke Clotilde will be made to appear in a video stone that insults the Emperor.
Swap that video stone with the one rented out by the Black Moon.
If the Black Moon collapses under the charge of insulting the royal family, the Red Sun will monopolize the video-stone market thereafter.
That’s why the Marquis had borrowed money, even putting his heirlooms and mansion up as collateral.
He even intimidated the interpreter and the interpreter’s family for his ambitions.
What I couldn’t tolerate most was…
‘He’s dragging the imperial family into insulting them—even my father is involved. I can’t stand it.’
