In recent days, Valier’s wild surge had revived the entire city of Eminence. As a potential international financial hub, it had drawn countless investors from both home and abroad.
Every corner of the city buzzed with a vitality unseen in years. People wore genuine smiles as they exchanged investment tips and chased after the latest rumors.
A man observing the passersby turned and sat down on a lounge chair, wearing only a bathrobe.
He held a sleek silver Coluff cigarette in his hand, and a bottle of premium liquor sat beside him.
The room radiated luxury.
He exhaled a cloud of rich, pure smoke and asked, “Is there any chance Valier might crash?”
He wasn’t alone in the room.
Several women were attentively serving the other occupants—most of whom weren’t from the Federation. They came from around the world, and shared one title: stinking international speculators.
Their only source of joy was making money. They never considered the damage their speculation might inflict on regions or families.
Sometimes they even bragged about how many families they bankrupted or how many people they drove to jump off rooftops.
They didn’t care. All that mattered was how much bigger the numbers in their accounts had grown.
A few years ago, they wreaked havoc in the Federation’s markets, driving them to the brink of collapse. Even though the Financial Regulatory Commission issued repeated warnings, it was all in vain.
By constantly trading among themselves, they drove prices up and inflamed people’s greed, pulling them into carefully constructed traps.
Their methods weren’t sophisticated, nor did they require much power or preparation. All it took was a coordinated game of financial hot potato—a strategy that remained one of the easiest ways for international speculators to wreck a country’s financial system.
Speculator A sells an asset to Speculator B for ten Sol. Then B sells it back to A for eleven. Then A sells it again to B for twelve. Since the market tracks real-time transaction prices, this back-and-forth pushes prices higher and higher.
This simplified example doesn’t show the full scale—thousands of international speculators are involved in orchestrating this illusion of a thriving market. But many fail to see the truth.
No amount of outside warning helps. The illusion that money is just waiting to be picked up lures people in. Everyone thinks they’re making a fortune.
Even the calmest person can lose reason when faced with such dizzying price increases. Once they join, they become part of the system.
As prices soar, the organizers eventually exit. Those left holding the bag are buried.
Something worth ten Sol might be driven up to fifty, a hundred. The speculators walk away with tenfold profits, while everyone else is left to cover the losses.
Without these reckless manipulators ignoring market fundamentals, the overheated market would cool quickly—but this cooling isn’t normal. It’s like pouring ice water on red-hot steel.
Once panic selling begins, everyone is dragged into hell.
And none of this is new.
Auction houses use similar tactics. They pick a relatively unknown but historically notable artist, buy up all available works, and use the media to hype demand.
Then they auction a few pieces. At first, the prices are low—but they’re in no rush.
They bid against themselves—once, twice, three times…
Newspapers trumpet the artist’s sudden popularity and skyrocketing prices. At that point, outside investors lured by the potential returns enter the game—and take the losses.
Once the hype fades, the market sobers up. The pieces become unsellable.
What’s happening now is a repeat of the Federation’s financial chaos two years ago. Valier’s turnover rate is too high, prices keep climbing, and even as people cheer, there’s growing unease.
Another man in the room chuckled. “Crash or not, it doesn’t really matter to us. We’ve already proven that once.”
The others laughed softly. They’d done this before in the Federation. Even when people were warned, greed always won. As long as there’s greed, there’s money to be made.
“The Federation is still rich!” someone said, laughing. “Just two years after their financial disaster, look—every lit window might be hiding an investor. This place is like an endless gold mine. As long as you can swing a pickaxe, you’ll find gold!”
Laughter rang out. Their talk soon shifted from finance to more explicit topics, making the girls around them blush—which only raised the men’s excitement.
After a night of indulgence, they all collapsed into sleep in a villa—one they bought for cheap during the Federation’s last financial crash.
The Federation’s financial system was becoming more advanced, more robust. Most of the world’s financial products could now be traded here, increasing the Federation’s global influence and drawing investors from everywhere.
Many international financiers were shifting their focus from Gephra and other countries to the Federation. Of course, the Federation’s recent naval victory also helped—soon, it might become the world’s financial center.
That made early investment in real estate all the more important. These properties would one day be goldmines.
As long as the return was high enough, even speculators didn’t mind slower gains.
While the people in the room were still basking in the afterglow of the previous day’s madness, the door suddenly shook with heavy knocking. The owner of the house threw on a robe and grumbled as he crawled out from the tangle of bodies, heading to the door.
Sunlight pierced through the space and fell on their pale, drained faces. The wild night had sapped them of energy and spirit.
He raised his hand to block the sun and asked irritably, “What is it? Don’t you know I’m sleeping?”
His assistant stood backlit by the morning light. The brightness made his face almost unreadable. Only when he stepped forward to speak did the man see the panic written across his features.
Something was wrong. Deeply wrong.
He grabbed the assistant’s arm and asked, “What happened?”
The assistant’s panic was impossible to hide. He swallowed and said in a low voice, “Something big… really big just happened…”
“One of Nagaryll’s provincial governors has declared independence from the Kingdom of Nagaryll and formed the neutral state of Magulana…”
Tinnitus is a strange thing. Some doctors say it’s caused by sudden changes in cranial pressure that press on nerves, resulting in auditory hallucinations, ringing in the ears—even visual disturbances.
When the pressure normalizes, the symptoms go away.
The man had never experienced tinnitus—until now. In that instant, the entire world went silent. The only sound was a high-pitched ring in his ears.
Like a TV with no signal, like the warning tone from an alarm—never-ending.
His vision darkened, his balance faltered. He had already exhausted himself the night before, and now this crushing news hit him all at once.
He passed out.
When he woke up, he was already lying in a hospital bed. None of his friends were around—only his assistant pacing anxiously nearby.
Seeing him awake, the assistant quickly came over to check on his condition, but he didn’t care about any of that. Gripping the assistant’s hand tightly, he used all his strength to pull him close. “Did we liquidate?”
The assistant’s expression darkened—clearly, it wasn’t that simple. He asked again, “Where is the Federation fleet now?”
As he spoke, a sharp pain shot through his head, making him gasp and grit his teeth.
He still held on to a shred of hope. The Federation wouldn’t let Nagaryll descend into chaos. They had too much at stake there. The fleet had already been deployed—by now, it should have reached Nagaryll’s offshore waters.
As long as the fleet arrived and showed an aggressive posture, there might still be a chance to turn things around.
But the assistant’s next words chilled him to the bone.
“The Federation’s Foreign Minister just held a press conference… He publicly stated that the Federation will not interfere in the internal affairs of other nations.”
“The fleet was deployed only to protect the safety of Federation investors and workers—to deter the Nagaryll people. They’re… not there to help the royal family
quell the rebellion
.”
Reading Settings
#1a1a1a
#ef4444
Comments