NOVEL NEXT 61 – Deuteronomy 23:19
Deuteronomy 23:19
“You shall not charge interest on loans to your brother, interest on money, interest on food, interest on anything that is lent for interest.
James was reading some documents in his office when Tsumugi entered.
He looked up at her and smiled, something that made her heart beat rapidly. She maintained her professional composure though.
"Good evening sir." she said with a bow. She could feel his gaze wandering over her body and cleavage as she did, sending a delightful shiver up her spine.
"What do you have for me?" he asked her.
"We are making good progress on project 'Shark'. We were having some issues with a politician resisting our efforts to change a law so it would favour our project, but he suffered a heart attack. Once the main resistance was out of the way we were able to quite easily have the changes we desired implemented. Since then we have already managed to open up new branch locations in all big cities around Japan and they have started taking on 'customers'. We are already making preparations for expansion abroad to sustain growth. I've already sent you the data summary," she said while reviewing the associated data on her tablet.
Project Shark was a project intended to make the most of his contract ability. He had already opened a pay-day loan business to test the limits of his power. Project shark was about taking it to a whole other level. It offered amazing rates and was very helpful if you just ignored the true cost of it costing your soul. He did tweak the repayment schedule to be spread over 80 years or upon death, whichever came first. So they could still live a long full life as long as they died of natural causes.
This meant he would only get very little per client since the term was over such a long time, but the idea was that the amazing rates along with locations all over the globe would allow bulk to make up for how little each client got him. Eventually with locations all over the globe he could potentially have millions upon millions of clients signing his contracts.
The only real downside was he had discovered he needed to sign all contracts himself, no stamps, no computers. If he didn't do this his power wouldn't activate when the other party signed the contract making the entire thing a waste. This would be the only limiting factor to how many contracts he could create and they would even need to be physically sent to other locations. This was a small price to pay for access to the power of potentially millions of souls with just that little effort.
It was a win-win situation. His clients got affordable loans at incredibly low rates and he got souls. Now it wasn't his responsibility if they didn't pay attention to the fine print nor why they were selling their souls. If they were stupid enough to take on loans that would enslave them to a loan shark and ruin their life for luxuries then he wasn't going to feel guilty about taking their souls in exchange for affordable loans. If instead they needed the money due to an emergency or to help someone then he was practically doing a good dead by helping them.
He went over the data she sent him with a wide smile. Despite the business only just having opened they were getting a good response due to their friendly front and affordable rates. There was some hesitation since people believed it was too good to be true and suspected there was a catch. While this was technically true it wasn't a catch they would ever be able to discover. One the first few clients find everything is the way they were told and the word spreads business should really pick up.
"Good work Tsumugi," he said.
"Of course, sir," she said doing her best to contain her excitement.
"What is the status on the night clubs?" he asked about their only other major project he had assigned for the moment.
"We making progress, but it is taking a little longer than originally projected. Between getting all the licensing done and making sure we maintain full control over the business while obfuscating your involvement it is taking a little longer," she said a little nervously.
"That's fine, it isn't entirely unexpected and so long as it's actually progressing. I don't care if it's a little slower than we originally expected," he told her.
She sighed in relief a small smile breaking through her professional facade.
He looked through the paperwork detailing the new staff. He didn't see anything of interest among the new members.
Since there wasn't anyone important among them he looked up from the paperwork at Tsumugi. "How are we progressing with the personnel expansion?" James asked curiously.
"We've managed to hire quite a few low level employees, but it has been harder to gain experienced and specialised personnel or those with management experience," she said.
He nodded slowly while in thought.
"Good. It's inevitable that building leadership will take longer. Make sure that once you get a few potentials for higher ranks you bring them before me to put them under contract," he said.
"Yes sir," she answered.
"What abo-" he started to ask when he was interrupted by a sudden knock on the office door.
"Come in," James said.
The door slowly opened revealing Eri.
Tsumugi smiled seeing the little girl.
"Can big brother play now?" she asked.
James smiled. "Hey Eri-chan. Yeah I'm just wrapping up here," he told her.
"Yay!" she bounced around celebrating.
"Tsumugi, things are going well enough just keep it up," he said to indicate the conversation was over now that Eri had shown up. He didn't want his involvement in certain projects to leak out and even if she didn't understand most of what they talked about that didn't mean she couldn't accidentally leak the information.
The only people he trusted with the information on his plans were his contracted pawns like the higher ups in his organisation like Tsumugi and Mio. Those under contract couldn't really betray him after all. The moment they even tried to was the moment of their end preventing any leaks. Wether that was actually trust or a healthy way to treat people wasn't something he was concerned about.
Tsumugi bowed deeply. "Thank you sir. I will," she said with a deep underlying passion. She didn't waste anymore of his time and turned to leave.
"You're already leaving big sis Tsumugi?" Eri asked.
"Ara ara? You want me to spend more time with your big brother?" Tsumugi asked.
