CH 7

「Well, I thank you all for your uprightness by putting it on.」

Ritone made a gesture with such a demeaning tone that it made all the nobles glare at him with hate.

「Well then, let’s talk about the reimbursement in a more concrete way. I redrew the loan contract for each one of you, so please confirm it.」

As Ritone said this, they reluctantly received the documents for verification . Then, as they read it, every single one of them made extremely complex faces.

「In exchange for cancelling a part of your overdue payments fines, I will only add 1000 arus to your bill for all the overdue payments. Also, the interest that was at thirty percent until now will be reduced to ten percent, and the repayment period will be extended for 10 years. Compared to what it is now, the reimbursement money is lower than what you have right now, so it should lower your burden.」

It was certain that those were the conditions written in the contract.

「Excuse me, could I?」

One of the nobles, who was reading attentively, raised his hand.

「Please, help yourself.」

「It is stated in the previous contract that you will sequester a fourth of our barley produced yearly, but if we go by the contract, we would only need to make a cash reimbursement once a month…」

「That’s correct. We don’t plan to confiscate your barley anymore. From now on, all the barley that you harvest will be yours, and no one else’s.」

Hearing that, all the nobles were relieved. By taking a fourth of the harvest, even if the harvest was a great one, it became just barely enough. Moreover, if the harvest was bad, they didn’t have any choice other than to take it from the workers.

Due to this, the workers eventually died of hunger or escaped from there, reducing the production even more, and becoming a vicious cycle.

「With this, I could give them bread to eat!…」

The nobles were delighted and cried, but suddenly they realized.

「B-bbut, how do we pay you. Even if you ask for a monthly reimbursement, we don’t have a monthly income to even pay you with.」

「Of course, I got it covered. I prepared for something like this.」

Then, commanding the maids, they brought a great amount of cleaned summoned clothes.

「This… feels great.」

「Even though these are really comfy, they feel really light…」

They checked the quality and feeling of the clothes by wearing them. The clothes were of higher quality than those that they usually wore.

「I’m going to give you a wagon full of these, for free. All of you are going to sell them at a high price to the merchants, and every month, you are going to come here and pay the monthly payment while saving the rest for next month’s funds. By doing that, you will be paying all the debt in a blink of an eye.」

The nobles, hearing Ritone, felt embarrassed at their behaviour. He not only didn’t pressure them into paying, but he also supplied them with the means to pay their debts.

「Ritone-sama!!!」

「We thank you from the bottom of our hearts!」

The nobles prostrated themselves before Ritone, thanking him all the while.

「Please, stop. I’m just thinking of it as business. By selling these clothes, you will be able to pay the loans. And we, as loan sharks, would be able to get the return on the deal without an issue. From now on, please work hard on selling those clothes.」

「We are going to work as if our lives depended on it.」

The nobles returned to their respective territories carrying massive amounts of clothes.