Chapter 3: First Investment

For some reason, King Klaus had become a different person.

The person who wouldn’t allow even minor criticism not only accepted the high-intensity criticism I made but also evaluated it highly.

According to the setting, Klaus would pass away before long.

He probably knew that fact by now.

Because of that, I sometimes thought that being given a death sentence had influenced him to change his ways late in life.

However, in the novel, after receiving the death sentence, he had only become more tyrannical.

So I didn’t think that was it, and there seemed to be another reason.

I didn’t know what it was, but anyway.

Although Klaus had suddenly become a magnanimous person, his obsession with royal authority and fiery temper probably hadn’t gone anywhere.

Because that was his character I had set up.

For now, he was greatly mistaken and elevating me as a capable talent, a loyal retainer for all ages.

But if I made him slightly angry, he would mercilessly dismiss me from office.

Considering that point.

Literally, the Royal Assets Management Bureau, which comprehensively managed the private assets of the royal family, including the King’s personal domain, was the perfect place to get fired from.

‘They say one’s true nature is revealed when money is involved.’

In my previous life, I was a web novel author, but also an investor.

I found it fun to manage the money I earned by writing web novels, and it turned out I had more talent for investing than writing web novels, so eventually, investing became my main profession.

As such, I knew well not only how to make money, but also how to lose it.

I had the confidence(?) to make bad investments.

To make matters worse, the current royal finances were not as good as before.

This was because the harvest from the King’s domain had plummeted due to consecutive droughts, and a few years ago, the Kingdom’s largest gold mine located in the King’s domain had even been depleted.

This was an environment where my intentional mistakes could provoke relatively greater anger.

That’s why I said I would go to the Royal Assets Management Bureau.

Furthermore….

There was a good opportunity at the right time.

It was the so-called ‘Canin Bubble’.

Recently in this world, a rare flower named ‘Canin’ had gained immense popularity.

According to rumors, Canin first appeared in the world when.

An anonymous person sent one Canin flower as a gift to the previous Saintess, who passed away recently.

The Saintess, instantly captivated by Canin which was more beautiful than any other flower and had a fantastic fragrance, extracted the seeds and began cultivating Canin.

Through that process, Canin spread throughout the world and quickly became a global craze.

With the nickname ‘Gift of God’, because the Saintess had left the words ‘a gift given by the Lord’ regarding Canin.

To the extent that possession of Canin became a kind of measure of wealth among the wealthy class.

Because of that…

The price of Canin, which was useless for anything other than being pretty, was rising day by day.

In a word, something exactly like the ‘Dutch Tulip Mania’ that occurred in the Netherlands in the 17th century was happening here as well.

I had never developed such an episode when writing the novel.

I had merely described the extreme wealth disparity in this world, stating that while commoners were struggling with poverty and hunger, royalty and nobles indulged in luxury and speculation.

It seemed this was a phenomenon that occurred during the process of that being actualized.

Anyway….

Soon, people who aimed to get rich quick would take out loans and jump into cultivating Canin.

Because it was like that during the Tulip Bubble too.

When many people make thoughtless and reckless investments, the market becomes engulfed in a kind of madness, as if it were a gambling den.

Then, little by little, people who are wary of such madness, people who have the rational question of ‘Doesn’t seem like the price should rise this much?’, will start to appear.

It is only then that the bubble begins to collapse.

The Tulip Bubble collapsed in just 3 months.

I expect the Canin Bubble will also last about that long before collapsing.

I, who could easily predict the future through the precedent from my previous life.

As soon as I was assigned to the Royal Assets Management Bureau and began managing a part of the royal assets, I immediately went all-in on Canin, so to speak.

In principle, all investments are only possible with the approval of the Director of the Royal Assets Management Bureau.

In this place where funds must be managed as safely and conservatively as possible, there was no way a risky investment going all-in on a single stock could be approved.

But for some reason, the Director allowed me to manage the funds freely.

It seemed he thought the king was backing me.

Since the king had personally called the Director the day he met with me privately and instructed him to make a place for me in the Royal Assets Management Bureau, it wasn’t unreasonable for him to misunderstand.

Anyway, thanks to that, I was able to do the crazy thing of pouring all the funds I managed into buying Canin.

Now all I had to do was wait excitedly.

For the bubble to collapse.

And for the enraged king to hold me accountable and fire me.

***

The Holy Nation.

The smallest country in the world, but the country with the most citizens.

At its center is the Papal State, the core of the Holy Nation, or rather, the Holy Nation itself.

The highest institution of the Orthodox Church, which could be said to dominate the entire world.

A place that still wields immense influence, though it has weakened considerably compared to the past.

It is a place that even the world’s strongest nation, the Bransia Empire, and the Duranden Empire, which is closely trailing behind it, dare not ignore.

Such a Papal State was in great turmoil and shaking.

A while ago…

The Saintess passed away at the young age of just twenty-five.

By custom, when the Saintess enters her thirties, they gradually begin searching for candidates to become the next Saintess, and officially designate a successor after her mid-thirties.

This is to prevent a vacancy in the position of Saintess as much as possible.

However, because the Saintess died suddenly at a young age, they were unable to find a successor in time.

So the position of Saintess was currently vacant.

The Saintess, called ‘the rose flower that God has sent down to this land’, has no actual power but is a being with greater symbolism than anyone else.

Therefore, the faithful were confused by the unprecedented vacancy in the Saintess’s position.

So the Papal State was busily searching for the next Saintess.

In the midst of that, a much greater major crisis than the vacancy in the Saintess’s position struck the church.

“Did you hear? Cardinal Niark also contracted Malus.”

“Now the number of cardinals who have contracted Malus has exceeded half of the population.”

“Haa… What in the world is this chaos?

His Holiness the Pope, the Chief Cardinal, and all the other cardinals have all contracted Malus.”

“Indeed. Has the Lord abandoned us…….”

The priests, one and all, sighed deeply.

Malus.

An infectious disease caused by a specific mosquito as the vector of infection.

Patients suffer from high fever fluctuating around 40 degrees Celsius and headaches, experience consciousness disturbance, and in severe cases, mental abnormality and hallucinations, and have a high probability of death.

A few days ago, the Pope and cardinals who had gathered in one place to elect a new Saintess contracted Malus en masse.

It turned out that in the cathedral where they held the meeting with the doors firmly locked, there were Malus-carrying mosquitoes present along with them.

“What if… what if, that is.

What if all of them pass away?”

The youngest priest suddenly posed a question, but no one dared to answer.

Although all of them were veterans who had walked the path of a clergyman for decades.

No one knew what would happen or how to cope if such an unprecedented situation actually occurred.

Because there was no precedent in the history of the church where most of the leadership died en masse at the same time.

Even during the time of extreme persecution long ago.

“We must earnestly pray that such a thing does not happen, and that the Lord extends his saving hand to us…”

As the words someone weakly managed to utter after a long silence suggested, all they could do was pray.

***

“Cardinal!”

Sister Theresa, in charge of nursing the Chief Cardinal, was just bringing in a basin of cold water.

It was to lower his high fever even a little with a towel soaked in cold water.

When she returned to the Cardinal’s room, what she was faced with was.

The sight of the Chief Cardinal picking up the Canin flower that had been placed by the window, pulling it from the pot, and voraciously chewing and eating it from the root like a madman.

It seemed that mental abnormality and hallucination symptoms had also begun.

Theresa quickly put down the basin she held and approached the Chief Cardinal.

And she tried to pull the Canin out of his mouth.

Because she didn’t know yet if Canin was a flower that could be eaten.

Theresa finally succeeded in breaking off the flower and stem and removing them from his mouth, but she couldn’t remove the root, which had gone in first.

In the end, the Chief Cardinal chewed the root thoroughly and swallowed it.

Immediately after, his abnormal symptoms subsided, and he calmly lay back down in bed and fell asleep.

The next day…

Theresa confirmed that his body temperature had returned to the normal range.

She didn’t know how it had happened, but his health was suddenly recovering.

And after 3 days.

The Chief Cardinal had fully recovered.

The Chief Cardinal was one of the most severely symptomatic people, along with the Pope.

Because the Pope had eventually passed away a few days ago, she had been anxious whether he too would follow the Pope.

But to recover so suddenly and perfectly like this…….

Theresa couldn’t help but be surprised.

‘How did this happen?’

The speed of recovery was too fast to be considered a natural recovery.

There was clearly another factor.

If she found out that factor, it could also be used to treat other patients.

‘Ah, perhaps…’

Theresa easily found out that factor.

Because there was only one thing different about the Chief Cardinal compared to usual.

‘The root of the Canin…!’

The Chief Cardinal’s high fever symptoms stopped from the day after he ate the Canin root.

And he fully recovered 3 days later.

It was clear that the Canin root had special efficacy.

Theresa immediately reported that to the Holy See Hospital, and the medical staff began trying the Canin root on other patients as well.

***

“Young Master. I’ve brought the newspaper and tea.”

“Ah, thank you.”

Just as I finished getting ready for work, the maid brought the morning newspaper and tea at a good time.

I first picked up the teacup and lightly took a sip.

The fragrance of the tea leaves and the sweetness of the honey spread throughout my mouth.

It would have been better if it were the aroma of coffee beans filling my mouth, but coffee doesn’t exist in this world.

It truly couldn’t be more regrettable.

Starting the day with tea wasn’t so bad either, but I couldn’t help missing the Americano I always drank every morning in my previous life.

Thinkingㅡthat after I got fired from office, I should travel around the world looking for coffee treesㅡI opened the morning newspaper.

“Pfft!”

The tea I had in my mouth was suddenly spewed out.

This was because an article with an unbelievable title was prominently featured on the front page of the newspaper.

[Canin, Excellent Effect in Treating Malus… Price Soars]

Wondering how this had happened, I carefully read the article.

I wondered if it was fake news spread by a fraudster trying to further inflate the value of Canin to make a huge profit, but that wasn’t the case.

The place that revealed Canin, or rather, the Canin root, was a treatment for Malus was none other than the Holy See Hospital.

And the evidence was that many cardinals who had contracted Malus had all recovered after eating the Canin root.

Malus is a disease that could be said to be similar to Malaria in my previous life.

The Canin root was precisely the treatment for that disease.

‘What I bought turned out to be bio stock.’

‘And a super hit bio stock at that….’

Below that article, there was also an article with this title.

[Royal Assets Management Bureau Revealed to Have Purchased Enormous Amount of Canin a Month Ago… Was It Anticipated?]

‘Fck, is this a dream?’