Fraudulent Company

Mostly clothes and furniture left behind, huh? It looks like they ditched the high-volume, low-margin stuff.

The paintings and precious metals, on the other hand, had been thoroughly cleared out.

Searching further, I found a stack of pamphlets for financial products. Most of them were tied to the Mitsugoshi Bank.

"Hmm..."

Intrigued, I flipped one open.

『A Premier Investment Opportunity with Fully Guaranteed Principal!! Monthly payouts of 3% on your initial investment!! That’s a staggering 36% annual yield!!』

"It's a total scam!"

I nearly shredded the pamphlet on the spot.

Back in my previous life, I’d made a point of studying the ins and outs of investing alongside my training. After all, you can’t be an "Eminence in Shadow" without a massive war chest.

Anyone with even a basic grasp of finance would snort at the phrase "guaranteed principal," burst out laughing at "monthly payouts," and spray tea out of their nose at "36% annual interest." But for the ignorant, those are magic words.

The less someone knows, the more they’re comforted by a guarantee, lured by the stability of a monthly check, and blinded by the promise of a 36% return. People seek safety and stability because they’re anxious, yet they can never quite let go of their greed. Scams thrive by waltzing right into that psychological gap.

"This is a textbook Ponzi scheme..."

Allow me to explain. A Ponzi scheme is—an incredibly famous fraud!

The basic strategy involves taking funds from investors and "managing" them, then returning the "profits" as high-yield monthly payouts.

For instance, if a customer invests one million Zeny, you pay them back thirty thousand every month. In one year, that million becomes 1.36 million. If they’re bold enough to entrust you with ten million, they get three hundred thousand a month—enough for a commoner to live on comfortably without working.

Naturally, the deposited money can, in theory, be withdrawn at any time. (Though "in theory" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.)

To be clear, not even the world’s greatest investor could consistently maintain a 36% annual yield. So, the scammer doesn't actually invest the money. They just skim the principal from new investors to pay the "dividends" to the old ones.

Obviously, a system like that is destined to collapse eventually. However, as far as scams go, a Ponzi scheme is one of the most efficient ways to rake in a fortune in a short amount of time.

There are three reasons why.

First: It’s easy to build trust. The payouts are actually paid every month, at least initially. People feel safe once they’ve seen the money hit their hands for a few months. If you can buy a customer's total confidence by just handing back a tiny fraction of their own money, it’s a steal.

Second: The customers do the recruiting for you. Once those monthly checks start coming in, people get greedy. An initial one-million-Zeny investment swells to two, then four, then eight million as they try to set themselves up for life. They’ll borrow money to invest more, or recommend the "opportunity" to friends and family. The customers essentially become unpaid walking billboards, hauling in more and more cash.

Third: It’s hard to get caught. As long as the distributions are being paid, it’s technically not a crime yet. This period can last for months, or even years. The scammer just sits back, living in luxury on the customers' money while waiting for the pool of new investors to peak. Then, the moment they decide they can’t squeeze any more out of the market, they vanish with the loot.

The marks don't even realize they've been conned until the moment the scammer is gone. It’s an efficient fraud that perfectly meshes the gears of human psychology.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Mitsugoshi should not be dabbling in this."

A Ponzi scheme is efficient, sure, but it has one fatal flaw: it always collapses.

That’s why you have to have an exit strategy. An individual can just disappear, but the Mitsugoshi Company has nowhere to run. If this blows up, the whole company goes under. The risk is way too high.

Wait, maybe a 36% yield isn't impossible in this world?

In my old world, it was a flat-out lie, but things are a bit more "wild west" here. There are probably plenty of lucrative, untapped opportunities, and I’m sure they’re planning to make full use of the modern knowledge they’ve been pilfering from my brain.

...Yeah, I could see them pulling it off.

"Oh, it says the maximum investment period is three years."

If that’s the case, maybe they really do intend to manage it at 36%. Mitsugoshi has been expanding at a terrifying pace. They’re likely dumping every cent of profit back into the business.

"So this is just a way to raise quick capital, huh?"

They must be desperate for cash right now. Collect money from customers, multiply it through credit creation, and keep fueling the expansion.

"Are they trying to conquer the world or something...?"

If they don't reel it in, they’re going to end up with another Mitsugoshi Company Encirclement on their hands. Still, knowing them, this might actually be a legitimate, high-tier product... maybe.

"I wonder if there’s anything else good in here."

I flipped through the rest of the pamphlet.

"Are you kidding me...? This insurance doesn't use compound interest... and this interest rate is only for the first year... This pension doesn't even start paying out until age fifty-five? In a world where the average life expectancy is sixty-five?!"

The whole thing was a minefield of "number magic."

Then again, it wasn't much worse than the financial products back home. You always have to watch out for those legal scams—excuse me, "rip-offs"—I mean, those products where banks and insurance companies sell you "peace of mind" at an exorbitant premium.

"Hold on... this one’s a whole life annuity."

As the name implied, it was a pension you received every month until the day you died. The average life expectancy here might be sixty-five, but with my magic power, I planned on living at least five hundred years.

Heh... is this not an overwhelming victory?

I scanned the page for the absolute best plan.

"This is it...! A million Zeny every month for life... wait."

At the very bottom of the pamphlet, in text smaller than a grain of rice, was a single disclaimer.

『*Note: This plan is not available to Spellswords.』

I ripped the pamphlet to shreds.

"There isn't a single decent product in here!"

Thinking about it, that 36% yield might just be the hook. People in this world aren't familiar with things like investments, insurance, or pensions. You lure them in with sweet bait for three years, and then you hit them with the real money-makers.

"That's just cold..."

A thought struck me: if I started a Ponzi scheme in this world, I’d be guaranteed to succeed. No, no—I needed to stay focused on the Zombie Event. I was also curious about that business at the Oriana Kingdom Royal Castle that showed up in Doem's Testament.

"Still, it's weird that there’s almost no food left."

The only thing remaining was the Special Beauty Drops DX. Usually, shops would leave behind the stuff that was cheap or had a short shelf life.

"There's a reason the food's gone," Margari-san said, answering my unspoken question.