Choosing to Run

At the Futures Trading Gazette, Johnny the Actuary watched the price fluctuations on the Futures Market with an ashen face.

His family had already staked all their assets on it, and naturally, they had debts as well—more than 200,000 gold coins' worth.

To some great nobles, more than 200,000 gold coins might not seem like much in the Steel Futures Market, but to his family, it was an utterly enormous sum.

An unimaginable sum.

Back when he had served as the Graycastle Empire's Minister of Finance for over twenty years, he had not earned even one-tenth or one-fifth of that amount.

The company now had to pay more than 20,000 gold coins in interest every year.

He simply could not afford it.

Even if the Futures Trading Gazette could continue selling normally and take on advertisements, earning that many gold coins would still be extraordinarily difficult.

There was simply nothing he could do about that.

Yet that was not even the thing that filled him with the greatest despair.

He was a smart man.

Otherwise, he could never have become the Graycastle Empire's Minister of Finance.

Precisely because he was too smart, he felt even more desperate. He had already thought of many things.

Everyone's eyes were probably fixed on him now.

Who knew how many nobles would blame this failure on having believed his news reports?

"Can they really blame me? Did I tell them to buy from the very beginning? I only saw that they were all buying, so I thought saying a few flattering things would fool them into following me."

"Once I had enough followers, I could use them to do more things. I could speculate in stocks, dabble in a little small-scale futures trading. Even setting all that aside, I could still take some advertisements