The Loser Lord Who Kept Getting Sweet Revenge and Somehow Rose to the Top - Chapter 05: Bankrupt~ No Money, No Honey~

Chapter 05: Bankrupt~ No Money, No Honey~

―The Retenable Trading Company, one of the largest merchant houses in the kingdom, headquartered in the capital.

Inside the now-deserted president’s office, a man raged like a lunatic—flinging papers off his desk, clawing at his scalp until it bled, and howling in frustration. This was Grid Retenable, the head of the company. Thanks to stress and his constant scratching, bald patches had begun spreading across his head… but at this point, he was far too panicked to even care.

“Why!? Why did it come to this!? What went wrong!? This isn’t how it was supposed to go—my plan was perfect…!!”

Faced with the collapse of everything he had built, all he could do was scream, cry, and tremble in fear and despair.

The Retenable Company had begun in his grandfather’s day, when it made its fortune through slavery, human trafficking, and the smuggling of illegal magical drugs. Under his father, the company had withdrawn from the underworld, seized exclusive trade routes for spices, and rebranded itself as a legitimate merchant house—thriving ever since.

Grid had inherited that solid foundation and expanded it even further. All that remained was to secure a noble title, and he would have risen to aristocracy. He had been so close.

To reach that goal, he threw money around like water—buying up beautiful women by force, making them unofficial wives, and forcing them to bear him children. If the child wasn’t a pretty-looking daughter, he simply “sold them off” and tried again. Over and over.

At last, he ended up with one prize: a daughter with flawless looks—Talia. He carefully steered her toward the son of the Tourmaline Viscount family, a house with history and decent standing.

The plan was simple: marry her into a manageable noble family, worm their way inside, seize their name, and climb from there. That was the grand life-long strategy he had staked everything on.

The one unexpected twist was that Talia chose to aim higher—marrying into a count’s family instead of sticking with that viscount brat, Sean. But really, a count’s house as a son-in-law? Even better. So he went along with it.

To secure their footing, he conspired with the count’s family, spread money around, and tried to ruin Sean’s reputation with false charges. Unfortunately, with insufficient evidence, they couldn’t trap him the way they wanted. All they managed was to muddy the waters a little and stir up rumors about Sean.

But that wasn’t enough for him. He had spent good money, and he wouldn’t rest until he inflicted real humiliation. So once again, he spread gold—this time to sabotage Sean’s marriage prospects. Watching the boy’s engagements collapse one after another had been delicious. Truly, he laughed his guts out back then.

And then came the turning point. With the backing of the count’s family secured, banks lined up to throw money his way. Using those loans, he was all set to expand Retenable Trading Company even further.

…But just when everything seemed within reach, it all came crashing down.

Spices—the company’s biggest source of profit—suddenly started flooding the market at dirt-cheap prices. Overnight, they were selling for less than half their usual value. The worth of his carefully hoarded stock collapsed instantly, and the losses were so huge he practically wet himself and soiled his pants on the spot.

To make it worse, the spices hitting the market were the exact same ones he’d been importing from the neighboring country. No—worse. They were even higher quality, since whoever was bringing them in wasn’t wasting weeks on the road. And as if that wasn’t enough, the suppliers abroad suddenly announced they were raising their prices—after years of letting him buy dirt cheap!

When he dug deeper to find out who was behind this nightmare… it turned out to be none other than Sean, the boy Talia had thrown away.

Sean, the rare dragon knight. The very boy he’d once pushed Talia toward when they were young, hoping they’d fall for each other so he could exploit the connection. A promising knight who could’ve been molded into his stepping stone.

But the moment Talia cast him aside—that was when Sean revealed his true talent!

Too cruel! Absolutely unforgivable!!

“Damn, damn, damn, damn it all!! Even the banks have flipped on me, demanding their loans back!! My best employees have abandoned me too!! Every last one of them—damn them all!!”

He tried to weather the losses by burning through the company’s savings and scrambling for new revenue streams to rebuild. But once spice prices crashed, the banks all pulled the same stunt—announcing they were withdrawing their loans.

Forced into survival mode, he cut labor costs. One by one, he fired any employee he deemed useless. And those who refused to accept dismissal, claiming they had families to feed? He harassed them until they left.

But then the worst happened—the talented employees he wanted to keep started quitting too. And once that kind of exodus begins, it never stops. Workers fled in droves. To make matters worse, those skilled veterans were all snatched up and happily rehired by rival companies.

Now, the only ones left at Retenable were his own blood relatives and the most worthless deadweight imaginable.

In desperation, he turned to his daughter for support. But she—she, the girl he had raised, fed, and molded with his own money—she betrayed him. She cut him off completely, tossed aside any sense of filial gratitude, and re-adopted herself into another noble house within the count’s faction.

Blinded with rage, he stormed into the count’s estate to demand answers. But Talia only looked down at him with eyes colder than trash and spat venom:

“I don’t know who you are, but it has nothing to do with me. Do try your best, though.”

―And with that, he was tossed out on his ass and crawled back to the company.

“…Enough with these damn cheats already!! A dragon, flying around delivering goods by air?! If that was possible, why didn’t anyone tell me sooner?! If I’d known, I would’ve beaten my daughter half to death if that’s what it took to make her marry Sean instead of dumping him for that two-bit count’s brat!! Do people not have hearts?!”

In the now-empty president’s office, he finally broke down. Tears streamed down his face as he collapsed to the floor, flailing his arms and legs like a child throwing a tantrum.

The house, the collection, the furniture—everything was about to be seized by the banks as collateral. Soon, he would have nothing. Nowhere left to return to but this hollow shell of a company.

“Nooo!! I don’t want this! I’ll be penniless! I worked so hard to get this far, to climb up in the world—only for it all to be over! It’s all gone!!”

The payments he owed kept piling up, but the income had all but dried to nothing. Even the fat stacks he’d hidden away in the safe were gone—completely drained. His money… his precious money… it was all gone!!

“Something work out! Work out! Make it work! Make it woooork!! Eeeei-ohhh!!”

But no matter how much he screamed nonsense, no one answered. No miracle came. No matter how pitifully he cried or howled, nothing changed.

It was only a matter of time before even this building and the last scraps of his assets were stripped away to cover the loans he could never repay. Everywhere he looked—nothing but despair.

“Someone! Someone help meee!!! I’ve worked so hard, so earnestly, so diligently all this time—why did it come to this?! Tell me, God, why?! This is pathetic—too pathetic, unbearably pathetic…!”