God of Technology: Creating the Internet in Another World-Chapter 441: Of Course They Need the Land

More and more money kept pouring into steel futures. Almost all the massive loans they’d taken out were being thrown in.

The market’s insanity showed in how a whole bunch of lunatics mortgaged all their assets for cash, then ran around everywhere with piles and piles of money looking for steel, looking for steel futures.

Their money seemed endless, their enthusiasm constantly flowing through this market. Steel futures prices quietly doubled again.

This kind of growth rate—before they started their crazy borrowing spree—only happened right at the very beginning.

Nidhogg the Dragon of Despair couldn’t even imagine what these people were thinking.

But the people playing steel futures had already lost their minds.

Actually, it made sense. The money they’d gotten by mortgaging their massive amounts of land and other assets was meant for steel futures from the start.

Plus, even if they didn’t want to buy steel futures anymore, they had no choice.

With this much money, what else could they even buy besides steel futures?

And they still needed to pay back interest.

The only path forward was to keep buying steel futures.

They couldn’t just go gamble in the stock market, right?

The most ridiculous thing about the steel futures market right now was that almost everyone was frantically buying in, and absolutely nobody was selling.

At first, when steel futures were about to expire, they’d still consider selling.

Now they just didn’t sell at all. They’d take the actual steel and hold onto it.

Of course, they weren’t literally holding it in their hands!

They’d sign an agreement with Foster Iron Mine, pay them a small fee, and have Foster Iron Mine temporarily hold it for them.

In their minds, selling steel now would be just like selling land back in the day—total loser behavior.

The only ones still selling steel futures in the market were Viscount Roster and Nidhogg the Dragon of Despair—those two who analyzed exactly how much money these nobles had, then bought low and sold high.

In this insane atmosphere, a bunch more people chose to take out more loans.

So the total loan amount for these people wasn’t just 700 million anymore. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

Never mind anyone else—the Western Grand Duke of the Kingdom of Dawn alone had mortgaged his way to another 5 million gold coins.

Both times combined, he’d borrowed a full 15 million gold coins.

He’d basically mortgaged the entire Western territory. Just the interest alone would cost him 1.5 million gold coins per year.

This was because he was a Grand Duke, so his loan interest rate was relatively low. According to the new-style commercial company rates, other nobles often had to pay 15% interest.

In Ren’s eyes, this kind of play was child’s stuff.

In Ren’s previous life, people’s wild maneuvers went way beyond this—stock margin trading, CFDs, leveraged contracts... there was just so much more.

This borrowing-to-invest thing was just basic operation, a small bit of leverage.

Still, even so, Ren was very happily watching all of this from his divine realm.

"Looks like in another twenty or thirty days, steel futures prices can double again. But by that point, these nobles will have almost run out of money, and this farce will pretty much be over."

"These people have no idea they’ve fallen into a trap. They’ve actually mortgaged almost all their land."

"It can still double?"

The Goddess of Magic beside him looked at Ren, finding it somewhat unbelievable. "Are they really planning to take all the wealth their families accumulated over generations and throw it all into steel?"

"I’m thinking, steel prices are already high enough now. Won’t they invest in other things?"

"When the stock market first came out, besides investing in Roster Territory Group Company, didn’t they also invest in some other companies?"

"No, no, no. This time is completely different from before."

Ren was supremely confident, his face full of certainty. "After Viscount Roster’s manipulations, in these people’s minds now, nothing else can be as profitable as steel futures."

"Actually, you can’t give all the credit to Viscount Roster. Johnny the actuary has contributed just as much, maybe even more."

"Johnny the actuary?" The Goddess of Magic looked at Ren suspiciously. "Why have I never heard this name? Who is this person?"

"Someone who runs a newspaper. He’s also bet his entire life on steel futures, but unlike the others, he entered the market later."

"He started a media outlet. This media outlet was always kind of mediocre, but the appearance of the futures market this time let him see an opportunity. So after he saw lots of people buying steel futures, he started hyping steel futures like crazy."

"After repeating lies enough times, he started believing them himself. Then he started buying in bulk himself too."

"Of course, the reason I rate this guy so highly is because his feuding with Viscount Roster made countless people even more convinced that steel futures would keep rising."

"What in this world keeps rising forever? I remember you said that value fluctuates—high prices lead people to produce like crazy, crazy production leads to excess goods and falling prices, falling prices lead to increased usage, increased usage leads to skyrocketing prices, people start stockpiling production..."

"But they don’t know that, or rather, they don’t want to believe it." Ren waved his hand. "Honestly, I think this is a good thing."

"When most of the landed nobility lose their land because of this, their choices become: break the rules and get wiped out by the dragons, with their family land going to the Church of Technology."

"Or follow the rules, scrape by with their last bit of assets, and their land still goes to the Church of Technology."

"Does the Church of Technology really need land that badly?" The Goddess of Magic’s attention suddenly shifted.

"Of course. More accurately, whether the Church of Technology has land or not isn’t important. What’s important is that the traditional nobility loses their land, and the world needs to be reshaped."

"I understand." The Goddess of Magic nodded. "Thinking about it, they’re actually pretty pitiful. The wealth their families accumulated over generations, suddenly it’s all just gone."

"Pitiful..." Ren paused for a moment, then nodded. "You could say that, but they brought this on themselves."

"Plus, they’re pitiful, but aren’t the laborers pitiful too? The wealth in this world should originally be obtained by laborers and operators through physical or mental labor."

"But now? Almost eighty or ninety percent of the wealth goes to those people who are never satisfied, who only know how to exploit others, who won’t even contribute a bit of mental labor."

"This has absolutely no benefit for the development of the entire world."

"You could even say that it’s precisely because of these people that the world hasn’t changed at all for tens of thousands of years."