I Became A Black Merchant In Another World

There’s one major trait that all those we commonly refer to as “suckers” have in common.

They’re under the massive delusion that they’re not suckers—and that they’re the ones in control of the game.

The courageous “I can do it!” attitude is admittedly admirable, but reality always turns out to be a steaming sewer.

It’s like how grown-ups used to say you’d find love once you got into college.

“What kind of dead-frozen romance are they talking about in college, right, Sebastian?”

Sebastian tilted his head at my words.

“Romance in college? Are you talking about sodomy? Deus, have mercy. I’d rather see a heretic walk through the door.”

“No, I mean people finding romantic partners while attending university.”

“Ah. I thought some unspeakable tragedy had occurred where men in college were falling in love with each other.”

“That’s obviously not something that would ever happen. If some bastard ever got caught doing that kind of crap at our university, I’d personally make sure he didn’t walk away from it.”

In the Toscani Empire—or rather, anywhere on the Albanian continent—only men can attend university.

No matter what happens, even if the sky flips upside down, women can’t go.

Because legally, university students are considered clergy during their enrollment (and aside from nuns, all clergy are male), and this era doesn’t even entertain the idea of women in higher education.

‘In this world, it’d be as absurd as sending a man to the moon.’

“You’re speaking nonsense again. That joke wasn’t funny.”

“It wasn’t a joke. I just happened to see some guy yesterday in a university gown chatting happily with a girl.”

Seeing that reminded me how I never even got to hold a girl’s hand all through college and grad school back in Korea.

“Anyway, how are the weapon sales looking?”

“Even with the newly established weapons factory in the new city running through the night, I’m concerned we may not meet the delivery deadline.”

“Through the night? Don’t tell me they’re working the laborers over 10 hours a day.”

There’s no place in my world for some bastard who works people more than 12 hours a day and then pockets their wages.

Those kinds of people eventually evolve into bushy-bearded communist demons.

And if the number of blood-soaked cultists rises, even a capitalistic grandmaster like myself won’t be able to keep them in check.

The labor code was written in blood—not just the blood of workers, but of capitalists like me as well.

‘One stab from a bamboo spear, one for you, one for me.’

The only ones who need to get impaled are my enemies and competitors.

“As demand has risen, more and more people are making workers do 12, even up to 14-hour shifts. A few of them have increased wages proportionally and now pay even the lowest staff three silver coins per month, but the majority have just increased hours without touching the pay.”

“If they’re upping the hours and also paying more, that’s one thing. But working them harder without paying more? That’s not right. What are they gonna do when a riot breaks out?”

“We let the factories paying proper overtime off with a warning not to work people more than 12 hours a day. But for those not paying any overtime, we sent labor inspectors, confiscated the factories, and took appropriate legal action.”

Working from 9 to 6 is hard enough.

But these people clock in at 7 a.m. and finish at 5 p.m.

Add two hours of overtime and it becomes 7 to 7.

No matter how much you pay, asking someone to start at 5 in the morning and finish at 7 p.m.? That’s unacceptable.

Those who stretch working hours and still don’t raise pay are evil bourgeois scum—worse than the professors who torment grad students.

“Things have gotten so intense that some factories are now running 24/7 in shifts just to meet the overwhelming demand for weapons.”

“They’ve split them into three shifts.”

And how do you even run a factory at night? It’s because there’s lighting.

Without light, you can’t see the machines to operate them.

But we’re out of lamp oil right now, aren’t we?

“You need lighting to work. How are they managing that?”

“They’re using peanut oil for the lamps. I went to check myself—it’s surprisingly bright.”

“Humans really can make anything when they need to. I don’t even know what to say.”

“The factories are running day and night, but I’ve confirmed that wages are being paid correctly, and aside from making people work overnight, there don’t seem to be other issues, so I left them be.”

“Workers doing night shifts—from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m.—should be paid 1.5 times the daily wage. And don’t make them work night shifts for more than fifteen days straight without a break, Sundays excluded.”

It’s nice to make money, but dying on the job makes it all pointless.

People work hard every day to live well. They endure awful bosses who crush their dignity just to climb the ladder.

But nobody works because they want to die doing it.

“So weapon demand is so high it’s come to this. Must mean we’re making serious money.”

“Firearms, gunpowder, swords, spears, military uniforms—just from the factories owned directly by the Rothschild Trading Company, we’re bringing in 100,000 gold coins per month. Add in consignment sales from other factories, and it’s about 250,000. The national tax accountants are scrambling, trying every trick to reduce taxes for our ‘noble contribution to the empire,’ but we still end up paying 50,000 a month.”

“Two hundred thousand gold coins in monthly revenue after tax. That’s about the same as the imperial household’s own tax revenue if you add in our family’s capital power.”

“...Should we increase donations?”

Profitable businessmen and celebrities often donate a lot.

The news always says they do it out of pure kindness to help the poor, but I’ve always doubted that.

In the U.S., you can wipe your taxes clean with donations. Korea has decent deductions too.

Go to any church, temple, or legal religious facility, and they’ll give you donation receipts or offering records you can use to reduce taxes.

If you are reading this translation anywhere other than Novelight.net or SilkRoadTL, it has been stolen.

It’s basically: if the money’s gonna get taken anyway, might as well gain some goodwill from it.

But the Toscani Empire is a different beast.

If I make too much money, the Emperor will start thinking, That bastard’s suspicious. We should audit him.

The accountants, sighing deeply, will say We’re grateful to the Baron, but today we’re gonna have to dig in a bit, and they’ll start the tax massacre.

So instead, I strike first—reassure the Emperor, and reduce the outflow as much as I can in advance.

This is the kind of wisdom shared by all entrepreneurs in the 21st century—whether in the British Empire or anywhere else.

“Donate 300,000 gold coins to the imperial household.”

“Isn’t that a bit excessive?”

“How much has real estate gone up in the new city?”

“Our family currently owns about 30% of it. Prices have risen by 80% since initial estimates. The accountants attached to our house predict they’ll rise up to twofold.”

When Baron Florin, who had mortgaged his fief, bought up all the initial stock I released, that batch only made up 5% of the new city’s total property.

Now the price has gone up 80% on six times that amount.

“All the land near the new city that’s set for future development is ours too. If you factor that in, it’s going to be a fortune. I’ll just play the humble benefactor and say I’m donating it all for the good of the empire.”

“A wise decision, my lord.”

Getting taxed 300,000 gold coins is one thing. But donating 300,000? That changes the game.

Bribery in the form of donation. And with that, I can whine to His Majesty for some new privileges.

Gotta keep up those charitable (bribe) efforts, right?

“And what did you do with the factories in the new city that the labor inspectors confiscated?”

“I had the auctioned ones registered under the name of someone who doesn’t legally exist.”

“So they’re effectively mine. Use the profits from those factories to raise our company employees’ salaries. Staff the managers from within our own trading company.”

“Yes, understood. But even now, our staff’s salaries aren’t exactly low...”

Our Rothschild Trading Company pays the highest wages in the Empire.

At executive level, even without bonuses, one could buy a villa in the outskirts of Florence outright upon retirement.

And the money I hand over is laundered cleanly, without skimming a single coin off the top, so people just assume we’re generous payers.

“There are those weirdos who «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» say loyalty is its own reward. That’s only because they’re weirdos. Loyalty should be bought with money.”

To put it more precisely—

“Treat others the way you want to be treated. I want these people to lay down their lives for our family. In return, they should be given treatment and pay that matches. Don’t just throw them some words and call it even.”