Chapter 441 - 140: You Animal, Lynch Blackwood

Chapter 441: Chapter 140: You Animal, Lynch Blackwood

"H-how much?!" Carl’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.

"What, you think that’s too little?" Lynch narrowed his eyes. "In that case, let’s add compensation for my emotional distress, my lost wages, the cost of this lunch, and your ransoms... Let’s just round it up to a nice, even five hundred thousand."

"You... This is robbery!" one of the students couldn’t help but shout.

"Robbery?" Lynch laughed. "No, these are war reparations. Of course, you could also choose not to pay..."

He pointed to the three-headed hellhound licking its fangs beside him. "Red Rabbit has had a good appetite lately. I think it would be more than happy to taste the souls of the Imperial Capital Academy’s elite."

"We’ll pay! We’ll pay!" Carl was scared out of his wits, nodding his head furiously. "I... I have my family’s gold card. I can pay Fifty Thousand Gold Coins."

As he spoke, Carl barked a few orders at the other students, a mix of begging and coercion, getting them to take out their money as well.

It had to be said, this group of students from the Imperial Capital Academy was truly loaded. Their financial standing far surpassed that of the students from Hurst Academy.

Among them, the richer ones could produce twenty or thirty thousand, while even the poorer ones could cough up seven or eight thousand Gold Coins... In just a few moments, Carl had actually managed to gather two hundred and eighty thousand Gold Coins.

"Sir, this is all we have for now." Carl held up the pile of gold cards and cashier’s checks, trembling. He lifted his mud-caked face, his eyes full of pleading. "The rest... can we owe it to you for now!? Once we get back to the Imperial Capital, we promise we’ll gather the rest for you immediately!"

Lynch reached out, took the two hundred and eighty thousand in gold cards and cashier’s checks, and put them away. Then he looked at Carl with a bewildered expression, as if he’d just heard something unbelievable. "Wait, are all you people from the Imperial Capital this shameless? How can you use my money to pay my reparations?!"

"Huh...?" Carl was completely dumbfounded, his mouth gaping wide enough to fit a fist. "Th-this is our money! It’s our own savings. How did it become your money?"

"Are you kidding me?" Lynch stood up, patting the dust from his robes. He looked down upon the miserable-looking group of "elites," the corner of his mouth twisting into a demonic smirk. "You are the defeated party. Everything you have on you, including your Gold Coins and equipment—and that hammer of yours—are all my spoils of war. How can you use my spoils of war to pay my reparations?!"

"Th-this..." Carl looked as if he’d been struck by lightning, completely stunned.

The other students also broke out in an uproar, their faces etched with shock and despair.

"According to the rules," Lynch said slowly, bending his fingers as if calculating a complex sum. "Every single copper plate on you, every piece of equipment, even your underwear—if you have any—is now the personal property of me, Lynch Blackwood. That two hundred and eighty thousand Gold Coins you just took out is naturally my money as well. What kind of logic is it to use my money to compensate me? Are you trying to pull a fast one?"

"No, it’s not like that..." The Tier Two fire mage had a long face, his voice trembling. "Sir, this is the allowance our families gave us. It’s our own money..."

"Not anymore," Lynch cut him off decisively, a cold glint in his eyes. "From the moment you surrendered, ownership of everything you have transferred to me. Forget Gold Coins; even you yourselves are mine. If I wanted to sell you to some mining pit to dig for coal, that would be my right. Understand?"

Right on cue, the three-headed hellhound, Red Rabbit, let out a deafening roar. The Soul Fire on its three heads flared violently, and the group of students instantly huddled together, shivering in fear.

"Understood, we understand..." Carl’s face was ashen. He had finally accepted reality. "Then... then what do you propose we do?"

"Simple." Lynch sat back down in his folding chair and took a sip of the now-lukewarm mushroom and fish soup. "You still owe me five hundred thousand. Each of you will write me an IOU, with compound interest calculated at three times the highest rate offered by the Imperial Bank. Oh, and just to be safe..."

He flicked his wrist, and the translucent Magic Crystal appeared once more. A faint light swirled across its surface; it was clearly already in recording mode.

"You’ll need to read a voluntary compensation declaration in front of the Magic Crystal, confirming that you are making this payment willingly and proactively, without any form of coercion. After all, I, Lynch, have always been one to win people over with virtue."

"Th-three times the interest?!" The Berserker nearly fainted. "The highest interest rate at the Imperial Bank is already fifteen percent annually! Three times that is forty-five percent! We... we’ll never be able to pay this off in our lifetimes!"

"Then you can keep paying in your next life," Lynch shrugged, looking unconcerned. "Alternatively, I could have Red Rabbit eat your souls right now. That would solve all our problems, nice and clean. Choose."

"We’ll write it! We’ll write it!" Carl made his choice without a shred of hesitation, his head bobbing up and down like a chicken pecking at grain.

’It was a no-brainer. A miserable life is better than a good death. No matter what, they had to survive this first. As for what happens next... they’d worry about that later!’

And so, under the menacing glare of the three-headed hellhound, surrounded by hundreds of Skeleton Soldiers, and with the entire process being notarized by the recording of the Magic Crystal, the group of usually high-and-mighty elites from the Imperial Capital Academy signed their names on the IOUs one by one with trembling hands and tears in their eyes, sealing them with their handprints.

Then, they faced the Magic Crystal and read out their declarations.

"I voluntarily agree to compensate Baron Lynch Blackwood for war damages in the total amount of Fifty Thousand Gold Coins, at an annual interest rate of forty-five percent. I promise to repay the debt in full within one year. If the payment is overdue, I am willing to use my personal and family assets as collateral..."