Chapter 536: Zog and the Bankers in Cahoots (Part 2)

Chapter 536 -334: Zog and the Bankers in Cahoots (Part 2)

He couldn’t achieve this goal on his own.

He needed outside help.

The cool, crisp air blowing through the crack in the window broke the Prince’s train of thought.

He had already made his decision: he would unite with powers that were also hostile to Zog.

‘Perhaps Loman would be a good ally…’

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Before going to discuss collaborations with the major banks, Zog first took a stroll around the Royal City.

Even though he didn’t particularly like the city.

It was all for the sake of market research—to see how many people here could afford to use online shopping.

According to the statistical data, the Royal City was quite wealthy, even more so than Twin Tower City. The only issue was the rather peculiar distribution of that wealth.

Zog would call it an hourglass structure.

There was a pile of nobles who were rich beyond belief. The Royal City was likely the most densely populated area for Sutton’s nobility. If a brick fell from the city wall and hit three people, at least one of them would be a noble.

On the other hand, there was a huge mass of laborers so poor they were just barely scraping by, with basically zero purchasing power.

As for the middle class, which should theoretically be the largest group, they were few and far between here.

This meant he could only do business with the wealthy.

But there was no better place to be found in all of Sutton. Among Sutton’s collection of “dwarf” cities, the Royal City was the tallest of the lot.

However, the business practices of his peers in the Royal City were quite an eye-opener for Zog.

A place with a sign that read “Zoo” was actually a brothel that used Beast Girls as its main selling point—a tax evasion scheme.

‘Is this an idea a Human could even come up with?’

Moreover, the place also sold erotica with… unique tastes, such as *Zog and the Hundred Princesses He Stole*.

Although Zog had read plenty of fanfiction about himself, the “Zog” in those stories always transformed into a human. They were essentially just your typical domineering-CEO-romance stories.

The ones here were much more… creative.

In this book, “Zog” remained in his dragon form, and even his size was true to the original.

The tastes were so extreme that even Zog, who considered himself quite “liberal,” found it hard to finish.

He felt the author of this book should be paying him—not for royalties, but for emotional damages.

And the writing was surprisingly good, the imagery incredibly vivid. Zog only flipped through a few pages, glancing here and there, and it was enough to make his sanity drop.

As a result, he didn’t sleep well and found himself yawning the next day as he went to meet Sutton’s top bankers.

The location was chosen by the bankers. It seemed to be a place specifically for meetings, steeped in history and built to the highest standards.

The decorations inside were extravagantly luxurious. Zog guessed the artistic level was probably quite high. As for why it was a guess—he couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

‘That’s just how it is for a “nouveau riche” dragon.’

The bankers had wanted to hold a grand welcoming ceremony for Zog, conducted according to noble etiquette. And in fact, ever since Zog had secured the title of Lord of Deepwater City, he did technically count as a noble.

Once the importance of commerce was recognized, it wasn’t uncommon for merchants to obtain titles or peerages.

Just like how these bankers all had some sort of title.

At first, Zog was curious about the welcoming ceremony and planned to experience it, but after learning it would take up the better part of half a day, he abandoned the idea.

He was in a hurry.

It was hard to imagine the level of boredom that must be experienced by people who lacked entertainment, couldn’t sleep for half a year like a dragon, and didn’t engage in production, to be able to come up with such convoluted procedures.

Nevertheless, they still held a brief welcome.

The old guard of the Royal City couldn’t be seen to lack courtesy.

As Zog walked across the soft carpet and arrived at the doors of the reception hall, two rows of musicians struck up a solemn tune, and an old man with a graying beard announced in a loud voice,

“In the name of the holy Magic Goddess, may the radiance of Magic forever bathe this door!”

The great doors then swung open, and the guards on both sides saluted in unison.

“Your Excellency, the esteemed Zog, Giant Dragon of Deepwater City, creator of the great merchant guild! Where you soar, even thorns blossom into roses. I, Raymond de Boyan, on behalf of the hills and grapevines of Debre, wish to express to you…”

To be honest, Zog didn’t hear a word the man was saying.

Furin’s lectures now only ranked second in their sleep-inducing power; first place undisputedly belonged to this bunch of new-money nobles.

It couldn’t help but remind him of those stuffy mornings from his school days, during the sports meet opening ceremony, where they had to listen to the dean of students’ speech, followed by the principal’s speech.

Zog wondered where they found so many adjectives.

This whole routine, which was described as “simplified as much as humanly possible,” lasted for nearly twenty minutes.

In that time, there were incense burners, flower petals, maidservants, welcoming wine, and all sorts of other nonsense.

Although he had no interest in the welcoming ceremony, Zog went through the whole process like a puppet.

He could see how much importance they placed on him.

‘Good. This proves the next part won’t require too much convincing.’

‘What does this mean?’

‘It means that creatures who deserve to be hung from the lampposts are all on the same wavelength.’

They knew Zog was about to make them a huge pile of money.

“I’ve brought a proposal for a partnership,” Zog said, getting straight to the point. “The Zog Group is going to establish an online shopping platform. This platform requires an online payment function. Therefore, I need all of you to enable this function for your clients. We will be responsible for the specific technical support.”

“An online shopping platform is…?” asked Raymond, the one who had led the welcome.

“A store that operates on a network. After a buyer purchases something online, the seller uses a courier service to deliver the goods to the buyer’s hands.”

“Is that even possible?”

This method was completely unheard of to them.

“If it weren’t possible, I wouldn’t be here.”

The bankers exchanged glances, quickly recognizing the unique nature of this business model.

Extremely low costs, no physical stores, a vastly enriched selection of goods… as long as the delivery fees were within a reasonable range, it was bound to become popular.

As for the implementation plan…

Zog gave a rough explanation. After a buyer completes a purchase, the funds are temporarily frozen in their linked account. Then, the trading platform aggregates all transactions for the day, sends the data to the respective banks, and finally settles the accounts in a unified process.

The entire process would be conducted online.

This meant the banks’ services would also have to go online, but that wasn’t particularly difficult.

After the birth of the mainframe, every bank had already realized the convenience and powerful application of such a thing in office work.

The banks had all more or less begun experimenting with online services, though their progress varied.

Zog was basically dragging them into high gear.

“What about security?” someone asked. “How can we guarantee the security of a payment completed online?”

“The Zog Group will handle it.”

Zog answered with great confidence.

Thanks to his direct connection to the Divine Remains, hackers were virtually impossible in this world. No matter how brilliantly someone played with Virtual Magic, as long as they were connected to the network, they would be found.

“And the banks can collect a transaction fee during the process?”

“No, no, no,” Zog immediately denied. “That would be far too greedy. It would seriously discourage people from shopping online and would weaken the advantage of online shopping being cheap.”

“Then how do the banks profit?”

“You don’t profit from this.”

The negotiation suddenly reached an impasse.

The bankers began to wonder if this dragon had any real intention of cooperating.

“This is a service the banks should be providing. Not every service is for making money. Of course, if you’re really unwilling, we don’t have to partner up. I can just create my own bank. It would be more troublesome, but that’s competition, isn’t it? I hope you have confidence in yourselves,” Zog said calmly.

The bankers’ faces turned a little grim.

But what Zog said was true. Competition would only lead to mutual destruction—or worse, a situation where only they were destroyed.

Seeing that he’d applied enough pressure, Zog changed the subject. “But, along with online payments, there is a way to profit: credit cards.”

“Credit cards?” It was a term the bankers had never heard, but they could roughly guess its meaning from the composition of the word.

It was probably some kind of spend-now, pay-later gimmick.

“Yes, credit cards. A type of small ‘loan’ offered to people. If someone sees something they desperately want to buy but doesn’t have enough money on hand, yet knows they’ll have enough once their next few months’ wages come in… this provides them the opportunity for ‘advanced consumption’.”

“And many people won’t be able to resist,” a banker finished the thought.

Then, the laughter of a group of villains echoed through the reception hall.