Chapter 454: Think About How to Lure Her Out
Chapter 454: Think About How to Lure Her Out
"A bank in Hell? You mean the sort of lending and borrowing operation the goblins run?"
Sariel's initial reaction was scornful. That sort of scheme, which mortals played at, had never worked in Hell.
Ambrose could read her attitude clearly. He explained: "There are many reasons Hell has never had a bank. One of the most fundamental is that you've always lacked a viable general medium of exchange. Soul-coins in Hell are consumables, not purely currency. That is the central problem."
Establishing an actual bank in Hell was not Ambrose's actual intention. He was simply feeling out the terrain.
Ambrose had proposed this seemingly sound suggestion to support Wauleen's recovery and to ensure his tens of millions of soul-coins generated the greatest possible impact.
A bank required basic economy. Hell was a hierarchical society: greater devils controlled lesser devils, who in turn controlled the lesser spirits laboring beneath them. In theory, the foundations for a bank simply didn't exist.
But precisely because the great devils held all of Hell in their grip, a primitive lending institution could be established. It would simply require an enormous amount of starting capital.
If this soul-coin bank could gradually build credibility, Ambrose could then coax Sariel into issuing something far more significant within Hell: actual currency.
Paper, worth a fraction of a copper, that could represent thousands of soul-coins...
With that foundation in place, it might one day be possible to reshape Hell's entire economic environment.
If things progressed that far, Sariel would likely earn the favor of the true master of Hell. She might no longer merely be in control of the first layer; she could well become his second-in-command.
That, of course, was a long way off.
This was simply a test. If it worked, the gains would be extraordinary. If it failed, it hardly mattered—after all, it was Sariel's gold on the line.
Noticing that Sariel was still hesitating, Ambrose said offhandedly, "Has any venture of mine ever lost money?"
The words landed like a shot of courage straight to Sariel's heart. She dropped her guard.
Ambrose had built such an ironclad reputation through one implausible victory after another that even a devil found herself unable to argue against it.
Sariel looked at Ambrose seriously. "You do have a genuine gift for business, but I'll accept only on the condition that you're treating me as a true partner, not deliberately setting a trap for me."
"Why would I? What reason do I have to undermine you? The success of the Hell bank benefits me directly. Who else is going to help me circulate the soul-coins I produce?"
That answer dissolved the last of Sariel's reservations. Indeed, she and Ambrose were natural partners. If she was truly in the same camp as this lich, this notion of a Hell bank might actually be worth attempting.
"How do you propose to go about it?" Sariel asked.
"Let's not rush. I know too little about Hell to plan the details. I'll provide your starting capital, and to avoid any misunderstandings with Tiamat, we'll honor the figures you gave her: ten million soul-coins each. After that, you can use the concept of the bank to draw Tiamat in as an investor.
"Keep the early operations simple. Extend loans to devils you can reliably manage and keep the interest rates modest, low enough that borrowers clearly sense the advantage. Draw in a first wave of clients and see how it goes. These soul-coins are money you've earned freely, so the initial outlay should be trivial. Devils hold contracts sacred. Maintain modest but consistent returns, and more of Hell's devils will come to trust the bank over time.
"That's the first step. As for what comes after, there must be plenty of goblins who've ended up in Hell. Try to find some of those goblin banking capitalists. I trust they'll have excellent suggestions."
Ambrose would give Sariel the broad strokes of his plan. Specific details would have to be managed by those who actually lived in Hell. He had neither the time nor the energy to hold anyone's hand through the process.
"Those goblins... don't come cheap."
Greed, malice, and ruthlessness were precisely the qualities the lords of Hell prized most highly. Souls of that character were premium goods. Sariel's personal preference ran toward bold warriors. She rarely collected this type of entrepreneurial soul, and would have to purchase them from other lords.
"Don't worry about the cost. You now have substantial capital. Throw money at those devils and let them see that you've come into a windfall. Consider it advertising. I'll send the first installment of soul-coins in a couple of days. Try it out, see how it goes, and once you've cleared the first stage, we can talk about what comes next."
Sariel terminated the magic mirror connection and began pondering which devil to approach for those goblin souls.
"Mammon, probably. He's the most avaricious devil in all of Hell. Those goblins must be with him."
............
After Sariel disconnected, Ambrose allowed himself a quiet sigh of relief. Without quite realizing it, the Archduchess of Hell had just agreed to what amounted to an installment plan. If he'd actually had to produce tens of millions of soul-coins all at once, the cost would have been staggering.
Mimetic Souls required materials, after all. The high-grade variety that backed premium soul-coins demanded intense emotional energy as a catalyst, which made them considerably more expensive. By Ambrose's estimate, producing ten million high-grade soul-coins would cost upward of a million gold coins in raw materials alone.
And he had just spent the better part of the Golden Throne's reserves. He genuinely couldn't bring himself to part with that much gold right now.
Installment payments it was, then. A buffer, until his cash flow recovered.
With that business concluded, Ambrose sought out his master and passed along the news that the Lords of Hell had agreed to cooperate.
The God of Alchemy mulled it over for quite a while before finally letting out a sigh.
"You've actually managed to rope them in. With Sariel and Tiamat, I'll grant that you have enough manpower to deal with the kouto goddess. But just the three of us gods are insufficient to break through Blobdilpulp's divine realm. You understand what a divine realm actually means by now, yes?"
Ambrose nodded. "From what I've heard, this goddess's divine realm contains a permanent chaos domain. Sariel said that even she would lose all rational thought the moment she entered."
The God of Alchemy nodded. This was the most troublesome aspect of divine beings.
"So how do you intend to handle it? Even if I locate her divine realm, how do you plan to solve that problem?"
"Isn't that your department?" Ambrose asked.
"What are you talking about? Do you think I can do everything? A god's power within their own divine realm is absolute. The only way to resist it is through raw individual strength. Unless I were Thanos himself, I can't withstand that kind of mental dominion."
"Isn't there some sort of mental artifact that can preserve clarity of mind?"
"There are, but none I could obtain, and certainly none I could produce at my current level. You still underestimate the power of divine beings. Anything with a conscious mind, even a rock elemental, would be reduced to madness upon entering that chaos domain."
This gave Ambrose pause. After a moment's thought, he asked, "What if I threw a rock in?"
"A rock?" The God of Alchemy blinked, then explained, "It would just be a rock. Something with no thoughts of its own wouldn't be affected at all, though Blobdilpulp could effortlessly reduce it to rubble, if she chose to."
"So anything without its own consciousness—an inert object—could enter her divine realm without being affected. What about undead?"
"Undead would still be affected. Even skeletons and zombies running purely on instinct would rapidly become frenzied and uncontrollable in there."
"What about magical automata?"
"Well..."
The God of Alchemy fell into thought. No one in existence understood magical automata better than he did. Every schematic any alchemist had ever devised was instantly known and fully mastered by him the moment it was drawn: that was the power of a conceptual god. Strictly speaking, a magical automaton was not a living thing. It was simply a collection of metal components executing a program.
Mental dominion had no effect whatsoever on a magical automaton.
However deranged Blobdilpulp became, she could not drive a piece of iron insane alongside her.
"But it would be pointless. A god's control over their divine realm is absolute. No magical automaton could pose any threat to Blobdilpulp within her domain. A single thought from her, and they would be torn apart by water elementals. And don't even think about a war of attrition. Within Blobdilpulp's divine realm, there will be countless kouto fishfolk and all manner of sea creatures, all of them heroic spirits, far more powerful than any kouto you've encountered. Even if you produced a vast army of automata and threw them in, they would be wasted."
The divine realm served another purpose: allowing her faithful to escape the cycle of death and rebirth, and to dwell in peace within her realm. The kouto goddess would naturally have an army of heroic spirits at her disposal. However many automata Ambrose managed to produce and hurl inside, they would most likely amount to nothing more than wasted materials.
Ambrose sighed. "No wonder Thanos was so delighted. This genuinely does look like an impossible task. Perhaps Choralan would be willing to pin Blobdilpulp to the ground with an arrow?"
"Don't even dream about it," the God of Alchemy cut him off without hesitation. "Choralan is far too proud for something like this. He would never involve himself in helping Thanos steal a bride—and knowing what we're up to, he might well cut off contact with you entirely."
"Then the only option left is to find a way to lure that shrimp-headed goddess out of her divine realm."
That was the only approach Ambrose could think of. If she couldn't be beaten inside, the only answer was to coax her out.
The trouble was that Blobdilpulp already knew someone intended to move against her. She was no fool. She wouldn't be leaving her divine realm any time soon. Most gods behaved the same way; refusing to stir from their domain under any circumstances was simply standard practice.
No matter what temptations the outside world offered, projecting a copy of herself was easy enough.
"So how can I lure her true body out...?"
Ambrose felt he needed considerably more information—at minimum, a clear picture of what this shrimp-headed goddess desired, what she feared, and what she despised.