Modern Villainess – Volume 1 Chapter 2 Part 8

Translator: Flowingcloud    Editor: Arocks141

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Ojou-sama Soars Part 8

 

If you are reading from a pirate or aggregator site, please read from the translator’s site: yado-inn (dot) com I have to put the link like this or else the bots will remove it, sorry 🙁

“Please help me, Ojou-sama.”

July.

The day after news broke that the merger negotiations between Hokkaido Takushoku Bank and a major local bank in Hokkaido had broken down.

Now, he has come, prostrating in front of me.

Katsura Yuki.

The son of my maid Katsura Naomi-san.

Naomi-san was next to me, not knowing what was going on and flustered.

“Even if you suddenly ask me for help, I can’t just say yes. At least explain what’s going on.”

His thirty year old face looked unbecomingly skinny and haggard.

Perhaps due to a lack of sleep, he had a lot of dark circles around his eyes.

The harsh work likely drained him of stamina both physically and mentally.

“As you may know from the news about the Hokkaido Takushoku Bank where I work, the bank is currently suffering from deposit outflows. Could Ojou-sama please deposit some of your funds into the Hokkaido Takushoku Bank, no matter how small it may be?”

Ever since it was practically declared bankrupt in spring on television this year, the bank employees of Hokkaido Takushoku Bank have been mobilizing all sorts of connections to secure deposits.

He had entered the Hokkaido Takushoku Bank due to disliking connections, but he was now depending on his connections and prostrating in front of me. I was shown the irrationality of society.

“Ojou-sama……”

Naomi-san’s eyes were filled with tears as she looked at me, her master, and her son.

Watching him scramble to raise money to the point of making his parents cry, a memory of the past life ablaze for me.

We entered the long, long recession, moral obligations were swept away with the words of ‘money’ and self-responsibility. The weak me had nothing to hold on to in the end, leaving the world alone.

When I recalled that memory, my first emotion was anger.

It was not angry towards the society that drove me to my end, but anger for being born in an era where society did not reward you even when you try.

I am a villainess.

At least in this life, I should be walking a life to become a villainess under that setting.

I understood that role in reality.

I, the villainess, will eventually lose to the main character that appears, and fall into ruin.

In that sense, it was a natural arrangement and a beautiful story.

If I lose in a flashy, splendid way, then I thought that it would be fine to accept the role.

 

However, what was the scene in front of me?

 

Weren’t there many people, who have been swallowed alive by the great waves of the era, like me in my previous life, right here in front of me?

I did not take up the role of the villainess because I wanted to see something like this.

The only one I will lose to is the main character!

I don’t want to lose to time. I don’t want to lose to something hopeless.

“……Call for Tachibana and Ichijo. For the time being, 100 million should be fine, right?”

“Thank you very much, Ojou-sama! Thank you very much!!”

The Katsura pair was crying while holding my hand in gratitude.

The current me could save those two.

No, it was because I knew the waves of time that would happen that I could earn money.

I could save them.

Hokkaido Takushoku Bank.

Ichiyama Securities……

 

…The Japanese economy. I can save them all.

 

I sighed and shook my head lightly.

Even if I don’t do that, I can live in prosperity as the villainess until my ruin.

I have already laid the foundation.

However, if I wager everything a second time, I might be able to save the Japanese economy.

“Ojou-sama. What did you call us for?”

About an hour after the Katsura pair calmed down, Ichijo arrived and came in together with Tachibana.

They probably heard to some degree from Naomi-san, but I informed them simply a few words that left them speechless.

 

“I will take over Hokkaido Takushoku Bank.”

 

“Are you insane, Ojou-sama!?”

I shrugged my shoulders when exclaimed about my remarks about acquiring Hokkaido Takushoku Bank.

Very lightly.

“I might not be sane. Since you’re here, Ichijo, perhaps you can inform me, in a way I can understand, why acquiring Hokkaido Takushoku Bank is not a sane move.”

During this time, Tachibana said nothing.

Having settled down a little, Ichijo stared at me and asked for confirmation.

“Where should I start?”

“From the beginning. Because even I do not know whether this is the right move or not. I will precisely listen to your explanation and if I was mistaken, I will retract my statement.”

Ichijo fixed his eyes on me and sighed.

Then, he took a 100 yen coin and a 10,000 yen bill out of his wallet and placed it in front of me.

“I have a question for Ojou-sama. Ojou-sama knows that you can buy things with money. Well then, why can we buy things with money?”

“You’ve asked something quite hard. ……Isn’t that because money has value?”

“You guessed correctly, Ojou-sama. To be precise, it’s “the visualization of the illusion that money has value”.”

“The visualization of the illusion that money has value?”

While I repeated those words, Ichijo called for Tachibana after further taking out nine 1,000 yen and small coins.

Apparently, there wasn’t enough.

“Tachibana-san, do you have a 500 yen coin?”

“If one piece is enough.”

A 10,000 yen bill, nine 1,000 yen bills, one 500 yen coin, and five 100 yen coins were lined up on the table.

With this in front of me, Ichijo continued his explanation.

“We understand that this 10,000 yen bill and these bills and coins have the same value. However, if an alien that doesn’t know anything about Japan sees this, would it understand that they have the same value? This is the essence of the visualization of the illusion that money has value.”

I see.

I nodded and showed that I understood.

Ichijo returned the 500 yen coin to Tachibana and put his money back into his wallet.

“Now that you understand the essence of money is its value, let’s talk about how the value is decided. There are several rules about value. First and foremost, there is no value without another party.”

When I was confused by Ichijo’s explanation, Ichijo took out the hundred yen coin from his wallet that he just put away and put in front of me.

“If it was just me, there would be no problems if I initiated that this one hundred yen coin was a 10,000 yen, right?”

“Ahh.”

I unconsciously clapped my hands.

Value exists only because there is another party.

“Well then, let’s pretend that Ojou-sama is here now. When I say this one hundred yen coin is 10,000 yen, Ojou-sama will say this, “This isn’t a hundred yen though?”. Well then, who do you think is right?”

I slightly thought as Ichijo looked at me with a smile, clearly scheming something.

Nonetheless, I was the one that requested this in the beginning, so let’s try answering with what Ichijo was expecting.

“Isn’t it me? After all, it has the characters ‘100 yen coin’ (百円玉) written on it.”

Ichijo displayed a smile as if he was waiting for that answer, and caught me in the trap he set up.

That point was certainly a blind spot for me.

“The correct answer is “neither of us was correct”.”

“Eh? Isn’t 100 yen a 100 yen?”

“Ojou-sama. Is 100 yen really 100 yen?”

“?”

While having an expression that said ‘what the heck is this guy talking about’, Ichijo took the 10,000 yen bill out from his wallet again.

As I thought it must be a pain to put it in and take it out over and over, Ichijo placed the 10,000 yen bill next to the 100 yen coin.

“Think carefully, Ojou-sama. Do you really believe that one scrap paper holds the same value as the hard currency of 100 yen?

“……”

I sank into silence.

This was the greatest revolutionary concept of modern economics.

The establishment of the foundation of trust.

“We are having this conversation under the assumption that this is 100 yen.”

“To be precise, we are believing in a third-party that guarantees that this is 100 yen. That third-party is the Bank of Japan. In other words, the country. This is the essence of money in modern society. It’s called credit money.” ¹

Ichijo said up to that, and slightly turned away his gaze.

We’re only halfway through the story.

“I’m slightly thirsty. Shall we have a coffee break?”

“I’ll have grape juice!”

“Understood. I will have Tokito prepare for you, so please wait.”

Tachibana left the room.

Before I knew it, I found this lesson interesting.

If I knew this in my previous life, I believe that my end would never be like that, but my stomach growled during the time I waited for Tachibana and Aki-san’s drinks and tea cakes.

No matter how tall I grow, my childish body will always want sweets.

“Here, Ojou-sama’s favorite, pudding.”

“Yayyy. Pudding♪”

Ichijo took a sip of coffee then restarted our lesson.

“Ojou-sama. That pudding looks delicious. If you like, would you sell that to me for 100 yen?”

“I will not sell it for 100 yen! This pudding is worth more than that!!”

I don’t bear a grudge against the good, but I seriously refused him.

The pudding was handmade by the maid here, so it’s delicious and expensive.

Ichijo saw that and then suddenly presented the 10,000 yen bill that was left out.

“Well then, would you sell that pudding to me for 10,000 yen?”

“……Tsk!”

Although I was a well-off daughter of a high-class family, I was an ordinary person in my previous life.

My soul responded to the value of 10,000 yen.

Seeing that response, the three people in the room giggled.

“Ojou-sama, we are thankful that you value our pudding that highly. Ichijo-sama, please do not tease our Miss.”

At Aki-san’s words, Ichijo spread out both hands to show that he didn’t mean anything bad.

Unintentionally, I laughed at his gesture.

“I will not eat the pudding, but could you lend it to me for only a short while?”

“……You can’t eat it, all right?”

Ichijo left the 10,000 yen bill in front of me and brought the pudding in front of himself.

This probably meant that I sold the pudding to Ichijo for 10,000 yen.

“Well then, I paid 10,000 yen and bought this pudding, but this wasn’t for me to eat, but I bought it in order to sell it to another person and earn a profit. Thus, Tachibana-san. Would you like to buy Ojou-sama’s pudding for 20,000 yen?”

Tachibana, who was drinking black coffee, shot a glance at the pudding.

“I am not good with sweet things.”

Tachibana spoke as if he was in a play, and Ichijo looked around his surroundings like he was really troubled.

Up until this point, I understood what role the pudding played.

Aki-san’s handmade pudding was a representation of land and stocks in the Japanese economy.

“Well then, I’m troubled. It’s not like I particularly want to eat this pudding, and if I leave this pudding as it is, it’ll go bad. If this is the case, I wonder if there’s anyone who’ll buy it. It can’t be helped, so Ojou-sama, would you like to buy this pudding?”

“I’ll buy it for 100 yen ♪”

I took the 100 yen coin that was left on the table and offered it to Ichijo.

Ichijo took my 100 yen and returned the pudding.

Then, he continued his extremely obvious play.

“I managed to deal with the pudding, but 10,000 yen disappeared from my wallet. When my wife looks at my wallet, she’ll ask me, “What did you use the 10,000 yen on?”, then a fight will occur.”

This was the essence of non-performing loans.

People will raise the price thinking that others will want it, then lower the price if they cannot find a buyer.

Ichijo demonstrated the difference between book value and market value that has sprung forth.

“There, I would prepare money from somewhere by suspicious means and give 10,000 yen to Ichijo so that the fight between the married couple can be avoided.”

“That’s right, Ojou-sama. Even this 10,000 yen pudding could cause a fight between married couples. The non-performing related to land and stocks are literally just on a different magnitude.”

Ichijo said with a completely serious face unlike earlier.

Because Ichijo was fighting at the front line of the bubble and its collapse, those words had weight in them.

“Even our Second Association Regional Bank, Far East Bank, is still carrying 45 billion yen of non-performing loans. We have disposed of them here and there, so Far East Bank’s non-performing loans should have been around 100 billion yen in its worst time. Although Hokkaido Takushoku Bank is on the lower-end, it is still a city bank. Without a doubt, the number of non-performing loans should be a magnitude higher than the Far East Bank’s.”

Could I prepare funds in the trillions?

If I had the time, I could manage during the IT bubble.

However, Hokkaido Takushoku Bank went bankrupt during this fall due to constant market selling.

There clearly isn’t time.

“If that’s the case, there is only one thing to do.”

While eating the pudding with a serious face, I declared.

“Bank of Japan’s special loan. Think of a plan to make the Ministry of Finance move and have them pull out Bank of Japan’s special loan.”

 

Let’s talk about money.

Let’s talk about money (value).

Let’s talk about money (trust).

Let’s talk about money (illusions).

 

Let’s talk about the economy (money).

 

The nightmare of the chain bankruptcy of financial institutions.

Sankai Securities: 80 billion yen.
Ichiyama Securities: 260 billion yen.
Hokkaido Takushoku Bank: 2.3 trillion yen.

 

As you can see, the amount of bad loans in Hokkaido Takushoku Bank is a digit apart.

If I want to avoid damaging the Japanese economy, what I really need to save is the Hokkaido Takushoku Bank.

However, I cannot prepare a huge amount of money like 2.3 trillion yen.

No, there is only one organization that can prepare that amount.

It was a special loan from the Bank of Japan.

The Nichigin Tokuyu. ²

This is the so-called last resort lender, which is triggered at the request of the government to main credit if the financial system falls into a crisis.

It could be said that the fate of Hokkaido Takushoku Bank will be determined by how to withdraw this special loan that is unsecured and limitless for financial institutions that are lacking enough funds.

“First, let’s start by utilizing of Bank of Japan’s special loans that we have received.”

When I acquired Sankai Securities through Far East Bank, the special loans flowed into Sanaki Securities.

Because the special loans are unsecured and unlimited, after the announcement of their acquisition by Far East Bank, their credit uncertainty continued and the break on the bleeding of the discharge of funds from Sankai did not stop, and currently, we were depositing enormous amounts of special loans.

If you imagine that you forgot to plug in the bath stopper and continued to pour hot water, even though the water was leaking from below, then it would be easy to understand.

The stopper—the outflow of funds—could not be plugged back in, and the special loans won’t stop until the hot water—money—was filled.

“That’s why, what I’m about to do is quite reckless.”

As I declared so, Ichijo’s face cramped, then he timidly asked.

He learned when this Miss says something like this, she was going to do something bad.

In reality, when he heard this, Tachibana and company were lost for words a second time.

“……I don’t want to ask, but what are you planning on doing?”

“‘To kill the general, first shoot the horse’. In order to acquire Hokkaido Takushoku Bank, first we must acquire Ichiyama Securities.”

 

“The merger of Sankai Securities and Ichiyama Securities has been announced!
The merger of the major between the second-level securities company, Sankai Securities based in Tokyo and the major securities company, Ichiyama Securities also based in Tokyo, has been announced.

The parent body will be Sankai Securities, and will be called Sanakai Securities after the merger and all the other operations will be unified under that name.

Not only was the major securities company, Ichiyama Securities, carrying large amounts of non-performing loans and was struggling in its management, it was discovered under-the-table dealings, so management ranks below CEO have all resigned and chaos was spreading in the company.

According to a weekly publication, Ichiyama Securities has not only been accused of loss supplementation, but also off-the-book debts. This merger with Sankai Securities this time, led by the Ministry of Finance Securities Bureau, was in reality a relief package for Ichiyama Securities, and there is backlash from opposing parties.”

 

“Prior to tomorrow’s merger with Sankai Securities, Ichiyama Securities has officially announced its off-the-book debts, all current members of the management ranks have resigned, and have taken legal action against all previous management members.

According to the announcement, the total amount of off-the-book debt comes to 260 billion yen.

All of the non-performing loans, including the ones just mentioned, have been planned to be sold to the settlement collection mechanisms and will be recorded as extraordinary losses.

Sankai Securities held a press conference concerning Ichiyama Securities’ announcement and stressed that they had no plans to stop the merger.

The Ministry of Finance has announced, “We do not intend to cancel the special loan going to Sankai Securities”……”

 

It was not difficult to search for a whistleblower from an employee of Ichiyama Securities. Tachibana and Ichijo used the information secured with Keikain Family’s immunity of arrest as the bargaining chip, used the Keika Rule that was set as a precedent, and applied for a merger between Ichiyama Securities and Sanaki Securities after Far East Bank made the necessary arrangements.

With the under-the-table payoff, Ichiyama Securities had been completely crippled by their management and had them completely replaced. The Ministry of Finance Securities Bureau, who oversaw them, could not help but accept the conditions that were presented by us without complaining.

The decisive blow was after Ichiyama Securities revealed that it would fall into insolvency due to the out-of-book debts that they had kept hidden.

Falling into insolvency certainly due to their settlement collection mechanism was a scenario that the Ministry of Finance Securities Bureau must avoid no matter what.

When Tachibana said that we would rescue Ichiyama Securities if they followed the Keika Rule, they nodded feebly.

“They don’t want to expose the mismanagement of the Securities Bureau before the Banking Bureau, right?”

Hurray for bureaucratic sectionalism!

The best part about this small-scale eats large-scale merger is that the special loans are still being poured into Sankai Securities, and putting aside how it looks, Bank of Japan could now legally grant Ichiyama Securities some relief funds.

Also, a major point for them was that they were able to make all the hidden assets visible, and deal with the bad debt in full.

If one were to ask what was the point, in the cases of financial institution mergers, they can process all the assets that will merge into the surviving company, but all assets of the merged side can be recalculated temporarily at “market value”.

In other words, since assets are taken over at a reasonable price at the time of processing, it inevitably ceases to remain a non-performing loan.

Even so, the really bad ones are sold to a liquidation collection organization, and account cancellations and other credit uncertainties will be compensated for by the special loan.

The mass media was not impressed with this logic, and only part of the news stood out: all Ichiyama Securities management resigning a second time, criminal prosecution of the previous leaders, and the fact that the name after the merger wasn’t going to be “Ichiyama Securities”.

Thanks to the “Ichiyama Securities Taken-over” and other hilarious new reports, they were able to produce an answer and conclude who the responsibility belonged to, so in a certain sense, it was favorable for me.

For the time being, Ichiyama Securities survived.

If you are reading from a pirate or aggregator site, please read from the translator’s site: yado-inn (dot) com I have to put the link like this or else the bots will remove it, sorry 🙁

1. Slavemaster (Cloud): In Japan, Bank of Japan is the central banking system, similar to the Federal Reserve in America.
   Slothmaster (Arocks): For any economics minded readers out there, the above explanation is a bit cruder method of explaining the true concept behind paper currency. It is, basically, a contract between the bearer and the government, where the bearer is promised the value denoted on the note in some form or the other.
2. Slavemaster (Cloud): This is the explanation of the Nichigin Tokuyu (translated as ‘special loan’) has been mentioned several times in the story already. https://www.boj.or.jp/en/announcements/education/oshiete/pfsys/e17.htm/