God of Technology: Creating the Internet in Another World-Chapter 454: The Best Investment Plan Shattered

???

Even cheaper!?

10% was just the starting point?

It would keep going down later?

People who were already desperate became even more desperate.

From what Nidhogg meant, he wanted to lower it to an even lower price?

How were they supposed to play now?

After this matter sparked discussion, Viscount Roster’s internet trolls appeared again.

"We all make our living from land. The dragons lowered rent to 10%... what are we supposed to do with our land?"

"Will those free peasants still lease our land? They have a cheaper option now. Dragon-owned land is probably spread across the entire continent by now, right?"

"The dragons are rich and powerful, they don’t care about this little income, but we all depend on this land!"

"If this continues, how are we supposed to survive?"

"Just how much land did you all mortgage to the dragons?"

Viscount Roster’s trolls posted all the things nobles were worried about but couldn’t say onto the Magic Net.

The nobles who’d been forcibly enduring it couldn’t hold it in anymore after seeing this information.

That’s just how many things are. When nobody speaks up, everyone holds it in, but once someone says it, they instantly can’t hold back anymore and start speaking out one after another.

"Right, are they even going to let us live?"

"I didn’t participate in this steel futures thing, thought I wouldn’t be affected, but turns out the impact isn’t small at all!"

"Did you really not participate or are you just saying that? I bet you just didn’t mortgage large amounts of land, right? Otherwise you wouldn’t be this panicked!"

"Bullshit! At this point, which noble with land in the kingdom can sit still? Who knows how much land has fallen into dragon hands? If there’s a piece of land like that nearby, our land won’t be able to rent out."

"In the past, I needed seven or eight acres to support one person, maybe ten acres, and I wasn’t worried at all. We controlled so much land it still wasn’t enough. The problem is, now one acre can feed a whole family."

"Feeling kind of desperate!"

"Why does it feel like no matter what I do, I have no way out? Our family has been passed down for thousands of years and we’ve always been steady and solid."

"..."

Suddenly the whole atmosphere on the Magic Net was stirred up.

Who knows how many people sank into despair.

They really couldn’t understand why suddenly, seemingly overnight, the entire world had changed.

Countless people’s wails rang out, different kinds of wailing alternating.

Viscount Roster watched these people cheerfully, his face increasingly satisfied.

After laying the groundwork for so long, everything was finally getting on track.

Harvesting the gold coins stored in castles, harvesting land, circulating massive amounts of precious metals and land, breaking up the already solidified class structure.

Going forward, doing many things would become incredibly easy.

Entrenched interest groups had always been the biggest obstacle to magic-tech industrialization.

Nidhogg the Dragon of Despair appeared right on schedule: "Since you all feel you can’t farm, then you can sell. We dragons are willing to buy. As long as the price is reasonable, we’ll buy anything."

"If you ask me, since you think farming doesn’t make money, what’s the point of guarding those three acres? Why not sell it all to me, then take the capital and do something more meaningful?"

"Honestly buy bonds—just buy government bonds—and your family will have food for generations. If you trust your own judgment, you can put part of it in the stock market. If you profit, you’ll make a killing, and you’ll still have funds in the bond market so you won’t starve."

"There’s also futures. A perfectly good trading market, originally meant to encourage manufacturers to produce in large quantities, but you went ahead and blew up an entire industry. But after learning your lesson, you can also invest in some normal trading."

"Even if you don’t trust stocks, bonds, or futures markets, you can also establish some factories yourselves. Those people who didn’t participate in your activities, who honestly planted cotton and opened textile factories—aren’t they living comfortably?"

"If you ask me, you people living in your ancestors’ shadows really should take a good look at what the world is like."

This was the first time Nidhogg the Dragon of Despair displayed his destructive power on the Magic Net. The effect was astonishing—he shut down so many people they didn’t know what to say.

Because they also knew Nidhogg was right.

But how could everything accumulated over thousands of years be easily changed!?

From birth until now, all the information they’d received was this system.

But did they have a choice?

They could only adapt to this new era.

In the face of the era’s tide, everyone was so insignificant.

More importantly, this new era was being pushed forward by the Church of Technology—which dared to charge north of the watch wall with just a few thousand people and had already recovered large amounts of lost territory—and the dragons. Facing such powerful force, what could they do!?

When they were willing to play with you, there were all these twists and turns. When they weren’t willing to play with you, you really couldn’t keep playing.

You’d be done for!

Over the next period of time, these nobles completely fell into a desperate situation.

Steel prices kept crashing. The current market price was less than 3% of the peak—meaning the current price was only one-third of Viscount Roster’s purchase price.

All the nobles had lost who knows how much.

Quite a few people had already given up, directly telling the dragons to take their collateral—they’d never be able to pay it back.

Even if they could pay it back, they probably wouldn’t want to.

Because there was no point.

Land prices had also crashed again due to this series of operations.

Everyone unanimously believed that holding land would definitely lose money.

Before, when new grain varieties appeared, they thought they could wait a bit longer. Before, when land prices kept crashing, they also thought there’d be a bottom eventually.

But now?

Nope!

It was gone.

No matter what, land prices couldn’t possibly come back up, and trying to cultivate this land was incredibly difficult.

They even only had one choice—let this land lie fallow and wait for an opportunity.

Might as well just give it all to Dragon Bank, use it to pay off previous debts, at least then they’d have no debt.

Under these circumstances, Dragon Bank fell into an incredibly positive feedback loop.

The more land they owned, the faster land prices fell. The faster land prices fell, the more nobles who didn’t want to mortgage their land and nobles who wanted to sell their land would abandon it, and then there’d be more land on the market...

Under this cycle, nearly half the land in human territories flowed into Dragon Bank’s jurisdiction.

If anyone else owned this land, they’d probably be harassed by lords and end up with no harvest at all.

But the dragons!?

Who dared!?

The dragons’ reputation was just too big.