I'm Trying To Go Broke, So Why Do I Keep Getting Richer?!-Chapter 247: Downfall

Skrax slumped back into his chair, the silence of the office louder than the destruction he had just caused.

He couldn’t wrap his mind around the sheer absurdity of the report. The bank was actually bankrupt? How was that even a mathematical possibility?

More importantly, what was to become of his grand expansion plans? As the Director of Alpha Bank, he felt the very air being sucked out of his lungs.

For a fleeting, terrifying moment, the magnificent office, with its gold highlights and panoramic view of the sector outside, felt less like a throne room and more like a suffocating cage.

"Running out of capital?" he mumbled to himself. His voice sounded hoarse, and his mouth felt as if he had just swallowed a handful of dry ash.

"That’s impossible. We are the most popular financial institution in this entire space system. We have credit lines that span multiple sectors! Our name is synonymous with the new era of commerce!"

He paused, a dark shadow appearing on his forehead as a thought finally pierced through his panic. His expression soured, turning murderous.

If the people who had borrowed money were simply returning it according to their agreements, how could the bank possibly face such a situation?

He knew.that the return rate was expected to be slow. Leo’s brilliant model had involved no guarantee systems, no collateral requirements, and a flat zero-percent interest rate.

It was a system built on the shaky foundation of trust. But still... Wasn’t there any honor left among the masses?

Even if only a meager fraction of the borrowers were consistently returning their funds, the sheer volume of the bank’s reach should have provided enough liquidity to keep the gears turning. So why? Why were the vaults suddenly filled with nothing but wind?

He realized, with a sting of guilt, that he had been so utterly distracted by his expansion plans that he hadn’t been paying the slightest attention to the intake ledgers.

He surged up from his seat, rushing out of his office with all four arms swinging in agitation, and shoved his way toward the data terminals to check the return details personally.

The screen flickered to life, reflecting the harsh reality in his eyes. Just as he had expected, not a single person had returned the money they had taken.

Without collateral to seize or contracts that held any sharp teeth, the bank didn’t possess a single lever, no weakness, no pressure point, that they could use to retrieve the bleeding capital.

"My Lord," a junior assistant suggested, her voice trembling as she approached the frantic director.

"How about we deploy our military assets? A show of force to remind them of their debts. If they are scared out of their wits by our fleet, won’t everyone be rushing to pay back what they owe?"

Skrax froze as he heard it.

At the beginning of all this, Leo had only ever spoken about giving loans. His purpose had never been to profit from the banking business.

It was a tactic designed to ruin the Lionel Family’s business by poaching their entire client base with ’too good to be true’terms.

It was no different than hurting yourself seventy points to hurt the enemy a hundred points.

Leo never actually expected to see the money again. To him, the entire bank was a front, a massive and expensive distraction that he was happy to let burn once it served its purpose.

If Leo were standing here now, he wouldn’t be worried about the downfall. If anything, he would have been bursting into laughter at the success of it all.

Unfortunately, Skrax was not privy to the inner workings of Leo’s grand design. He was genuinely, deeply frightened by the current situation.

He had ascended to the position of Director of the Banking Branch after Leo’s departure, and under his glorious leadership, the entire institution had collapsed into bankruptcy in record time. The shame of it made him feel a chill down his spine.

"Don’t be foolish!" Skrax barked at the assistant. "If we take such drastic measures, the news will spread across the sectors in hours. It would ruin our reputation permanently. How would we be able to expand into other sectors then? We would be seen as warlords, not bankers!"

"Then... what are we supposed to do?" the assistant asked, her voice filled with a subconscious sarcasm. "Send a few people to nicely remind them to pay us back? Perhaps bring them flowers?"

Skrax, whose mind was not wired for the subtleties of sarcasm, took the suggestion at face value. He nodded slowly, his four hands clasping together.

"Do exactly that. Even if it takes more time, we should be able to convince them to return the funds through diplomacy. And if they really push us, if they spit in our faces... then I don’t mind using underhanded means to recover our property!"

He let out a long sigh, his eyes filled with the conflict of a man losing his grip. "At the same time, we need to arrange a temporary infusion of cash..."

"We need a loan," he said, his eyes darting frantically around the room as if searching for a hidden door. "The Galactic Union. If we show them our assets on Earth, surely they will grant us a line of credit."

"What assets, sir?" the assistant asked, her voice now genuinely trembling. "The Earth referendum passed this morning. Legally, all of our land grants are being contested by the new provisional government."

"Even the Hero Tower has ceased all payments for security maintenance. We aren’t an empire anymore, sir. We might as well be a charity that just ran out of donations."

Skrax’s lips twitched, but he found himself utterly speechless. The frustration felt like a physical heat in his chest, but he was powerless to vent it.

He had even briefly considered selling off some of the prime real estate under the Alpha Corp name, the various cities they had constructed from the ground up, but he wasn’t the CEO. He lacked the authority to liquidate company-wide assets.