Harem Startup : The Demon Billionaire is on Vacation
Chapter 80: Greed System

Chapter 80: Greed System

Chapter 80 – Greed System

The dozen semi-transparent screens floated in a perfect arc around him, each displaying live infernal data streams.

[Infernal Treasury Stable — +2.4% Yield Growth]

[Soul Contract Flow: 97.2% Clean Compliance]

[Black Market Leakage: Down 43% (Sector Enforcement Active)]

[Greed Department Liquidity: Fully Balanced]

[Corruption Threshold: 0.7% — Acceptable Range]

Lux crossed his arms, nodding in satisfaction.

The thing was: most people never understood how volatile hell’s economy could get. Soul inflation. Contract defaults. Black-market brokers laundering human suffering. Eternal damnation wasn’t exactly a stable currency model.

But Lux?

He’d rebuilt it.

And now it ran like one of those sleek mortal stock markets — minus the insider trading or at least with better managed insider trading.

"Status check, System," he whispered.

[All active departments stable.]

[Autonomous Dispute Arbitration active.]

[Last flagged issue: Resolved via sub-clause 9.7 override.]

[No ongoing conflicts detected.]

Lux exhaled.

"Any threats flagged?"

[Two minor warnings.]

[One flagged complaint from the Imp Royal Merchants Guild — rejected as baseless attempt at leverage.]

[One pending request: Lord of Wrath has submitted a formal meeting request for a contract recalibration session.]

Lux’s smile thinned slightly at that one.

"Wrath Lord again..." he muttered, eyes narrowing.

The holographic request floated in front of him, glowing in crimson runes:

[Request: Contract Adjustment Session]

[Submitted by: High Lord Varakan — Lord of Wrath]

[Purpose: Territory Maintenance Fund Review]

[Proposed Negotiation Site: Bloodforge Chamber]

[Response Deadline: 72 hours]

Lux clicked his tongue.

"Of course it’s him." He sighed and leaned back against the vanity, crossing his arms.

He remembered that day far too well.

Lord Varakan of Wrath wasn’t like the other sin lords. He didn’t bother with councils, didn’t play at politics or subtlety. There were no whispered schemes or double-faced diplomacy. No manipulation of court favors or twisted backroom deals like Pride or Envy constantly pulled.

Varakan didn’t negotiate.

Varakan hit.

Hard.

And Lux?

He had been just twenty-seven years old at the time. Barely two years into the role after being thrown into the Greed Department’s throne at twenty-five—abandoned when his parents went on one of their seemingly endless honeymoons.

The weight of Hell’s financial heart had landed on his shoulders overnight.

And it wasn’t like he could say no. Not when every demon in the department, every subordinate, every ancient contract holder stared at him — waiting to see if Zavros’s son would crumble or survive.

For two years, Lux lived inside his office.

Balancing ledgers by moonlight.

Writing counter-contracts before sunrise.

Learning greed law the hard way while older ministers whispered, half hoping for him to fail.

And then came the Wrath Court.

A trade expansion between Greed and Wrath was already one of the most volatile assignments any financial officer could handle — even seasoned lords avoided it when possible. But no one else volunteered.

So the job landed on him.

He studied for weeks.

Prepared every number, chart, and risk analysis.

Brought elegant graphs, detailed balance projections, careful models that even his own system flagged as ’optimized.’

On paper?

Perfect.

He remembered walking into the Bloodforge Chamber that day. The atmosphere itself felt heavy — like anger was woven into the air. The enormous obsidian pillars pulsed with deep crimson veins, and the flames along the walls hissed as though breathing.

Varakan sat on his throne, enormous and monstrous even among demon lords.

Lux presented everything calmly.

His voice steady, his proposals clean.

Every calculation justified. Every projection safe.

He even remembered feeling—briefly—proud of his own composure.

He was naive.

Because when he finished his presentation, Varakan’s eyes narrowed dangerously.

Silence stretched like wire.

Then Varakan stood.

And that was when Lux knew.

The Lord of Wrath didn’t argue. He didn’t counter. He didn’t even raise his voice.

He simply decided that the numbers Lux presented were not good enough.

The first strike came so fast Lux barely registered it.

A massive fist, charged with pure Wrath Aura, slammed into his ribs and sent him crashing backwards — through three separate layers of obsidian wall.

Bones cracked. Wings twisted. The pain was instant and absolute.

Lux lay there, coughing, gasping for air, blood pooling at the corner of his mouth. He could still hear Varakan’s voice echoing calmly behind him.

"Never present me weak projections again."

That was it. That was the entire meeting.

The deal was postponed.

The punishment delivered.

And Lux limped back to his office.

He collapsed into his chair, bleeding, wings partially dislocated. His staff panicked — but Lux waved them off.

He drank a high-grade elixir, forcing his broken bones to mend as much as possible. His ribs ached for weeks. But after barely half a day of rest, he was back at the desk. Back at work. Back refining those numbers.

Because that was Hell.

That’s how you earned respect.

You endured.

You adapted.

Or you broke.

Lux exhaled softly now.

"Fair bastard though," Lux muttered. "Brutal... but fair."

That was the thing with Varakan. He didn’t scheme. He didn’t lie.

He did exactly what was written in the contract — if you survived the opening negotiation.

And Lux did survive.

Barely.

But that day?

That was the first day he truly understood what it meant to rule in Hell.

"System," Lux murmured, tapping one finger against the floating request. "Mark it for Dad. In flashing red. He needs to pay attention to it."

[Understood. Lord Zavros assigned as primary delegate.]

[Priority status: High Caution.]

[Wrath Lord’s temper monitoring activated.]

Lux smirked faintly.

"Good luck, Dad."

The system chimed softly, then cleared the minor warnings from his immediate dashboard.

[All remaining departments stable. Mortal realm synchronization: fully functional.]

[No further administrative action required at this time.]

[Shall I enter passive monitoring mode?]

Lux stretched his arms above his head with a lazy groan.

"Yeah. Passive mode. I’ve seen enough today."

[Understood. System transitioning to passive observation.]

The floating screens gently faded out one by one, leaving the suite bathed in warm, dim ambient light again.

The moment the last report blinked away, the exhaustion finally began to hit him.

Not physical exhaustion. That was nearly impossible at his current state.

But mental. Emotional.

The kind that came from managing half of hell’s economy by remote while simultaneously breaking every bedframe in a luxury hotel with a kraken heiress who, by now, had probably marked half his body with new suction bruises.

He turned, glancing back toward the enormous bed.

And there she was.

Rava.

Still sleeping soundly, tangled in a sea of ruined sheets and her own sleepy, lazy tentacles.

Her hair was messy but beautiful, lips parted just slightly, her breathing slow and steady. One of her tentacles twitched in her sleep, curling around an empty pillow where Lux had been minutes earlier.

He smiled softly at the sight.

For a brief moment, the high-stakes world of contracts, sin lords, and political balances melted away — replaced by this strange, absurd warmth pooling quietly in his chest.

The kind of warmth that scared him sometimes.

"Back to bed, then," he whispered.

He slipped under the covers, sliding behind her, his arm wrapping around her waist instinctively as her tentacles lazily reached for him again like they could feel him returning even in her sleep.

The sheets smelled like her. Like salt, sweat, and sex.

Her body nestled back into his with an unconscious sigh.

Lux closed his eyes, feeling the steady pulse of her heartbeat against his palm.