The villain daughter did all kinds of things

"So... Miss Starling was originally a normal girl, and was only corrupted by having too much contact with you, Emery?"

Julia quipped, and seeing Emery's angry glare, she quickly hid behind Viliana, peeking out at the same time:

"By the way, what's this Ise Retsu Group?"

"..."xN

The room fell silent. Emerald, Marcy, Viliana, and Pancake Cat all looked at Julia with strange expressions.

"You...hum!"

Yulia's face flushed red instantly, and she stomped her foot in anger, pouting deeply.

"They're just ignorant small-town folks! So what if they've never heard of the Ise Retsu Group? Tell them about it!"

"Good good..."

Emerald was the first to withdraw that gaze, and smiled indulgently:

"The Ise Retsu Group... that's no good. It's notorious in the financial investment world... well, probably similar to those loan sharks on the streets of Locke City who forced respectable women into prostitution."

While explaining the Ise Group to Julia, Emerald couldn't help but recall her past life as a player, when she enjoyed slaughtering squid demons and collecting gold coins.

That's right, the Ise Retsu Foundation is the one that, along with the Art Association, was one of the two organizations that players had to kill in the original game. Its main members are not human, but squid spirits in disguise.

Chapter 156 Smooth Development

In this magical world, the probability of life developing intelligence and forming civilizations is much higher than on Earth, the planet Amelie's previous life.

On land, there are intelligent life forms such as humans, elves, and Amazons. In ancient times, there were also winged people and giants. On the continent east of the White Sea, there are ghosts and demons, and so on.

If this is true on land, then naturally life in the ocean will also evolve intelligence and form civilizations.

Based on the current explorations and discoveries of the Allen Federation, and Amelie's memories of the original game from her past life, intelligent life in the ocean is collectively referred to by humans as the Sea Race.

The two largest sea creatures are the Fish-Men and the Mermaids, who have been fighting for dominance of the ocean for over ten thousand years. Both races maintain a generally neutral stance towards humans, keeping to themselves and occasionally engaging in trade.

However, what the original game set up that the Allen Federation was unaware of was that around 1200 years ago, there were actually three major groups among the sea creatures: in addition to the fish-men and mermaids, there was another group called the squid-men.

While squidmen are not as skilled in combat as fishmen and mermaids, they possess a remarkable racial talent: the ability to almost perfectly disguise themselves as another race and blend in.

Initially, the squid people used this talent to disguise themselves as fish-men and mermaids, profiting from both sides' wars and plundering a great deal of wealth from both races through commercial means.

Until the fish-men and mermaids could no longer tolerate it, after fighting for tens of thousands of years, they even put aside their hatred for a few decades and fought together to kill the squid people. They killed them on sight and left no survivors, vowing to exterminate the squid people.

The squid people did indeed suffer a devastating blow, losing over 99% of their population, but a small number of them survived.

They left the ocean, went ashore, and, relying on their racial talents, disguised themselves as humans and settled in the Allen Federation.

Afterwards, these squid people continued to use their business acumen to set up various traps under the guise of investment, and cunningly seized the achievements of entrepreneurs, gradually becoming the most notorious Ise Group in the financial circle of the Allen Federation.

What the Ise Group likes to do most is to invest in or lend money to entrepreneurs when they lack funds in the early stages.

It sounds like a good thing, but the Ise Retsu Group's loan interest rates are extremely high, and investments come with many additional terms. If the entrepreneur fails to receive returns on time, the group will seize the entrepreneur's equity. Even if the entrepreneur uses real estate or patented technology as collateral, the Ise Retsu Group will only value the collateral at a maximum of 7% of the market value, and most of the time it will only be around 5%.

Given such stringent conditions, why do so many people still seek to borrow money from the Ise Regiment Foundation, turning them into the largest pure investment institution in the Federation?

Of course, it's because the Ise Group has ample cash reserves and a fast lending speed. As long as your project has sufficient collateral and prospects, the Ise Group can meet your needs no matter how much you borrow.

For example, if Amelie needed to borrow 1000 billion Luns within a few days, only the Ise Retsu Consortium among all the investment institutions in the entire Allen Federation could do it. Even Melson and Loshid couldn't... Melson and Loshid's total assets are definitely much more than the Ise Retsu Consortium, but they really might not be able to come up with 1000 billion Luns in working capital within a few days.

A very small number of entrepreneurs did indeed achieve great success after receiving loans from the Ise Group, thanks to their own talents and the advantages of their projects. In the end, they not only paid off their debts but also became very successful.

But the vast majority of entrepreneurs end up losing everything... Even if they manage to get their companies up and running, they can only watch helplessly as the companies they've worked so hard to build belong to others because they can't meet the Ise Retsu Group's demanding conditions.

Moreover, it's not just entrepreneurs; many large, thriving companies and families owe money to the Ise Group for various reasons. Even Merson has several subsidiaries that have used Ise Group funds for bridging loans.

It can be said that the Ise Rei Foundation is the largest creditor of the Allen Federation. If it were to collapse, many people in the Federation would be overjoyed.

Why didn't the debtors join forces to take down the Ise Retsu Group? This brings us to the issue of financial credit that Starling mentioned earlier.

Eliminating creditors and not having to repay debts may feel good in the short term, but the turmoil caused by the collapse of financial credit will not be quelled in a short time... Those in power certainly do not want the Federation to fall into chaos, so the Ise Retsu Group is still frantically absorbing wealth from all sides.

However, trust only applies to people of the same kind. What if the Ise Regiment wasn't human, but a 'demon' lurking among humans with ulterior motives? Then eliminating them wouldn't require any mental burden, nor would there be any worry about the collapse of trust.

In the original game, the Ise Reiza Group was quickly destroyed because its identity was exposed, and it was attacked by almost the entire Federation. The wealth it had accumulated over the years was looted, and all the debts were wiped out when the creditors died.

It was precisely because Emerald knew this that she felt confident enough to borrow money from the Ise Regiment Foundation.

As for whether the Ise Retsu Zaibatsu in this world will not have their identities revealed as in the original game due to the change in the world line?

Impossible, because Amelie will expose them on her own initiative, and Amelie also knows how to expose them.

The squid people's racial talents are indeed impressive; the Federation currently has no good way to identify their disguises... but their old adversaries can.

Once the mermaid, who was also a member of the main cast and one of Yulia's many harem members in the original game, joins the team, Emerald will be able to obtain the method to identify the squid people. After that, there will be many ways to expose the squid people, and the 1000 billion won will no longer need to be repaid.

According to the original game's timeline, the mermaid should still be her lord, but she will soon be exiled by her own kind for her radical ideas and actions, and eventually be found by Yulia in the magic workshop... The magic workshop that Yulia inherited is actually located deep in the White Sea.

These are all things for next year. Right now, Emerald is naturally using the money from the Ise Group to develop her own business.

The loan terms of the Ise Group are indeed shady, but their speed of loan disbursement is undeniable.

Four days after Starling returned to Sphinx, the first sum of 270 billion rons was transferred to the account designated by Emerald.

Two days later, after six more transfers, the remaining 73 billion yuan of funds for Luns had all arrived.

Throughout the entire loan process, Emerald and the Ise Group never even met. Stella, the middleman, handled everything, even having both parties sign the loan agreement separately.

Emery glanced at the contract; it was pretty much as she had expected.

The Ise Group agreed to let her start repaying the money in two years, but if she couldn't repay it, everything she had achieved from the start of her entrepreneurial trial to the present would be taken away by the Ise Group. Not only would they take ownership of Blue Star Films and control of Locke City, but they would also want Yulia's debt, forcing Yulia to serve them from then on.

"Ha~~"

Emery simply scoffed and signed the contract.

The contract itself is indeed very binding; it was meticulously designed by the Ise Group, and even though Emeryte is currently in the fusion phase, she can hardly disobey it.

But so what? No matter how powerful the contract is, if one party is completely wiped out, then all the clauses naturally become worthless.

In Amelie's mind, those squid people were already dead fish, just like her fiancé, and she would sign any contract, no matter how harsh.

Once the funds were in place, the next step was naturally to contact Hausman Vance to begin the formal collaboration.

Amelie communicated with him using a communication magic device.

Upon learning that Emery had actually produced over 1000 billion rens in one go, Hausman showed considerable surprise:

"You gave up the entrepreneurial trial and accepted the family's help?"

"No, not at all... I borrowed it from the Ise Retsu Foundation."

Amelie laughed nonchalantly, as if she had no idea that borrowing money from the Ise Rei Zaibatsu was tantamount to jumping into a pit.

"That's it..."

Hausman breathed a sigh of relief.

He was well aware of how harsh the loan terms of the Ise Group were, and he was certain that Emerald would never be able to repay the money. In that case, he could pay for Emerald's debts and take over the ownership of all the cinemas in the Vance shopping district... This would not only achieve his goal, but also make Miss Melson owe him a favor, which would be a huge profit.

Both sides believed they were sure to win and make a huge profit, so the communication naturally went very smoothly.

Hausman Vance's initial plan was to have Emery franchise the cinemas, and he would build all the cinemas in the Vance shopping district himself. So he had not only planned out locations for cinemas in every Vance shopping district long ago, but he had also recruited almost all the people to operate the cinemas.

At this point, Hausman Vance readily did a favor and allocated his movie theater to Emerald.

Amelie could use most of these plans directly.

Hausman had already planned out where the movie theaters should be built and how they should be decorated in each of the Vance shopping streets, which saved Amelie a lot of trouble. Amelie thought it would be fine to just adopt the plan directly... In this respect, the people at Vance Realty were more professional than Blue Star Films.

However, Emery did not accept all the cinema staff that Hausman had recruited in advance.

She first removed all the store managers, and then randomly removed nearly half of the ordinary store employees.

Emery, the store clerk, plans to recruit locally at various cinemas. These basic jobs are easy to fill, as most people with experience as waiters can do them.

As for the manager of each cinema, they must be someone they trust.

Amelie's plan was to send a group of people out from the Blue Star Film and Television headquarters, and to recruit a group of management talents from her hometown, the Melson family, to serve as cinema managers throughout the Federation.

According to the rules of the Melson family's entrepreneurial trial, Amelie was not allowed to mobilize family resources during the entrepreneurial period.

But just as she could previously hire Merson Security's mercenary team through formal commercial channels with real money, she can now also hire people with real money.

Is it wrong to poach some junior management talent from your own company with a salary that is about 15% higher than their previous salary?

Or, you could invite retired employees to rehire them with salaries significantly higher than their pensions, wouldn't that be fine?

Similar tactics were not used by Amelie alone; many of her previous entrepreneurial trial participants had done the same. Melson's entrepreneurial trial supervision team was already used to it, and this time, they didn't make a single mistake.

In this context, the construction of movie theaters in Vance shopping districts across the federal government proceeded smoothly... It is expected that in just over a month, more people will be able to watch movies.

As for whether tourism in Locke City will suffer after the entire Federation has movie theaters... there's absolutely no need to worry about that.

The more cinemas there are, the more people will watch movies. The more people watch movies, the more famous Locke City, the movie capital, will become. It's almost a certainty that Locke City will completely transform from a mining city into a tourist city. Locke City's economy is already growing rapidly, and the entire city is prospering at a breakneck pace. Currently, the permanent population has exceeded 35, almost double the number before Amelie's arrival.

Cinemas are about to be widespread throughout the Federation, but there aren't many movies available to show right now, only two: "Yulia" and one: "The Demon Tide Extermination".

Champs-Élysées and Locke City receive a variety of tourists from all over the Federation every day, so it's not a big problem to repeatedly show these three movies, since many tourists haven't seen them before.

But once movie theaters are fully operational in the federal government, this approach won't work; we'll have to speed up film production and increase film output.

So Emery began planning to recruit more film production talent and intended to shoot two more new films in about a month.

Shooting two new movies in a month, both of them blockbusters, would have been almost impossible on Earth in Amelie's previous life, but this world is quite simple... Magic is really too useful.

However, these two new movies cannot be edited and produced using real footage like the "Yulia" series and the "Demon Tide Extermination" series; they need to be staged like movies made on Earth.

For her first film, Emery planned to make "Deep Sea Voyage," which tells the story of a fishing boat that encounters various difficulties while fishing in the deep ocean and eventually returns with a full catch.

She hadn't originally planned on this, but the adventure stories Mr. Haigs told during his last visit were quite interesting, and he was clearly very interested in movies.

And indeed, upon hearing that he could star in Emerald's movie as the lead, Mr. Haigs immediately put aside his work and brought his son along to film the movie.

He not only refused any payment, but also provided several fishing boats as props for the shoot free of charge. His only request was that he be filmed looking handsome; he desperately wanted to be in the spotlight on screen.

Of course, there's no problem with that. In adventure movies with male protagonists, the more handsome the male protagonist, the more popular he is. Besides, Mr. Haigs himself has a good image, and his son is the kind of sunny and healthy handsome boy who looks great on camera.

In the script of "Deep Sea Voyage", the fishing boat piloted by the main characters will experience three difficulties: storms, pirate attacks, and monster attacks. The final monster attack will feature a powerful ancient dragon-level monster, the Nine-Headed Sea Serpent.

On Earth, making a movie like this would rely heavily on computer-generated special effects, but in this world, we can use real props and sets to create tokusatsu (special effects films).

The wind and waves can be created directly with magic, something Viliana and Pancake can easily do, so Amelie doesn't need to worry about it at all.

Pirates and monsters were a bit of a problem, so Amelie had to go to Pirate Island again and fight with the old lich all night. She borrowed a few pirate ships and a few undead monsters from the old lich, including the ancient dragon-level monster, the Nine-Headed Sea Serpent.

Amelie then realized that Mr. Haigs hadn't been exaggerating; he had indeed escaped from the pursuit of the Hydra with his fishing boat when he was young... because the Hydra that attacked him was the same one that the old lich later turned into an undead.

When Haigs saw the undead nine-headed sea serpent, he scratched his head in confusion:

"This guy looks so familiar... Could it be the one that chased me back then?"

"Of course not."

Emery was spouting nonsense with a wide smile:

"Just like small animals can hardly distinguish human faces and can only differentiate them by scent, the nine-headed sea serpents in our eyes all look pretty much the same... This is just a replica pieced together with necromancy, and can't compare to the real thing you encountered, Mr. Haigs, back then~~"

“…Is that so?”

Mr. Haigs was still somewhat doubtful, but he didn't think much of it; the excitement of being the movie star had already completely taken over his mind.

"Hahahaha... I never thought I'd actually be the lead in a movie! Now even more girls will be obsessed with me, hahahaha..."

With Mr. Haiges' full cooperation, the filming of "Deep Sea Voyage" went very smoothly and the quality of the filming was also very good.

Blue Star Films has been open for over a year, and Amelie can't keep using Muffin as her only photographer forever. Magical devices with professional photography capabilities have long been on Melson's research and development list.

The filming of "Deep Sea Voyage" was all staged, with no real risks involved, so there was no need for Pancake to do it himself; ordinary mages could have done it with their magical devices.

As for the fact that novice photographers' skills are not as good as Pancake's... that's not a big problem. Just find more photographers to shoot together from different distances and angles, and then slowly select the suitable videos.

Another film Emery directed was "Singing Girl".

As the title suggests, this is a musical film, and it's also the debut work of Su Lina and the Blue Star Dance Troupe.

However, although Su Lina is the main character in "Kadouna", she is not playing herself.

The plot of this movie is said to be fictional, but anyone who knows the story can immediately recognize the real-life prototype. The prototype of the protagonist is none other than the former queen of song and dance of the Allen Federation, Su Linsa, who is the older sister of Su Lina who committed suicide after dropping a small toy in public and performing water magic.

Leaving aside her eventual downfall and suicide, Su Linsha's story of rising from a fallen family's cabaret girl to a cabaret queen is incredibly inspiring and full of positive energy; it would be perfectly suitable as a movie.

Su Lina had mixed feelings about playing her older sister, and at first she was very resistant and wanted to refuse.

So Emerald first gave her a stern lecture, making her understand that she had no right to refuse.

When Sulina woke up again after being knocked unconscious, he gently hugged her and said: