MTLNOVEL Chapter 260: Bound By Debt
He held the box up. "All materials you need are inside. This is a Greed toolkit. No substitutions. No stealing things. If you break your vow…"
His eyes lit up—literally—flaring blood-red with streaks of brilliant green. Greed's light. Warning. Signature. Threat.
The matching sigil carved on Kratzik's chest ignited in kind.
It pulsed once.
Twice.
Then settled.
The Fixer stiffened. "I understand… Just don't forget to pay me good money."
Lux gave him a dry look. "Of course. You'll get paid in full. Upon satisfactory results."
[Contract Registered: Kratzik, Fixer-Class Demon]
[Project Budget: Unlimited (Greed-sourced)]
[Time Estimate: 12 Hours]
[Quality Clause: Corruption Forbidden – Immediate Contract Void if Breached]
Kratzik grinned with all three of his mouths. "Delightful." And with that, he vanished in a ripple of shimmering distortion, tentacles stretching back into the hallways like demonic fiber optics.
A distant crash followed almost instantly.
Then Lyra's voice, dangerously calm. "You touch the spice rack again and I will turn you into a mop."
Lux let out a long, suffering sigh and dropped into the nearest couch. The leather groaned softly under his weight—expensive, over-scented, and still stained with Carson's overcompensating taste in aftershave. That would have to be removed too.
Still.
The house was alive now.
The kitchen hummed with puppets and threats.
The hallways pulsed with warding lines already being carved into the baseboards.
The windows whispered with Veyra's vines, creeping in unseen patterns of silent protection.
And the air thrummed with the reckless, chaotic energy of Kratzik's remodeling campaign.
It was chaotic. Unpredictable. Slightly dangerous.
But it was his.
Lux took another sip of his espresso and let himself smile. 'Now all I need is the girls… and maybe a drink that isn't judging me with citrus zest.'
He looked around, eyes drifting over the blur of motion, noting where everything had started falling into place.
Those demons weren't just summoned minions.
Not disposable grunts from a hell-tier gacha pull.
No—every single one of them had been bought.
And in Lux's world, bought didn't mean owned by force. It meant bound by contract. By debt.
Because Greed wasn't about dominance through brute force. That was Wrath's style.
Greed… Greed was elegance. Leverage. Turning need into loyalty without ever lifting a weapon.
'People don't sell their souls unless they have a reason,' he thought. 'I just made sure I was the most reasonable option.'
He stood, dusted off his lapel, and slowly wandered toward the window, watching the sunlight glint off the outer lawn where the soil was already beginning to shift from Veyra's influence.
Yeah, he planned to bring his girls here. Naomi, Rava, Sira. The mansion was big, but he could expand. Hell, if it came down to it, he'd just carve an extra wing and slap a sexy chandelier in it. Problem solved.
But the mansion wasn't just for them. It was a statement.
That this was his domain. That he didn't just survive—he thrived. That anyone who entered this place would be walking into Lux Vaelthorn's house, and nothing in this realm or the next could question that.
He turned, surveying his staff with a sharper gaze now.
Fenrir.
Loyal. Efficient. Deadly.
But that wasn't always the case.
Lux remembered the first time he met him.
Wrath Territory. Dirt roads. Thick air that tasted like rust and resentment. He'd gone to negotiate with Lord Varakan—because even Wrath needed treasury oversight—but got ambushed in the alleys near a black market by a starving wolf demon who reeked of desperation and blood.
Fenrir had lunged at him without warning. No finesse. Just hunger.
Lux beat him, of course. One-sided. Embarrassing. He could've killed him. He almost did.
But then…
The pack appeared.
Wounded. Starving. Not to attack. Just to protect.
They were wolves—but they looked like street rats. Mangy, bruised, wearing desperation like armor.
And Lux realized then—this wasn't a power play. It was a plea.
So he made an offer.
A soul contract. Food. Shelter. Work. In exchange, Fenrir would serve. His pack too. Most of them now worked as enforcers and security for Lux's Hell Bank branches across the infernal cities. And they were fed well.
He didn't need to dominate them. He just needed to be better than the world that failed them.
And that was easy.
Veyra.
Quiet. Lethal. Graceful like a blade hidden in a bouquet.
Her clan wasn't violent like Fenrir's. They were agrarian. Earthbound. They lived off land that dried out when the season turned harsh and the Hell sun forgot to rain.
They tried. Really, they tried. But even demons needed water.
So Lux… built them an irrigation system. Not out of charity. Out of investment.
He used infernal plumbing, linked a mana-core filter to an ancient spring, and turned their dead zone into a green sector.
In return, Veyra signed the contract. Bound by debt. One she accepted quietly, without protest.
Now?
She served as an advisor for his agritech investments. Even his greenhouses in Lust Territory grew better now. The plants grew teeth, sure. But they grew fast.
Lyra.
She was the most complicated.
Not a warrior. Not a leader.
A puppeteer. Born with threads in her fingers and efficiency in her veins. Her family? Trash.
Gamblers. The worst kind. The ones who saw their child not as a person, but a resource.
They worked her. Nonstop. Not just for fun—but because they could. Because her power could do anything. Clean. Cook. Run errands. Pose as other people.
And when they couldn't milk her anymore? They sold her to pay their debts.
To Lux.
He needed someone to clean twenty-three rental properties he owned, so he accepted.
She always did what she was told. She cleaned them up in rotation until all of them got new tenants.
Lux didn't just buy her body. He bought her time. And slowly, over time, she stopped flinching.
Now?
She summoned puppets with smiles on their faces. Some of them even danced while cleaning. Lux let her.
She was bound by contract—but she served with something else now too. Not love. But something like… stability.