Bartholomew "Barty" Higgins wasn't your typical fantasy protagonist. He lacked the chiseled jaw, the heroic swagger, and the burning desire to save the world. His defining characteristic wasn't bravery or magical prowess, but a profound and deeply frustrating relationship with a system – a capricious, possibly malevolent, force that governed his financial life. It was a cheat, of sorts, a divine (or demonic) gift that granted him access to an seemingly limitless well of gold. The agonizing caveat? He could only truly profit from his investments if they spectacularly imploded. It was a perverse incentive, a cosmic prank designed to torment him with unwanted success. He was a walking paradox, a financial masochist forced to endure the agony of prosperity. He yearned for failure, craved the sweet release of financial ruin, but the universe, or rather, the system, seemed determined to deny him that simple pleasure. He was a prisoner of prosperity, a victim of his own unintentional Midas touch.
Barty's system was a cruel joke played by the universe. Any investment that resulted in a loss was fully reimbursed to him, personally. Every single coin he poured into a failing venture returned to his pockets, often with interest. But if, by some cruel twist of fate, an investment actually succeeded, he received a paltry one-thousandth of the profits. This meant that Barty was incentivized to seek out the worst, most ludicrous, most doomed business ventures imaginable. He was a connoisseur of failure, a champion of financial ruin. He'd become a master of identifying guaranteed losses, a connoisseur of impending doom. He was, in essence, a walking, talking, investment black hole, sucking in capital and spitting out accidental fortunes. He was the anti-Midas, whose touch turned everything to unintentional gold. He was the king of the catastrophic, the emperor of the erroneous, the grand duke of disastrous deals, the sultan of screw-ups, the maestro of misfortune, the lord of ludicrous investments. He was, in short, the world's most successful failure.
His latest masterpiece of impending doom was "Barty's Bottomless Buckets." The premise was simple: leak-proof, self-filling water containers. The reality was… less simple. The buckets leaked with the enthusiasm of a thousand waterfalls. The self-filling mechanism consisted of a complex system of gears and pulleys powered by a hamster wheel, which usually resulted in the hamster going on strike after five minutes. Barty had sunk a substantial portion of his ever-replenishing funds into this debacle, fully expecting it to become a textbook example of how not to run a business. He'd even hired a team of goblin engineers, knowing their reputation for creative, if often impractical, solutions. They were, in his experience, masters of magnificent malfunctions, turning even the simplest task into a Rube Goldberg-esque contraption of chaos. Their motto, scrawled haphazardly on a whiteboard in the workshop, was "Innovation through Implosion." They took pride in their ability to transform sensible designs into spectacular failures. They were the architects of absurdity, the engineers of error, the craftsmen of calamity.
He surveyed the workshop, a chaotic scene of dripping buckets, disgruntled hamsters, and overworked goblins (Barty had a soft spot for hiring down-on-their-luck goblins; they were wonderfully inept). One goblin, with a particularly large pair of goggles perched precariously on his nose, was attempting to solder a leak with a blowtorch, while simultaneously juggling three leaky buckets. Unsurprisingly, this was not going well. Sparks flew, water sprayed, and the smell of burnt goblin hair filled the air. The goblin yelped, dropping the blowtorch, which promptly ignited a nearby pile of straw. The other goblins scattered, shouting in their guttural tongue. Another goblin was trying to motivate the hamster with a tiny carrot on a stick, while a third was frantically scribbling calculations on a chalkboard, seemingly oblivious to the chaos around him. The calculations, as far as Barty could tell, involved the trajectory of falling water droplets and the optimal angle for hamster wheel rotation, neither of which seemed particularly relevant to the task at hand. He suspected the goblin was just doodling, perhaps sketching out plans for a new, even more impractical bucket design, maybe one shaped like a dragon that breathed water instead of fire, or perhaps a bucket that could predict the future.
"Another guaranteed loss!" he cackled, rubbing his hands together with glee. The sheer incompetence on display filled him with a sense of perverse satisfaction. He could almost taste the sweet, sweet return of his investment. He imagined the headlines: "Barty's Buckets: A Flood of Failure!" He pictured himself swimming in a pool of refunded gold, a king of financial flops. He'd even commissioned a miniature golden crown, just for the occasion. He'd envisioned a coronation ceremony, complete with goblin fanfare and a chorus of dripping buckets. He'd even written a short acceptance speech, thanking the universe for its continued commitment to his financial misfortune. He'd practiced the speech in front of his bathroom mirror, perfecting his look of mock despair. He'd even considered adding a dramatic sigh for extra effect.
Barty wasn't always this way. He hadn't started out as a purveyor of poorly conceived products. In his youth, he'd dreamed of being a successful merchant, a titan of trade. He'd even taken a course in basic economics at the local university (which, admittedly, he'd mostly slept through). But then, the system had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and turned his world upside down. His first "investment" had been a batch of self-folding laundry, a product so ludicrously impractical that even he had doubts. He'd envisioned mountains of neatly folded clothing, ready to be whisked away to grateful customers. Instead, the laundry folded itself into intricate origami sculptures, which, while aesthetically pleasing, were entirely useless for actual clothing storage. But, as fate would have it, the self-folding laundry became a surprise hit among the local ogres, who appreciated anything that simplified their notoriously messy lives. They used the origami creations as decorative wall hangings. Barty received a pittance of the profits, a mere sliver of the fortune he could have earned. From that moment on, he understood the rules of the game. Loss was his gain. Failure was his path to fortune. He learned to embrace the absurd, to celebrate the impractical, to revel in the ridiculous. He became a connoisseur of the comical, a devotee of the disastrous, a worshipper of the worthless. He became a master of miscalculation, a wizard of waste, a champion of collapse.
He sighed, remembering his initial naiveté. He'd actually tried to make a profit, back then. He'd researched markets, analyzed trends, and even consulted with a fortune teller (who, incidentally, had advised him to invest in talking squirrels). The talking squirrels, as it turned out, were excellent conversationalists but terrible business partners. They spent most of the investment money on nuts and tiny hats. But the system, as always, had the last laugh. The talking squirrels became a popular tourist attraction, and Barty, despite his minuscule share of the profits, found himself inexplicably richer. He'd even tried investing in a company that bottled and sold fresh air, convinced that it was the most pointless venture imaginable. It became a hit among the dwarves, who considered it a delicacy. He'd funded a gnome opera that consisted entirely of high-pitched squeaking, fully expecting it to be a critical and commercial flop. It became an avant-garde sensation. He'd even tried investing in a company that manufactured edible rocks, convinced that no one in their right mind would buy them. They became a popular snack among the local trolls. He'd invested in a company that made invisible paint, expecting it to be utterly useless. It became a must-have for spies and illusionists.
Now, he reveled in it. He sought out the most absurd, the most ridiculous, the most obviously doomed ventures he could find. He was a master of disaster, a champion of chicanery. And yet, despite his best efforts, he kept getting richer. It was a paradox, a cosmic joke played specifically on him. He was the anti-Midas, turning everything he touched into accidental gold. He was the sultan of screw-ups, the maestro of misfortune, the lord of ludicrous investments. He was the unintentional tycoon, the accidental aristocrat, the reluctant rich man.
He watched as a particularly large droplet of water detached itself from a leaky bucket and landed squarely on the head of the goblin with the soldering iron. The goblin yelped, dropped the blowtorch, and set fire to a pile of unsold buckets. The other goblins scattered, shouting in their guttural tongue. Barty smiled. This was going exactly as planned. He leaned back against a stack of slightly damp blueprints, a feeling of serene contentment washing over him. The smell of burning plastic and damp goblin hair was, to him, the sweet scent of impending financial victory. He just had to wait for the inevitable collapse, the glorious failure that would replenish his coffers and allow him to fund his next disastrous venture. He closed his eyes, picturing the gold coins raining down upon him. He was, after all, the Unintentional Tycoon. He was the master of disaster, the king of calamity, the sultan of screw-ups. And he wouldn't have it any other way. He was, in his own twisted way, happy. Or at least, as happy as a man cursed with constant, unwanted success could be. He was, perhaps, the only man in the world who actively prayed for