Server Name: Theta Yellow. Starting Location: Summer City, Peninsula.
Login confirmed.
Welcome to Money (Game) Master, Suou Kaname.
The pointed peninsula said to be shaped like a shark tooth was the core of Summer City.
It was like the fusion of a tropical beach, the world’s top casino, and a financial transaction center, so the city was crammed full of as much money as possible.
Palm trees and hibiscuses swayed in the wind while azure butterflies and red or green-winged birds flew. But those natural beauties were faced by countless skyscrapers polished like mirrors.
In one corner of that city, a mint green coupe was parked in the parking lot for a swimming beach. Kaname leaned against the sports car’s driver’s side door from the outside and drank a bottle of soda.
The bright sun, the sizzling on his skin, the chill of the condensation on the bottle, the weight of the bottle, the bubbling of the carbonation in his throat, and everything else felt so very real. Although perhaps a cheap soda in the real world would not have been quite so delicious.
The concepts of food and stamina did exist in Money (Game) Master, but since all of those values were reset upon logout, they were nearly irrelevant when staying just for a few hours. And if you stayed logged in for days in a row, malnutrition in the real world would become an issue. While the truly addicted players would have “fasting play sessions”, most people would just log out at a convenient point.
That said, food and drink were still tasty and filled your stomach, so they were highly prized for preserving concentration and controlling your emotions. And you could eat as much as you wanted without consuming any real calories, so it could be useful for dieting as well.
Meanwhile, Tselika was sunbathing on the hood again. She was probably recording herself with the drive recorder, but with the sun beating down on them, it looked more like she was being cooked in a frying pan.
“I don’t think that video is going to turn out the way you want.”
“D-do not be ridiculous. How could it look like anything other than something from an elegant and demonic sex scene?”
The mint green coupe’s windows were open and loud music played from the car stereo. In Money (Game) Master, the main options were loud music or economic news (which meant there were entertainers who did work in the game like it was an online video site). A station would sometimes begin playing nothing but anime songs, but that may have been because a sponsor bought some airtime.
“While White Queen Tourism’s management family continues their online meeting, they have announced they will be fully unifying their airline, cruise line, hotel chain, and every other branch of their business. As a great zaibatsu, they may just not care what the stockholders think. Now, if this Surfing Project goes through…”
“We have news from the satellite business. The peninsula’s communications are currently reliant on an undersea cable, but the word from some Dealers is that everything will gradually switch over to a wireless-based system. On the AI analyst blogs…”
“Thanks to the announcement of some major arms and ammunition transactions, life insurance companies such as Tokime Life, General Mistress, and Tarot Girls 22 are doing good business. Over the past week, transactions of a similar scale have increased dramatically, so it is thought a large-scale…”
“How boring,” complained Tselika while pouting her lips from the scorching hood.
The logos and stock prices for White Queen Tourism and the life insurance companies vanished after they finished scrolling along the bikini top and over-the-knee boots of her race queen outfit.
“It’s just so boring, boring, boring! They should just have the beautiful announcer read a porn novel on air. Or even better: bring me to a strip club or Hooker Island! Your demon queen demands excitement and entertainment!!”
“You have a female body yourself, so why are you so interested in seeing women naked?”
“Because I can’t get enough of seeing the shining beauty of those working women (sparkle sparkle)”
“Take your excuses that far and it starts to sound cruel. Like when you praise someone a little too much.”
“Stop right there, master. Let’s not start discriminating based on people’s jobs. Stripping and sex work are perfectly legitimate professions. Feeling sorry for them is a form of discrimination!!”
Kaname sighed and decided there was no point in trying to argue with a demon about morals. Magisteri were general AI supporters who ran autonomous investing programs to buy and sell wheat, stocks, gold, weapons, etc. at a rate of 10,000 transactions per second while also helping with driving, navigation, and combat, but their high specs apparently left them with some unnecessary functionality.
Meanwhile, the person they were waiting for arrived.
She had straight black hair worn down to her waist. Her bangs were held back with a headband. A powerful will was evident in her eyes and the glasses only accentuated that fact. She was tall for a girl and she had a large chest. She wore a white blouse, a black tight skirt, and a necktie. Overall, she looked like a high-ranking military officer who had removed her jacket after a round of the North Wind and the Sun.
Casual outfits were common here, but not because of relaxed morals. It was just so damn hot. Simply removing your jacket was a minor issue when most Dealers walked around the city in swimsuits. The city was supposed to be a collection of digital data, but that did nothing to help with the heat. Although this had led to a saying that the best way to weaken the AI-controlled PMCs was to take out the water and air conditioning.
“I appreciate your punctuality. I assume you are Suou Kaname-kun.”
“And you are…?”
“Lilikiska, a member of Ag Wolves. And starting today, we will be teammates. I look forward to working with you.”
She held out a hand, so Kaname stepped away from the mint green coupe to shake it.
But forehead glasses Lilikiska seemed more interested in that coupe than the handshake. Specifically, she was curious about the text that disappeared as soon as he stepped away.
She tilted her head.
“What were you just doing?”
“Oh, talking with my little sister. She apparently wants to buy some nightclothes, but she wasn’t sure whether to go with pajamas or a negligee. So she insisted on doing a dress-up show on camera for me.”
“You sure are overprotective.”
“If I don’t go along with it, she gets upset. And when she’s irritated, she cheers herself up by tidying everything up, so I end up not knowing where anything is in my own house.”
But that was not the real topic at hand.
Lilikiska rubbed a finger across the side of her glasses and got down to business.
“You have completed your rite of passage. Suou Kaname-kun, as an official member of Ag Wolves, you will now join us in our retrieval of Criminal AO’s Inheritance.”
“I paid 1.7 billion snow, so it would’ve meant war if you had tried to turn me away.”
“Ah ha ha. That sum was necessary to judge your skill and to fund our current plan. Now, I would like to continue this discussion somewhere more private. I assume that is fine with you. I do not like discussing our plans with those things staring at us.”
She was likely referring to the security cameras. The lens on the closest disaster speaker on the beach was obvious even from here.
“That’s fine with me. I’m not too picky about my car, so I won’t insist you take off your shoes or anything.”
With that, Kaname turned toward the mint green coupe’s door.
But Lilikiska corrected him with a smile.
“Oh, that wasn’t what I meant. I was inviting you into my car.”
“?”
She pointed her thumb over her shoulder.
A black luxury car pulled up smoothly and silently, so it may have been a hybrid which had switched over to electric mode. It was a stark contrast to Kaname’s coupe. It was long. Just long. It looked something like a dachshund which had taken a wrong turn in the evolutionary tree.
Even Kaname looked dubious.
“You drive around in a limousine? In a city of firefights and car chases?”
“Oh, it’s actually quite useful. The larger size means more room for thick bulletproofing and a bigger engine.” Lilikiska gave a bewitching smile. “Speed and handling aren’t everything in a car chase. Powering through everything in your path is also quite exhilarating. Did you never feel envious when watching someone driving a semi or a tanker truck through the city in an action movie?”
He had thought she was the honest class rep type, but she was apparently quite the S on the inside.
The person who stepped out of the driver’s seat appeared to be an AI-controlled Magisterus just like Tselika. She was a blonde girl with long ears, so she was probably modeled after an elf or something. She wore a black vest and tight skirt like a female dealer in a casino, so the company logos scrolling across her clothes like she was a race queen looked very out of place. She opened the thick door to the back seats for them.
Lilikiska gestured Kaname over to that door and asked a question.
“Any other questions?”
“Just one.”
Kaname took a small step back as if to get the full picture of the scene before his eyes. He observed the confused glasses girl and finally asked the question on his mind.
“Um, is that a swimsuit? Or is it a bra?”
“?”
“Either way, I assume you’re intentionally showing it off. I mean, red shows through white pretty well.”
Even after that big a clue, it took Lilikiska a few more seconds to realize what he meant.
Her bright bra was showing through her white blouse.
“Eh? Wah, wah, wahyah!?”
An explosive blush covered her face and she quickly wrapped her arms around her own shoulders…but then an odd sound came from her chest.
Was it more of a snap or a pop?
Regardless, with the sound of thin threads breaking, the buttons on the chest of her blouse failed under the strain of her sudden movement and popped off. Several of them did in a chain reaction.
“~ ~ ~!!!???”
Lilikiska crouched down on the spot while emitting indecipherable ultrasonic waves. It reminded Kaname of when his sister’s swimsuit had been washed away at the beach. Tselika cackled from atop the hood.
And while crouching with tears in her eyes, Lilikiska pulled a sewing set from her skirt pocket.
Kaname had to ask the fundamental question here.
“Why don’t you just where a size that fits?”
“The next size up is too baggy and doesn’t fit my body type. I work as a sniper, so I have to avoid small but continuous annoyances like that.”
There was a short wait time before her work was complete.
Afterwards, Lilikiska buttoned up her top, slowly stood up, stretched like she had just woken up, and arched her back to test the strength of the garment. …She apparently failed to realize this accentuated her large chest right in front of Kaname.
People tended to forget the little things when faced with a bigger issue.
The red whatever-it-was (Kaname was still not sure if it was a bra or a swimsuit) still showed through her white blouse, but he decided it was best not to mention it.
“A-anyway, let’s get the meeting started in here. (Really, why do the buttons have to pop off whenever I meet someone for the first time> People are going to think that’s how I introduce myself.)”
She seemed to be muttering something like a curse, but ignoring it may have been the kind thing to do.
While she guided him to her limousine, Kaname spoke to Tselika who was lying on the hood of his coupe.
“Tselika, you wait here.”
“Someone who actually knows how to show off her body shows up and I have to sit it out? That’s no fun. Do you mind if I go for a drive around the area?”
“That’s fine, but don’t park on the side of the road. The rules only protect the cars in parking lots and garages. That rule might sound oddly gentlemanly for this city, but it also means everyone is free to steal and blow up any illegally parked cars.”
“Understood.”
“Oh, and no going to strip clubs or Hooker Island.”
“Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!! Then what am I even supposed to do with my free tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime!?”
“I’m not saying you can’t ever do it. But I don’t want you doing anything conspicuous just before a job. Besides, on your own, you can only use my possessions, so with the exception of the things in our hideout, you can’t even buy a drink from a vending machine.”
“Yes, but if I hire a sex worker on the side of the road, it counts as interacting with a Dealer instead of an item. That loophole means-…”
“Tselika.”
After driving his point home, he walked away.
Lilikiska spoke to him while fidgeting with the side of her glasses.
“You two really get along, don’t you?”
“Are other Magisteri not like this?”
“It’s a case-by-case thing. Personally, I’m jealous of her white skin. Especially with all the SPF 300 sunblock I have to use every day. Why is this system so unforgiving? It just goes to show there’s such a thing as too much realism.”
They climbed into the limousine. The nicely air conditioned space was long and narrow by necessity, but it may have had as much space as a single room in a city hotel. Sofas lined the perimeter with a glass table in the center. There were even a television and a mini fridge.
And around 10 men and women were already gathered inside. They were presumably the members of Ag Wolves.
This limousine apparently functioned as both a killer truck and a mobile base for the team.
Lilikiska was the last inside and she pressed the intercom button on the glass table to speak to the driver.
“Sophia, drive us around the major roads. Safely.”
“Yes, Lady Kiska.”
The gentle inertia was nice and relaxing and did not feel much like a vehicle starting to move. As the long limousine left the beach parking lot and started down the road, Lilikiska got down to business.
“This is Suou Kaname-kun. The funding he provided has given us a chance to actually execute our plan.”
Several windows opened on the glass table. It showed the record of the purchase made with the 1.7 billion snow provided by each member. That meant everyone here had the same skill as Kaname and had paid the same amount for the same goal.
“Needless to say, Ag Wolves’ goal is to prevent the spread of Criminal AO’s Inheritance, bring order back to Money (Game) Master, and preserve the real world’s international economy. Kaname-kun, do you remember the Swiss Panic?”
“I suppose.” Suou Kaname released a gentle sigh. “That was a worldwide economic crisis that began in Money (Game) Master and spread to the real world. As usual, some of the Dealers triggered a moral hazard and their myopic rush to earn even greater profits led to trouble.”
“Of course, an actual global depression was just barely prevented. But the ultimate equipment of the Inheritance could be used to cause the same thing at any time. And much more easily. If that happens tens of millions would lose their jobs and entire countries could collapse financially. It would of course be bad if someone did it intentionally, but the bigger fear is that an ignorant rookie suddenly gets their hands on the Inheritance. There’s no predicting the scope of the damage that would cause.”
“And?”
“This is our target this time.”
A shotgun was displayed on the glass table.
If it could really be called a shotgun.
Different militaries had different thresholds for the distinction between a gun and a cannon, but at this caliber, most any soldier from any country would call this a cannon instead of a shotgun.
Overall, it had the silhouette of a revolving grenade launcher.
“Its name is #Downpour.err. With each pull of the trigger, it scatters 2000 bullets over a horizontal arc of 60 degrees with a range of 500 meters.”
“That’s just the default values, though,” cut in a large man with a crew cut. “This weapon can actually fire a downpour of 2000 bullets targeting everything hit by the guide light attached to the bottom of the barrel. You’d think a wide-angle lens version of a laser pointer would be the way to go there, wouldn’t you? But no. If light can be bent, it can be reflected. And lenses can focus it as well. In other words, a single disco ball is enough to cover an entire space. You’ll be reduced to a sponge even if you’re hiding behind cover.”
The world of Money (Game) Master was generally that of a modern financial city or of a criminal city, but there were a few things which surpassed the limits of the normal physical phenomena.
One example was the Magisteri who existed along with the cars.
Another was the equipment of Criminal AO’s Inheritance which were known as Over Tricks.
That equipment had been so thoroughly customized that it flew right past the assumed limits. They broke through the system like cheat codes.
“Just out of curiosity, wouldn’t that shine the light on the wielder as well? You can see light hitting a wall because some of it is reflected back at you, right?”
Kaname’s question was answered by a nervous-looking man hunched over with a backpack on.
“The targets are selected by the amount of light. It has to be between 350 and 400 lux, which is about the same as a fluorescent light. So even with some light reflected off a wall, it will still blow right through the wall, but a mirror, glass, water, or some other reflective surface is another matter entirely. So during an indoor battle, you would have to make sure you did not accidentally shine it on a mirror.”
“Anyway,” continued Lilikiska. “Fire it down from an elevated area or a helicopter and it will literally create a deadly downpour. #Downpour.err can slaughter everything in view with a single shot, but it’s also semiauto, allowing for rapid fire. Honestly, it really does make you question if it’s some kind of cheat.”
“Yeah, you would feel kind of silly even taking the time to aim with that,” said the crew cut man while rubbing his own head. “It’s practically a superweapon from a space opera.”
“If this weapon gets out, it will undoubtedly shatter the game balance. And yet some moron is trying to auction it off for some money.”
Lilikiska operated the glass table with her eyes and displayed a beautiful girl in a purple dress. She wore a lot of makeup and her clothing left little to the imagination, but there was a certain naiveté in her face that made the rest look like she was trying too hard to appear grown up.
The crew cut man patted the top of his head with an irritated look on his face. It was possible he had chosen that hairstyle because he enjoyed how it felt. It was even possible he was actually a woman in real life.
“The Dealer’s name is Pavilion. She’s not too important herself, but the issue is the auction hall.”
“Indeed.”
The structure displayed next to the girl was not a skyscraper or a domed stadium.
It was a luxury cruise liner floating in the ocean.
“The Tropical Lady. It belongs to the AI company White Queen Tourism, it holds 200 people, it has a displacement of 90,000 tons, it is powered by four diesel engines, and…well, the specs are irrelevant. What matters is that it floats in the ocean, which puts it out of reach of our land-based vehicles.”
“A-and in addition to that,” said the backpack man while cowering down inside the spacious limousine. “The Tropical Beauty is protected by an AI-controlled PMC unit. Yes, so even if we bought a helicopter or sub to board it, we would be Swiss cheese in no time. Starting a shootout with them will never end well.”
“In fact, we’d be blown away before we even got close,” summed up the crew cut man. “White Queen Tourism is an AI zaibatsu. They wouldn’t normally accept an actual person, but this Pavilion girl has worked her way in there as a non-executive director. The Tropical Lady is a toy she got from that.”
It was simplest to think of a zaibatsu as a large corporation that intentionally filled all its important positions with members of its own family. Trying to apply that to AI programs could get a little confusing, but it basically meant the company was controlled by a small number of NPCs without holding general stockholder meetings like a normal public company would.
Needless to say, human players could not normally join AI-controlled companies. That would give an unfair advantage to those working for major corporations and ruin the fun of the game.
That just went to show how much of an exception this case was.
Lilikiska breathed a soft sigh.
“Pavilion appears to be a hound bought for the kind of flexible thinking the AI management does not have. So she needs to be viewed as a Dealer backed by an AI zaibatsu. She can be fired for even a single mistake, but she will keep that powerful authority as long as she continues to produce results.”
Fired after a single mistake was an awfully risky position to be in, but this was a game after all. A game of musical chairs was more exciting when people were swapped out more frequently.
“It seems White Queen Tourism simply made a list of the Dealers making the most exciting deals and then started recruiting from the top of the list. D-deals like 1.7 billion by a single person. If Pavilion didn’t have the position, those of us in Ag Wolves very well might be receiving a recruitment call right now.”
That was indeed a dangerous opponent. It would be limited to the AI zaibatsu’s personal property, but it meant a lot that she could freely instruct the usually AI-controlled PMC.
Kaname tilted his head a bit.
“Is that why we all bought those things?”
“Yes. We cannot hope to defeat them in a straight fight, but it is possible to eliminate the PMC via trickery. When you see a dead end, you shouldn’t crash into it. You should find a way around it. That’s how Dealers think, isn’t it?”
“…”
“The 1.7 billion snow we each paid will not go to waste. It was a necessary investment needed to reach a more valuable step.”
Lilikiska giggled and then operated the glass table with her eyes.
And she made a point of not clarifying what she meant.
“This is the only point at which we can reach that luxury cruise liner: the Hard Engage Bridge. It must pass below that giant bridge when returning from the open sea to the commercial bay formed by the peninsula. Of course, they will be wary of an attack from atop the bridge. That’s why we need a bit more preparation.”
She did explain what that was.
Although she was mostly confirming what they already knew to ensure no one was confused.
And once she was done explaining, Lilikiska revealed some additional information.
“Now, this is unconfirmed, but a Dealer thought to be an associate of Criminal AO is involved in this matter.”
“…”
Kaname stayed silent, so Lilikiska continued.
She displayed a photo taken from a distance.
“The Dealer’s name is Midori. It is unknown what she is trying to do by acquiring #Downpour.err or what her skill level is, but a connection to Criminal AO would suggest her ideology and skill are both quite dangerous. And since this was the most we could discover despite pouring all our efforts into investigating the matter, we should assume the worst about her skill.”
She was a small girl and she looked cute enough. Her long black hair was worn in twintails and the bangs were cut straight across. She wore a miniskirt and a black frilly bikini that followed the contours of her flat chest. She also wore short gloves that came up to her wrists, knee socks, and a head dress decorated with a blue rose. It was all lined with white lace, so it had a somewhat gothic lolita look to it.
However…
“As an associate of Criminal AO, she likely knows more about the Inheritance than anyone. She would know all of #Downpour.err’s selling points. There is even a 50/50 chance that Midori is manipulating Pavilion from behind the scenes.”
That girl, who was pictured riding a large motorcycle colored the red of autumn leaves, was the ultimate joker.
The picture showed her surrounded by the brick walls of a back alley and those dark shadows seemed to hint at the kind of world in which she lived.
“If you run into her during the mission, view her as an enemy. That is the one and only way to ensure she does not shoot you in the back.”
Their plan was in order
Kaname looked around the people seated in the limousine and asked just one question.
“When do we start?”
“Immediately.”
Sorry about forcing my tastes onto you all the time.
Oh, or does apologizing for that make us seem too distant?
I bought this snowman letter set because it was cute, but it came with a lot more than I thought. You’ll probably be seeing these envelopes for a while. I know email and social media are so much faster, but I just prefer the analog way over the digital way. The entire system of pasting a stamp on a letter and sticking it in the mailbox might be bleeding money these days, but I want to continue conversing by letter for as long as possible.
Today, I looked into how to grow melons.
I just can’t bring myself to throw out fruit seeds, including grape and watermelon ones. I know actually growing them into edible fruit is a lot of work, but, like I said, I can’t help myself.
Do you have any habits like that?
I await your reply.
Kaname exited the black dachshund of a limousine and waited with his back against a large metal dumpster. After Tselika arrived in the mint green coupe, he had the race queen demon move to the passenger seat while he got in the driver’s seat.
“A momentous occasion may be upon us. In the online meeting being held by White Queen Tourism’s management family, they might just fully combine the AI zaibatsu’s 5 different companies in what is known as the Surfing Project. This would make them the #2 name in the tourism business.”
“The Hard Engage Bridge is a well-known landmark of the peninsula city, but there are also concerns that it is deteriorating with age. A number of construction companies, including Satsuki Construction and the Alice Works, have been named as possibilities for making repairs, so there will likely be a lot of activity above and below the board concerning this project.”
“These news programs are always so boring.” Tselika really did sound bored. “A zaibatsu? Discussions between construction companies? What’s so fun about hearing about a market that isn’t even open the public? Ahh, I just want to rent out a hotel room and spend all day watching the pay channels. Maybe even pick up the phone and hire a bunch of call girls.”
“Tselika, your AI seems to be a bit short on the ‘I’ today.”
Tselika did not like his answer since it was making fun of her, so she stretched her back in the passenger seat. She was essentially pressing her palms against the car’s low ceiling.
“Nn!”
“Tsel-, wait!! Don’t spread your wings when I’m driving! I can’t see!!”
The mint green coupe began to swerve.
After somehow managing to regain control, Kaname reached over, grabbed one of her horns (which was more like a cow’s than a goat’s), and shook her head around as punishment.
“Besides, it takes a lot of money to obtain the connections and permits needed to get involved in those things. Isn’t that exactly the route you should use to win at Money (Game) Master?”
“Urp, ugh! I’m sorry! I said I’m sorry, master, so please forgive me!!”
“Your wings.”
“I’ll put them away!! I won’t tease you while you’re driving again!!”
A zaibatsu relied on bloodline. That did not seem to mesh well with AI which was not alive and had no bloodline, but they were managed very differently from normal companies. They sold stock on the market yet the shareholders had no authority to say anything, so they were ridiculously dictatorial. Plus, if they were making a single anpan, they had to use water, eggs, wheat, and adzuki produced by their own companies.
If you took issue with that, you had to turn tail and go elsewhere.
Their special style could be seen in how even the non-executive director from outside would be thrown out after a single mistake.
“That reminds me. I haven’t had anpan in forever.”
“Ohh, it has been a while, hasn’t it? How about buying that and some milk, master?”
On the way to the Hard Engage Bridge, some colorful sports cars and other vehicles joined them. They were likely the Ag Wolves members. They had no stickers or coloring to identify their affiliation. There was even a military vehicle painted with camouflage and an itasha covered in a character presumably from an anime or video game.
Tselika raised her hands and arched her back inside the limited space of the car. This accentuated her chest, but some company names scrolled across her bodylines. These were companies on the verge of bankruptcy that were extremely risky but could also provide extremely high returns.
The action was a lot like stretching in the morning to help clear your mind.
And Tselika asked a question as if for confirmation.
“So it’s finally starting, is it?”
“I’ve waited far too long.”
“But are you sure? The path you’ve chosen will probably be even more treacherous than you think.”
“…”
A few windows were open on the windshield. In addition to a simple map of the city, a graph of the price of gold, a flowchart of changing trends, and other such things, there was a chat window similar to a group social media site. All of the requests were from Ag Wolves members. When Kaname answered, short posts of about 100 characters quickly scrolled by.
“Lilikiska> Sorry your first job had to happen so soon. The victory party will double as your welcome party, so be ready.”
“Hazard> In other words, if we lose, you get nothing. If you want a feast, then work hard, newbie.”
“M Scope> Of course, losing could mean we all fall and end up drowning in debt.”
“Saurus> Hey, you gloomy bastard. Keep up the ominous talk just before a job and I’ll kill you.”
“Titan> If you need to fight, compete over kills during the mission. It’s important to steer everything in a constructive direction.”
Kaname could not perfectly match all the names to faces.
He could make a few guesses based on tone, though.
“Saurus> So where are we having the welcome party?”
“Lilikiska> Why not the usual place? Or there’s an Italian place on 3rd Street back on the peninsula.”
“Titan> That’s no fun! I’m sick of the standards like burgers and rib loin steak. Can’t we head out to Coconut Island or Diver Island? They have some more exciting options there.”
“M Scope> Go there and they just cook everything in coconut milk. Like bat or coconut crab.”
“Hazard> Either way, those aren’t good options for a newcomer. What’s the point if it doesn’t shock him?”
If Kaname did not say anything, he would probably be locked out of the conversation. He did not particularly mind, but he did not want them reading too much into his silence. He used his eyes to control the digital keyboard displayed on the windshield and tried typing out a post.
“Kaname> So how did the rest of you get the 1.7 billion? If you all used a short-term showdown to mess with the market, I feel like you would be influencing each other’s business.”
“Titan> Fighting isn’t the only way to earn some cash. In this limited world, futures related to food are pretty simple. The big events like typhoons are announced in advance, after all.”
“Saurus> They’re called cyclones here, Titan. Regardless, the calculations are easy, so it’s a nice option you can just let a program handle.”
“M Scope> It’s obvious enough if you look at our name: the silver wolves.”
“Lilikiska> I really don’t think that’s obvious enough, so allow me to explain. Wolves live in packs that are optimized for securing food and we do the same but with silver instead of fangs. That’s the idea behind it.”
They jokingly exchanged information as they approached the giant bridge.
The Hard Engage Bridge was 500m long and stood 30m above the ocean at its highest, but that was just barely enough room for a luxury cruise liner to fit below. As a bridge over the ocean, it did have a management company, but it was not anyone’s private property.
Kaname parked his car partway down the bridge and stepped out onto the asphalt.
He was sweating even with his sleeves rolled up.
While he viewed the ocean, which was more green than blue, forehead glasses Lilikiska walked up next to him. She held a chilled glass in each hand, presumably taken from within her limousine. They contained a clear blue liquid, so he could not quite imagine what it would taste like.
“Incredible, isn’t it?”
Lilikiska placed both glasses on the bridge railing, offering one to Kaname. The hibiscus flowers decorating the rim of the glasses swayed in the sea breeze.
She used her slender finger to wipe some condensation off of her glass.
“How many calculations are run for just this one glass? Gravity, temperature, the condensation caused by the humidity and chill of the wind, fluid dynamics, transparency, the friction between the bottom of the glass and the railing, the flavor, the smell, the texture. And the same is true of everything that fills this city all the way to the horizon and beyond. It makes the words ‘free to play’ sound like magic.” She stared out at sea just like the boy. “Did you know that Money (Game) Master is estimated to have somewhere between 5 million and 200 million active Dealers?”
“Maybe so, but a lot of those just let their Magisterus handle their account, which seems about as wise as posting your bank account number on a message board to me.”
“There are people who leave their full life savings with sketchy online banks, you know? But anyway, even if it is an open world game, it is still just one city. It makes you wonder just how much is crammed into this place.”
“…”
They both took a sip of the blue liquid in the glasses. Once he actually drank it, he found it tasted like a carbonated health drink. He felt some slight heat in his chest.
“But this game influences more than just those 5 million to 200 million people. 130 million people use the yen and 250 million use the dollar, but those influence the lives of 7 billion people. In the same way, the snow already covers the entire planet. It is estimated that more than a billion people rely entirely on that virtual currency instead of saving their money in a bank. They’re fully reliant on this system even though no one knows who developed it, who runs it, or what country the servers are located in.”
Yes that 1 billion number was just those fully reliant on it.
Those were only the illegal banks that converted other currencies into snow (which most countries turned a blind eye to, thus making them illegal in name only) and the users of such banks.
Investment funds, the asset management of large corporations, the currency management of the banks themselves, and the funding for the public services using national tax money… In big ways and small, everyone reliant on the system known as money was affected by the virtual currency known as snow.
“Criminal AO’s Inheritance will destroy all of that.” Lilikiska spoke sharply while staring out at the ocean. “We can no longer laugh it off as ‘just a game’. We enjoy the freedom of this world too, but that Inheritance lacks even the bare minimum of restrictions. Give those strongest weapons to a rookie who has no idea what they’re doing and let them go on a rampage. You’ll have something worse than the Swiss Panic on your hands. The game balance will entirely collapse, everyone will end up in debt, starting from the weakest Dealers, and then entire countries will fall into the red and fail.”
The game would affect the real world.
Fictional wins and losses would decide the fates of individual’s lives and possibly even entire countries.
Even if everyone vaguely questioned this system, they refused to admit to the stab wound in their back
“Something must be done about it,” said Lilikiska. “We must bring order back to Money (Game) Master no matter what.”
“Agreed. And #Downpour.err is the first step. I agree that that weapon must be retrieved before it falls into the wrong hands.”
“Yes, the first step.”
With that, Lilikiska turned toward Kaname.
She smiled before continuing.
“I hope this gives us the foothold we need to get to know each other better. And the battlefield is a good place to build up bonds. To borrow the word Titan used, it’s constructive.”
Just then, Race Queen Tselika leaned out from the mint green coupe’s passenger side window.
“It’s about time, master,” she said. “That ship is approaching.”
The look on the other two’s faces changed.
Tension entered their relaxed expressions.
“Our trump card should be arriving on the bridge soon. Let’s get started. I will go grab my weapon. I would like something with a few different Skills, Sophia! Bring me my jewelry box. I want to make some adjustments with rings and earrings.”
“I’ll support you. It’s only short-range, but I do have a sniper rifle.”
With a glance over at Lilikiska who was trying on different colored accessories she pulled from what looked like a tackle box, Kaname accepted his Short Spear short-range sniper rifle from Tselika.
Their enemy was the gathering of crooks attending an auction for the #Downpour.err shotgun, a piece of Criminal AO’s Inheritance which were said to be Over Tricks.
The enemy base was the Tropical Lady luxury cruise liner which was untouchable from land. And even if they did manage to board it, they would be forced into a hopeless fight against the countless soldiers of an AI-controlled PMC.
But Ag Wolves was unfazed.
That group, which now included Kaname, awaited that ship of greed on the Hard Engage Bridge.
Tah dah!
Did you see the stamp I used on this letter?
Yes, it was the one they put out to commemorate that private trip into space!
I know I should really hold onto things like that, but I wanted to show you so bad I sent out just the one.
Hmm, does it not match the snowman envelope?
Stamp collecting is more my brother’s thing but I can’t help but collect everything I can get my hands on. Like fruit seeds. My friends at school say I’m like a squirrel that way (sob).
I of course preserve all the letters you send me too.
Even old letters can seem fresh and new when you read them again years later.
Handwritten letters are great. It’s like you can feel real warmth and emotion in the writing.
I hope this writing can convey my feelings to you too.
I await your reply.
The Tropical Lady’s deck contained a large pool, a buffet party that guests could enjoy in their swimsuits, and – most importantly – an auction house where large sums of money were thrown about.
The purple dress girl known as Pavilion stood in the center of the auction house.
She looked to be around 16 or 17.
The hint of youthful naiveté remaining in her sexy body seemed to accentuate the gaudy aspects of her dress, like the exposed cleavage and thighs.
She was White Queen Tourism’s only non-executive director.
She was no more than a hound that would be fired the instant she made a single mistake, but that title still meant a lot.
Money (Game) Master was a financial dealings game that allowed all illegal activities, so it included gunfights and car chases. But out on the ocean, she need not fear guns or cars. Also, she had the famous #Downpour.err on hand.
The people gathered here were the true VIPs who wished to enjoy a dangerous gamble from a position of safety. Since the virtual currency of snow and the real currency of yen had nearly equal value, the top rankers in the game would also be on the lists of influential people in the real world.
Pavilion was not interested in the money that could be made by selling #Donwpour.err. That was why the auction was advertised as “for charity”. She did not care who the giant pile of cash went to.
What mattered was that she had a connection to such important people. That she spent time with them. That she had a list of their names. That was more than enough of a main dish for her.
How much money she had at the moment was not what mattered.
The real question was how much she could earn and how much moneymaking ability she had.
If she did not know that, she would never obtain more than mere pocket change. The people who understood the true essence of such things always arrived at the same conclusion: money was connections.
And who you had connections with determined how much money you could make.
You could never move forward if you feared burning some fuel.
But running the engine needlessly was also meaningless.
Currying the favor of the general masses would get you nowhere. Since there were only so many actions any one person could take, it was best to use those actions to build connections with the people who held all the power. Just think of it as an issue of cost performance. It was only natural to pour your strength into the areas with potential for growth.
Life was limited.
So how could you best use those limited resources? You needed to build up a list to figure that out. That was the goal of Pavilion, the girl with a hint of naiveté remaining.
If she did that…
And she was successful…
Then surely a certain individual would praise her.
“Lady, it is about time.”
A member of the AI-controlled PMC spoke respectfully to her.
“True enough,” she agreed.
The auction was about to begin. Someone would acquire the extraordinary #Downpour.err shotgun and Pavilion would have her list of the truly influential. She did not care what happened to the world after that. She did not care if that Over Trick destroyed the game balance or if someone or some country was utterly ruined. She did not even care if it caused another Swiss Panic. As long as she could rise up in the world, nothing else mattered.
That purple dress girl grabbed the microphone, walked up onto the podium, and spoke.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the time has finally come!”
She put on her greatest smile.
“We will now begin this cruise’s most highly anticipated event: the charity auction. I imagine you already know what we will be auctioning off, but allow me to introduce it! Here we have a piece of Criminal AO’s Inheritance: #Downpour.err!!”
It was like she was ringing the bell of doom.
The luxury cruise ship approached the bridge.
Kaname, who was now a member of Ag Wolves, glanced at the hood of his mint green coupe. A few windows were open. Lilikiska had been fiddling with different parts of her bolt action sniper rifle, but when she glanced over at what the boy was looking at, she saw something other than weapon specs or a cruise liner diagram.
“Onii-chan, dad was supposed to cook dinner, but he says he’s going to be late getting back. He said we should handle dinner ourselves. That said, our only real options are ordering soba for delivery or heading out to the gyudon place. Pizza would probably be a little too pricey. And ordering from the bicycle delivery boys who use smartphone GPS scares me a little. Got any other ideas?”
“What are you doing over there?” asked Lilikiska.
“My little sister sent me an email, so I’m writing a response,” said Kaname. “I don’t really care about dinner, but she gets upset if I don’t answer within 3 minutes.”
“You sure are overprotective.”
“It’s self-defense. I don’t want her breaking holes in the wall and calling it remodeling. Last time she did that, it was the wall in the bath. Can you believe that?”
Lilikiska concluded it was his way of concentrating before a job. She flicked the small earring she wore to check on the hand-steadying Skill she needed for long-range sniping.
It was just about time.
Pavilion had of course considered all the risks in advance.
Hard Engage Bridge was the one real danger zone.
Orange sparks flew from the deck a short distance away. Just as she realized it was a test shot to help with sniper calculations, a sniper rifle round scored a clean headshot on one of the AI officials.
A stir ran through the ship, but Pavilion was unfazed on the podium.
She spoke into the microphone like nothing had changed.
“That’s 20 from #15! We have 20! Any other- yes! 23 from #59, 25 from #40, and now 28 from #72! Any other bids!?”
They were bidding in units of 100 million snow, making 28 units 2.8 billion yen, but that was still quite cheap. The #Downpour.err shotgun was a nightmarish master key that would let its wielder use Money (Game) Master to destroy any individual, corporation, or country they liked. It was more valuable than a clean, radiation-free nuclear weapon. It was the ultimate economic cyber weapon that let one utterly erase an enemy from society while securing their property, rights, and land unscathed. Plus, it was not a one-time-use weapon. It could be used over and over again. So even 10 billion would be a small price to pay.
Meanwhile, Pavilion was the non-executive director working her way into the management of an AI zaibatsu, so she did not need that immediate source of money. She wanted to create a list of those powerful enough to quickly procure such an extreme sum of money and she wanted to create strong connections with them. Because then a certain individual was sure to praise her.
And…
“There it is! We’re up to 100! #7 just raised the bid to 100!! And now 200 from #13! Are you sure you want to let this slip away? This is your last chance to grab the master key to the world! Yes, 300 from #99! We’re up to 300!!”
Those truly powerful people were viewing the gears of the international economy. They were fighting over the right to rule and control that, so it was a different form of war. An individual’s fate and the fear of a sniper had no place there. Anyone who would back away out of fear now was not worthy of a place on Pavilion’s list.
Of course.
She had handled all the risk management in advance to ensure the VIPs were gathered where the angles made it impossible to snipe them from the bridge.
The Tropical Lady was about to pass below the giant bridge.
The bridge stood nearly 30m up from the water, but the ship barely had enough room due to the three-levels of cabins stacked on top of the deck.
“Any more bids!? You have 120 seconds to act! At this rate, the item will go to #99! Yes, #20! 301? 301 it is! Will you up the bid by a hair or try to pull away from the pack!? The choice is yours!”
Pavilion smiled while using her words to stir up their desire to buy this item.
(Now, their next move will likely be a desperate attempt to drive their cars down onto the ship. That said, I have 1000 PMC soldiers with me. Anyone who boards the ship will just be turned to Swiss cheese.)
Just as she thought that, something happened on the Hard Engage Bridge.
A truck swayed on the side of the bridge. With its back end toward the ship, it lost balance like a seesaw. But instead of entering freefall, it came to a stop hanging vertically from the edge and clinging to the side of the bridge.
(Are they supporting it with wires and winches?)
Then the doors on the downward-pointing back of the truck burst open.
Something was hidden inside.
And with the door open, that something entered freefall.
(An anti-ship missile!?)
Forehead glasses Lilikiska removed her eye from the sniper rifle scope and breathed a quiet sigh.
“200 million for a missile? I just know we were ripped off.”
“But it’ll work.”
Kaname held a short-range sniper rifle next to her, but he mostly just acted as her spotter.
“It has to if we drop that many on them.”
They had more than just the one truck dangling from the bridge by wires.
There was an entire row of them.
All those SSM68F anti-ship missiles slid out from the backs of the trucks and rushed toward the ocean surface.
Pavilion felt a squeezing in her heart, despite being a virtual avatar.
A dull pain ran through her.
The row of anti-ship missiles dropped from the large bridge like a guillotine blade.
They fell toward her.
“…!!!!!!”
(Are they trying to destroy #Downpour.err? They weren’t even thinking about retrieving it!?)
The ocean surface split open and water splashed up as if from a geyser. It rose higher than the luxury cruise liner’s viewing deck.
A single hit would do critical damage to the ship.
If a missile fell on the deck, the blast could reach the VIPs and cause them all to fall.
And the same would happen to the purple dress girl named Pavilion.
The upside-down cascade – that dreadfully large liquid curtain – blocked her view of it all. The shockwaves from the explosions deafened everyone there.
Everything disappeared and all sound vanished from the world.
However.
However.
However.
“I apologize for the interruption.”
Pavilion stood on the podium.
The explosions faded and the upside-down cascade cleared away.
The luxury cruise liner was safe.
It was untouched. It had threaded the needle and avoided even a single hit.
The world’s true VIPs were surprised, but they were not running around in a panic. Nor had they ducked down or covered their heads with their hands. They used all their strength to suppress that primitive fear. The looks in their eyes said they were looking to something far more important.
They were waiting.
Reason would not win the day here. They knew logic could be overpowered if they stuck to their guns.
So they did not die. They did not fall.
This was true luck.
It was the sign of a true victor.
Those missiles had to have cost hundreds of millions, but they could still be overcome with powerful luck!!
The purple dress girl held out a hand to stop the PMC bodyguards from rushing out.
She was not presumptuous enough to assume she knew what went on in that individual’s mind, but she knew they would not want this.
This performance was meant to show that she could see the same thing as the truly powerful. It proved she was not someone they could discard.
So Pavilion smiled.
She used this adversity and this attack to fuel her future.
“Now, let us resume the auction. #20 just bid 301. Just this once, I will restart the wait time. That means 120 seconds. In a mere 120 seconds, #Downpour.err will be in their hands! If you do not like the sound of that, then raise your number board! Now!!”
Pavilion used her own voice to show herself that the world was back to normal. She breathed in, hogged all the good fortune to herself, and cut off any hope those mere pirates might have had.
Victory would go to the victors as a matter of course.
Pavilion could tell her mind had entered a certain zone. That was the world in which the VIPs lived. It was the field reserved for those who would take all that they desired.
Thus, she was no longer afraid.
No one could block her path to success.
Her gears would not stop turning until the auction had ended and she had the list of the truly powerful. Until her master, who had taken the form of a girl, praised her. Any who tried to stop those gears would be crushed between them.
She was confident of it.
It was like a divine oracle. A message from heaven.
The Tropical Lady emerged on the other side of the bridge. All of the anti-ship missiles had been lost and several engines roared overhead as if panicking. The attackers had apparently switched to more desperate measures. They likely intended to drive their cars off the other side of the bridge to land on the roof of the luxury cruise liner’s three-story cabin section.
But Pavilion was in the zone and nothing could stop her now.
She could leave those pests to the AI-controlled PMC soldiers deployed on the ship.
So she would focus on providing a rich victory to that individual who was watching from somewhere in the auction hall.
“400 from #5! The bid has just shot up to 400!!”
A mint green coupe, a sky blue convertible, and other cars dropped down. It was impressive that they managed to land on the ship’s roof without destroying themselves, but that earned them nothing more than an A for effort.
Pavilion giggled on the podium and grabbed the decorative hammer.
“Any other bids? Will 400 be the final price? In that case…”
She raised it.
The 1000 PMC soldiers all aimed their guns at the intruders overhead.
And the beautiful girl with a hint of naiveté remaining took the final action.
“Sold to #5!! A round of applause, everyone!!”
She struck the hammer against a round plate.
And that doubled as the cue for the obedient PMC soldiers to kill.
And.
Their fate was decided.
“…”
Kaname and the other Ag Wolves members stepped out onto the roof of the luxury cruise liner. They exited their cars. Fully-equipped PMC soldiers rushed forward like army ants. They covered the deck below, the side decks next to the cabins, and the same roof as Ag Wolves.
But forehead glasses Lilikiska, crew cut Titan, and hunched backpack M Scope were unfazed.
Because…
A moment later, the PMC soldiers made a full about-face and aimed their weapons at Pavilion and the VIPs.
“Wha-? Eh?”
The purple dress girl did not understand.
What had happened? The AI-controlled PMC was supposed to be the ultimate fighting force, so why were they aiming their weapons at her, a non-executive director???
“Why are-…wh-what is the meaning of this!? Finish off those intruders right this instant!! What is going on!?”
The PMC soldiers did not respond. Kaname responded for them from the roof.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Mess with them and you’ll get shot and fall. We have control of them now.”
Tension ran through the crowd.
It sounded ridiculous, but no one was going to test that theory by resisting with so many guns aimed their way. That wordless pressure was proof enough that they understood the situation deep down.
Pavilion and the VIPs could not move, but Ag Wolves calmly jumped down from the roof. They jumped down the tiered decks until they reached the auction hall.
They parted the countless soldiers like they were the rulers of this place.
“What is the meaning of this? Did you hijack the AI control with a cyber-attack!?”
“If a trick like that would work, the snow wouldn’t be as highly valued as the dollar or yen. Not once has any kind of hacking or cyber-attack worked here. That’s one advantage of this world.”
“Then how?” groaned Pavilion as Lilikiska scoffed.
“1. You were only protected by an AI-controlled PMC who are no more than mercenary programs that tell friend from foe using their contract with the company.”
M Scope, the hunched-over man in a backpack, continued for her.
“2. White Queen Tourism, the owners of this ship, is running an interesting project. It’s known as the Surfing Project. The AI managers are fully combining all of the zaibatsu’s companies: the airline, the cruise line, the hotel chain…everything. The online meeting on the topic is in its final stages.”
Titan, the large man with a crew cut, was next.
“3. So what if someone could interrupt that all-important online meeting? The entire group would descend into chaos. No one would know who owns anything. Including this very ship.”
“Ah!!” cried Pavilion in sudden realization.
“4. The anti-ship missiles were not targeting this ship. We needed a guided weapon that could stand water pressure and be given a delayed detonation.” Kaname gave the final answer. “We targeted the undersea cable. The peninsula city relies on that piece of infrastructure which may be replaced with a satellite network at some point. That’s why we had to drop the missiles instead of firing them horizontally. Blow that cable to smithereens and we could stop the project from being finalized by White Queen Tourism at their online meeting.”
“Wait. What happens if it’s stopped? Wasn’t it supposed to bring everything under the direct control of the AI zaibatsu!?”
Pavilion grew pale and Kaname grabbed something from atop the podium.
It was one of the Over Tricks from Criminal AO’s Inheritance: the #Downpour.err shotgun.
He gave the barrel a quick kiss and provided a simple answer.
“Pavilion, you are a non-executive director. You’re a hound the AI zaibatsu hired for the flexible responses that the AI itself can’t manage. So what happens if the crucial online meeting is interrupted while you’re out here? Your contract allows them to fire you after the slightest mistake, partially to make the game run more smoothly. And I hear the AI made a recruitment list based on the Dealers making the most expensive deals. Incidentally, we just spent 1.7 billion each. If you weren’t in that position, it was only a matter of time before they called Ag Wolves.”
“Oh, no.”
The Tropical Lady and the AI-controlled PMC were only under Pavilion’s control because she was White Queen Tourism’s non-executive director.
So what if the mistake occurring here stole that authority from her?
And what if the mechanical system made someone from Ag Wolves into the next non-executive director?
Forehead glasses Lilikiska laughed.
“Their background checks are run ‘mechanically’, aren’t they? So if we make ourselves look good on paper, our opposition will go unnoticed. We had an ideal member sit this one out to wait for the call.”
The normal companies were run entirely by AI, so they did hire any actual people at any level. A human working their way into an AI zaibatsu like Pavilion was a rarity.
A single mistake would get her fired.
Thanks to that instant contract, she could not complain her way out of this one.
“Now, let’s turn it all around,” announced Kaname. “This is Money (Game) Master. Steady profits are for the office workers back in the real world. This is a world for high-risk high-return battles.”
Sorry today’s letter is such a mess.
I ran out of the usual snowman envelopes. Sorry if I’m being too blunt.
And I was the one who said handwritten messages carry your emotions…
Still, there is something I wanted to put to words no matter what. And this isn’t something I can confide in my friends at school about.
I hate my brother.
I can’t believe I’m related to someone who would force all of that onto us.
But there is a part of me that still trusts in him. I say a lot of mean things about him, but I don’t think I could stand to hear someone else say those same things about him.
I’m so selfish, aren’t I?
I’m such an ugly person.
I’m still not sure if I’m going to send this letter. If it does reach you, then it’s probably a sign that I was weak enough to put a stamp on it and stick it in the mailbox.
I’m sorry.
What should I do?
“Sigh.”
The Ag Wolves member known as Saurus, a girl with braided hair, sighed in her four-wheel-drive vehicle back up on the bridge.
She munched on some fries sitting on the dashboard while viewing the many windows displayed on the windshield.
The communications obstruction had caused the Surfing Project to stall.
The AI zaibatsu had apparently worked hard to resume the online meeting by switching from the undersea fiber optic cables to some other form of infrastructure, but it was not that easy. They lost 4 minutes and 30 seconds to the chaos.
That had been enough.
Ag Wolves had not needed to drive the AI zaibatsu to bankruptcy. They only needed to rattle the HR department enough to get Pavilion fired for her mistake. And after the 1.7 billion dollar deals, the Ag Wolves members would be at the top of the list, so the recruitment email would be sent automatically.
The anti-ship missiles had been the real trick.
Simple torpedoes or anything else would have severed the undersea cable just fine. They could have even sent a diver down with some wire cutters. So why had they used missiles that cost 200 million snow each?
The answer was simple.
“Hee hee hee. Once they find out the communications disruption was caused by missiles manufactured in an aerospace plant connected to White Queen, the AI zaibatsu is sure to think the attack on the ship and the communications disruption were both the work of Non-Executive Director Pavilion using weapons she had dragged out of their own warehouses.”
Generally, companies used the PMCs and their own weaponry to protect only their own property and vehicles. But they could not fully eliminate the possibility of a bullet aimed for a VIP hitting another Dealer instead. So it was possible to destroy the communications infrastructure with the AI zaibatsu’s products by having the missiles meant for the ship damage the undersea cable.
That would increase their suspicions to the max.
A light electronic tone marked the receipt of an email.
It was the recruitment message saying all of Pavilion’s authority was being transferred to Ag Wolves.
“Now I am White Queen Tourism’s non-executive director. That ship is finally ours.”
The auction house and #Downpour.err had been out of their reach.
So they had only needed to steal away the entire ship that protected both. By taking the precarious position of non-executive director, command of the 1000 PMC soldiers also shifted to them.
The SSM68F anti-ship missiles cost 200 million snow each. The 10 participating members of Ag Wolves had provided 1.7 billion each, but that had not all gone toward purchasing the missiles. More than 80% of it had actually been used to make constant financial transactions so a massive sum of money was changing hands. All to push them to the top of White Queen Tourism’s list.
Braided Saurus cracked her neck as she spoke.
“As soon as #Downpour.err is ours, I’m ditching this non-executive director position and its restrictive contract, but can’t we at least have a party on the ship first? We can use the jacuzzis and pools as much as we want! Oh, and they have a three-star French restaurant!!”
If…
If you learned I had “gone AI”, would you still be my friend?
(The rest of the letter is illegible due to what appear to be tearstains.)
The battle was over.
With 1000 PMC soldiers aiming their weapons their way, Pavilion and the VIPs would be shot and fall if they made any suspicious movements. They could not struggle or even breathe comfortably like this.
The Ag Wolves members, who had fully hijacked the luxury cruise liner, gathered on top of the poolside podium.
Forehead glasses Lilikiska gulped.
“Wow, so this is a Trick Art…the #Downpour.err. Could you let me touch it?”
“Me too.”
“Me too, but I can wait till everyone else has had a turn.”
They must have wanted to touch that legendary weapon because they passed #Downpour.err’s plain barrel around. They would touch it or even snap a photo.
Once it had gone all the way around and back to Kaname, Lilikiska spoke to him.
“Now we need to figure out how to escape. Word of the commotion should have gotten out by now, so we might run across some other Dealers who hope to use this opportunity to steal #Downpour.err. So after this…”
“Yes, that is certainly important, but there’s one thing I’d like to ask first.”
“What is it?”
Once he had permission, Kaname asked his question.
And he felt a strange tingling on the tip of his nose as he did so.
“So when were you planning to kill me and take #Downpour.err for yourselves?”
Several metallic sounds were heard at once.
On one side was Kaname wielding what looked like a revolving grenade launcher.
On the other side were Lilikiska, the rest of the Ag Wolves members, and the 1000 PMC soldiers they controlled.
Normally, this standoff would be meaningless. On the wide-open poolside, Kaname had no chance with more than 1000 weapons aimed his way.
But he held a part of Criminal AO’s Inheritance.
Instead of firing on a single point like a normal gun, that monstrous shotgun was more like a superweapon from a space opera. Pull the trigger once and everything in the guide light’s fan-shaped area of coverage would be slaughtered by 2000 bullets. That Over Trick had such brutal specs it sounded more like a cheat code than anything.
If Kaname fired it two or three times, no one on the poolside would be left standing.
For Ag Wolves, everything was riding on whether or not they could stop him from getting off those two or three shots.
The crew cut man named Titan gave a fierce roar while wielding two fully-auto magnum handguns with extremely long magazines.
“What did I tell you, Lilikiska!? We should have dealt with him right away!!”
“Quiet, Titan! This is my domain!!”
Kaname and Lilikiska stood face to face.
“So you were always planning to shoot me in the back once you had #Downpour.err.”
“You misunderstand.”
“You were also lying about gathering the Inheritance to bring order back to Money (Game) Master. Ag Wolves just wanted to stand at the very top by hoarding the scattered Inheritance to yourselves. And it doesn’t look like this was your first time at this. You’re hiding at least one other piece of the Inheritance, aren’t you?”
“But this will restore order! Yes, we will have those strategic weapons to use whenever we wish, but how is that a problem if we never actually use them!?”
Kaname slowly shook his head.
And he spoke.
“Not good enough.”
“Then negotiations have failed.”
The dangerous tingling danced across Kaname’s nose.
The tension grew.
As soon as that tension reached the bursting point, it would all begin.
“Hey, there is one thing I don’t understand at all,” said Lilikiska. “Can you tell me where it went wrong? Why are you going out of your way to fall like this?”
“I have a number of reasons, but it started with something simple,” spat out Kaname. “Saving people isn’t something you show off to others. Your claimed ideals are great and all, but I couldn’t believe a word of it. It sounded more like you wanted a reward for saving the world.”
But.
Something else happened first.
A dry gunshot rang out and a dark red hole was blasted in Kaname’s right arm.
“…!!!???”
The shot came from the side. Intense heat and pain spread from his arm to the rest of his body. He had never “actually” been shot and thus had nothing to compare it to, but the pain felt far too real to him. Perhaps due to his heartrate, the smartwatch on his wrist began playing a warning tone.
#Downpour.err fell to his feet.
But the shooter was not a member of Ag Wolves or of the PMC they controlled.
It was someone hidden among the crowd of VIPs.
The pale girl had her long black hair in twintails. She wore a black frilly bikini, a miniskirt, gloves, knee socks, and a blue rose headdress. It was all lined with white lace, giving it a gothic lolita look. She was the greatest joker on the scene.
“It’s Midori!” shouted the crew cut man named Titan. “The Dealer who knew Criminal AO! She really was pulling Pavilion’s strings!!”
Kaname’s next action was truly unbelievable.
He kicked #Downpour.err as hard as he could. And not just because he was afraid Ag Wolves would grab it.
That part of the Inheritance slid across the poolside to where a slender hand was waiting to grab it.
But even while surrounded by all those PMC soldiers, Pavilion quickly pulled that hand back.
She stopped the person trying to grab the weapon.
“You mustn’t, lady! Not right now!!”
But the purple dress girl’s worry was not for the girl named Midori.
It was for a girl with semi-long hair who wore something akin to a tennis uniform. However, this girl had the lower body of a giant snake. She was an Echidna Magisterus.
(Is that Pavilion’s master!? Is she so far gone that the normal relationship has flipped on its head!? Her queen wasn’t Midori, who is thought to be an acquaintance of Criminal AO. Then why is Midori on this ship!?)
Lilikiska’s thoughts moved quickly, but the situation moved faster.
#Downpour.err continued sliding across the poolside.
It was clearly being sent to Midori.
Of course, the surrounding PMC soldiers were not about to let that happen. The Echidna Magisterus had been stopped, but if Midori really did grab the Inheritance, she would be deemed an enemy of Ag Wolves and the PMC would target her to protect their client’s interests. Countless guns aimed Midori’s way, but Kaname raised his remaining left arm.
He held his Short Spear short-range sniper rifle.
While scoring one-handed headshots on the AI-controlled PMC soldiers, he shouted.
“Get indoors!! Tselika!!”
Just as small Midori grabbed #Downpour.err in both hands and ran toward a cabin door, a mint green coupe dropped down from the roof. It approached rapidly enough that Lilikiska, Titan, and the rest of Ag Wolves had to scramble out of the way lest they be hit, but then the PMC soldiers opened fire. The car positioned itself horizontally to shield Kaname, but orange sparks covered it in no time.
Tselika screamed from the driver’s seat.
“Nooo!! It’s going to explode! My temple can’t last much longer!!”
“Just chase after Midori!!”
“~ ~ ~! Private property is uncomfortable enough, but you just have to make it worse, don’t you!?”
“Don’t worry. This ship is owned by an entire team.”
Kaname did not have time to circle around to the passenger side. He stuck his arms in the opened window to cling to the side while the mint green coupe charged inside. The strenuous use of his right arm only made the bleeding worse, but it was still better than being turned to Swiss cheese.
There was a large space inside. It functioned as a terminal leading to the casino, mall, and restaurants, but it could also be used as a dance hall for events.
“What a disaster. Master, you had better take my temple to a repair shop as soon as we get back. Like the very instant!!”
“I’d be more worried about whether we can get back at all.”
In a dozen or so seconds, the shiny sports car had been nearly reduced to scraps. It was a mystery how it was even still running.
Then they backed the coupe up against the double doors they had entered through. No one would be able to open that entrance for the time being, but it was all over if the enemy circled around to a different entrance.
“Oh, god! My machine and my master are full of holes!? Let me see that, you reckless fool!!”
Tselika quickly got out of the car and pulled something like a small can of hair spray from the side of her race queen miniskirt. She applied a quick-drying powdered hemostatic spray to the bullet wound on Kaname’s arm.
Then they heard a deep metallic sound.
The twintail girl named Midori had aimed #Downpour.err at them while hiding behind a large piano.
The hostility in her voice was unmistakable.
“Drop everything you could use as a weapon and move away from me! I won’t let anyone have my brother’s #Downpour.err! I have to destroy it at all costs!!”
“Agreed. So let’s talk, shall we?”
“Quiet!!”
Kaname raised his hands and asked for a conversation next to the mint green coupe, but Midori roared at him again.
But he did not comply.
“How exactly do you plan to destroy the Inheritance? Did slamming it against the floor work? You have about 10 minutes until Ag Wolves and the AI-controlled PMC arrive. If you can’t figure something out in that time, #Downpour.err will return to them.”
“…!!”
The twintail girl must have already tried a few times because she bit her lip.
“Th-then run it over with your car. Do it or I’ll shoot!!”
“That might work.”
Even as he said that, Kaname sat on the coupe’s hood with his hands still in the air. He did not let the pain of his wound show.
“But are you sure? #Downpour.err isn’t great at precise targeting. As you can see, this coupe is falling apart already. If you shoot me now, the coupe will blow up too. And if the car doesn’t work, you can’t use it to destroy the Inheritance. A brand new car might reflect the guide light like a mirror, but this thing is far too riddled with bullets for that.”
“Wh-wh-wh-wha-…?”
Midori blinked in confusion while still holding #Downpour.err at the ready. Tselika’s cry of “And whose fault is that, masterrrrrrr!?” went entirely ignored.
“And like I said, they will arrive in 10 minutes at the most. If you don’t figure something out here, only the worst-case scenario awaits you. They will take the Inheritance and greed will reduce a great many Dealers to mincemeat and bankrupt countless companies back in the real world. Now, time is on my side. So will you talk or not?”
“~ ~ ~!!!???”
Midori looked on the verge of throwing a tantrum, but she had no other option. She was realizing that a weapon could be inconvenient for being too powerful. It was by no means all powerful.
“And even if that wasn’t #Downpour.err, you wouldn’t be able to shoot me. Or rather, you could shoot me, but you couldn’t make me fall.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“When I’m in true danger, I feel a tingling on my nose, but I don’t sense that from you. And I do realize how silly it is to act so tough when you already hit me with a surprise attack.” Kaname relaxed his tension. “As Criminal AO’s sister, you would know just what falling can do to a person. So you can never do it. Which is why you aimed for my arm before.”
Midori briefly fell silent.
She hung her head, bit her lip even more strongly than before, and then whispered.
“You don’t understand.”
It was a deep and dark voice that did not match her appearance in the slightest.
It was a resentful voice.
“He screwed up in this ridiculous Money (Game) Master game and ended up in an absurd amount of debt in just 24 hours! And he left it with his family!! He disappeared!! I don’t know if he felt there was no place for him in the real world or if he was trying to get a fresh start on life, but he shoved all of his debt on his family and then just vanished!!”
Disappeared.
Vanished.
Those disturbing words did not contain worry for the person they applied to. No, the resentment was much stronger.
“And then I learn he left a bunch of bombs in this world! People call it his Inheritance and they’re apparently dangerous enough to leave an unimaginable number of people in debt and to bring down entire countries on the other side of the world! So all this pain and suffering could be forced onto people we’ve never even met!!”
“…”
“I can’t let my stupid brother’s Inheritance do that. They make fun of me at school, I’m too embarrassed to walk around town, and I jump whenever the phone or doorbell ring. I can’t let anyone else live that kind of life. So I’ll erase everything he left behind. I’ll erase every last trace that he ever lived in this world! I’ll restore order!!”
Kaname had no real way of knowing what kind of life Midori lived in the real world. It may have been enough to warrant this rusted hatred for a family member.
But.
However.
“You’re wrong about one thing.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Takamasa did not deserve to be called a ‘stupid brother’.”
“What would you know about-…!!!???”
She just about exploded, but then she realized something.
Twintail Midori looked puzzled while holding her brother’s #Downpour.err.
“How do you know his name?”
“…”
“Did you know him? Were you friends? Did you fight alongside Criminal AO here!?”
“I had heard he had a little sister. We often swapped complaints about our sisters. Although this is the first time I’ve actually met his. Did you start playing recently so you could destroy the Inheritance?”
Midori did not answer his question.
She bit her lip and asked a question of her own.
“Then you must know. People talk about him like he was some legendary Dealer, but he wasn’t all that skilled. He was just obsessed with customization and relied entirely on his weapons’ specs.”
“Yes, Takamasa was more the intellectual type. Even I could get a better score than him if I used his weapons.”
“But he got carried away, attempted some big job, and got annihilated!! He fell, ended up drowning in debt, and scattered his Inheritance across this world!! Why did he have to be my brother? If only he was a complete stranger! Then mom, dad, and I wouldn’t have been dragged down with…no, instead of him!”
Kaname narrowed his eyes a bit when he heard that.
He grimaced even more than when she had shot him in the arm, like he was bearing with some great pain.
“I’m sorry.”
“?”
“You should be directing those words at me, but Takamasa took the fall for me. He is our hero. So I’ll listen to all your complaints. I’ll accept every last one of them. But please, I don’t want to hear his sister of all people talking about him like that.”
“What could he…”
The twintail girl bit her lip so hard a drop of blood seeped out.
And she screamed at the top of her lungs.
“What could he possibly do besides make people suffer!!!???”
But Kaname responded with a calm expression.
“He risked his life to save my sister.”
When she heard those words, the girl briefly forgot how to think.
“It should have been my sister and me who fell back then.”
He knew.
Suou Kaname knew.
He knew Criminal AO’s identity, he knew what Criminal AO’s sister, Midori, was thinking, and he knew what she had suffered through. This was his first time actually meeting her, but he had corresponded with her via letter several times.
He knew that light blue letter set.
He knew those envelopes decorated with a snowman.
He knew she could not forgive her brother for what he did, but he also knew there was a part of her that still wanted to trust him.
He knew she had still sent that letter that was nearly illegible from tearstains.
That was just how important her brother had been to her.
He had not been someone she could throw out so easily.
She had jumped into Money (Game) Master and she was shouting with a piece of the Inheritance in hand, but her heart had to be in tatters and her soul had to be crying.
And yet Kaname had taken it from her.
No matter what had caused it or how it had happened, he had taken it from her.
He had taken something so important from her for his own convenience.
So.
(Don’t run away.)
Suou Kaname slowly breathed in and out.
This was worse than any gunfight, car chase, or financial gamble.
(Don’t run away from what you did.)
With even greater tension and pressure bearing down on him, he looked Midori straight in the eye.
“The Swiss Panic. Did you hear anything about it on the news? They even made a movie about it called Kotemitsu Gold Rush. It was a trick that would have cost 70 million people their jobs in order to concentrate wealth in the bank accounts of a handful of people. My sister and I attacked a corrupt team’s hideout to stop it, but we found ourselves in over our heads.”
Midori knew that tragedy had been stopped in the end.
There had been a lot of criticism of the economists on TV who had warned it was coming, but there was apparently more to the story.
The problem would not have occurred for no reason and it would not have been solved for no reason either.
A battle had been fought in secret.
A battle fought by Dealers who had not hoped to receive any kind of praise.
“We managed to stop the plan, but we went in too deep and had trouble escaping. They were all skilled Dealers who were out for blood and we were outnumbered and outgunned. We ran into an abandoned building, but it was obvious we would be cornered before long. We were going to fall. My sister sent SOS emails to everyone she knew, but no one was going to take the risk to get involved. No matter how much we offered to pay, it just wasn’t worth it. It may have been something like screaming even though you know no one can hear you when a guy tries to force himself on you.”
“…”
“But he showed up.”
Kaname thought back to that moment.
It was late at night and they were hopelessly trapped in that abandoned building, but that boy had thrown open the double doors.
That friend had not hesitated to do what no one else in the world would do.
“He came with all the weapons he could carry. He only cared about customization and was no good at shootouts, but he forced a smile and tried to hide the shaking of his knees. He forcibly broke through the enemies surrounding us and ran over. He wasn’t in it for the money and he wasn’t overestimating his skills. He charged in there just to give us a chance to escape our hopeless situation.”
That boy was the first thing to come to mind when Kaname thought of the word “hero”.
He was not all that strong or clever.
But he had reshaped how Kaname viewed the world.
“But we did not all escape unscathed. In the very, very end, he was shot by an enemy Dealer aiming for my sister. He fell protecting my sister. That should have been my job, but I just stood there like an idiot while he did it for me.”
That incident had traumatized his sister Ayame enough that she had deleted her Money (Game) Master account and retired. That was a valid option.
Criminal AO, aka Takamasa, had been left in an unrecoverable position. There was no level up system and all forms of strength could be bought with money. But that meant it was hard to climb back up once you were massively in debt. And throwing out your current avatar and starting fresh would not help much. The top Dealers earned the resentment of the others, so the instant they showed any kind of weakness, they would be ganged up on and forced to fall again and again before they could gather any proper equipment again. That was known as being “dead” and it prevented you from doing much of anything.
That left only Kaname and he had decided to do something about Criminal AO’s Inheritance.
Because he knew his hero’s sister would likely enter this deadly world in search of that same Inheritance.
Midori hesitantly moved her trembling lips to ask a question.
“You mean he wasn’t someone worthy of being spit on?”
“No, he wasn’t.”
“You mean he fell because he was protecting the world, saving a friend, and doing something you could be proud of?”
“Yes.”
There was one thing Kaname had to be honest about.
So he dug up his own sins and forced out the words.
“The blame for the hellish life you’re living now falls on my sister and me. So I’m in no position to tell you what to do and you’re free to hold a grudge against me. That’s only logical.”
But there was one thing.
“But Takamasa, your brother, was a hero who did what no one else could. He saved us. He saved our livelihoods and our dignity. He saved my one and only sister. I want you to know that. If you’re going to spit on someone, it shouldn’t be Takamasa. It should be me who failed to protect his sister, could only stand there and watch, and who survived despite being so horribly weak.”
That was the limit.
#Downpour.err fell from Midori’s hands.
No matter how hard she bit her lip, she could not stop the tears. She just let the tears fall and finally opened her mouth and sobbed like a child. It felt like a reaction to just how long she had forced herself to feel such hostility for her own family member.
“He didn’t say a word about that.”
“I imagine not.”
“No matter how much we yelled at him and guilted him, he never argued his case!! He just disappeared without a word!!”
“He is our hero because he can do things like that.”
She may have wanted someone to argue back. Even if the brother she had looked up to for so long had become someone who brought trouble to the entire family, she may have wanted someone to tell her he was more than that.
No one knew why Criminal AO, aka Takamasa, had disappeared from his family. Was he an imperfect person and had thus fled from the circumstances and accusations he had brought on himself? That was a possibility, but Kaname baselessly rejected that view.
If he had discussed his reasons, Kaname and Ayame would have come up. They were the cause of his debts. And if Takamasa’s family learned of that, their hatred would have turned toward those two.
So Takamasa had avoided that.
He had disappeared to protect Kaname and Ayame to the very end. Even after falling and being driven out of the game, he had remained a hero in the real world. But what if he had not done so? What if he had decided to give up on those two and had reflexively argued his case to his family and sister?
Then that small girl may have looked at her brother in a different light. No, that was not quite right. Perhaps nothing would have changed after his fall and she would have stayed on good terms with her brother just as before.
In a way, that had been fulfilled by Kaname’s words.
But that was not enough. Kaname could not stop here.
This was not about debts and repayment. It was about gratitude and revenge. There was no compromise there. He understood the importance of what Takamasa had saved and he would do everything he could to make up for it.
“So now it’s my turn.”
Kaname slowly walked toward the sobbing girl.
He directly faced the symbol of his sins.
“He protected my family, so now it’s my turn to protect his family.”
“Uuh.”
“No matter what. Even if it costs me my life.”
“Uuuuhh!!”
He placed his hands on her slender shoulders and looked down at her.
And Midori made a request while sniffling her nose.
“You’ll help me take back my brother’s Inheritance?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want anyone’s life to be ruined by what he left behind. You’ll help me ensure that?”
“Yes, it’s the least I could do.”
He was already prepared to risk his life.
He had been from the moment that true hero had saved his family.
“And that means I can’t let you fall at the hands of Ag Wolves or anyone else. So, Midori, give me just the one command: ‘Protect me.’ ”
“…”
For a very long time, the girl continued rubbing her eyes. They were already quite red, but the tears would not stop. There was still sobbing in her throat and she could not control her breathing. Finally, she must have given up on suppressing it all. She still had tears streaming down her face and she continued to sob, but…
“Uuh, sob, pr-protect…”
She was a mess, but she still moved her lips.
“Protect me! With your life!!”
Finally, all the gears fit together.
(Yes.)
Finally, he stood on the same starting line as that boy.
(Am I…am I really…?)
Finally, Suou Kaname felt like his frozen face had thawed for the first time in forever.
(Am I really worthy of this second chance at life, Takamasa?)
His danger sense stroked across his nose like the single cigarette butt that burns down an entire forest.
They had to be surrounded. Ag Wolves would make their move soon.
He had nothing to gain here.
He would not earn a fortune saving Midori and he was only gathering the Inheritance so he could destroy them all. And yet he was making an enemy of so many Dealers, spending so much of his own money, and exposing his life and livelihood to danger.
But that was exactly why he did not hesitate. To Kaname, the lack of personal gain felt like the answer in and of itself.
After all, saving people was not something you did to show off to others.
Forehead glasses Lilikiska and hunched backpack M Scope were gathered with the others outside the door on the deck that contained the pool and auction hall.
For some reason, the front door would not open.
They had ordered the PMC to search the ship and they had sent soldiers into the hall via different routes.
“I hope they don’t destroy #Downpour.err. Shouldn’t we be going in too?”
“If they use that shotgun in a closed space, there will be no escape. Since they did not throw #Downpour.err into the ocean, they must want a more reliable method of destroying it. I expect they plan to destroy it after taking it back with them.”
Lilikiska gave that answer while swapping out her earrings and a few other accessories. She was removing her long-range sniping Skills and replacing them with close-range combat ones.
She continued while peering down her rifle’s scope.
#Downpour.err was powerful enough to be known as an Over Trick, but it was not all-powerful. For example, its guide light could be reflected with a mirror shield or a shiny, full-body riding suit. If the conditions were right, the aluminum foil wrapping for food at a party could counter it.
However, that did not mean she had the courage to face the weapon with any such makeshift methods. In a narrow indoor area, there would be a lot of windows and mirrors which would make the path of the 2000 bullets impossible to predict. And since a single mistake meant falling, it was too dangerous a gamble. You were never aware of the true value of money when you were betting it. It was only after falling into debt that you learned just how frightening it could be.
“Isn’t there anything else you’re curious about?” asked Lilikiska. “Like how many rounds #Downpour.err can hold?”
“I did a quick check while holding it and it looked like 10 rounds,” said crew cut Titan.
That was what Lilikiska was interested in.
“Then let’s keep sending in the PMCs until they’re out of ammo. We let the AI-controlled soldiers soak up all the bullets and then we stroll in and take the weapon after the fact.”
After all, they had 1000 PMC soldiers and there was no escape on this ship. Assuming the enemy did not try anything reckless, the Ag Wolves members would not be in any danger.
Lilikiska shouted through the door while pressed against the thick wall in case they fired #Downpour.err through the door.
“You have to know you can’t win here! If you hand over #Downpour.err, you can keep your life. We aren’t interested in Midori either! As long as you give us #Downpour.err so we can restore order, neither of you need to fall!!”
It did not particularly matter if they responded or not.
It was a relatively meaningless ultimatum.
But there was nevertheless a response from beyond the solid door.
“I will never give you #Downpour.err. I also need to take back any parts of the Inheritance you already have. So we’re at an impasse, Lilikiska.”
“That’s fine with us. It just means you two must fall to preserve order in Money (Game) Master and the real world. To be blunt, this is a meaningless sacrifice. Thanks for nothing.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“What, you think you can escape? You’re up against the elites of Ag Wolves and 1000 AI-controlled PMC soldiers. Plus, we’re out at sea. There is no escape.”
“I’ll admit this isn’t a great situation. My nose won’t stop tingling.”
The boy on the other side of the door admitted it.
“But this is known as the Lion’s Nose. Your average Dealer would use it to know when to fold, but that’s not my style. This tells me how thick the wall is, so then I just have to smash right through it.”
“…?”
“You said we’re out at sea, but this isn’t an island or float. It’s a ship. And I think you may have forgotten something in your delight at stealing the contract for the ship and PMC by taking the non-executive director position which is as fickle as the team merchandise at a soccer tournament. Had you forgotten this very ship has been cruising into the bay this entire time?”
(Wait. Hold on…)
“You don’t mean….oh, no!!”
Lilikiska realized what he meant, but it was already too late.
A tremendous roar and impact hit the entire ship.
The luxury cruise liner had continued on its original path and crashed into the peninsula city’s wharf.
Whether or not you had seen it coming meant a lot.
Lilikiska, M Scope, Titan, the many PMC soldiers, Pavilion, and the VIPs were all thrown to the deck by the powerful tremor.
And an engine roared amid it all.
The double doors burst open from within and a badly-damaged mint green coupe drove out. Kaname sat in the driver’s seat and Magisterus Tselika and Midori held each other in their arms in the passenger seat.
“Kh!!”
Lilikiska immediately aimed her gun, but it was too late. Even if she had altered her accessories in preparation for a close-range battle, it was still a bolt-action sniper rifle. Her Skills could not completely eliminate that disadvantage.
The sports car made a 180 degree turn on the poolside as if to mock her and then it roared across the deck and broke through the railing.
It soared past the bow and onto the major road located just past where the cruise liner had run aground.
“…!!!!!”
Midori just about screamed at the strange floating feeling pushing up at her stomach. Tselika covered the girl’s small mouth, but less to prevent her from biting her tongue and more to prevent her from screaming right in the Magisterus’s ear.
The drop was about the same as a three story building.
And they of course ignored the flow of traffic.
When they landed, the bottom of the car scraped against the asphalt enough for orange sparks to fly. Kaname just barely avoided the bus driving right toward them, used the steering wheel and brakes to regain control, and somehow managed to get the coupe into a lane.
“Pwah! Wh-what do we do now!?”
“I don’t know how far Criminal AO…Takahara’s Inheritance has spread, but I do know someone who has at least one piece,” answered Kaname while steering with just his left hand. “Ag Wolves. We need to search out and attack their hideout.”
Just then, Midori distinctly saw something while Tselika held her like a body pillow.
Criminal AO’s Inheritance and that boy’s little sister, Midori. Kaname had taken on a number of problems and was forced to oppose the powerful team named Ag Wolves. If word got out that they had stolen a piece of the Inheritance, the chaos could drag in many more people.
Yet in addition to the extreme tension, there was a fierce smile on the boy’s lips.
“That is who my master is,” said Tselika as if viewing a bright and shining light. “Until now, the Criminal AO incident weighed on him and he didn’t know if you were safe. So he had sealed away his emotions. But this is who he really is: the kind of person who loves playing Money (Game) Master more than anything.”
“Eh?”
This financial dealings game was a hopelessly dirty game where everything was allowed.
But this Dealer reveled in it.
He was a true berserker.
“With the immediate threat gone, he can strip off his mourning clothes. So he will enjoy this. He will savor every last drop. Midori, you are a lucky girl. Because you’re about to learn first-hand just what kind of game Money (Game) Master truly is.”
Kaname recalled a minor detail as he drove the car.
It was something Lilikiska had said on the Hard Engage Bridge.
…Yes, the first step. I hope this gives us the foothold we need to get to know each other better.
“You weren’t kidding.”
“?”
Midori looked puzzled as the mint green coupe vanished into the city.
(04/01/20XX 10:20)
Event
Strictly speaking, there are no standard events or quests in the open world of Money (Game) Master. The management does not prepare any scenarios. Instead, the actions of the Dealers create the story. The events mentioned on the car radios are only the major actions of the AI companies that a lot of Dealers will likely be interested in.
The Concept of Food
The concepts of food and stamina do exist, but the values are reset upon logout, rendering them almost meaningless for Dealers who only play for a few hours. However, the flavor and sense of fullness are recreated, so many Dealers are particular about food in order to remain focused and control their emotions. Needless to say, Dealers require constant focus to handle gunfights, car chases, and financial deals all at the same time.
The Stability of the Snow
The in-game currency of snow has a value rivaling the yen or dollar because there is no chance of Money (Game) Master’s values being altered through hacking or cyber-attacks. Thus, there is no need for maintenance such as distributed data checks reliant on the users.
Ag Wolves
Supposedly a group of Dealers seeking to restore order within the game by retrieving Criminal AO’s Inheritance, but actually a group attempting to improve their own standing by keeping the Inheritance to themselves. There are around 10 core members including Lilikiska. It is highly likely they possess at least one other piece of the Inheritance.
AI Zaibatsu
A zaibatsu is a corporate group that fills out its executive positions with members of a single bloodline. In the AI-controlled game, that just means they are a major corporation with extremely few opportunities for human Dealers such as shareholders. But while normal AI companies do not accept any human employees, an AI zaibatsu will occasionally invite in a Dealer as a non-executive director.
Avatar
A Dealer’s alternate self. Also known as a player character. With no level up system, the initial values are equal across the board. It might seem like choosing an extremely large or small body would have its advantages, but people appear to mainly select an appearance based on their personal tastes.
Dead
A state in which a Dealer falls, ends up deeply in debt, and possibly even tries to switch to a new avatar, but other Dealers who hold a grudge continually attack them and cause them to fall again before they can ever get back on their feet. This requires a malicious persistence on their enemy’s part, but it does leave them unable to act and thus “dead”.
Server Name: Theta Yellow. Starting Location: Summer City, Peninsula.
Login confirmed.
Welcome to Money (Game) Master, Suou Kaname.
The pointed peninsula said to be shaped like a shark tooth was the core of Summer City.
It was like the fusion of a tropical beach, the world’s top casino, and a financial transaction center, so the city was crammed full of as much money as possible.
Palm trees and hibiscuses swayed in the wind while azure butterflies and red or green-winged birds flew. But those natural beauties were faced by countless skyscrapers polished like mirrors.
In one corner of that city, a mint green coupe was parked in the parking lot for a swimming beach. Kaname leaned against the sports car’s driver’s side door from the outside and drank a bottle of soda.
The bright sun, the sizzling on his skin, the chill of the condensation on the bottle, the weight of the bottle, the bubbling of the carbonation in his throat, and everything else felt so very real. Although perhaps a cheap soda in the real world would not have been quite so delicious.
The concepts of food and stamina did exist in Money (Game) Master, but since all of those values were reset upon logout, they were nearly irrelevant when staying just for a few hours. And if you stayed logged in for days in a row, malnutrition in the real world would become an issue. While the truly addicted players would have “fasting play sessions”, most people would just log out at a convenient point.
That said, food and drink were still tasty and filled your stomach, so they were highly prized for preserving concentration and controlling your emotions. And you could eat as much as you wanted without consuming any real calories, so it could be useful for dieting as well.
Meanwhile, Tselika was sunbathing on the hood again. She was probably recording herself with the drive recorder, but with the sun beating down on them, it looked more like she was being cooked in a frying pan.
“I don’t think that video is going to turn out the way you want.”
“D-do not be ridiculous. How could it look like anything other than something from an elegant and demonic sex scene?”
The mint green coupe’s windows were open and loud music played from the car stereo. In Money (Game) Master, the main options were loud music or economic news (which meant there were entertainers who did work in the game like it was an online video site). A station would sometimes begin playing nothing but anime songs, but that may have been because a sponsor bought some airtime.
“While White Queen Tourism’s management family continues their online meeting, they have announced they will be fully unifying their airline, cruise line, hotel chain, and every other branch of their business. As a great zaibatsu, they may just not care what the stockholders think. Now, if this Surfing Project goes through…”
“We have news from the satellite business. The peninsula’s communications are currently reliant on an undersea cable, but the word from some Dealers is that everything will gradually switch over to a wireless-based system. On the AI analyst blogs…”
“Thanks to the announcement of some major arms and ammunition transactions, life insurance companies such as Tokime Life, General Mistress, and Tarot Girls 22 are doing good business. Over the past week, transactions of a similar scale have increased dramatically, so it is thought a large-scale…”
“How boring,” complained Tselika while pouting her lips from the scorching hood.
The logos and stock prices for White Queen Tourism and the life insurance companies vanished after they finished scrolling along the bikini top and over-the-knee boots of her race queen outfit.
“It’s just so boring, boring, boring! They should just have the beautiful announcer read a porn novel on air. Or even better: bring me to a strip club or Hooker Island! Your demon queen demands excitement and entertainment!!”
“You have a female body yourself, so why are you so interested in seeing women naked?”
“Because I can’t get enough of seeing the shining beauty of those working women (sparkle sparkle)”
“Take your excuses that far and it starts to sound cruel. Like when you praise someone a little too much.”
“Stop right there, master. Let’s not start discriminating based on people’s jobs. Stripping and sex work are perfectly legitimate professions. Feeling sorry for them is a form of discrimination!!”
Kaname sighed and decided there was no point in trying to argue with a demon about morals. Magisteri were general AI supporters who ran autonomous investing programs to buy and sell wheat, stocks, gold, weapons, etc. at a rate of 10,000 transactions per second while also helping with driving, navigation, and combat, but their high specs apparently left them with some unnecessary functionality.
Meanwhile, the person they were waiting for arrived.
She had straight black hair worn down to her waist. Her bangs were held back with a headband. A powerful will was evident in her eyes and the glasses only accentuated that fact. She was tall for a girl and she had a large chest. She wore a white blouse, a black tight skirt, and a necktie. Overall, she looked like a high-ranking military officer who had removed her jacket after a round of the North Wind and the Sun.
Casual outfits were common here, but not because of relaxed morals. It was just so damn hot. Simply removing your jacket was a minor issue when most Dealers walked around the city in swimsuits. The city was supposed to be a collection of digital data, but that did nothing to help with the heat. Although this had led to a saying that the best way to weaken the AI-controlled PMCs was to take out the water and air conditioning.
“I appreciate your punctuality. I assume you are Suou Kaname-kun.”
“And you are…?”
“Lilikiska, a member of Ag Wolves. And starting today, we will be teammates. I look forward to working with you.”
She held out a hand, so Kaname stepped away from the mint green coupe to shake it.
But forehead glasses Lilikiska seemed more interested in that coupe than the handshake. Specifically, she was curious about the text that disappeared as soon as he stepped away.
She tilted her head.
“What were you just doing?”
“Oh, talking with my little sister. She apparently wants to buy some nightclothes, but she wasn’t sure whether to go with pajamas or a negligee. So she insisted on doing a dress-up show on camera for me.”
“You sure are overprotective.”
“If I don’t go along with it, she gets upset. And when she’s irritated, she cheers herself up by tidying everything up, so I end up not knowing where anything is in my own house.”
But that was not the real topic at hand.
Lilikiska rubbed a finger across the side of her glasses and got down to business.
“You have completed your rite of passage. Suou Kaname-kun, as an official member of Ag Wolves, you will now join us in our retrieval of Criminal AO’s Inheritance.”
“I paid 1.7 billion snow, so it would’ve meant war if you had tried to turn me away.”
“Ah ha ha. That sum was necessary to judge your skill and to fund our current plan. Now, I would like to continue this discussion somewhere more private. I assume that is fine with you. I do not like discussing our plans with those things staring at us.”
She was likely referring to the security cameras. The lens on the closest disaster speaker on the beach was obvious even from here.
“That’s fine with me. I’m not too picky about my car, so I won’t insist you take off your shoes or anything.”
With that, Kaname turned toward the mint green coupe’s door.
But Lilikiska corrected him with a smile.
“Oh, that wasn’t what I meant. I was inviting you into my car.”
“?”
She pointed her thumb over her shoulder.
A black luxury car pulled up smoothly and silently, so it may have been a hybrid which had switched over to electric mode. It was a stark contrast to Kaname’s coupe. It was long. Just long. It looked something like a dachshund which had taken a wrong turn in the evolutionary tree.
Even Kaname looked dubious.
“You drive around in a limousine? In a city of firefights and car chases?”
“Oh, it’s actually quite useful. The larger size means more room for thick bulletproofing and a bigger engine.” Lilikiska gave a bewitching smile. “Speed and handling aren’t everything in a car chase. Powering through everything in your path is also quite exhilarating. Did you never feel envious when watching someone driving a semi or a tanker truck through the city in an action movie?”
He had thought she was the honest class rep type, but she was apparently quite the S on the inside.
The person who stepped out of the driver’s seat appeared to be an AI-controlled Magisterus just like Tselika. She was a blonde girl with long ears, so she was probably modeled after an elf or something. She wore a black vest and tight skirt like a female dealer in a casino, so the company logos scrolling across her clothes like she was a race queen looked very out of place. She opened the thick door to the back seats for them.
Lilikiska gestured Kaname over to that door and asked a question.
“Any other questions?”
“Just one.”
Kaname took a small step back as if to get the full picture of the scene before his eyes. He observed the confused glasses girl and finally asked the question on his mind.
“Um, is that a swimsuit? Or is it a bra?”
“?”
“Either way, I assume you’re intentionally showing it off. I mean, red shows through white pretty well.”
Even after that big a clue, it took Lilikiska a few more seconds to realize what he meant.
Her bright bra was showing through her white blouse.
“Eh? Wah, wah, wahyah!?”
An explosive blush covered her face and she quickly wrapped her arms around her own shoulders…but then an odd sound came from her chest.
Was it more of a snap or a pop?
Regardless, with the sound of thin threads breaking, the buttons on the chest of her blouse failed under the strain of her sudden movement and popped off. Several of them did in a chain reaction.
“~ ~ ~!!!???”
Lilikiska crouched down on the spot while emitting indecipherable ultrasonic waves. It reminded Kaname of when his sister’s swimsuit had been washed away at the beach. Tselika cackled from atop the hood.
And while crouching with tears in her eyes, Lilikiska pulled a sewing set from her skirt pocket.
Kaname had to ask the fundamental question here.
“Why don’t you just where a size that fits?”
“The next size up is too baggy and doesn’t fit my body type. I work as a sniper, so I have to avoid small but continuous annoyances like that.”
There was a short wait time before her work was complete.
Afterwards, Lilikiska buttoned up her top, slowly stood up, stretched like she had just woken up, and arched her back to test the strength of the garment. …She apparently failed to realize this accentuated her large chest right in front of Kaname.
People tended to forget the little things when faced with a bigger issue.
The red whatever-it-was (Kaname was still not sure if it was a bra or a swimsuit) still showed through her white blouse, but he decided it was best not to mention it.
“A-anyway, let’s get the meeting started in here. (Really, why do the buttons have to pop off whenever I meet someone for the first time> People are going to think that’s how I introduce myself.)”
She seemed to be muttering something like a curse, but ignoring it may have been the kind thing to do.
While she guided him to her limousine, Kaname spoke to Tselika who was lying on the hood of his coupe.
“Tselika, you wait here.”
“Someone who actually knows how to show off her body shows up and I have to sit it out? That’s no fun. Do you mind if I go for a drive around the area?”
“That’s fine, but don’t park on the side of the road. The rules only protect the cars in parking lots and garages. That rule might sound oddly gentlemanly for this city, but it also means everyone is free to steal and blow up any illegally parked cars.”
“Understood.”
“Oh, and no going to strip clubs or Hooker Island.”
“Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!! Then what am I even supposed to do with my free tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime!?”
“I’m not saying you can’t ever do it. But I don’t want you doing anything conspicuous just before a job. Besides, on your own, you can only use my possessions, so with the exception of the things in our hideout, you can’t even buy a drink from a vending machine.”
“Yes, but if I hire a sex worker on the side of the road, it counts as interacting with a Dealer instead of an item. That loophole means-…”
“Tselika.”
After driving his point home, he walked away.
Lilikiska spoke to him while fidgeting with the side of her glasses.
“You two really get along, don’t you?”
“Are other Magisteri not like this?”
“It’s a case-by-case thing. Personally, I’m jealous of her white skin. Especially with all the SPF 300 sunblock I have to use every day. Why is this system so unforgiving? It just goes to show there’s such a thing as too much realism.”
They climbed into the limousine. The nicely air conditioned space was long and narrow by necessity, but it may have had as much space as a single room in a city hotel. Sofas lined the perimeter with a glass table in the center. There were even a television and a mini fridge.
And around 10 men and women were already gathered inside. They were presumably the members of Ag Wolves.
This limousine apparently functioned as both a killer truck and a mobile base for the team.
Lilikiska was the last inside and she pressed the intercom button on the glass table to speak to the driver.
“Sophia, drive us around the major roads. Safely.”
“Yes, Lady Kiska.”
The gentle inertia was nice and relaxing and did not feel much like a vehicle starting to move. As the long limousine left the beach parking lot and started down the road, Lilikiska got down to business.
“This is Suou Kaname-kun. The funding he provided has given us a chance to actually execute our plan.”
Several windows opened on the glass table. It showed the record of the purchase made with the 1.7 billion snow provided by each member. That meant everyone here had the same skill as Kaname and had paid the same amount for the same goal.
“Needless to say, Ag Wolves’ goal is to prevent the spread of Criminal AO’s Inheritance, bring order back to Money (Game) Master, and preserve the real world’s international economy. Kaname-kun, do you remember the Swiss Panic?”
“I suppose.” Suou Kaname released a gentle sigh. “That was a worldwide economic crisis that began in Money (Game) Master and spread to the real world. As usual, some of the Dealers triggered a moral hazard and their myopic rush to earn even greater profits led to trouble.”
“Of course, an actual global depression was just barely prevented. But the ultimate equipment of the Inheritance could be used to cause the same thing at any time. And much more easily. If that happens tens of millions would lose their jobs and entire countries could collapse financially. It would of course be bad if someone did it intentionally, but the bigger fear is that an ignorant rookie suddenly gets their hands on the Inheritance. There’s no predicting the scope of the damage that would cause.”
“And?”
“This is our target this time.”
A shotgun was displayed on the glass table.
If it could really be called a shotgun.
Different militaries had different thresholds for the distinction between a gun and a cannon, but at this caliber, most any soldier from any country would call this a cannon instead of a shotgun.
Overall, it had the silhouette of a revolving grenade launcher.
“Its name is #Downpour.err. With each pull of the trigger, it scatters 2000 bullets over a horizontal arc of 60 degrees with a range of 500 meters.”
“That’s just the default values, though,” cut in a large man with a crew cut. “This weapon can actually fire a downpour of 2000 bullets targeting everything hit by the guide light attached to the bottom of the barrel. You’d think a wide-angle lens version of a laser pointer would be the way to go there, wouldn’t you? But no. If light can be bent, it can be reflected. And lenses can focus it as well. In other words, a single disco ball is enough to cover an entire space. You’ll be reduced to a sponge even if you’re hiding behind cover.”
The world of Money (Game) Master was generally that of a modern financial city or of a criminal city, but there were a few things which surpassed the limits of the normal physical phenomena.
One example was the Magisteri who existed along with the cars.
Another was the equipment of Criminal AO’s Inheritance which were known as Over Tricks.
That equipment had been so thoroughly customized that it flew right past the assumed limits. They broke through the system like cheat codes.
“Just out of curiosity, wouldn’t that shine the light on the wielder as well? You can see light hitting a wall because some of it is reflected back at you, right?”
Kaname’s question was answered by a nervous-looking man hunched over with a backpack on.
“The targets are selected by the amount of light. It has to be between 350 and 400 lux, which is about the same as a fluorescent light. So even with some light reflected off a wall, it will still blow right through the wall, but a mirror, glass, water, or some other reflective surface is another matter entirely. So during an indoor battle, you would have to make sure you did not accidentally shine it on a mirror.”
“Anyway,” continued Lilikiska. “Fire it down from an elevated area or a helicopter and it will literally create a deadly downpour. #Downpour.err can slaughter everything in view with a single shot, but it’s also semiauto, allowing for rapid fire. Honestly, it really does make you question if it’s some kind of cheat.”
“Yeah, you would feel kind of silly even taking the time to aim with that,” said the crew cut man while rubbing his own head. “It’s practically a superweapon from a space opera.”
“If this weapon gets out, it will undoubtedly shatter the game balance. And yet some moron is trying to auction it off for some money.”
Lilikiska operated the glass table with her eyes and displayed a beautiful girl in a purple dress. She wore a lot of makeup and her clothing left little to the imagination, but there was a certain naiveté in her face that made the rest look like she was trying too hard to appear grown up.
The crew cut man patted the top of his head with an irritated look on his face. It was possible he had chosen that hairstyle because he enjoyed how it felt. It was even possible he was actually a woman in real life.
“The Dealer’s name is Pavilion. She’s not too important herself, but the issue is the auction hall.”
“Indeed.”
The structure displayed next to the girl was not a skyscraper or a domed stadium.
It was a luxury cruise liner floating in the ocean.
“The Tropical Lady. It belongs to the AI company White Queen Tourism, it holds 200 people, it has a displacement of 90,000 tons, it is powered by four diesel engines, and…well, the specs are irrelevant. What matters is that it floats in the ocean, which puts it out of reach of our land-based vehicles.”
“A-and in addition to that,” said the backpack man while cowering down inside the spacious limousine. “The Tropical Beauty is protected by an AI-controlled PMC unit. Yes, so even if we bought a helicopter or sub to board it, we would be Swiss cheese in no time. Starting a shootout with them will never end well.”
“In fact, we’d be blown away before we even got close,” summed up the crew cut man. “White Queen Tourism is an AI zaibatsu. They wouldn’t normally accept an actual person, but this Pavilion girl has worked her way in there as a non-executive director. The Tropical Lady is a toy she got from that.”
It was simplest to think of a zaibatsu as a large corporation that intentionally filled all its important positions with members of its own family. Trying to apply that to AI programs could get a little confusing, but it basically meant the company was controlled by a small number of NPCs without holding general stockholder meetings like a normal public company would.
Needless to say, human players could not normally join AI-controlled companies. That would give an unfair advantage to those working for major corporations and ruin the fun of the game.
That just went to show how much of an exception this case was.
Lilikiska breathed a soft sigh.
“Pavilion appears to be a hound bought for the kind of flexible thinking the AI management does not have. So she needs to be viewed as a Dealer backed by an AI zaibatsu. She can be fired for even a single mistake, but she will keep that powerful authority as long as she continues to produce results.”
Fired after a single mistake was an awfully risky position to be in, but this was a game after all. A game of musical chairs was more exciting when people were swapped out more frequently.
“It seems White Queen Tourism simply made a list of the Dealers making the most exciting deals and then started recruiting from the top of the list. D-deals like 1.7 billion by a single person. If Pavilion didn’t have the position, those of us in Ag Wolves very well might be receiving a recruitment call right now.”
That was indeed a dangerous opponent. It would be limited to the AI zaibatsu’s personal property, but it meant a lot that she could freely instruct the usually AI-controlled PMC.
Kaname tilted his head a bit.
“Is that why we all bought those things?”
“Yes. We cannot hope to defeat them in a straight fight, but it is possible to eliminate the PMC via trickery. When you see a dead end, you shouldn’t crash into it. You should find a way around it. That’s how Dealers think, isn’t it?”
“…”
“The 1.7 billion snow we each paid will not go to waste. It was a necessary investment needed to reach a more valuable step.”
Lilikiska giggled and then operated the glass table with her eyes.
And she made a point of not clarifying what she meant.
“This is the only point at which we can reach that luxury cruise liner: the Hard Engage Bridge. It must pass below that giant bridge when returning from the open sea to the commercial bay formed by the peninsula. Of course, they will be wary of an attack from atop the bridge. That’s why we need a bit more preparation.”
She did explain what that was.
Although she was mostly confirming what they already knew to ensure no one was confused.
And once she was done explaining, Lilikiska revealed some additional information.
“Now, this is unconfirmed, but a Dealer thought to be an associate of Criminal AO is involved in this matter.”
“…”
Kaname stayed silent, so Lilikiska continued.
She displayed a photo taken from a distance.
“The Dealer’s name is Midori. It is unknown what she is trying to do by acquiring #Downpour.err or what her skill level is, but a connection to Criminal AO would suggest her ideology and skill are both quite dangerous. And since this was the most we could discover despite pouring all our efforts into investigating the matter, we should assume the worst about her skill.”
She was a small girl and she looked cute enough. Her long black hair was worn in twintails and the bangs were cut straight across. She wore a miniskirt and a black frilly bikini that followed the contours of her flat chest. She also wore short gloves that came up to her wrists, knee socks, and a head dress decorated with a blue rose. It was all lined with white lace, so it had a somewhat gothic lolita look to it.
However…
“As an associate of Criminal AO, she likely knows more about the Inheritance than anyone. She would know all of #Downpour.err’s selling points. There is even a 50/50 chance that Midori is manipulating Pavilion from behind the scenes.”
That girl, who was pictured riding a large motorcycle colored the red of autumn leaves, was the ultimate joker.
The picture showed her surrounded by the brick walls of a back alley and those dark shadows seemed to hint at the kind of world in which she lived.
“If you run into her during the mission, view her as an enemy. That is the one and only way to ensure she does not shoot you in the back.”
Their plan was in order
Kaname looked around the people seated in the limousine and asked just one question.
“When do we start?”
“Immediately.”
Sorry about forcing my tastes onto you all the time.
Oh, or does apologizing for that make us seem too distant?
I bought this snowman letter set because it was cute, but it came with a lot more than I thought. You’ll probably be seeing these envelopes for a while. I know email and social media are so much faster, but I just prefer the analog way over the digital way. The entire system of pasting a stamp on a letter and sticking it in the mailbox might be bleeding money these days, but I want to continue conversing by letter for as long as possible.
Today, I looked into how to grow melons.
I just can’t bring myself to throw out fruit seeds, including grape and watermelon ones. I know actually growing them into edible fruit is a lot of work, but, like I said, I can’t help myself.
Do you have any habits like that?
I await your reply.
Kaname exited the black dachshund of a limousine and waited with his back against a large metal dumpster. After Tselika arrived in the mint green coupe, he had the race queen demon move to the passenger seat while he got in the driver’s seat.
“A momentous occasion may be upon us. In the online meeting being held by White Queen Tourism’s management family, they might just fully combine the AI zaibatsu’s 5 different companies in what is known as the Surfing Project. This would make them the #2 name in the tourism business.”
“The Hard Engage Bridge is a well-known landmark of the peninsula city, but there are also concerns that it is deteriorating with age. A number of construction companies, including Satsuki Construction and the Alice Works, have been named as possibilities for making repairs, so there will likely be a lot of activity above and below the board concerning this project.”
“These news programs are always so boring.” Tselika really did sound bored. “A zaibatsu? Discussions between construction companies? What’s so fun about hearing about a market that isn’t even open the public? Ahh, I just want to rent out a hotel room and spend all day watching the pay channels. Maybe even pick up the phone and hire a bunch of call girls.”
“Tselika, your AI seems to be a bit short on the ‘I’ today.”
Tselika did not like his answer since it was making fun of her, so she stretched her back in the passenger seat. She was essentially pressing her palms against the car’s low ceiling.
“Nn!”
“Tsel-, wait!! Don’t spread your wings when I’m driving! I can’t see!!”
The mint green coupe began to swerve.
After somehow managing to regain control, Kaname reached over, grabbed one of her horns (which was more like a cow’s than a goat’s), and shook her head around as punishment.
“Besides, it takes a lot of money to obtain the connections and permits needed to get involved in those things. Isn’t that exactly the route you should use to win at Money (Game) Master?”
“Urp, ugh! I’m sorry! I said I’m sorry, master, so please forgive me!!”
“Your wings.”
“I’ll put them away!! I won’t tease you while you’re driving again!!”
A zaibatsu relied on bloodline. That did not seem to mesh well with AI which was not alive and had no bloodline, but they were managed very differently from normal companies. They sold stock on the market yet the shareholders had no authority to say anything, so they were ridiculously dictatorial. Plus, if they were making a single anpan, they had to use water, eggs, wheat, and adzuki produced by their own companies.
If you took issue with that, you had to turn tail and go elsewhere.
Their special style could be seen in how even the non-executive director from outside would be thrown out after a single mistake.
“That reminds me. I haven’t had anpan in forever.”
“Ohh, it has been a while, hasn’t it? How about buying that and some milk, master?”
On the way to the Hard Engage Bridge, some colorful sports cars and other vehicles joined them. They were likely the Ag Wolves members. They had no stickers or coloring to identify their affiliation. There was even a military vehicle painted with camouflage and an itasha covered in a character presumably from an anime or video game.
Tselika raised her hands and arched her back inside the limited space of the car. This accentuated her chest, but some company names scrolled across her bodylines. These were companies on the verge of bankruptcy that were extremely risky but could also provide extremely high returns.
The action was a lot like stretching in the morning to help clear your mind.
And Tselika asked a question as if for confirmation.
“So it’s finally starting, is it?”
“I’ve waited far too long.”
“But are you sure? The path you’ve chosen will probably be even more treacherous than you think.”
“…”
A few windows were open on the windshield. In addition to a simple map of the city, a graph of the price of gold, a flowchart of changing trends, and other such things, there was a chat window similar to a group social media site. All of the requests were from Ag Wolves members. When Kaname answered, short posts of about 100 characters quickly scrolled by.
“Lilikiska> Sorry your first job had to happen so soon. The victory party will double as your welcome party, so be ready.”
“Hazard> In other words, if we lose, you get nothing. If you want a feast, then work hard, newbie.”
“M Scope> Of course, losing could mean we all fall and end up drowning in debt.”
“Saurus> Hey, you gloomy bastard. Keep up the ominous talk just before a job and I’ll kill you.”
“Titan> If you need to fight, compete over kills during the mission. It’s important to steer everything in a constructive direction.”
Kaname could not perfectly match all the names to faces.
He could make a few guesses based on tone, though.
“Saurus> So where are we having the welcome party?”
“Lilikiska> Why not the usual place? Or there’s an Italian place on 3rd Street back on the peninsula.”
“Titan> That’s no fun! I’m sick of the standards like burgers and rib loin steak. Can’t we head out to Coconut Island or Diver Island? They have some more exciting options there.”
“M Scope> Go there and they just cook everything in coconut milk. Like bat or coconut crab.”
“Hazard> Either way, those aren’t good options for a newcomer. What’s the point if it doesn’t shock him?”
If Kaname did not say anything, he would probably be locked out of the conversation. He did not particularly mind, but he did not want them reading too much into his silence. He used his eyes to control the digital keyboard displayed on the windshield and tried typing out a post.
“Kaname> So how did the rest of you get the 1.7 billion? If you all used a short-term showdown to mess with the market, I feel like you would be influencing each other’s business.”
“Titan> Fighting isn’t the only way to earn some cash. In this limited world, futures related to food are pretty simple. The big events like typhoons are announced in advance, after all.”
“Saurus> They’re called cyclones here, Titan. Regardless, the calculations are easy, so it’s a nice option you can just let a program handle.”
“M Scope> It’s obvious enough if you look at our name: the silver wolves.”
“Lilikiska> I really don’t think that’s obvious enough, so allow me to explain. Wolves live in packs that are optimized for securing food and we do the same but with silver instead of fangs. That’s the idea behind it.”
They jokingly exchanged information as they approached the giant bridge.
The Hard Engage Bridge was 500m long and stood 30m above the ocean at its highest, but that was just barely enough room for a luxury cruise liner to fit below. As a bridge over the ocean, it did have a management company, but it was not anyone’s private property.
Kaname parked his car partway down the bridge and stepped out onto the asphalt.
He was sweating even with his sleeves rolled up.
While he viewed the ocean, which was more green than blue, forehead glasses Lilikiska walked up next to him. She held a chilled glass in each hand, presumably taken from within her limousine. They contained a clear blue liquid, so he could not quite imagine what it would taste like.
“Incredible, isn’t it?”
Lilikiska placed both glasses on the bridge railing, offering one to Kaname. The hibiscus flowers decorating the rim of the glasses swayed in the sea breeze.
She used her slender finger to wipe some condensation off of her glass.
“How many calculations are run for just this one glass? Gravity, temperature, the condensation caused by the humidity and chill of the wind, fluid dynamics, transparency, the friction between the bottom of the glass and the railing, the flavor, the smell, the texture. And the same is true of everything that fills this city all the way to the horizon and beyond. It makes the words ‘free to play’ sound like magic.” She stared out at sea just like the boy. “Did you know that Money (Game) Master is estimated to have somewhere between 5 million and 200 million active Dealers?”
“Maybe so, but a lot of those just let their Magisterus handle their account, which seems about as wise as posting your bank account number on a message board to me.”
“There are people who leave their full life savings with sketchy online banks, you know? But anyway, even if it is an open world game, it is still just one city. It makes you wonder just how much is crammed into this place.”
“…”
They both took a sip of the blue liquid in the glasses. Once he actually drank it, he found it tasted like a carbonated health drink. He felt some slight heat in his chest.
“But this game influences more than just those 5 million to 200 million people. 130 million people use the yen and 250 million use the dollar, but those influence the lives of 7 billion people. In the same way, the snow already covers the entire planet. It is estimated that more than a billion people rely entirely on that virtual currency instead of saving their money in a bank. They’re fully reliant on this system even though no one knows who developed it, who runs it, or what country the servers are located in.”
Yes that 1 billion number was just those fully reliant on it.
Those were only the illegal banks that converted other currencies into snow (which most countries turned a blind eye to, thus making them illegal in name only) and the users of such banks.
Investment funds, the asset management of large corporations, the currency management of the banks themselves, and the funding for the public services using national tax money… In big ways and small, everyone reliant on the system known as money was affected by the virtual currency known as snow.
“Criminal AO’s Inheritance will destroy all of that.” Lilikiska spoke sharply while staring out at the ocean. “We can no longer laugh it off as ‘just a game’. We enjoy the freedom of this world too, but that Inheritance lacks even the bare minimum of restrictions. Give those strongest weapons to a rookie who has no idea what they’re doing and let them go on a rampage. You’ll have something worse than the Swiss Panic on your hands. The game balance will entirely collapse, everyone will end up in debt, starting from the weakest Dealers, and then entire countries will fall into the red and fail.”
The game would affect the real world.
Fictional wins and losses would decide the fates of individual’s lives and possibly even entire countries.
Even if everyone vaguely questioned this system, they refused to admit to the stab wound in their back
“Something must be done about it,” said Lilikiska. “We must bring order back to Money (Game) Master no matter what.”
“Agreed. And #Downpour.err is the first step. I agree that that weapon must be retrieved before it falls into the wrong hands.”
“Yes, the first step.”
With that, Lilikiska turned toward Kaname.
She smiled before continuing.
“I hope this gives us the foothold we need to get to know each other better. And the battlefield is a good place to build up bonds. To borrow the word Titan used, it’s constructive.”
Just then, Race Queen Tselika leaned out from the mint green coupe’s passenger side window.
“It’s about time, master,” she said. “That ship is approaching.”
The look on the other two’s faces changed.
Tension entered their relaxed expressions.
“Our trump card should be arriving on the bridge soon. Let’s get started. I will go grab my weapon. I would like something with a few different Skills, Sophia! Bring me my jewelry box. I want to make some adjustments with rings and earrings.”
“I’ll support you. It’s only short-range, but I do have a sniper rifle.”
With a glance over at Lilikiska who was trying on different colored accessories she pulled from what looked like a tackle box, Kaname accepted his Short Spear short-range sniper rifle from Tselika.
Their enemy was the gathering of crooks attending an auction for the #Downpour.err shotgun, a piece of Criminal AO’s Inheritance which were said to be Over Tricks.
The enemy base was the Tropical Lady luxury cruise liner which was untouchable from land. And even if they did manage to board it, they would be forced into a hopeless fight against the countless soldiers of an AI-controlled PMC.
But Ag Wolves was unfazed.
That group, which now included Kaname, awaited that ship of greed on the Hard Engage Bridge.
Tah dah!
Did you see the stamp I used on this letter?
Yes, it was the one they put out to commemorate that private trip into space!
I know I should really hold onto things like that, but I wanted to show you so bad I sent out just the one.
Hmm, does it not match the snowman envelope?
Stamp collecting is more my brother’s thing but I can’t help but collect everything I can get my hands on. Like fruit seeds. My friends at school say I’m like a squirrel that way (sob).
I of course preserve all the letters you send me too.
Even old letters can seem fresh and new when you read them again years later.
Handwritten letters are great. It’s like you can feel real warmth and emotion in the writing.
I hope this writing can convey my feelings to you too.
I await your reply.
The Tropical Lady’s deck contained a large pool, a buffet party that guests could enjoy in their swimsuits, and – most importantly – an auction house where large sums of money were thrown about.
The purple dress girl known as Pavilion stood in the center of the auction house.
She looked to be around 16 or 17.
The hint of youthful naiveté remaining in her sexy body seemed to accentuate the gaudy aspects of her dress, like the exposed cleavage and thighs.
She was White Queen Tourism’s only non-executive director.
She was no more than a hound that would be fired the instant she made a single mistake, but that title still meant a lot.
Money (Game) Master was a financial dealings game that allowed all illegal activities, so it included gunfights and car chases. But out on the ocean, she need not fear guns or cars. Also, she had the famous #Downpour.err on hand.
The people gathered here were the true VIPs who wished to enjoy a dangerous gamble from a position of safety. Since the virtual currency of snow and the real currency of yen had nearly equal value, the top rankers in the game would also be on the lists of influential people in the real world.
Pavilion was not interested in the money that could be made by selling #Donwpour.err. That was why the auction was advertised as “for charity”. She did not care who the giant pile of cash went to.
What mattered was that she had a connection to such important people. That she spent time with them. That she had a list of their names. That was more than enough of a main dish for her.
How much money she had at the moment was not what mattered.
The real question was how much she could earn and how much moneymaking ability she had.
If she did not know that, she would never obtain more than mere pocket change. The people who understood the true essence of such things always arrived at the same conclusion: money was connections.
And who you had connections with determined how much money you could make.
You could never move forward if you feared burning some fuel.
But running the engine needlessly was also meaningless.
Currying the favor of the general masses would get you nowhere. Since there were only so many actions any one person could take, it was best to use those actions to build connections with the people who held all the power. Just think of it as an issue of cost performance. It was only natural to pour your strength into the areas with potential for growth.
Life was limited.
So how could you best use those limited resources? You needed to build up a list to figure that out. That was the goal of Pavilion, the girl with a hint of naiveté remaining.
If she did that…
And she was successful…
Then surely a certain individual would praise her.
“Lady, it is about time.”
A member of the AI-controlled PMC spoke respectfully to her.
“True enough,” she agreed.
The auction was about to begin. Someone would acquire the extraordinary #Downpour.err shotgun and Pavilion would have her list of the truly influential. She did not care what happened to the world after that. She did not care if that Over Trick destroyed the game balance or if someone or some country was utterly ruined. She did not even care if it caused another Swiss Panic. As long as she could rise up in the world, nothing else mattered.
That purple dress girl grabbed the microphone, walked up onto the podium, and spoke.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the time has finally come!”
She put on her greatest smile.
“We will now begin this cruise’s most highly anticipated event: the charity auction. I imagine you already know what we will be auctioning off, but allow me to introduce it! Here we have a piece of Criminal AO’s Inheritance: #Downpour.err!!”
It was like she was ringing the bell of doom.
The luxury cruise ship approached the bridge.
Kaname, who was now a member of Ag Wolves, glanced at the hood of his mint green coupe. A few windows were open. Lilikiska had been fiddling with different parts of her bolt action sniper rifle, but when she glanced over at what the boy was looking at, she saw something other than weapon specs or a cruise liner diagram.
“Onii-chan, dad was supposed to cook dinner, but he says he’s going to be late getting back. He said we should handle dinner ourselves. That said, our only real options are ordering soba for delivery or heading out to the gyudon place. Pizza would probably be a little too pricey. And ordering from the bicycle delivery boys who use smartphone GPS scares me a little. Got any other ideas?”
“What are you doing over there?” asked Lilikiska.
“My little sister sent me an email, so I’m writing a response,” said Kaname. “I don’t really care about dinner, but she gets upset if I don’t answer within 3 minutes.”
“You sure are overprotective.”
“It’s self-defense. I don’t want her breaking holes in the wall and calling it remodeling. Last time she did that, it was the wall in the bath. Can you believe that?”
Lilikiska concluded it was his way of concentrating before a job. She flicked the small earring she wore to check on the hand-steadying Skill she needed for long-range sniping.
It was just about time.
Pavilion had of course considered all the risks in advance.
Hard Engage Bridge was the one real danger zone.
Orange sparks flew from the deck a short distance away. Just as she realized it was a test shot to help with sniper calculations, a sniper rifle round scored a clean headshot on one of the AI officials.
A stir ran through the ship, but Pavilion was unfazed on the podium.
She spoke into the microphone like nothing had changed.
“That’s 20 from #15! We have 20! Any other- yes! 23 from #59, 25 from #40, and now 28 from #72! Any other bids!?”
They were bidding in units of 100 million snow, making 28 units 2.8 billion yen, but that was still quite cheap. The #Downpour.err shotgun was a nightmarish master key that would let its wielder use Money (Game) Master to destroy any individual, corporation, or country they liked. It was more valuable than a clean, radiation-free nuclear weapon. It was the ultimate economic cyber weapon that let one utterly erase an enemy from society while securing their property, rights, and land unscathed. Plus, it was not a one-time-use weapon. It could be used over and over again. So even 10 billion would be a small price to pay.
Meanwhile, Pavilion was the non-executive director working her way into the management of an AI zaibatsu, so she did not need that immediate source of money. She wanted to create a list of those powerful enough to quickly procure such an extreme sum of money and she wanted to create strong connections with them. Because then a certain individual was sure to praise her.
And…
“There it is! We’re up to 100! #7 just raised the bid to 100!! And now 200 from #13! Are you sure you want to let this slip away? This is your last chance to grab the master key to the world! Yes, 300 from #99! We’re up to 300!!”
Those truly powerful people were viewing the gears of the international economy. They were fighting over the right to rule and control that, so it was a different form of war. An individual’s fate and the fear of a sniper had no place there. Anyone who would back away out of fear now was not worthy of a place on Pavilion’s list.
Of course.
She had handled all the risk management in advance to ensure the VIPs were gathered where the angles made it impossible to snipe them from the bridge.
The Tropical Lady was about to pass below the giant bridge.
The bridge stood nearly 30m up from the water, but the ship barely had enough room due to the three-levels of cabins stacked on top of the deck.
“Any more bids!? You have 120 seconds to act! At this rate, the item will go to #99! Yes, #20! 301? 301 it is! Will you up the bid by a hair or try to pull away from the pack!? The choice is yours!”
Pavilion smiled while using her words to stir up their desire to buy this item.
(Now, their next move will likely be a desperate attempt to drive their cars down onto the ship. That said, I have 1000 PMC soldiers with me. Anyone who boards the ship will just be turned to Swiss cheese.)
Just as she thought that, something happened on the Hard Engage Bridge.
A truck swayed on the side of the bridge. With its back end toward the ship, it lost balance like a seesaw. But instead of entering freefall, it came to a stop hanging vertically from the edge and clinging to the side of the bridge.
(Are they supporting it with wires and winches?)
Then the doors on the downward-pointing back of the truck burst open.
Something was hidden inside.
And with the door open, that something entered freefall.
(An anti-ship missile!?)
Forehead glasses Lilikiska removed her eye from the sniper rifle scope and breathed a quiet sigh.
“200 million for a missile? I just know we were ripped off.”
“But it’ll work.”
Kaname held a short-range sniper rifle next to her, but he mostly just acted as her spotter.
“It has to if we drop that many on them.”
They had more than just the one truck dangling from the bridge by wires.
There was an entire row of them.
All those SSM68F anti-ship missiles slid out from the backs of the trucks and rushed toward the ocean surface.
Pavilion felt a squeezing in her heart, despite being a virtual avatar.
A dull pain ran through her.
The row of anti-ship missiles dropped from the large bridge like a guillotine blade.
They fell toward her.
“…!!!!!!”
(Are they trying to destroy #Downpour.err? They weren’t even thinking about retrieving it!?)
The ocean surface split open and water splashed up as if from a geyser. It rose higher than the luxury cruise liner’s viewing deck.
A single hit would do critical damage to the ship.
If a missile fell on the deck, the blast could reach the VIPs and cause them all to fall.
And the same would happen to the purple dress girl named Pavilion.
The upside-down cascade – that dreadfully large liquid curtain – blocked her view of it all. The shockwaves from the explosions deafened everyone there.
Everything disappeared and all sound vanished from the world.
However.
However.
However.
“I apologize for the interruption.”
Pavilion stood on the podium.
The explosions faded and the upside-down cascade cleared away.
The luxury cruise liner was safe.
It was untouched. It had threaded the needle and avoided even a single hit.
The world’s true VIPs were surprised, but they were not running around in a panic. Nor had they ducked down or covered their heads with their hands. They used all their strength to suppress that primitive fear. The looks in their eyes said they were looking to something far more important.
They were waiting.
Reason would not win the day here. They knew logic could be overpowered if they stuck to their guns.
So they did not die. They did not fall.
This was true luck.
It was the sign of a true victor.
Those missiles had to have cost hundreds of millions, but they could still be overcome with powerful luck!!
The purple dress girl held out a hand to stop the PMC bodyguards from rushing out.
She was not presumptuous enough to assume she knew what went on in that individual’s mind, but she knew they would not want this.
This performance was meant to show that she could see the same thing as the truly powerful. It proved she was not someone they could discard.
So Pavilion smiled.
She used this adversity and this attack to fuel her future.
“Now, let us resume the auction. #20 just bid 301. Just this once, I will restart the wait time. That means 120 seconds. In a mere 120 seconds, #Downpour.err will be in their hands! If you do not like the sound of that, then raise your number board! Now!!”
Pavilion used her own voice to show herself that the world was back to normal. She breathed in, hogged all the good fortune to herself, and cut off any hope those mere pirates might have had.
Victory would go to the victors as a matter of course.
Pavilion could tell her mind had entered a certain zone. That was the world in which the VIPs lived. It was the field reserved for those who would take all that they desired.
Thus, she was no longer afraid.
No one could block her path to success.
Her gears would not stop turning until the auction had ended and she had the list of the truly powerful. Until her master, who had taken the form of a girl, praised her. Any who tried to stop those gears would be crushed between them.
She was confident of it.
It was like a divine oracle. A message from heaven.
The Tropical Lady emerged on the other side of the bridge. All of the anti-ship missiles had been lost and several engines roared overhead as if panicking. The attackers had apparently switched to more desperate measures. They likely intended to drive their cars off the other side of the bridge to land on the roof of the luxury cruise liner’s three-story cabin section.
But Pavilion was in the zone and nothing could stop her now.
She could leave those pests to the AI-controlled PMC soldiers deployed on the ship.
So she would focus on providing a rich victory to that individual who was watching from somewhere in the auction hall.
“400 from #5! The bid has just shot up to 400!!”
A mint green coupe, a sky blue convertible, and other cars dropped down. It was impressive that they managed to land on the ship’s roof without destroying themselves, but that earned them nothing more than an A for effort.
Pavilion giggled on the podium and grabbed the decorative hammer.
“Any other bids? Will 400 be the final price? In that case…”
She raised it.
The 1000 PMC soldiers all aimed their guns at the intruders overhead.
And the beautiful girl with a hint of naiveté remaining took the final action.
“Sold to #5!! A round of applause, everyone!!”
She struck the hammer against a round plate.
And that doubled as the cue for the obedient PMC soldiers to kill.
And.
Their fate was decided.
“…”
Kaname and the other Ag Wolves members stepped out onto the roof of the luxury cruise liner. They exited their cars. Fully-equipped PMC soldiers rushed forward like army ants. They covered the deck below, the side decks next to the cabins, and the same roof as Ag Wolves.
But forehead glasses Lilikiska, crew cut Titan, and hunched backpack M Scope were unfazed.
Because…
A moment later, the PMC soldiers made a full about-face and aimed their weapons at Pavilion and the VIPs.
“Wha-? Eh?”
The purple dress girl did not understand.
What had happened? The AI-controlled PMC was supposed to be the ultimate fighting force, so why were they aiming their weapons at her, a non-executive director???
“Why are-…wh-what is the meaning of this!? Finish off those intruders right this instant!! What is going on!?”
The PMC soldiers did not respond. Kaname responded for them from the roof.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Mess with them and you’ll get shot and fall. We have control of them now.”
Tension ran through the crowd.
It sounded ridiculous, but no one was going to test that theory by resisting with so many guns aimed their way. That wordless pressure was proof enough that they understood the situation deep down.
Pavilion and the VIPs could not move, but Ag Wolves calmly jumped down from the roof. They jumped down the tiered decks until they reached the auction hall.
They parted the countless soldiers like they were the rulers of this place.
“What is the meaning of this? Did you hijack the AI control with a cyber-attack!?”
“If a trick like that would work, the snow wouldn’t be as highly valued as the dollar or yen. Not once has any kind of hacking or cyber-attack worked here. That’s one advantage of this world.”
“Then how?” groaned Pavilion as Lilikiska scoffed.
“1. You were only protected by an AI-controlled PMC who are no more than mercenary programs that tell friend from foe using their contract with the company.”
M Scope, the hunched-over man in a backpack, continued for her.
“2. White Queen Tourism, the owners of this ship, is running an interesting project. It’s known as the Surfing Project. The AI managers are fully combining all of the zaibatsu’s companies: the airline, the cruise line, the hotel chain…everything. The online meeting on the topic is in its final stages.”
Titan, the large man with a crew cut, was next.
“3. So what if someone could interrupt that all-important online meeting? The entire group would descend into chaos. No one would know who owns anything. Including this very ship.”
“Ah!!” cried Pavilion in sudden realization.
“4. The anti-ship missiles were not targeting this ship. We needed a guided weapon that could stand water pressure and be given a delayed detonation.” Kaname gave the final answer. “We targeted the undersea cable. The peninsula city relies on that piece of infrastructure which may be replaced with a satellite network at some point. That’s why we had to drop the missiles instead of firing them horizontally. Blow that cable to smithereens and we could stop the project from being finalized by White Queen Tourism at their online meeting.”
“Wait. What happens if it’s stopped? Wasn’t it supposed to bring everything under the direct control of the AI zaibatsu!?”
Pavilion grew pale and Kaname grabbed something from atop the podium.
It was one of the Over Tricks from Criminal AO’s Inheritance: the #Downpour.err shotgun.
He gave the barrel a quick kiss and provided a simple answer.
“Pavilion, you are a non-executive director. You’re a hound the AI zaibatsu hired for the flexible responses that the AI itself can’t manage. So what happens if the crucial online meeting is interrupted while you’re out here? Your contract allows them to fire you after the slightest mistake, partially to make the game run more smoothly. And I hear the AI made a recruitment list based on the Dealers making the most expensive deals. Incidentally, we just spent 1.7 billion each. If you weren’t in that position, it was only a matter of time before they called Ag Wolves.”
“Oh, no.”
The Tropical Lady and the AI-controlled PMC were only under Pavilion’s control because she was White Queen Tourism’s non-executive director.
So what if the mistake occurring here stole that authority from her?
And what if the mechanical system made someone from Ag Wolves into the next non-executive director?
Forehead glasses Lilikiska laughed.
“Their background checks are run ‘mechanically’, aren’t they? So if we make ourselves look good on paper, our opposition will go unnoticed. We had an ideal member sit this one out to wait for the call.”
The normal companies were run entirely by AI, so they did hire any actual people at any level. A human working their way into an AI zaibatsu like Pavilion was a rarity.
A single mistake would get her fired.
Thanks to that instant contract, she could not complain her way out of this one.
“Now, let’s turn it all around,” announced Kaname. “This is Money (Game) Master. Steady profits are for the office workers back in the real world. This is a world for high-risk high-return battles.”
Sorry today’s letter is such a mess.
I ran out of the usual snowman envelopes. Sorry if I’m being too blunt.
And I was the one who said handwritten messages carry your emotions…
Still, there is something I wanted to put to words no matter what. And this isn’t something I can confide in my friends at school about.
I hate my brother.
I can’t believe I’m related to someone who would force all of that onto us.
But there is a part of me that still trusts in him. I say a lot of mean things about him, but I don’t think I could stand to hear someone else say those same things about him.
I’m so selfish, aren’t I?
I’m such an ugly person.
I’m still not sure if I’m going to send this letter. If it does reach you, then it’s probably a sign that I was weak enough to put a stamp on it and stick it in the mailbox.
I’m sorry.
What should I do?
“Sigh.”
The Ag Wolves member known as Saurus, a girl with braided hair, sighed in her four-wheel-drive vehicle back up on the bridge.
She munched on some fries sitting on the dashboard while viewing the many windows displayed on the windshield.
The communications obstruction had caused the Surfing Project to stall.
The AI zaibatsu had apparently worked hard to resume the online meeting by switching from the undersea fiber optic cables to some other form of infrastructure, but it was not that easy. They lost 4 minutes and 30 seconds to the chaos.
That had been enough.
Ag Wolves had not needed to drive the AI zaibatsu to bankruptcy. They only needed to rattle the HR department enough to get Pavilion fired for her mistake. And after the 1.7 billion dollar deals, the Ag Wolves members would be at the top of the list, so the recruitment email would be sent automatically.
The anti-ship missiles had been the real trick.
Simple torpedoes or anything else would have severed the undersea cable just fine. They could have even sent a diver down with some wire cutters. So why had they used missiles that cost 200 million snow each?
The answer was simple.
“Hee hee hee. Once they find out the communications disruption was caused by missiles manufactured in an aerospace plant connected to White Queen, the AI zaibatsu is sure to think the attack on the ship and the communications disruption were both the work of Non-Executive Director Pavilion using weapons she had dragged out of their own warehouses.”
Generally, companies used the PMCs and their own weaponry to protect only their own property and vehicles. But they could not fully eliminate the possibility of a bullet aimed for a VIP hitting another Dealer instead. So it was possible to destroy the communications infrastructure with the AI zaibatsu’s products by having the missiles meant for the ship damage the undersea cable.
That would increase their suspicions to the max.
A light electronic tone marked the receipt of an email.
It was the recruitment message saying all of Pavilion’s authority was being transferred to Ag Wolves.
“Now I am White Queen Tourism’s non-executive director. That ship is finally ours.”
The auction house and #Downpour.err had been out of their reach.
So they had only needed to steal away the entire ship that protected both. By taking the precarious position of non-executive director, command of the 1000 PMC soldiers also shifted to them.
The SSM68F anti-ship missiles cost 200 million snow each. The 10 participating members of Ag Wolves had provided 1.7 billion each, but that had not all gone toward purchasing the missiles. More than 80% of it had actually been used to make constant financial transactions so a massive sum of money was changing hands. All to push them to the top of White Queen Tourism’s list.
Braided Saurus cracked her neck as she spoke.
“As soon as #Downpour.err is ours, I’m ditching this non-executive director position and its restrictive contract, but can’t we at least have a party on the ship first? We can use the jacuzzis and pools as much as we want! Oh, and they have a three-star French restaurant!!”
If…
If you learned I had “gone AI”, would you still be my friend?
(The rest of the letter is illegible due to what appear to be tearstains.)
The battle was over.
With 1000 PMC soldiers aiming their weapons their way, Pavilion and the VIPs would be shot and fall if they made any suspicious movements. They could not struggle or even breathe comfortably like this.
The Ag Wolves members, who had fully hijacked the luxury cruise liner, gathered on top of the poolside podium.
Forehead glasses Lilikiska gulped.
“Wow, so this is a Trick Art…the #Downpour.err. Could you let me touch it?”
“Me too.”
“Me too, but I can wait till everyone else has had a turn.”
They must have wanted to touch that legendary weapon because they passed #Downpour.err’s plain barrel around. They would touch it or even snap a photo.
Once it had gone all the way around and back to Kaname, Lilikiska spoke to him.
“Now we need to figure out how to escape. Word of the commotion should have gotten out by now, so we might run across some other Dealers who hope to use this opportunity to steal #Downpour.err. So after this…”
“Yes, that is certainly important, but there’s one thing I’d like to ask first.”
“What is it?”
Once he had permission, Kaname asked his question.
And he felt a strange tingling on the tip of his nose as he did so.
“So when were you planning to kill me and take #Downpour.err for yourselves?”
Several metallic sounds were heard at once.
On one side was Kaname wielding what looked like a revolving grenade launcher.
On the other side were Lilikiska, the rest of the Ag Wolves members, and the 1000 PMC soldiers they controlled.
Normally, this standoff would be meaningless. On the wide-open poolside, Kaname had no chance with more than 1000 weapons aimed his way.
But he held a part of Criminal AO’s Inheritance.
Instead of firing on a single point like a normal gun, that monstrous shotgun was more like a superweapon from a space opera. Pull the trigger once and everything in the guide light’s fan-shaped area of coverage would be slaughtered by 2000 bullets. That Over Trick had such brutal specs it sounded more like a cheat code than anything.
If Kaname fired it two or three times, no one on the poolside would be left standing.
For Ag Wolves, everything was riding on whether or not they could stop him from getting off those two or three shots.
The crew cut man named Titan gave a fierce roar while wielding two fully-auto magnum handguns with extremely long magazines.
“What did I tell you, Lilikiska!? We should have dealt with him right away!!”
“Quiet, Titan! This is my domain!!”
Kaname and Lilikiska stood face to face.
“So you were always planning to shoot me in the back once you had #Downpour.err.”
“You misunderstand.”
“You were also lying about gathering the Inheritance to bring order back to Money (Game) Master. Ag Wolves just wanted to stand at the very top by hoarding the scattered Inheritance to yourselves. And it doesn’t look like this was your first time at this. You’re hiding at least one other piece of the Inheritance, aren’t you?”
“But this will restore order! Yes, we will have those strategic weapons to use whenever we wish, but how is that a problem if we never actually use them!?”
Kaname slowly shook his head.
And he spoke.
“Not good enough.”
“Then negotiations have failed.”
The dangerous tingling danced across Kaname’s nose.
The tension grew.
As soon as that tension reached the bursting point, it would all begin.
“Hey, there is one thing I don’t understand at all,” said Lilikiska. “Can you tell me where it went wrong? Why are you going out of your way to fall like this?”
“I have a number of reasons, but it started with something simple,” spat out Kaname. “Saving people isn’t something you show off to others. Your claimed ideals are great and all, but I couldn’t believe a word of it. It sounded more like you wanted a reward for saving the world.”
But.
Something else happened first.
A dry gunshot rang out and a dark red hole was blasted in Kaname’s right arm.
“…!!!???”
The shot came from the side. Intense heat and pain spread from his arm to the rest of his body. He had never “actually” been shot and thus had nothing to compare it to, but the pain felt far too real to him. Perhaps due to his heartrate, the smartwatch on his wrist began playing a warning tone.
#Downpour.err fell to his feet.
But the shooter was not a member of Ag Wolves or of the PMC they controlled.
It was someone hidden among the crowd of VIPs.
The pale girl had her long black hair in twintails. She wore a black frilly bikini, a miniskirt, gloves, knee socks, and a blue rose headdress. It was all lined with white lace, giving it a gothic lolita look. She was the greatest joker on the scene.
“It’s Midori!” shouted the crew cut man named Titan. “The Dealer who knew Criminal AO! She really was pulling Pavilion’s strings!!”
Kaname’s next action was truly unbelievable.
He kicked #Downpour.err as hard as he could. And not just because he was afraid Ag Wolves would grab it.
That part of the Inheritance slid across the poolside to where a slender hand was waiting to grab it.
But even while surrounded by all those PMC soldiers, Pavilion quickly pulled that hand back.
She stopped the person trying to grab the weapon.
“You mustn’t, lady! Not right now!!”
But the purple dress girl’s worry was not for the girl named Midori.
It was for a girl with semi-long hair who wore something akin to a tennis uniform. However, this girl had the lower body of a giant snake. She was an Echidna Magisterus.
(Is that Pavilion’s master!? Is she so far gone that the normal relationship has flipped on its head!? Her queen wasn’t Midori, who is thought to be an acquaintance of Criminal AO. Then why is Midori on this ship!?)
Lilikiska’s thoughts moved quickly, but the situation moved faster.
#Downpour.err continued sliding across the poolside.
It was clearly being sent to Midori.
Of course, the surrounding PMC soldiers were not about to let that happen. The Echidna Magisterus had been stopped, but if Midori really did grab the Inheritance, she would be deemed an enemy of Ag Wolves and the PMC would target her to protect their client’s interests. Countless guns aimed Midori’s way, but Kaname raised his remaining left arm.
He held his Short Spear short-range sniper rifle.
While scoring one-handed headshots on the AI-controlled PMC soldiers, he shouted.
“Get indoors!! Tselika!!”
Just as small Midori grabbed #Downpour.err in both hands and ran toward a cabin door, a mint green coupe dropped down from the roof. It approached rapidly enough that Lilikiska, Titan, and the rest of Ag Wolves had to scramble out of the way lest they be hit, but then the PMC soldiers opened fire. The car positioned itself horizontally to shield Kaname, but orange sparks covered it in no time.
Tselika screamed from the driver’s seat.
“Nooo!! It’s going to explode! My temple can’t last much longer!!”
“Just chase after Midori!!”
“~ ~ ~! Private property is uncomfortable enough, but you just have to make it worse, don’t you!?”
“Don’t worry. This ship is owned by an entire team.”
Kaname did not have time to circle around to the passenger side. He stuck his arms in the opened window to cling to the side while the mint green coupe charged inside. The strenuous use of his right arm only made the bleeding worse, but it was still better than being turned to Swiss cheese.
There was a large space inside. It functioned as a terminal leading to the casino, mall, and restaurants, but it could also be used as a dance hall for events.
“What a disaster. Master, you had better take my temple to a repair shop as soon as we get back. Like the very instant!!”
“I’d be more worried about whether we can get back at all.”
In a dozen or so seconds, the shiny sports car had been nearly reduced to scraps. It was a mystery how it was even still running.
Then they backed the coupe up against the double doors they had entered through. No one would be able to open that entrance for the time being, but it was all over if the enemy circled around to a different entrance.
“Oh, god! My machine and my master are full of holes!? Let me see that, you reckless fool!!”
Tselika quickly got out of the car and pulled something like a small can of hair spray from the side of her race queen miniskirt. She applied a quick-drying powdered hemostatic spray to the bullet wound on Kaname’s arm.
Then they heard a deep metallic sound.
The twintail girl named Midori had aimed #Downpour.err at them while hiding behind a large piano.
The hostility in her voice was unmistakable.
“Drop everything you could use as a weapon and move away from me! I won’t let anyone have my brother’s #Downpour.err! I have to destroy it at all costs!!”
“Agreed. So let’s talk, shall we?”
“Quiet!!”
Kaname raised his hands and asked for a conversation next to the mint green coupe, but Midori roared at him again.
But he did not comply.
“How exactly do you plan to destroy the Inheritance? Did slamming it against the floor work? You have about 10 minutes until Ag Wolves and the AI-controlled PMC arrive. If you can’t figure something out in that time, #Downpour.err will return to them.”
“…!!”
The twintail girl must have already tried a few times because she bit her lip.
“Th-then run it over with your car. Do it or I’ll shoot!!”
“That might work.”
Even as he said that, Kaname sat on the coupe’s hood with his hands still in the air. He did not let the pain of his wound show.
“But are you sure? #Downpour.err isn’t great at precise targeting. As you can see, this coupe is falling apart already. If you shoot me now, the coupe will blow up too. And if the car doesn’t work, you can’t use it to destroy the Inheritance. A brand new car might reflect the guide light like a mirror, but this thing is far too riddled with bullets for that.”
“Wh-wh-wh-wha-…?”
Midori blinked in confusion while still holding #Downpour.err at the ready. Tselika’s cry of “And whose fault is that, masterrrrrrr!?” went entirely ignored.
“And like I said, they will arrive in 10 minutes at the most. If you don’t figure something out here, only the worst-case scenario awaits you. They will take the Inheritance and greed will reduce a great many Dealers to mincemeat and bankrupt countless companies back in the real world. Now, time is on my side. So will you talk or not?”
“~ ~ ~!!!???”
Midori looked on the verge of throwing a tantrum, but she had no other option. She was realizing that a weapon could be inconvenient for being too powerful. It was by no means all powerful.
“And even if that wasn’t #Downpour.err, you wouldn’t be able to shoot me. Or rather, you could shoot me, but you couldn’t make me fall.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“When I’m in true danger, I feel a tingling on my nose, but I don’t sense that from you. And I do realize how silly it is to act so tough when you already hit me with a surprise attack.” Kaname relaxed his tension. “As Criminal AO’s sister, you would know just what falling can do to a person. So you can never do it. Which is why you aimed for my arm before.”
Midori briefly fell silent.
She hung her head, bit her lip even more strongly than before, and then whispered.
“You don’t understand.”
It was a deep and dark voice that did not match her appearance in the slightest.
It was a resentful voice.
“He screwed up in this ridiculous Money (Game) Master game and ended up in an absurd amount of debt in just 24 hours! And he left it with his family!! He disappeared!! I don’t know if he felt there was no place for him in the real world or if he was trying to get a fresh start on life, but he shoved all of his debt on his family and then just vanished!!”
Disappeared.
Vanished.
Those disturbing words did not contain worry for the person they applied to. No, the resentment was much stronger.
“And then I learn he left a bunch of bombs in this world! People call it his Inheritance and they’re apparently dangerous enough to leave an unimaginable number of people in debt and to bring down entire countries on the other side of the world! So all this pain and suffering could be forced onto people we’ve never even met!!”
“…”
“I can’t let my stupid brother’s Inheritance do that. They make fun of me at school, I’m too embarrassed to walk around town, and I jump whenever the phone or doorbell ring. I can’t let anyone else live that kind of life. So I’ll erase everything he left behind. I’ll erase every last trace that he ever lived in this world! I’ll restore order!!”
Kaname had no real way of knowing what kind of life Midori lived in the real world. It may have been enough to warrant this rusted hatred for a family member.
But.
However.
“You’re wrong about one thing.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Takamasa did not deserve to be called a ‘stupid brother’.”
“What would you know about-…!!!???”
She just about exploded, but then she realized something.
Twintail Midori looked puzzled while holding her brother’s #Downpour.err.
“How do you know his name?”
“…”
“Did you know him? Were you friends? Did you fight alongside Criminal AO here!?”
“I had heard he had a little sister. We often swapped complaints about our sisters. Although this is the first time I’ve actually met his. Did you start playing recently so you could destroy the Inheritance?”
Midori did not answer his question.
She bit her lip and asked a question of her own.
“Then you must know. People talk about him like he was some legendary Dealer, but he wasn’t all that skilled. He was just obsessed with customization and relied entirely on his weapons’ specs.”
“Yes, Takamasa was more the intellectual type. Even I could get a better score than him if I used his weapons.”
“But he got carried away, attempted some big job, and got annihilated!! He fell, ended up drowning in debt, and scattered his Inheritance across this world!! Why did he have to be my brother? If only he was a complete stranger! Then mom, dad, and I wouldn’t have been dragged down with…no, instead of him!”
Kaname narrowed his eyes a bit when he heard that.
He grimaced even more than when she had shot him in the arm, like he was bearing with some great pain.
“I’m sorry.”
“?”
“You should be directing those words at me, but Takamasa took the fall for me. He is our hero. So I’ll listen to all your complaints. I’ll accept every last one of them. But please, I don’t want to hear his sister of all people talking about him like that.”
“What could he…”
The twintail girl bit her lip so hard a drop of blood seeped out.
And she screamed at the top of her lungs.
“What could he possibly do besides make people suffer!!!???”
But Kaname responded with a calm expression.
“He risked his life to save my sister.”
When she heard those words, the girl briefly forgot how to think.
“It should have been my sister and me who fell back then.”
He knew.
Suou Kaname knew.
He knew Criminal AO’s identity, he knew what Criminal AO’s sister, Midori, was thinking, and he knew what she had suffered through. This was his first time actually meeting her, but he had corresponded with her via letter several times.
He knew that light blue letter set.
He knew those envelopes decorated with a snowman.
He knew she could not forgive her brother for what he did, but he also knew there was a part of her that still wanted to trust him.
He knew she had still sent that letter that was nearly illegible from tearstains.
That was just how important her brother had been to her.
He had not been someone she could throw out so easily.
She had jumped into Money (Game) Master and she was shouting with a piece of the Inheritance in hand, but her heart had to be in tatters and her soul had to be crying.
And yet Kaname had taken it from her.
No matter what had caused it or how it had happened, he had taken it from her.
He had taken something so important from her for his own convenience.
So.
(Don’t run away.)
Suou Kaname slowly breathed in and out.
This was worse than any gunfight, car chase, or financial gamble.
(Don’t run away from what you did.)
With even greater tension and pressure bearing down on him, he looked Midori straight in the eye.
“The Swiss Panic. Did you hear anything about it on the news? They even made a movie about it called Kotemitsu Gold Rush. It was a trick that would have cost 70 million people their jobs in order to concentrate wealth in the bank accounts of a handful of people. My sister and I attacked a corrupt team’s hideout to stop it, but we found ourselves in over our heads.”
Midori knew that tragedy had been stopped in the end.
There had been a lot of criticism of the economists on TV who had warned it was coming, but there was apparently more to the story.
The problem would not have occurred for no reason and it would not have been solved for no reason either.
A battle had been fought in secret.
A battle fought by Dealers who had not hoped to receive any kind of praise.
“We managed to stop the plan, but we went in too deep and had trouble escaping. They were all skilled Dealers who were out for blood and we were outnumbered and outgunned. We ran into an abandoned building, but it was obvious we would be cornered before long. We were going to fall. My sister sent SOS emails to everyone she knew, but no one was going to take the risk to get involved. No matter how much we offered to pay, it just wasn’t worth it. It may have been something like screaming even though you know no one can hear you when a guy tries to force himself on you.”
“…”
“But he showed up.”
Kaname thought back to that moment.
It was late at night and they were hopelessly trapped in that abandoned building, but that boy had thrown open the double doors.
That friend had not hesitated to do what no one else in the world would do.
“He came with all the weapons he could carry. He only cared about customization and was no good at shootouts, but he forced a smile and tried to hide the shaking of his knees. He forcibly broke through the enemies surrounding us and ran over. He wasn’t in it for the money and he wasn’t overestimating his skills. He charged in there just to give us a chance to escape our hopeless situation.”
That boy was the first thing to come to mind when Kaname thought of the word “hero”.
He was not all that strong or clever.
But he had reshaped how Kaname viewed the world.
“But we did not all escape unscathed. In the very, very end, he was shot by an enemy Dealer aiming for my sister. He fell protecting my sister. That should have been my job, but I just stood there like an idiot while he did it for me.”
That incident had traumatized his sister Ayame enough that she had deleted her Money (Game) Master account and retired. That was a valid option.
Criminal AO, aka Takamasa, had been left in an unrecoverable position. There was no level up system and all forms of strength could be bought with money. But that meant it was hard to climb back up once you were massively in debt. And throwing out your current avatar and starting fresh would not help much. The top Dealers earned the resentment of the others, so the instant they showed any kind of weakness, they would be ganged up on and forced to fall again and again before they could gather any proper equipment again. That was known as being “dead” and it prevented you from doing much of anything.
That left only Kaname and he had decided to do something about Criminal AO’s Inheritance.
Because he knew his hero’s sister would likely enter this deadly world in search of that same Inheritance.
Midori hesitantly moved her trembling lips to ask a question.
“You mean he wasn’t someone worthy of being spit on?”
“No, he wasn’t.”
“You mean he fell because he was protecting the world, saving a friend, and doing something you could be proud of?”
“Yes.”
There was one thing Kaname had to be honest about.
So he dug up his own sins and forced out the words.
“The blame for the hellish life you’re living now falls on my sister and me. So I’m in no position to tell you what to do and you’re free to hold a grudge against me. That’s only logical.”
But there was one thing.
“But Takamasa, your brother, was a hero who did what no one else could. He saved us. He saved our livelihoods and our dignity. He saved my one and only sister. I want you to know that. If you’re going to spit on someone, it shouldn’t be Takamasa. It should be me who failed to protect his sister, could only stand there and watch, and who survived despite being so horribly weak.”
That was the limit.
#Downpour.err fell from Midori’s hands.
No matter how hard she bit her lip, she could not stop the tears. She just let the tears fall and finally opened her mouth and sobbed like a child. It felt like a reaction to just how long she had forced herself to feel such hostility for her own family member.
“He didn’t say a word about that.”
“I imagine not.”
“No matter how much we yelled at him and guilted him, he never argued his case!! He just disappeared without a word!!”
“He is our hero because he can do things like that.”
She may have wanted someone to argue back. Even if the brother she had looked up to for so long had become someone who brought trouble to the entire family, she may have wanted someone to tell her he was more than that.
No one knew why Criminal AO, aka Takamasa, had disappeared from his family. Was he an imperfect person and had thus fled from the circumstances and accusations he had brought on himself? That was a possibility, but Kaname baselessly rejected that view.
If he had discussed his reasons, Kaname and Ayame would have come up. They were the cause of his debts. And if Takamasa’s family learned of that, their hatred would have turned toward those two.
So Takamasa had avoided that.
He had disappeared to protect Kaname and Ayame to the very end. Even after falling and being driven out of the game, he had remained a hero in the real world. But what if he had not done so? What if he had decided to give up on those two and had reflexively argued his case to his family and sister?
Then that small girl may have looked at her brother in a different light. No, that was not quite right. Perhaps nothing would have changed after his fall and she would have stayed on good terms with her brother just as before.
In a way, that had been fulfilled by Kaname’s words.
But that was not enough. Kaname could not stop here.
This was not about debts and repayment. It was about gratitude and revenge. There was no compromise there. He understood the importance of what Takamasa had saved and he would do everything he could to make up for it.
“So now it’s my turn.”
Kaname slowly walked toward the sobbing girl.
He directly faced the symbol of his sins.
“He protected my family, so now it’s my turn to protect his family.”
“Uuh.”
“No matter what. Even if it costs me my life.”
“Uuuuhh!!”
He placed his hands on her slender shoulders and looked down at her.
And Midori made a request while sniffling her nose.
“You’ll help me take back my brother’s Inheritance?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want anyone’s life to be ruined by what he left behind. You’ll help me ensure that?”
“Yes, it’s the least I could do.”
He was already prepared to risk his life.
He had been from the moment that true hero had saved his family.
“And that means I can’t let you fall at the hands of Ag Wolves or anyone else. So, Midori, give me just the one command: ‘Protect me.’ ”
“…”
For a very long time, the girl continued rubbing her eyes. They were already quite red, but the tears would not stop. There was still sobbing in her throat and she could not control her breathing. Finally, she must have given up on suppressing it all. She still had tears streaming down her face and she continued to sob, but…
“Uuh, sob, pr-protect…”
She was a mess, but she still moved her lips.
“Protect me! With your life!!”
Finally, all the gears fit together.
(Yes.)
Finally, he stood on the same starting line as that boy.
(Am I…am I really…?)
Finally, Suou Kaname felt like his frozen face had thawed for the first time in forever.
(Am I really worthy of this second chance at life, Takamasa?)
His danger sense stroked across his nose like the single cigarette butt that burns down an entire forest.
They had to be surrounded. Ag Wolves would make their move soon.
He had nothing to gain here.
He would not earn a fortune saving Midori and he was only gathering the Inheritance so he could destroy them all. And yet he was making an enemy of so many Dealers, spending so much of his own money, and exposing his life and livelihood to danger.
But that was exactly why he did not hesitate. To Kaname, the lack of personal gain felt like the answer in and of itself.
After all, saving people was not something you did to show off to others.
Forehead glasses Lilikiska and hunched backpack M Scope were gathered with the others outside the door on the deck that contained the pool and auction hall.
For some reason, the front door would not open.
They had ordered the PMC to search the ship and they had sent soldiers into the hall via different routes.
“I hope they don’t destroy #Downpour.err. Shouldn’t we be going in too?”
“If they use that shotgun in a closed space, there will be no escape. Since they did not throw #Downpour.err into the ocean, they must want a more reliable method of destroying it. I expect they plan to destroy it after taking it back with them.”
Lilikiska gave that answer while swapping out her earrings and a few other accessories. She was removing her long-range sniping Skills and replacing them with close-range combat ones.
She continued while peering down her rifle’s scope.
#Downpour.err was powerful enough to be known as an Over Trick, but it was not all-powerful. For example, its guide light could be reflected with a mirror shield or a shiny, full-body riding suit. If the conditions were right, the aluminum foil wrapping for food at a party could counter it.
However, that did not mean she had the courage to face the weapon with any such makeshift methods. In a narrow indoor area, there would be a lot of windows and mirrors which would make the path of the 2000 bullets impossible to predict. And since a single mistake meant falling, it was too dangerous a gamble. You were never aware of the true value of money when you were betting it. It was only after falling into debt that you learned just how frightening it could be.
“Isn’t there anything else you’re curious about?” asked Lilikiska. “Like how many rounds #Downpour.err can hold?”
“I did a quick check while holding it and it looked like 10 rounds,” said crew cut Titan.
That was what Lilikiska was interested in.
“Then let’s keep sending in the PMCs until they’re out of ammo. We let the AI-controlled soldiers soak up all the bullets and then we stroll in and take the weapon after the fact.”
After all, they had 1000 PMC soldiers and there was no escape on this ship. Assuming the enemy did not try anything reckless, the Ag Wolves members would not be in any danger.
Lilikiska shouted through the door while pressed against the thick wall in case they fired #Downpour.err through the door.
“You have to know you can’t win here! If you hand over #Downpour.err, you can keep your life. We aren’t interested in Midori either! As long as you give us #Downpour.err so we can restore order, neither of you need to fall!!”
It did not particularly matter if they responded or not.
It was a relatively meaningless ultimatum.
But there was nevertheless a response from beyond the solid door.
“I will never give you #Downpour.err. I also need to take back any parts of the Inheritance you already have. So we’re at an impasse, Lilikiska.”
“That’s fine with us. It just means you two must fall to preserve order in Money (Game) Master and the real world. To be blunt, this is a meaningless sacrifice. Thanks for nothing.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“What, you think you can escape? You’re up against the elites of Ag Wolves and 1000 AI-controlled PMC soldiers. Plus, we’re out at sea. There is no escape.”
“I’ll admit this isn’t a great situation. My nose won’t stop tingling.”
The boy on the other side of the door admitted it.
“But this is known as the Lion’s Nose. Your average Dealer would use it to know when to fold, but that’s not my style. This tells me how thick the wall is, so then I just have to smash right through it.”
“…?”
“You said we’re out at sea, but this isn’t an island or float. It’s a ship. And I think you may have forgotten something in your delight at stealing the contract for the ship and PMC by taking the non-executive director position which is as fickle as the team merchandise at a soccer tournament. Had you forgotten this very ship has been cruising into the bay this entire time?”
(Wait. Hold on…)
“You don’t mean….oh, no!!”
Lilikiska realized what he meant, but it was already too late.
A tremendous roar and impact hit the entire ship.
The luxury cruise liner had continued on its original path and crashed into the peninsula city’s wharf.
Whether or not you had seen it coming meant a lot.
Lilikiska, M Scope, Titan, the many PMC soldiers, Pavilion, and the VIPs were all thrown to the deck by the powerful tremor.
And an engine roared amid it all.
The double doors burst open from within and a badly-damaged mint green coupe drove out. Kaname sat in the driver’s seat and Magisterus Tselika and Midori held each other in their arms in the passenger seat.
“Kh!!”
Lilikiska immediately aimed her gun, but it was too late. Even if she had altered her accessories in preparation for a close-range battle, it was still a bolt-action sniper rifle. Her Skills could not completely eliminate that disadvantage.
The sports car made a 180 degree turn on the poolside as if to mock her and then it roared across the deck and broke through the railing.
It soared past the bow and onto the major road located just past where the cruise liner had run aground.
“…!!!!!”
Midori just about screamed at the strange floating feeling pushing up at her stomach. Tselika covered the girl’s small mouth, but less to prevent her from biting her tongue and more to prevent her from screaming right in the Magisterus’s ear.
The drop was about the same as a three story building.
And they of course ignored the flow of traffic.
When they landed, the bottom of the car scraped against the asphalt enough for orange sparks to fly. Kaname just barely avoided the bus driving right toward them, used the steering wheel and brakes to regain control, and somehow managed to get the coupe into a lane.
“Pwah! Wh-what do we do now!?”
“I don’t know how far Criminal AO…Takahara’s Inheritance has spread, but I do know someone who has at least one piece,” answered Kaname while steering with just his left hand. “Ag Wolves. We need to search out and attack their hideout.”
Just then, Midori distinctly saw something while Tselika held her like a body pillow.
Criminal AO’s Inheritance and that boy’s little sister, Midori. Kaname had taken on a number of problems and was forced to oppose the powerful team named Ag Wolves. If word got out that they had stolen a piece of the Inheritance, the chaos could drag in many more people.
Yet in addition to the extreme tension, there was a fierce smile on the boy’s lips.
“That is who my master is,” said Tselika as if viewing a bright and shining light. “Until now, the Criminal AO incident weighed on him and he didn’t know if you were safe. So he had sealed away his emotions. But this is who he really is: the kind of person who loves playing Money (Game) Master more than anything.”
“Eh?”
This financial dealings game was a hopelessly dirty game where everything was allowed.
But this Dealer reveled in it.
He was a true berserker.
“With the immediate threat gone, he can strip off his mourning clothes. So he will enjoy this. He will savor every last drop. Midori, you are a lucky girl. Because you’re about to learn first-hand just what kind of game Money (Game) Master truly is.”
Kaname recalled a minor detail as he drove the car.
It was something Lilikiska had said on the Hard Engage Bridge.
…Yes, the first step. I hope this gives us the foothold we need to get to know each other better.
“You weren’t kidding.”
“?”
Midori looked puzzled as the mint green coupe vanished into the city.
(04/01/20XX 10:20)
Event
Strictly speaking, there are no standard events or quests in the open world of Money (Game) Master. The management does not prepare any scenarios. Instead, the actions of the Dealers create the story. The events mentioned on the car radios are only the major actions of the AI companies that a lot of Dealers will likely be interested in.
The Concept of Food
The concepts of food and stamina do exist, but the values are reset upon logout, rendering them almost meaningless for Dealers who only play for a few hours. However, the flavor and sense of fullness are recreated, so many Dealers are particular about food in order to remain focused and control their emotions. Needless to say, Dealers require constant focus to handle gunfights, car chases, and financial deals all at the same time.
The Stability of the Snow
The in-game currency of snow has a value rivaling the yen or dollar because there is no chance of Money (Game) Master’s values being altered through hacking or cyber-attacks. Thus, there is no need for maintenance such as distributed data checks reliant on the users.
Ag Wolves
Supposedly a group of Dealers seeking to restore order within the game by retrieving Criminal AO’s Inheritance, but actually a group attempting to improve their own standing by keeping the Inheritance to themselves. There are around 10 core members including Lilikiska. It is highly likely they possess at least one other piece of the Inheritance.
AI Zaibatsu
A zaibatsu is a corporate group that fills out its executive positions with members of a single bloodline. In the AI-controlled game, that just means they are a major corporation with extremely few opportunities for human Dealers such as shareholders. But while normal AI companies do not accept any human employees, an AI zaibatsu will occasionally invite in a Dealer as a non-executive director.
Avatar
A Dealer’s alternate self. Also known as a player character. With no level up system, the initial values are equal across the board. It might seem like choosing an extremely large or small body would have its advantages, but people appear to mainly select an appearance based on their personal tastes.
Dead
A state in which a Dealer falls, ends up deeply in debt, and possibly even tries to switch to a new avatar, but other Dealers who hold a grudge continually attack them and cause them to fall again before they can ever get back on their feet. This requires a malicious persistence on their enemy’s part, but it does leave them unable to act and thus “dead”.
