The Eminence in Shadow, Vol. 3 (Light Novel)

by Daisuke Aizawa

  Once the goods are brought to the capital, people line up in droves to buy them, and the company makes a killing.

  That’s why Mitsugoshi has been able to expand at such an astounding rate.

  There’s no shortage of merchants that regard the company as a threat, of course. However, the demand for Mitsugoshi goods is so tremendous that even a whole coalition of merchants wouldn’t stand a chance against them.

  Thanks to that, its system has been rock-solid up until now.

  However, if a coalition of merchants couldn’t stand up against Mitsugoshi, what about a coalition of companies…?

  Now, at long last—the major corporations are getting off their asses and banding together.

  Amid the darkness, several figures gaze down at Mitsugoshi’s camp.

  Each is wearing a mask on their face and a sword on their hip. They would look like simple brigands if it weren’t for one incongruous fact.

  They’re all dark knights.

  It isn’t rare for dark knights who’ve committed crimes to fall into lives of banditry, but an entire band of brigands being dark knights is nigh unheard of.

  Communicating via hand signals, they creep toward the camp.

  Then all at once, they charge.

  “Eeeeeeeeek!!”

  A female scream rings through the air.

  They cut down the silver-haired elf who was standing guard, then go after the rest of the personnel.

  The sounds of slaughter echo through the night.

  When attacked by a group of dark knights that size, not even Mitsugoshi stands a chance. The final survivor is a beautiful elf with platinum blond hair.

  As they drag her out of the carriage, tears well up in her blue eyes.

  “Please, I’m begging you. Don’t kill me…”

  On seeing how beautiful she is, vulgar sneers creep across the brigands’ faces.

  “We’d better make an example of her.”

  “Heh-heh. You said it.”

  They roughly tie her up.

  “An example…?! What’s that supposed to mean?!”

  “Wanna find out?”

  “N-no, please! Don’t hurt me…!”

  One man draws his sword and slowly slices the woman’s dress open from the side, exposing her pale skin.

  “Your luck ran out when you guys pissed off the Garter Corporation. All it took the president was a couple words to quell the major corporations’ fighting and unite them under one banner. Mitsugoshi is finished…”

  “Wait, no, you don’t mean… You people are…?”

  “You guessed it, we’re Garter’s private army. Our power’s on par with that of a small nation.”

  Despair flashes across the woman’s eyes.

  The man’s smile grows even crueler as his cutting reaches the woman’s chest.

  A pair of round white mounds flop out—or rather, they should have.

  Instead, the only thing that comes into view is the lump of black clothing that was adhered to her skin.

  It covers her body in a flash, hiding her exposed flesh.

  “The hell?!”

  “I appreciate you being so forthcoming with me.”

  The despair in her eyes is gone without a trace. It’s been replaced by the ruthless, resolute gaze that only the truly powerful possess.

  “Damn you!” The man swings his sword at her.

  She doesn’t dodge.

  The sword slams into her neck, then comes to a complete stop. The black garment refuses to let it sink any farther.

  “Wha—?!”

  The woman looks down coldly at the blade. “—You’re so weak.”

  Then she stabs forward.

  An ebony blade bursts through the man’s heart and out his back.

  He collapses, blood foaming at his mouth. The woman casts a disparaging glance his way, then holds her sword aloft.

  “It’s time—punish them.”

  Upon hearing her cry, the first victim, the silver-haired elf, stands up and cuts her assailant down.

  And that’s just the beginning. The supposedly dead Mitsugoshi employees stand up one after another and wipe out the assassins. Every single one of them is wearing a black garment under their clothes.

  The situation’s done a complete one-eighty.

  The assassins try to flee, but the women cut them down.

  Pleading and death cries fill the air for a spell, but after a little while, the night is silent again.

  The platinum blond elf turns to the silver-haired one. “Nights really are nicer when they’re quiet, aren’t they…? Beta, your report.”

  “We’ve finished taking out the assassins, Alpha. Our side suffered zero casualties and no injuries, either. We were also able to capture three of them alive.”

  The attractive elf she referred to as Alpha nods.

  “Leave the rest to the Numbers.”

  “Understood.”

  “Looks like we have a war on our hands…”

  Alpha’s blue eyes flash as she glares at the distant sky.

  As fall comes to a close, the night air gradually starts getting cooler.

  I listen to the bugs chirp and buzz as I change into a suit in my dorm room. Suits didn’t exist in this world originally, but Mitsugoshi popularized them, and now they’re all the rage among the aristocracy.

  My suit, however, isn’t one of Mitsugoshi’s. It’s a copycat product made by the Snow Fox Corporation that Yukime gave me as a present.

  Apparently, she manages a legitimate business that operates outside the Lawless City. They’re currently in the middle of expanding their line of Mitsugoshi knockoffs.

  That said, Mitsugoshi’s products make full use of all sorts of information I brought over from my original world. Even though Snow Fox is widely recognized as the leading authority on plagiarizing its designs, they’ve only been able to replicate a small fraction of their products.

  Mitsugoshi engineering is the best in the world!

  This society doesn’t have antitrust laws, but if they did, the way Mitsugoshi’s taking over the marketplace would definitely violate them.

  “No wonder the Major Corporate Alliance is pissed at them…”

  Honestly, Alpha and the others might have overdone it a bit.

  As for me, I’ve got a whole outfit going on. Black suit, striped button-down, thin black tie. My shoes are black straight tips.

  I finish the look off by parting my hair to the sides and donning a white mask that covers the top half of my face.

  “Heh-heh-heh…”

  I feel like an FBI agent.

  Slime bodysuits are great—don’t get me wrong—and they can’t be beat when it comes to functionality. However, I can’t let the Shadow Garden girls figure out who I am just yet.

  Now then, it’s almost time for my meeting with Yukime.

  I turn off my room’s lamp, leap out the window, and dash off into the night.

  My presence is completely erased. Nobody’s following me.

  After leaving the school grounds and dashing through a forest for about half an hour, I hear a roaring waterfall as I come to a clearing.

  In it, there’s a mansion nestled right up alongside a mountain stream.

  Its name is Descendingwater, and between the forest, the waterfall, and the stream, it’s got one hell of an aesthetic.

  Apparently, it was designed by some famous architect. Yukime uses it as her secret base.

  I see warm light spilling out from a window, and with my presence still erased, I silently slip inside it.

  Yukime is sitting on the sofa in front of the fireplace.

  Her white hair glows in its light.

  My heels click as I walk, and the Spirit Fox turns to me and smiles.

  “Once again I fail to sense you coming, Mr. Shadow.”

  “…I’ve abandoned that name,” I say quietly as I take a seat on the sofa across from Yukime.

  “Ah, that’s right. Now you’re Mr. John Smith.”

  “Right. T
hat’s who I am now…”

  For the next little while, I plan on acting as John Smith, Super Elite Agent. I’ve even changed my tone of voice to sound cooler and more collected.

  “My heart becomes warm to know you decided to trust me, Mr. John. Care to drink with me?”

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  As Yukime pours the wine, she makes sure to emphasize her exposed cleavage.

  Nice. I love this whole “sexy accomplice from a sketchy organization” vibe she’s got going on.

  I pretend to enjoy the wine’s aroma, then take a sip. For the record, I don’t know shit about aroma or flavor when it comes to wine.

  “There’s profit in it for me. That’s all there is to it…”

  “Oh my. A relationship built solely on profit? That’s far too sad, no?”

  “You’re no different, are you?”

  “I do wonder… Care to test that theory?” Yukime licks her soft, full lips and beams a seductive smile.

  “You’re wasting my time.”

  “On another occasion, perhaps…”

  She straightens up her exposed cleavage a little, then sips her wine. Her lips leave bright red marks on the glass.

  “The MCA—the Major Corporate Alliance—held a meeting the other day. Now, they did little more than show up and confirm their mission statement, leaving the specifics of their plan for another day. Alas, from the looks of it, they’re already employing rather vulgar methods. Mitsugoshi might fall faster than expected.”

  “…I see.”

  “However, our plan remains the same. First, we let Mitsugoshi and the MCA crush each other. Then we make our preparations and wait for our chance—”

  “—and then we take it all.”

  At the end of the day, Alpha and the others went too far.

  The way it sounds, their fate was sealed the moment they went up against the MCA. Yukime says so, and so do all the old guys who run stores in the shopping district.

  I mean, it makes sense.

  Some rookie kids who’ve been doing business for only a couple years shouldn’t pick fights against legacy corporations with years of experience and history. That’s basic common sense.

  There’s only one way for me to save them.

  I have to destroy it all, then start from scratch.

  Mitsugoshi stood out too much, so everyone and their mother is zeroing in on them. Unfortunately, that means there’s no choice but to hit the reset button.

  Mitsugoshi is gonna get crushed by the MCA.

  However, Yukime and I are gonna be working behind the scenes to take down the MCA so we can divvy up their assets and the brand-new marketplace.

  Then I’ll found a new company and hire Alpha and the others to run it.

  In other words, Mitsugoshi will simply be reborn under a different name.

  “We’ll need you to do some work to make this all happen. Be very careful,” she warns.

  “Be careful…?”

  Yukime’s face darkens as she rises to her feet. Then she turns around and unfastens her kimono’s sash.

  Fwump.

  The firelight illuminates her naked body as her clothes fall to the floor.

  Her back…is hideously inflamed.

  “The man who did this to me, Gettan the Sword Devil, works for the MCA.”

  Her back still pointing my way, Yukime looks at me over her shoulder.

  “Gettan is mine. I will verily kill him with my own two hands…”

  The crackling of the fire serves as the backdrop to Yukime’s grim proclamation.

  Then, suddenly, she smiles.

  “Hee-hee. Now then, shall we get to our scheming?”

  After Yukime puts her kimono back on, her aides Natsu and Kana appear to refasten her sash.

  I down the rest of my wine and quietly rise to my feet.

  I’ve got the day off.

  At the moment, I’m spending it with Skel and Po. It’s been a while since we three NPCs went shopping together like this.

  I don’t have anything in particular I’m dying for, so I fill up my basket with daily necessities and bring it up to the counter.

  “So out of five thousand zeni. Are paper bills all right for your change?”

  “Uh, sure.”

  Making sure to add an “uh” before your answer is Background Character 101.

  More to the point, it seems like people have started using paper currency recently. The Midgar Kingdom fundamentally runs on a coin-based economy, but bills have made some serious inroads.

  Now, paper money isn’t really money. Technically, it’s more like a voucher that can be exchanged for actual currency.

  Because of that, there are plenty of stores that won’t take them, and plenty of people who don’t trust them. It’s considered polite to ask permission before attempting to use them.

  Having taken my change and finished the transaction, I head outside and casually look over the bill.

  “Huh…?”

  I only just noticed it, but why is the design different from other thousand-zeni bills?

  Seeing me suddenly stop, Po calls out to me. “What’s wrong, Cid?”

  “Did thousand-zeni bills always look like this?”

  “What are you talking about? That’s one of the new bills the MCA just put out. Do you not know why we’re out shopping today?”

  “Whaddaya mean?”

  “Today’s the big sale commemorating the MCA releasing their new bills, remember?”

  “Oh, right. Right right right.”

  Was that it?

  “C’mon, Cid, get your head in the game.”

  I see. They’re holding a blowout to entice people to use their new bills.

  Wait a sec.

  If the MCA only just put out their bills, where did all the paper money we’ve been using before come from?

  Now I’m kinda interested, so I reach into my wallet and pull out one of the older bills to take a look—and discover a shocking truth!

  “The hell?”

  I can’t stop myself from yelping.

  “Wh-what’s wrong, Cid?!”

  “Hey, Cid, what’s up?”

  “Why the hell does this have ‘Mitsugoshi Bank’ written on it?”

  I can see the words on the edge of the bill clear as day: Mitsugoshi Bank.

  What the hell is Mitsugoshi Bank?!

  Don’t tell me Alpha and the others started a bank, too?!

  “’Cause it’s a deposit receipt from Mitsugoshi Bank. Duh.”

  “Mitsugoshi Bank was the first one to start making paper money, remember? If you use them at Mitsugoshi shops, you get freebies and discounts and stuff.”

  “Ah, now that you mention it…”

  Back at the beginning, Mitsugoshi stores were the only places you could spend paper money. I’d always thought that was weird, as well as the fact that they gave you discounts for doing so, but now I guess I know why.

  So they started a bank and kept it a secret from me, huh?

  Wait, did they?

  Actually, now that I think about it, I do remember that one time…

  A couple years ago, everyone would praise me and go, “Master Shadow, you’re a genius!” whenever I told them random trivia from my old world, so I’d get carried away and tell them about all kinds of stuff. I think I might have mentioned something about banks and credit creation back then.

  I watched a two-hour MBO documentary on credit creation once, so even though I only vaguely remembered it, I was able to yammer on for a decent while.

  About halfway through, though, the look in everyone’s eyes started scaring me, and my recollection of the documentary started getting really sketchy, so I cut the explanation short by going, “Figure out the rest for yourselves.” After that, I think they were pretty pumped up about the idea of starting a bank themselves.

  Oh god, were they actually serious?

  Is the word restraint in any of their vocabularies?

  Honestly, that was probably what se
t off the anti-Mitsugoshi faction.

  “That’s why the MCA’s putting out paper money, too, huh…?”

  If they hadn’t, Mitsugoshi would have run off with the ball. They didn’t have much of a choice.

  The question then becomes How well does the MCA understand just how dangerous money creation can be?

  The time has come for me to wield the knowledge imparted in me by that two-hour MBO documentary.

  “Heh-heh-heh… The question is, How well do they…? Just how dangerous…? Heh-heh-heh…”

  “What’s he babbling about over there?”

  “He’s probably just stressed out. I can’t imagine his life’s going all that great, after all.”

  When I take the simple-yet-elaborate Mitsugoshi Bank bill and compare it side by side with the flashy-yet-sloppy MCA bill, I notice something.

  Wait, is this…?

  The Mitsugoshi Bank bill has a serial number and a watermark.

  The MCA bill has a serial number, too, but it’s missing a watermark. And its design isn’t that detailed, either.

  If someone were to make counterfeits, getting rich off them would be piece of cake.

  I don’t have the means to manufacture them on my own.

  However, what I do have is a reliable accomplice who operates on the shady side of the law.

  Oh, I can work with this. I can work with this indeed.

  “Skel, Po, I’m on the verge of obtaining everything.”

  “What are you talking about, man…?”

  “Cid, did you hit your head…?”

  Turn, O cranial gears of mine!

  As for you, two-hour MBO documentary, I’m counting on you!!

  As Yukime gazes at the hearth and sips her wine, she feels wind blowing in from somewhere.

  When she turns around, she finds that the window’s open. She hears a sound like a finger flicking metal.

  “Mr. John, pray tell, is that you…?”

  Her question is answered when a suit-clad man emerges from the darkness.

  His physique is well-balanced, and his face sports a white mask and an intrepid smile.

  He takes a seat across from Yukime, toying with the coin in his hand and flipping it into the air.

  “This single gold coin can double many times over. All on the back of the fickle, phantasmal power called credit…”