Volume 2 - CH 1.05

Part 5

On that very same day, Kanie Seiya had skipped school and remained in Amaburi. He was having a bland consultation with Ashe, the head of accounts, about strategies to bring the park’s finances out of the red.

“Here’s what I think…” Ashe began.

Her tanned skin, long ears and two horns were of demonic beauty. The otherwise human-like figure in her twenties was wearing a plain suit that masked her physical endowments.

Seiya heard that Ashe was not born from Maple Land but some other magical realm, and that no mortal could match her in knowledge of economics. She was also one of Tiramie’s sexual harassment targets, and she’d nearly beaten him to death because of it (nothing surprising there, Tiramie never learned his lesson).

That said, her several years of service as the head of accounts and her efforts in balancing Amaburi’s sheets had certainly left her in a state of gloom.

“The 30 yen campaign last month invited financial mayhem. Even if we’re able to solve our manpower issues, we’re still lacking many other resources. At this rate, we’ll be wringing our accounts dry.”

“You have a point there…” Seiya said in an unhappy tone of voice.

“We just have to pray that they’ll let us defer the payment. I honestly don’t see how we can continue without restructuring the organization of the park.”

“That’s easier said than done.” Seiya let out a sigh. “We don’t even have the manpower needed to restructure. Say, you think Maple Bank would lend us a hand in this…?”

Maple Bank was the bank of Maple Land, one of the organizations with interest in the survival of the park. Of course, it could be said that they were only concerned because Latifa’s fate was tied with the park’s.

“They can’t help.”

“Why?”

“For various reasons. There’s the depreciation of the yen because of quantitative easing, the structural reforms in the Maple Land’s royal palace, along with the policy by the American Federal Reserve Bank to prevent intervention from banks of magical realms. It’ll be a long explanation, shall I go ahead?”

“Forget it. You’ll bore the hell out of the readers.”

“Understood. In any case, that is not an option.”

“I see…” Seiya understood. “First things first, we have to get enough to tread water through the month. I’m thinking of using our last resort…”

“So it’s a bank robbery this time?”

Hearing that, Seiya shot a glance at Ashe. She was a smart one. Ashe must have had a rough idea about the connection between the park and the fire outbreak at Kajinomoto Stadium.

“I’m not putting you at fault for this,” Ashe replied carefully.

“After all, we have shared interests in the survival of the park. Even so, it’d be great if you don’t do anything crazy.”

“Why, thank you for your consideration, though I can’t guarantee we’ll see eye to eye forever. But of course, theft is out of the question.”

“Well, that’s a relief.”

Right then, the phone on the meeting table rang. It was Ookuro from the security department.

“What’s up?”

“Hey, Kanie-san. Uhh…we have an issue in block 2. It seems like there’s a scuffle between Isuzu, Macaron and Tiramie there.”

“The three of them fighting each other?”

“More like a one-sided lynching by Isuzu against Macaron and gang. Do you mind helping us out here?”

*

When Seiya arrived at block 2, the execution had already concluded.

Macaron and Tiramie were dead.

To be precise, they weren’t dead per se, but they might as well have been. Macaron had face-planted the mirrors in the rehearsal room, leaving radial cracks throughout the glass. Tiramie had fallen flat on the floor and a trail of blood next to him read “murderer has big tits”.

Isuzu stood in the middle of the room heaving in anger. The dancers who witnessed the scene shivered in fear in the corner.

“…They should have been in the middle of a rehearsal. Where’s Moffle?”

“I’m not sure myself. It looks like he noticed the commotion first and tried to stop them but there’s no sight of…oh wait, there he is.”

Security officer Ookuro looked out of a broken window. Moffle could be seen hanging unconscious on the branch of a sakura tree that grew outside block 2. Moffle’s weight was slowly dragging the branch down, causing it to crack and splinter in agony.

“…What happened?”

I can already guess that the three of them were playing pranks on her like usual.

“Revenge…” Isuzu replied. “They made me eat a heartsleeve fruit and even wanted to ask me dirty questions…”

“Dirty questions?”

“How often I fl—!!” Isuzu forced her mouth shut with all her might, but that did not stop her incessant thoughts from manifesting as gagged noise.

“Sento…?”

“D-Don’t worry about it.” Isuzu heaved a deep breath. “I went to school all day, thinking that I might as well get some attendance credits even though you weren’t coming, though the truth is that I can’t be at ease with you after having such a dream last…—!”

“…? I don’t get what you’re saying, but thank god this happened backstage; we’d dead meat if our guests saw this. Come over to the administration building after you’ve cleaned up this mess, we’ve got job interviews at 1.”

“I-Interviews!?”

Isuzu’s posture straightened like her musket, with eyes wider than its muzzle.

“What’s wrong? Problem with that?”

“A big problem! I’m being forced to speak my thoughts so who knows how big of a problem it’d be if I went for the interview! I might start whining about the welfare or the terrible mannerisms of our mascots, deterring them from accepting our offer, and if worse came to worst, I might even talk about these unexplainable feelings I have for yo……—!” Again, Isuzu gagged herself up and pinched her nose, resulting in an incoherent sentence that ended abruptly.

“Are you okay?”

“Not at all. Let me take a sick leave so that I can rest at home, or I might cause even more trouble for you, not as the oracle’s chosen one, but as an ordinary ma…—!”

“What’s wrong with you? You keep ending your sentences with ‘mmm’…”

“Like I said, the heartsleeve fruit has—!!”

Seiya no longer knew what was happening, and settled with an assumption that it was just an allergic reaction to pollen.

“If you’ve got the strength to wreak such havoc, you must be absolutely fine. Don’t be late.”

“Please, just let me take the day off—”

“No can do. You’re one of the ones in charge of selecting successful candidates, so how can we conduct this interview without your presence?”

“But—”

“No more buts! I expect to see you there at 1, and I’ll fire you if you don’t turn up, you hear me?” Seiya turned around and left without saying anything further.