Volume 2 - CH 2.03

Part 3

The following week in a meeting room in block 1—

“I have bad news today,” Seiya lamented. “We’re severely lacking in funds. If we don’t find a source of capital soon, we might not even be able to afford your wages.”

Starting with Isuzu, a majority of the members present sighed a dismal “I knew it…”

On the other hand, the three mascots, Moffle, Macaron and Tiramie, who were sitting at a side of the room banged on the table and sprang out of their seats. To be precise, only Macaron and Tiramie were guilty, as Moffle had already anticipated Seiya’s announcement and merely closed his eyes while folding his arms, going “Mofu…”

“We’re getting no pay? Did you just say we’re getting nothing, ron!?”

“That’s unheard of, mi! It’s just too much!”

The two of them were already blanched when they exclaimed.

“Quit complaining, you two. Raising your voices ain’t gonna raise our funds,” Seiya muttered.

“But…but I have a lot of overdue bills, mi! My phone bill, utility bills, even my credit card bills…they’re all banking on this month’s pay!”

“Same here, ron! I only have enough savings to allocate 500 yen a day until payday! What should I do after that!?”

Moffle furrowed his eyebrows after hearing their plight. “What are you guys talking about, fumo? Didn’t we just earn some money last week?”

“We earned money? Since when?”

“We won the Satsuki Sho, remember? We split our profits of 150,000 yen and even went for a celebration, fumo.”

That caught the attention of the other cast members who brightened up, giving comments like “Wow, good for you!”, “How did you guys do that?” and “Maybe I should give it a shot too!”

“…”

However, Seiya frowned. Mascots who were supposed to bring joy to young kids were gambling and indulging in ostentatious spending? That’d kill their reputation if word got out.

“Macaron and Tiramie, what are you two whining about? I mean sure, we did go for a tiny celebration but surely you guys should have some leftover money to get through a few months, fumo.”

Hearing that, the two mascots fell silent with mischievous smiles on their faces.

“I blew it all on pachinko, ron…”

“I spent it all in lingerie pubs, heh…”

There’s gotta be a limit to how stupid these two can get…

Realizing they were in the hot seat, the two of them struggled with their excuses.

“B-But I did win in the first round, ron! And so I thought I had some remaining luck from the horse racing and decided to continue…”

“T-That babe in the lingerie pub was feeling down ’cause she didn’t have enough nominations, and I just lent her a helping hand,mi!”

“Whatever, just quit complaining.”

“Okay…”

Isuzu’s musket silenced the two mascots.

“…Back to the topic. At any rate, we have no money now. We might end up being overdue on our bills and wages to our cast members, which might eventually lead to our closure. We’ll try to give enough for your personal expenses, but you should be prepared to have your wages delayed, or even cut.”

Hearing that, Ashe raised her hand. “But, manager, aren’t the new part-timers starting work this month? How are we going to explain the situation to our current staff? Hiring new staff and pay cuts don’t go together…”

“We absolutely need the extra manpower.” Seiya said, resolute in his stance. “They’ll come in handy once we get over our financial lull period. I will not negotiate on this matter.”

“But we’re finished if we delay the payments further anyway. This attitude is just like a one-man admiral who is the first to sneak away like a mouse when his ship is about to sink…wait, I didn’t mean you, Moffle-san.” Ashe waved her hands at Moffle, who gave a strange expression.

“…My apologies. I should have discussed this in private. Things will sour if other cast members hear about this.”

Ashe was right. Amaburi may have been a lame and boring theme park, but that in itself did not justify the delay in payments. Even the rumor of such plans would be detrimental, possibly even wasting their efforts throughout March, just like a popped soap bubble.

“I understand your concerns, but if it eventually came to that, we have no choice but to accept it. Of course, I have faith that the members present here would not spread the word about the state of our park; there’s no benefit in doing so anyway.”

“…”

The room became silent. Seiya’s phrase “I have faith” must have resonated within the cast members’ hearts.

“Also, I have something I need to discuss with everyone today. Currently we need about 25,000,000 yen, and another 25,000,000 in two weeks. Does anyone have any ideas to share?”

The atmosphere became tense when the members heard the amount of money required. That sum was as hard to earn as winning a Satsuki Sho or getting big returns through pachinko games.

“Any idea will do. Just bring up whatever comes to your mind.”

Macaron raised his hand. “Uhh, let’s go to pachinko together.”

“Rejected. Others?”

“Mi. What about horse racing?”

“Rejected. Let’s not resort to gambling, shall we?”

“Mofu. Let’s rob a convenience store.”

“Rejected. Assuming one store gives us 50,000 yen, we’ll have to rob 500 of them to get the required money.”

“Then what about banks?”

“Rejected. No robberies either.”

“Mofu. How about Multi-Level Marketing?”

“Don’t say that with that expression! And MLM’s illegal. Anything else?”

“I know, we should open a red light theme park!”

“We’d be violating the law.”

“Sell erotic doujin merchandise.”

“Will they even sell? And we can’t earn 25 mil through just that.”

“Erotic figurines.”

“Are you even listening to me?”

“Dakimakuras.”

“Stop suggesting perverted things.”

“Handshake tickets.”

“Do people even want to shake hands with you guys?”

The stream of proposals and outright rejections continued for a whole hour. Despite that, nothing good came out of the discussions.

“Seiya…I doubt we can just fish out a strategy to earn 25 mil out of the blue like that, fumo,” said Moffle. He was exhausted from listening to all their ideas.

“Tch… To be fair, though, I never thought we’d think of anything…”

Hearing that, the cast members became worked up.

“If you knew that all along, then why even bother consulting us, mi!? I’m bad with money!”

“Shouldn’t Seiya be the one in charge of coming up with a plan?”

“Yeah! We’ll leave this month’s miracle in your hands!”

Hearing such comments coming from the cast members, Seiya bit his lip. Aren’t their expectations of a 850 yen-per-hour high schooler a little too high?

By the way, 850 yen per hour was Tokyo’s minimum wage. Seiya did not really care how much he earned as long as he was working, but this was clearly too much.

Seiya wanted to voice his displeasure, but not a word of complaint came out from his mouth. If he were to shout “Don’t rely on a person like me!”, they might really never do so again.

Isuzu who was sitting next to Seiya tugged the sleeve of his shirt, (Kanie-kun…)

(What?)

(Should we bring up the Mal-Mart plan we’ve been thinking of?)

(Don’t. I want the staff to take some responsibility and think of a plan themselves.)

(I see…)

Isuzu returned her gaze to her notebook computer and continued typing up the minutes of the meeting.

“Oh wait, ron!” Macaron suddenly smacked the table and stood up.

“There’s Dornel’s Cave, ron! Dornel’s Cave!”

“Ah that, fumo.” Moffle nodded his head as if remembering something. However, the other cast members were clueless about the aforementioned cave.

“What’s that?”

“A cave in the 2nd park, ron! Only the older cast members know the urban legends about it!”

The 2nd park was a separate piece of land that occupied the southern corner of Amagi Brilliant Park. There were plans to develop the area during the economic bubble, but they were halted due to financial constraints, leaving unfinished infrastructure scattered throughout the area.

The only building complete was the huge stadium used for the soccer match last month, but nonetheless the cast members continued to call the area the “2nd Park” out of habit.

“And is this cave you speak of an attraction or something?”

“Nope. It’s a legitimate cave that existed in 2nd park’s forest long before they made Amagi Park, isn’t it?”

Amagi Park was the name of the park that was on this piece of land before Amaburi was built. It managed to garner much popularity from people living in Tama during the Taisho[1] era before it closed in the ‘70s. And it was during the ‘80s when Maple Land bought the area and transformed it into the Amaburi of today.

“How will this cave solve our financial problems?” Isuzu asked.

Moffle gazed far away into the distance and began, “More than ten years ago, there was a fairy named —”

“What a pretentious name…gives the impression of an old, heavy weapon.”

He even used <> symbols, just like how these were attached to Full Metal Panic names like and .

“Don’t change the topic of the story, fumo! …One summer night, was drunk and brought his friends to the 2nd Park, probably for a test of courage or something. The group headed for the depths of the cave.”

“By the way, Dornel was the fairy of flowers 2 generations before me,” said Tiramie.

“Oh yeah, forgot to mention that fumo. Back to the topic…the group of friends Dornel brought with—”

“Cut to the chase!” Seiya interrupted.

“But this story has a mystery in it, fumo! Without preamble, there’s no effect…”

“Whatever, get to the point.”

“…Apparently there’s a treasure chest in that cave, fumo.” Moffle reluctantly revealed.