Chapter 132

An Archenemy Barring the Way “Go secure the grandmaster.” After the three-thousand Qinglong Gang mercenaries entered the Tomino Basin from the surrounding woods, their employer, Masato Sanada, gave them orders as he surveyed the state of the battle. Despite the sounds of fighting, his voice traveled uncannily well, and the Qinglong Gang mercenaries responded by getting to work. They cut a path between the Neuro and the Yamato armies, surrounding and protecting the grandmaster. “Wh-who are these people?! That’s not the imperial standard they’re flying. Who are they fighting for?!” “Get out of the way! If you don’t, we’ll cut you down!” “STOP!!!!” The Yamato soldiers were so bewildered they nearly went on the offensive, but Tsukasa shouted to stop them. “Mr. Angel…?” “The situation’s completely changed. Gather up all troops and fall back behind me.” With that, Tsukasa recalled Aoi and the rest of the soldiers who’d fought Neuro. The Qinglong Gang’s strength had forced his hand. Masato had single-handedly run Elm’s distribution networks, allowing him to equip the mercenaries with black-market weapons. They were a fully modern fighting force equipped with top-of-the-line bolt-action rifles across the board. Those guns had demonstrated their terrifying power time and time again during Elm’s fight for independence. Their effective range and destructive rapid-fire capabilities far surpassed anything native to the current era. That was a gap no amount of tactical wit could close. Attacking the Qinglong Gang head-on would doom everyone but Aoi to death. Tsukasa had no choice but to tell his forces to stand down. “Well, hey, look who’s feelin’ all reasonable.” Masato had joined his troops by Neuro, and he gave Tsukasa’s sensible decision a satisfied smile. “Don’t shoot anyone who’s fleeing. Just get in there and form a wall between the two armies.” “““Yes, sir!””” Following Tsukasa’s lead, Akatsuki’s ambush troops stopped their attack and reassumed their formation. Meanwhile, the scattered imperial army gathered with their nearby allies, too. Finally, the Qinglong Gang stepped in and lined up so as to block the two sides from each other in their entirety. The battlefield was now cleanly partitioned. Seeing the soldiers get shuffled around caused Neuro, who was still under the gunmen’s protection, to snap. He couldn’t comprehend why Masato acted so leisurely. “MASATO!! Why aren’t you attacking?! This is the perfect time to strike!!” Masato replied with a simple shrug. “Hold your horses, Grandmaster. I’ve got this whole procedure I’m following.” “Look around you! You don’t need procedures; just shoot the bastards already! That’s an order!” “Oh, shut up.” “?!” Frustration at having nearly been backed into a corner caused Neuro’s tone to take a harsh edge, but the cutting reply he got back left him speechless. Masato sounded more than a little exasperated as he continued. “I think you’ve got a few things mixed up, Grandmaster. I told you that I’d help, and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing, but I don’t remember ever agreeing to be your lapdog. I control who wins this battle right now, and I’m free to sell it to whoever I damn well please.” “Y-you little…!” “Let me repeat myself. I don’t want either army moving an inch. If you even think about pulling anything, just know that as soon as you do, you’ll have made enemies out of me and all three thousand of my Qinglong Gang mercs. Now, Tsukasa…you and I have an important business arrangement to hash out.” A touch of bafflement colored Tsukasa’s expression. “Business arrangement” didn’t seem at all like the appropriate term given the situation. “A what?” Masato was no longer interested in Neuro, and he shifted his attention away from him… “You heard me. And I won’t take no for an answer. Engineering this situation, this moment, was the whole reason I left you all in the first place.” “What?” “Now, come to the negotiation table, Tsukasa. Before I change my mind.” …and over to Tsukasa. He cast the boy a piercing stare while beckoning him from more than half a mile away. “For my end, I’m offering you this battle up on a silver platter. And in return, I want you to take that policy you’re pushing back on Earth… “…your universal basic income plan, and shelve it in perpetuity.” Universal basic income was a social security system where the government provided each of its citizens with enough money to guarantee their access to a cultured life as ensured by the Japanese constitution. Unlike current public welfare systems, there were no special procedures or checks you had to undergo to get the money. If you were a citizen, you were eligible. The policy was incredibly fair, and its fundamental simplicity allowed it to avoid getting bogged down in the privileging and arbitrary screenings that plagued its current counterparts. Implementing UBI would eliminate benefit fraud and take the many problematic situations of existing welfare programs—such as people improperly getting payments despite their relatives having stable incomes, people starving because welfare workers made an incorrect call, and beneficiaries being discriminated against—and eliminate them in one fell swoop. UBI had the power to save countless people from poverty. That’s why prodigy politician Tsukasa Mikogami had been pushing it as a mid-to-long-term goal for Japan and trying to earn public support for the system. However… “If you ask me, UBI is a dog-shit system that only benefits slackers who want enough to get by on without having to work at all.” …prodigy businessman Masato Sanada had some harsh things to say about the idea. “Money doesn’t just grow on trees. Nations only have finite budgets, and they gotta make their social security systems work within ’em. If you tried to give everyone enough money to survive with no strings attached, you’d burn through your bankroll in a heartbeat.” Masato had a point. UBI was an experiment with a lot of potential, but at the same time, it had many problems people were concerned about, too. The biggest one of all was how to finance it. The policy involved unconditionally providing each citizen with enough money to subsist on. If you assumed that amount was eighty thousand yen a month, then the program’s annual outlay would be north of one hundred trillion yen. Preexisting funding methods weren’t enough to cover that amount, so the difference was going to have to come from somewhere, and the initial suggestion was a tax hike on corporations and the wealthy. In the eyes of Masato Sanada, the greatest businessman in the world, that solution was unacceptable. He made no attempts to hide the hatred and animosity in his expression. “I’m gonna be honest with you. I’m not fucking having it. I put a lot of time and money into amassing my fortune. Sometimes, I even had to take huge risks that meant putting my life on the line. I’ll be damned if I let it be stolen by a bunch of loafers who’ve never built a thing in their life and who spend their days lazing about.” “…I see.” After lending an ear to Masato’s criticism of his policy, Tsukasa nodded. Then he scowled at Masato and gave him a look with a hint of rage. “In other words, you intend to use this battle, the lives of everyone fighting here, as ammo for this negotiation. You’ll turn your guns on us if I don’t do what you say. That’s a low move. You really think it’s right to take our dispute from Earth to this world?” Tsukasa’s expression was even harsher than during the battle with Neuro. However… “Yeah, it’s low; I’ll give you that. But that cuts two ways. What you’re trying to do is goddamn highway robbery. Looting, carried out under the name of governmental authority. I’ve been waiting for a long time… A looong time for an opportunity to shut you down.”