The Magic Society is a group of magic handlers organized around a single philosophy and corresponding objectives.
These objectives range from the noble to the vulgar.
A first-rate society of magic, such as the Conceptual Structure, is run as a respectable business and continues to make steady profits.
These societies earn profits by commercializing and selling the by-products of their goal, which is to conceptualize the imagination of magic handlers and create universal structures.
Conceptualizing the imagination of magic handlers and creating universal structures—in simple terms, they try to make the magic handlers’ imagination conductors that anyone can use.
For example, my sword of light is constructed using the common Japanese sword as a reference.
It’s twenty-seven inches long, one point two inches wide at the base, and point eight inches wide at the tip, with a bulging hilt, made based on the archives at Houjou Magic Academy.
It would take weeks for someone without knowledge or experience to try to make a sword of light as I had.
From there, stabilizing it would take several weeks, and even longer, if they wanted to accelerate the speed of its power generation.
Perhaps that person is much less talented in the craft than I am, in which case it could take decades to create the same sword of light that I had.
But what if that concept could be made into a conductor, and magic power could be poured into it—? It could be done in seconds.
The Conceptual Structure Society is attempting to create something that will overturn the prerequisites of magic.
To make that happen, the bigwigs there recruited Chris Esse Eisbert with a hefty offer. She agreed to it, and they exchanged a firm handshake.
As if to butt into their agreement, I was now up at Conceptual Structures, waiting for someone in the glass-walled reception area.
I sat on the leather sofa and watched Chris come in, her shoulders hunched in anger.
As soon as she came before me, she pooled her magic powers at the ready.
“This place is not a garbage collection point, yet what is a male doing here?”
“Just take a seat, will you?”
“What do you want, you zero-scorer? Did you think, even for a second, that I would come here and greet you with a smile, then we’d have a cup of tea and chat? I—”
Hizumi slammed the attaché case she held down on the table with a mighty thud.
Chris gasped in reaction.
I kicked the case open with my foot, revealing a large wad of cash—and Chris froze in shock.
“What do I want, you ask?” With a sly grin, I put my arms around the armrests and crossed my legs.
“I’m here for a fun negotiation. I’ve come with a friend to present the most efficient solution possible to you. I’m the son of the Sanjo family, and I’ve gone out of my way to come here to shake hands with the daughter of the Eisberts.
“First things first. Offer me your card, will you? You are aware of social conventions, aren’t you?” I said, calling out to her with a smile as she stood there, speechless.
“I couldn’t help tearing up your card the other day. Nobody likes trouble, but let’s start over from the beginning. Now—”
Still smiling, I glared at her and whispered, “Sit down.”
Blue in the face, Chris slowly sank into her seat.
Chris Esse Eisbert was now at the negotiation table, and I got my brain working quietly but frantically.
In any negotiation, you have to have an outcome in sight before you get started.
Trying to find a compromise between you and your counterpart on the spot is something a fool does—a fool who has failed to prepare in advance. Without considering your future relationship with your counterpart, the essence of a negotiation is for the initiator of the discussion to win one-sidedly.
A negotiation that resulted in a loss for the initiator was undoubtedly a mistake.
A mistake on the part of the initiator indicated their lack of preparation and judgment, which only a third-rate negotiator would do.
That was what Hizumi said.
Essentially, a negotiation had to end in a win-win situation for both parties.
However, that was strictly when considering building a relationship between two companies in looking toward the future. In this case, we didn’t have to take that into account, and I was gaining an overwhelming advantage over Chris.
Because Chris Esse Eisbert was sitting before me, completely unarmed.
For us, everything was out in the open, and I could see her every move, how I could rattle her, and what she would possibly do in the future.
To put it simply, I had caught her off guard.
She wouldn’t have dreamed that a lowly male with a zero score would make the first move—a weakling who had broken his ribs just the other day and had been crawling on the ground, helpless and nowhere near a match for her.
That male was now smiling as he grabbed her hand and whispered sweetly into her ear, trying to drag her down into the abyss.
She had always been above everyone around her and wasn’t accustomed to being pressed.
There was no way she could have anticipated a male she had previously trampled reaching out from under her feet to pull her down.
She was wobbling and swaying.
Having an obstacle that hadn’t existed in her world whisper to her, shaken in spirit by the wads of bills in the attaché case, she finally followed the male’s command and sat on the sofa.
Her eyes were shaking, showing what was going through her mind:
—Who is this guy?
With my legs crossed, I gestured with my body to show off my dominance, for actions sometimes had a stronger meaning than words.
That was why I continued to grin with the symbolic wads of cash.
“What’s the matter? You’re awfully quiet now, more like the daughter from a good family. Have you changed after breaking a certain guy’s ribs? It was just the other day that you were looking down at me with your legs crossed…but now our positions are completely reversed. I’m on top, and you’re at the bottom. Gee, it’s a stupid view you guys have here. Is this what you call a great view, where the frogs seeking power in your well were satisfied?”
“I’m on top, and you’re at the bottom!! Be aware of that, you lowlife!!”
Chris jumped to her feet, enraged, and I laughed.
“This is fun, chatting with a lovely lady like you. You’re very emotional, and that’s charming. Do you want me to toast your cloudy eyes with a wad of cash? It’s about time you realized that, or it will cost you later.”
“You scoundrel!! Are you trying to threaten me with cash, realizing you could never overpower me?! You coward! You piece of trash, without even the guts to face me head-on!!”
“Don’t make me laugh, you rotten example of a lady.”
I looked up at her from above.
“Who is it that has continued to oppress people with the power of cash? You’re the one who hit me. Don’t think that you won’t be hit back. I’ve come to you fair and square, offering to compete with you with money… Now sit down.”
I glared at her, and her eyes shook with faltered resolve. She settled back down on the sofa with a snarl.
“I’m going to ask you this point-blank.”
I moved in to whisper to her.
“Why did you fire the maids who had served you so faithfully?”
“……”
“Answer me.”
“Because they were in my way,” she whispered with a laugh. “All I did was move the obstacles on my path out of the way. What’s wrong with that? I am Chris Esse Eisbert. What’s wrong with kicking worthless stones out of my way? They did nothing, but neither did they contribute anything to me. What’s wrong with removing the unwanted? I have to change the air once in a while, or it will stagnate. I decided that they were in my way, and I decided that they had to be removed. That was all there was to it.”
“Then what about your sister?”
At that moment, a dark emotion filled Chris’s eyes.
“The mere fact that that being exists in the Eisbert household is intolerable. She’s the lowest of the low, a failure. She’s worse trash than those maids. I hate the fact that an individual who is lower than the servants claims to be an Eisbert and is living happily.”
“You’re honest. I think I like you a little now.”
“Did you think I would be happy to have someone like you like me?”
I raised the corners of my mouth.
“But what you did goes against my sense of justice. Those maids had to fend for themselves because of you. They lost their pride, blamed themselves, and cried. The skills they spent their entire lives acquiring became meaningless, and some of them even lost their loved ones in the confusion. As for Mule Esse Eisbert, she continues to make efforts to have her beloved older sister like her, but her efforts are continuously betrayed, and yet she chooses to continue to smile and live her life to the fullest.”
I stared straight into Chris Esse Eisbert’s eyes.
“From your perspective, they may be nothing more than a bunch of annoying stones, but from their standpoint, you, indeed, are one of the annoying walls that block their path. Have you ever thought about where the stones you kick go?”
“……”
“I know because I’ve seen it.”