Being pebble myself, I grinned at her.
“Mule is hundreds of millions of times stronger than you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous…”
Chris slammed her fist against the table, and it hopped up, one of its shards grazing my cheek and thrashing into the wall.
“Don’t be ridiculous! She’s trash! She’s a failure who can’t even work a single magic spell! You think she’s better than me?! On what basis can you spit out a lie like that?! Go on, tell me, you zero-scorer!!”
“I told you.”
I laughed.
“I’ve already seen it.”
“You’ve been digging around in the bottom of your empty dreams with those blind eyes that can’t see a thing, huh? You…lowly beast…!!”
“Look forward to the day when Mule Esse Eisbert shines. You’ll eventually get to see it yourself.”
She and I glared at each other.
“There will definitely come a time when the fake surpasses the real.”
Chris clenched her trembling fists and fixed her eyes on me with a mix of hatred and anger.
“Sorry, I got carried away talking. Let’s get down to business now.”
Hizumi slipped a contract in front of her.
“…What is this?”
“What’s the matter? Can’t you see? It’s just a sheet of A4 paper.”
I raised my hands in the air in a cheer as she stared at me with eyes that glittered with murderous intent.
“It’s a contract. I’m hiring you.”
Chris opened her eyes wide. Overwhelming intent to kill filled her entire body, and she reached for her magic device—but not before I grabbed her arm.
“Hey, don’t. In my current state, I won’t be able to beat you, and I’d end up dying. If you kill me here, even a good employee like you won’t get off with just a written apology. We’ve only just met. It’s fine to hold hands and deepen our friendship, but let’s save the fun for later, huh?”
“You no-good piece of garbage…!”
Between our clashing thoughts, I muttered, “Sign this with your left hand. If you don’t, I’ll buy the Conceptual Structure and leave you to fend for yourself on the streets like you did to your maids.”
Chris looked up at me in shock and sneered.
“Cut the crap, you ugly clown. The Sanjo family would never give you that kind of money. The money in that attaché case is certainly just an illusion. You borrowed money from your branch family and tried to deceive me with your stupid show of wealth, and—”
“Make a deposit,” I whispered into my walkie-talkie. “Whatever amount you can convert now will do.”
Hizumi opened a screen. Chris trembled with fury as she stared at the indicated balance displayed.
“Y-you’ve forged that…!”
“Hizumi?”
Hizumi sighed and then gave instructions over the radio. Ruby and Riina, who had been standing by, brought a large number of attaché cases. They promptly opened each one, and Chris’s trembling became worse as she saw the contents.
“A-an individual! A mere student couldn’t possibly make this much money! These are fake! Counterfeit! A worthless insect like you couldn’t ever earn anything like this!”
“Do you want to check each of these banknotes? Will you be satisfied if I show you our account records to see if they really are fake? Or maybe I should call the branch manager and have him explain to you. Will you be able to understand and accept the situation if I do that?”
“I-it can’t be… An individual couldn’t possibly acquire the Conceptual Structure… Th-the owner would never approve of it…”
“I don’t know about that.”
I smiled as I continued to hold down her arm.
“Don’t you think the fact that a male like me managed to walk in here proves that all those issues have already been resolved? Face it. A profit-making organization means the magic of money can control it. An authentic magic society might not budge from its goals and principles no matter how much I offer it. But this workplace of yours is just like any other company operating under a facade of compliance and risk control. Poke it a little, and you’ll find that it’s full of awfully suspicious things.”
“Are you threatening me?!”
“Threatening you? That’s rude.”
“You know what I’m going to do?” I whispered with a big smile on my face. “I’m going to put it into action and ruin you. Unless you accept my request as my friend, that is.”
“What can you gain…by doing something like this…? What’s in it for you…? What good will it do you, making me your enemy…?!”
“A lot.”
I grinned.
“Girls should stick with other girls and be happy. That’s all that matters. Those who get in the way can sit in a corner of some garbage dump, hugging their knees to their chest. I’ll be able to sleep better that way. Sorry, but you’ll have to make a sacrifice for my beauty sleep.”
“A-are you in your right mind…? Why would you go so far for strangers…?”
“It isn’t for strangers.”
I laughed and put force into the arm that held her in place.
“It’s for yuri girls.”
“Ngh…”
A defeated look appeared on her face, and she hung her head.
“You…bastard…”
She went limp and slowly dropped to her knees.
A few minutes later, Chris Esse Eisbert finally regained her senses and signed the document after barely reading it. She stared at me with dark hatred as she stood up to leave.
“I…will definitely…kill you.”
“Lovely! The words you say that I know are nothing but wishful thinking are music to my ears!”
I applauded her wonderful hostility, and she left, gritting her teeth.
The moment she was out of sight, Hizumi slowly exhaled and collapsed onto the sofa.
“I—I thought she was going to kill us… H-hey, Hiiro? You have to choose your words more carefully. Sylphiel would have been stopped at the magic detection gate, and she wouldn’t have been able to come to your rescue if something happened.”
“Look, Riina, see that, Ruby? We’re really up high! Look at this super view! Yahoooooooooooooooo!!”
“Whoa…! Y-you’re right… Hee-hee-hee, we’re right by the sky…!”
“Maybe I should have brought my camera. I’ve been checking out catalogs lately, hoping to get a new digital camera.”
“Don’t suddenly become tourists. Am I the only one who’s stressed out? We couldn’t possibly finish acquiring Conceptual Structure this quickly. Do you realize it’s all a bluff from start to finish?”
“I’m sure Chris knows that. Still, we win because we made her believe that we might very well do something close to that.”
Maybe the walls of the reception room were soundproofed. The employees working in the office didn’t pay any attention to us while we made a racket.
After sightseeing and taking commemorative photos in hostile territory, we got in the elevator and went downstairs.
“So what did you write in that contract?”
“Hizumi, you should know what I’d write.”
She laughed.
“Request for security at our welcome party for new students?”
I whistled. Air leaked out through Riina’s lips as she tried to imitate me.
“Gee, you have a mean streak. You even threatened her while you schemed to have her handle the security for our welcome party—which she was trying to crush.”
“It’s convenient for us to have her do our security. The Eisberts won’t be able to touch us.”
“She’s like a solid chunk of pride. Won’t she boil over, having to do that?”
“Well, it’s a good opportunity. Maybe she’ll feel something if she watches the maids she kicked out working hard and the party that her sister put so much effort into planning.”
Smiling wryly, Hizumi leaned against the wall.
“I don’t know. So are you really going to give her all that money?”
“Seven dollars and thirty-three cents an hour.”
“Huh?”
I watched Ruby glancing at a mysterious curve on the screen as I whispered, “Seven dollars and thirty-three cents an hour. That’s how much the girls who got kicked out of the Eisbert household are earning at the maid café. So, I’ll pay Chris the same amount for security. Even a well-off daughter like her should understand the value of money for once.”
Hizumi smiled happily.
“You really are cruel.”
“For your information, the idea includes input from a certain demon.”
The demon, by far the most evil of us all, was floating in the corner of the elevator.
“Anyway, now the real work begins. All that’s left is to let people know about the bad reputation I’m sure to get for what I did today, then pin the credit on Tsukiori. Hee-hee! My yuri IQ of a hundred and eighty is finally being put to good use!”
“……”
“Hey, why are you guys suddenly turning away and clamming up? It’s worked great so far, so of course, everything’s going to turn out great! Let’s have some faith in Hiiro, huh?”
“I’ll help you again, Hiiro—,” the demon who was invisible to the others said to me.
“Shut up, scum! I’ll take you on a trip past hell all the way to the Earth’s mantle, you bitch!!”
The others froze.
“…I’m scared… Our high priest is inviting a corner wall of the elevator on a trip…”
So anyway, we removed one obstacle with the power of money. The next day—
“Stop it, you fool! Hiiro Sanjo! I said, stop it!”
For some reason, I was desperately dragging our sobbing dorm manager as she cried.