The One Thing That Was Missing
The baseball tournament, which had drawn massive attention thanks to the chaotic intrusion during the presidential welcoming ceremony and the surprise first pitch, concluded even more successfully than expected.
As predicted, the Abyss Black Dragons took the championship. What no one saw coming was that the Finals MVP went to Nick, who had hit a two-run homer in the decisive game.
Stand up straight, Ben. Peter.
Just how the hell did we let that guy steal the MVP?
Maybe I should just tell the press the interview was canceled for some confidential reason and call it a day?
Fortunately, it seemed God had answered my prayers. Nick was surprisingly composed in front of the reporters.
“The secret to our victory? It’s simple. Behind our Dragons stands a great man who watches over us at all times. Under his shadow, we could swing our bats without fear.”
Oh. Not bad.
Anyone listening might think he was talking about some religious leader or deity, but everyone present knew exactly who he meant.
Perhaps my expectations had been too low, but this was well within acceptable bounds.
The phrasing carried a heavy middle-school edgelord vibe, yet to the public it apparently came across as humble and brimming with loyalty.
The crowd erupted in cheers, chanting Serget’s name.
I couldn’t let this atmosphere slip away.
I immediately stepped onto the podium and raised my voice.
“Ladies and gentlemen, watching today’s game has convinced me. Baseball is no longer the exclusive property of New York, nor of Serget Cotton alone. It is the symbol of a new era that will unite the entire United States of America!”
The roar was deafening.
“I hereby officially declare, from this very spot, the founding of the National Professional Baseball League! The league’s name will be decided by your own hands. Whoever submits the most brilliant name through our open contest will receive lifetime free admission to every game.”
The stadium shook with thunderous applause.
I didn’t stop there. I delivered a masterful piece of lip service, gently stroking the wounded pride of the defeated white players.
“To be honest, I was surprised. Eight years ago, when I first arrived in New York, it was painfully clear that a game between a Black team and a white team simply couldn’t be competitive. It would have been like a newborn fighting an adult.”
Awkward laughter and awkward coughs rippled through the stands.
“But things are different now. ‘Gap is Closing.’ The gap has narrowed at an astonishing rate. In today’s final, if fortune had favored the other side just a little more, the team that reached the championship could easily have been different. I pay my respects to New York’s hidden strength.”
The gap really was closing.
The white spectators’ expressions brightened noticeably.
It wasn’t simply the sting of defeat at the hands of Black players. They felt a sense of accomplishment: We’ve caught up quite a bit.
That very experience would become the best foundation for the league’s future popularity.
As I watched the long lines of spectators filing out with satisfaction, Nick approached, holding the MVP trophy.
“Chairman, wouldn’t it be simpler to just keep using the name JLB—James League Baseball—the way you always have? Why go through the trouble of a public contest…”
“Hey, if you put my name on it, it becomes my personal property. How could it represent the entire nation? It lacks scalability.”
“Hmm. Still, you’re the one who created it. It feels a shame.”
Nick licked his lips and fiddled with the trophy.
“Then at least let’s make the logo really cool. Don’t you think we should include a dragon? It would give it real dignity.”
“…So the Abyss Black Dragons really was your idea?”
Surprisingly, Nick took my question as a compliment. He grinned and thrust his thumb upward.
“As expected of the Chairman! I knew you’d recognize it right away. It’s the perfect symbol for us, isn’t it? The Black Flame Dragon that stands beside you… Hoo, just thinking about it gives me chills again…”
“Sigh…”
If he were bad at his job, I could have scolded him without mercy. Why did the one guy who excelled at work, excelled at baseball, and possessed absolute loyalty have to be tainted with this bizarre affliction?
“Oh, and I have one more brilliant idea. What if we printed this logo on the chest of the uniforms or on the caps and sold them? Fans wearing them would feel a real sense of belonging. It would look cool too.”
“……?”
He was trying to slip some nonsense past me… Wait. Sell uniforms with the logo on them?
I was about to say something about cutting his bonus, but I paused.
Come to think of it, the very concept of uniform merchandise was still vague in this era.
At best, people wore clothes that vaguely resembled what the players wore. Turning a club’s logo or symbol into a branded product was not yet a popularized culture.
More precisely, the technology to print logos on clothing had only recently been perfected, but there were virtually no products actually utilizing it.
In this time period, putting a logo on clothing was still viewed with disdain as the mark of a mere merchant.
However, if we could link this to sports and corporate culture and completely shift public perception… it might create a meaningful new market.
They say otakus sometimes change the world. This must be exactly that kind of case.
The face of Nick, whom I had wanted to smack just moments ago, suddenly looked like a solid gold ingot.
* * *
The White House, Presidential Office.
Lincoln, fresh from delivering an ultra-fastball that shocked the world, received a piece of monumental news that might completely overshadow his first-pitch stunt. He felt utterly dumbfounded.
“…So you’re telling me Serget Cotton purchased Alaska by buying up the bonds and then signed the contract?”
“That is correct.”
“Six million two hundred thousand dollars seems like a reasonable price. Still, I didn’t expect things to move this quickly…”
“It appears the Russians were in a greater hurry than I anticipated. This was my failure to grasp that point properly.”
“I knew Serget had a lot of money, but I had no idea it was to this extent. Remarkable. Six million two hundred thousand dollars… Does that mean his cash liquidity is powerful enough to mobilize such an enormous sum on the spot?”
Lincoln clicked his tongue in amazement and set the report down on his desk.
There was a world of difference between having high asset value and possessing the liquidity to inject millions of dollars into the government immediately.
For an individual to shoulder a sum so large that even the state would need to think twice before spending it.
At the President’s astonished admiration, Seward offered a bitter smile and nodded.
“The frightening part is that this isn’t the peak. It’s only the beginning.”
Seward pointed to a map hanging on one side of the office.
“Serget’s territory in the South grows larger by the day. With the introduction of guano, cotton yield per acre has more than doubled. Moreover, starting this year, the factory complex he acquired in New Bedford will begin full operation. From raw materials to production, processing, and logistics. There is no area he hasn’t touched.”
“So that’s why you deliberately drew him deep into this deal?”
Seward now seemed to understand the general outline of Lincoln’s intentions.
Sure enough, Seward did not deny the sharp question.
“Yes. In any case, Alaska is merely a necessary puzzle for the United States to expel Russia from the American continent and complete our Pacific empire. In other words…”
Seward chose his words carefully.
“Frankly speaking, although it contains considerable resources, it is not land worth paying six million dollars for right now. There is no development infrastructure, and the only immediate source of revenue is furs.”
In other words, Serget had clearly taken a loss on this transaction.
Seward’s eyes gleamed calmly.
“No matter how much I guarantee him rights to the territory, it will take a considerable amount of time to recover his investment. While that enormous capital remains tied up in the Arctic wasteland, Serget Cotton’s reckless expansion will have no choice but to slow down somewhat. It serves as a kind of safety mechanism.”
It was certainly a logical argument.
The calculation was to tie sandbags to the legs of a galloping horse to control its speed.
But Lincoln’s thoughts differed slightly.
“Conversely, doesn’t it also mean that Serget was willing to take a loss just to preserve the Secretary’s dignity?”
“…I won’t deny it.”
“You now owe him a debt. A very large one.”
At the pointed remark, Seward swallowed a cough and carefully composed his expression.
“That is precisely why the government must manage him at the national level. Serget will become an even more fearsome entrepreneur in the future than he is now. From this point on, we need to bind him in a relationship that cannot be severed from the government and hold his reins firmly.”
In other words, it was an expression of confidence that if they could put a collar on him, the government could shake the leash.
Lincoln rested his chin on his hand, gazing at Seward, and mentally placed the two men on opposite sides of a scale.
‘Hmm. No matter how I look at it, the scale doesn’t seem to tilt decisively in either direction.’
The situation was turning strangely, and very interestingly.
Even between cooperators, a hierarchical relationship was bound to emerge eventually.
The question was who would become the superior party, and who would become the subordinate.
By the time Seward challenged for the presidency in the future, Serget would undoubtedly be the greatest tycoon in the South—no, in the entire United States.
No matter how much money one had, one could not stand above the President, the pinnacle of political power. Would the structure Seward envisioned, with the government maintaining superiority, continue?
Or would the opposite occur?
Neither Seward nor Serget wished to treat the other as an enemy, yet the question of who would hold the initiative in their cooperation was far more important and delicate than it appeared.
Common sense said that financial power could not overcome political power, yet Lincoln had a feeling that an interesting result might emerge.
In any case, he now had the greatest drama to watch after his retirement. All he needed to do was enjoy the situation. There was no problem.
Though it must be hell for the parties involved.
* * *
Looking back, this business trip to New York had been the most fruitful of all my many journeys.
I had delivered a death sentence to the Boston Associates, who had dared to strike first without knowing their place, and turned the Boston Brahmins—one of Boston’s most prestigious families—into allies.
I had secured the President’s approval, successfully taken the first step toward founding a baseball league, and above all, obtained Alaska.
For the time being, the snowball would continue rolling with such momentum that even I might struggle to control it.
Since I had set things in motion on such a grand scale, I needed to check for any holes I might have missed or mistakes I might have made.
Or perhaps I should examine what was still lacking in me at this moment.
Just what was it that I lacked?
Money? It had already piled up to the point where counting it was meaningless.
It would only accumulate further from now on.
Honor? I had risen to a level where I could have private meetings with the President and negotiate with the Secretary of State on equal footing.
Power? That was something I deliberately kept at a distance out of caution; if I truly wished, I could already dominate the South.
At this point, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say I possessed nearly everything.
At least, that was what I thought until I crossed the grand threshold of the mansion.
“Welcome back, Chairman!”
“Please come in!”
The servants, who would normally have briskly taken my luggage, were acting strangely.
Their faces were stretched into grins so wide it seemed their mouths might tear.
Their twitching lips clearly showed they were barely holding back some tremendous piece of news.
“What is it? Did you guys cause some kind of accident? Why are you all giggling like that?”
“An accident? Perish the thought! More importantly, Madam is waiting for you. Please go to her at once.” Leo practically pushed me inside.
Wondering what could possibly have them in such a frenzy, I stepped into the living room and found Cecilia standing in the center.
She maintained her usual calm and graceful demeanor, yet her clasped hands were trembling slightly and her cheeks were flushed bright red.
“You’re back?”
“Yeah, I’m back. But why is the mood in the house like this? Did something good happen?”
Before I could even finish speaking, she threw herself into my arms and whispered softly into my ear.
“It happened.”
“……Huh?”
“Our baby. We’re finally having a child, James!”
A child? Whose child was she talking about?
The moment I realized she meant my child, my mind went completely blank.
As I stood there frozen, a firework-like cheer exploded beside my ear.
“Waaaaaaaaah!”
“Congratulations, Chairman!”
“Finally! At last, the Serget family has an heir!”
Leo was wiping away tears as if it were his own achievement. Ben and Henry were hugging each other and jumping up and down. Nick was shouting “Hurray!” with even more joy than when he had received the MVP trophy.
Only after receiving their raucous congratulations did it finally sink in.
My heart was pounding violently, producing a strange resonance I had never heard in my life.
My wife had endured years of silent anxiety after our marriage without any news. She was only in her mid-twenties—an age that would be considered prime in the 21st century—yet as a nobleman’s daughter raised with the expectations of her station, the pressure of failing to produce an heir must have been an enormous burden.
I moved to embrace Cecilia tightly, then hurriedly loosened the strength in my arms.
What if something happened to my wife or our child?
An overwhelming emotion I couldn’t put into words surged up from the bottom of my chest.
All sorts of sentences swirled through my mind at the thought that I was going to be a father, yet what finally escaped my lips was the most ordinary expression of gratitude imaginable.
“You worked hard. Really… thank you.”
“No. I’m the one who should be thanking you. I’m so happy I get to have a child who resembles you. It feels like a dream.”
She buried her face in my chest and smiled with pure happiness.
Even while building this vast empire, there had been moments of emptiness.
Having lived my previous life entirely alone, I hadn’t been able to understand that feeling, but now I finally did.
After accumulating all this wealth and honor, who was it all ultimately for?
But now I had an answer to that question.
My bloodline. My family.
This was what it felt like to have a child to whom I could pass on everything I possessed.
It was the day I learned, for the first time, that humans were capable of feeling such an emotion.
That night,
After a simple celebration party, we lay in bed but found sleep elusive.
Cecilia placed my hand on her lower belly and quietly spoke of her dreams.
“This child will inherit everything from you, won’t they? Serget Cotton, and this enormous world you’ve built. It will be difficult, but I want to give them greater happiness than anyone else.”
“Even if they only take half from each of us, they’ll manage just fine.”
“Yes, yes. And once our firstborn settles into their role, how about raising the second as a member of the British House of Commons and the third as a U.S. Senator?”
“…Huh?”
Her imagination was surprisingly detailed.
“Wait, even if the third becomes a U.S. Senator, how can the second become a British parliamentarian if their father is American? According to nationality laws…”
“Oh dear, why would that be a problem?”
Cecilia smiled as if it were the most natural thing in the world and offered a simple, clear solution.
“We can simply go there to give birth. In London.”
“……”
“We have connections in the family. Later on, what if I go to England for the birth and recuperation? Then our child could naturally obtain British citizenship as well. It wouldn’t even be birth tourism. Since their grandfather is a member of the House of Lords, they would be fully eligible to run in elections.”
It sounded absurd… yet when emphasizing her father’s noble lineage, it didn’t seem entirely impossible.
After all, the child would indeed be a descendant of a prestigious aristocratic family with centuries of tradition.
“Then, just in case, we should start donating to both parties from now on…”
Her eyes already seemed to hold the image of their unborn second son entering the Palace of Westminster in London.
Was she envisioning the birth of a true royal family that would span American politics, finance, and the British Parliament?
Planning the futures of her children so meticulously already—mothers truly were formidable.
The bloodline of Serget continues.
A new era begins with the birth of the next generation.