The War on Drugs (9)
The tea party hosted by Duchess Stuart was a modest affair. At least, that was what she claimed. The reality surrounding the tea table, however, was anything but modest.
Sunlight poured into the drawing room. The women seated by the lace-draped windows were the wives of the empire’s most powerful families. And at the very center of them all sat the Second Princess, Anastasia.
“Good heavens, have you all seen this newspaper?” Duchess Stuart set down her teacup and spoke, her voice laced with carefully restrained disgust. The headline she indicated screamed: Club Ortolan: A Night of Gentlemen Drenched in Blood.
“To think such a horrific incident could occur right in the middle of the capital. I’m more convinced than ever that I was right to ban all substances from my salon.”
The Duchess’s gaze slid subtly toward Anastasia. It wasn’t overt, but the intent was crystal clear. Everyone knew that Anastasia’s salon was a notorious den of drugs and hedonistic excess.
“It’s truly terrifying,” a marchioness whispered, covering her mouth with her fan. “All that talk about mastering pleasure, and in the end they’re just beasts tearing at each other.”
“Courage? Hardly. Just stupidity and vulgarity. The thought that I’ve been breathing the same air as those creatures sends shivers down my spine.”
Voices of agreement rippled across the table. Condemnations of narcotics and sneering contempt for Club Ortolan’s members flew back and forth. Every barb, every veiled insult, ultimately pointed at one person.
Anastasia silently lifted her teacup to her lips. The bitter edge of the black tea lingered on her tongue. She understood perfectly. This entire conversation was a meticulously scripted performance aimed at her. Every woman present knew that her salon was the only one that permitted drugs, and they had been invited here precisely to watch her squirm.
Mikhail.
She chewed the name bitterly in her mind. All of this was because that lowborn wretch had begun his ridiculous anti-drug campaign from some frozen corner of the Far East Maritime Province. Thanks to him, cracks had formed in the reputation she had so painstakingly built. More than that, the filthy creatures of the underworld had grown increasingly insolent lately, and she found it utterly intolerable.
Anastasia set her teacup down with a gentle smile.
“They’re simply lowborn, aren’t they?” Her voice was languid, yet it carried enough weight to silence every sound in the drawing room at once. “Just look at the people involved in this incident. They may call themselves viscounts and barons, but their families have no real history or tradition to speak of. At best, their grandfathers got lucky in business two generations ago, used that money to buy themselves impoverished brides and titles. And even that was beyond most of them—they’re nothing but self-proclaimed ‘gentlemen’ with too much coin. Is it any wonder they’d behave so disgracefully?”
Her eyes slowly scanned the table, lingering deliberately on the newspaper.
“If they had at least challenged each other to a proper duel with clear minds and their honor on the line, I might understand. But what is this? Broken glass bottles, chair legs, fruit knives?” Anastasia laughed with open contempt. “It seems none of them ever received formal sword training.”
She rose gracefully, took a few steps, and picked up a butter knife from the end of the table. With smooth, precise movements, she swung it through the air several times.
Swish. Swish.
The small butter knife cut through the air with a surprisingly sharp sound. Her motions were fluid and economical, without a single wasted movement.
“As expected of Her Highness Anastasia!”
“What incredible skill!”
Gasps of admiration burst out from every direction. One noblewoman added with blatant flattery, “Truly magnificent technique, Your Highness!”
Anastasia returned the butter knife to its place and smiled modestly.
“Oh, it’s nothing. I’m sure none of the distinguished ladies here are any less capable than I.”
“Indeed. Even my own daughter would handle a sword better than those lowborn creatures. Though of course she couldn’t compare to Your Highness.”
Anastasia sat down again and continued smoothly.
“If they had learned even the basics of swordsmanship, they would never have resorted to such a ‘barbaric’ brawl. They would have formally requested a duel and settled the matter properly. Though, given how drug-addled they were, they probably wouldn’t even remember the reason for the duel the next day and would have ended up shaking hands awkwardly and making peace.”
Everyone at the table nodded in agreement. The women gathered here were all wives of ancient, prestigious houses. Sword training had been mandatory since childhood. Any calluses on their palms or scars from duels had been erased by priests’ divine power, but their blade work had never grown dull.
“A very reasonable point.”
“It’s ridiculous that those creatures even dare call themselves gentlemen and ladies. They may imitate ancient imperial speech, swordsmanship, etiquette, and music… but that vulgar origin of theirs will never disappear.”
The noblewomen took turns adding their own barbs, mocking the nouveau riche. The atmosphere had completely swung in Anastasia’s favor.
Duchess Stuart couldn’t hide her displeased expression. But with everyone around her agreeing with Anastasia, she couldn’t openly object. She simply lifted her teacup to her lips.
Anastasia found the silently seething Duchess Stuart particularly irritating. How should I ruin her? She didn’t even need to dirty her own hands. The Duke and his sons were all hideously ugly anyway, so she had no desire to approach them personally. Perhaps she could attach a moderately attractive courtesan to one of them and have her drain their fortune. While she was at it, she could get the woman to addict him to drugs and turn him into the same vulgar beast as those wretches at Club Ortolan. That would be amusing.
With those thoughts in mind, Anastasia reached for a scone on the table. She sliced it neatly in half with a small knife, spreading one side thickly with clotted cream and the other with cranberry jam.
In Mikhail’s office, the morning imperial newspaper was spread wide across the desk. The largest portion of the page was occupied by a crude illustration depicting men entangled in a brawl, wielding broken bottles and chair legs. It looked more like a comedy than a tragedy. Below it, the sensational headline Club Ortolan: A Night of Gentlemen Drenched in Blood dominated the page in massive letters.
“Three dead, seventeen injured…” Laura read the casualty list in the corner of the paper in a low voice. Her tone made it clear she found the whole thing absurd.
Josepina remained expressionless as always, but the faint furrow between her brows revealed her true feelings. Honestly, even Mikhail found it hilarious.
The anti-drug stance had clearly taken root in the empire’s high society—that much was a success. But he never imagined it would backfire in such a spectacularly half-assed way. All that suppressed desire had pooled in one place, festered, and finally erupted into this catastrophe. It was almost impressive.
Very, very romantically tragic.
Well… they are self-made businessmen, after all.
Mikhail clicked his tongue internally. These were men who had clawed their way up from the very bottom of this romantic fantasy world. Every last one of them possessed the heart of a beast. Of course they’d end up like that after hitting the drugs.
He decided to just leave it at that.
“Still, I’d say our anti-drug policy has been quite successful,” Laura said, looking up from the newspaper. “Despite this unfortunate incident, we’ve at least managed to hammer the dangers of narcotics into the public consciousness across the entire empire.”
“Our province was relatively clean to begin with,” Josepina added dryly. “We cracked down hard from the start and uprooted everything. This incident… honestly has nothing to do with us.”
“That’s true, but…” Laura’s expression showed slight concern. “While public opinion is making everyone cautious for now, if you listen to the conversations at the card tables, there’s still plenty of dissatisfaction. Especially…”
She chose her words carefully before continuing.
“There are quite a few requests to allow smoking inside the casino instead of drugs.”
“I already built them a damn smoking room,” Mikhail said, sounding genuinely dumbfounded. “Ugh, these romantic bastards are unbelievable. I ban drugs so they ask me to let them smoke cigarettes? What kind of insane logic is that? Tell them to behave themselves before I just ban tobacco in the entire Far East Maritime Province.”
He paused, resting his chin on his hand.
He had never dreamed this alone would be enough to topple Anastasia. Still, he had landed a solid blow. Things would stay quiet for a while. This much was satisfying enough.
“…Tsk. Should I just completely empty their minds so they can’t even think about drugs?”
Strip shows? Just have the girls shake their tits and asses like crazy? Zero Two dance or whatever. Even in the 21st century, where entertainment was everywhere, there were always people losing their minds and throwing money at internet streamers just for twerking. Nothing drained the soul quite like that.
…But they’d probably slap me with a warning for being too explicit right away.
Mikhail frowned. Then again, he had earned some points with this anti-drug campaign. Maybe it would be fine? He still felt uneasy. Once he handed over the Toto business rights to the empire, this would be nothing, but it was still too early…
“Isn’t there something? Something good. Not dirty. Not something that’ll cause a riot like the gacha…”
Mikhail muttered to himself, tapping the desk with his fingertips. Something that didn’t require using your head like card games. Just press a button, hear a satisfying click, and something awesome comes out… That kind of thing.
Then it hit him like lightning.
Wait, am I stupid? How the hell did I forget about this while running a casino?
Mikhail cursed his own foolishness internally.
Slot machines. Pachinko. The most primal, dopamine-pumping gambling machines in existence.
The trains are already running, so the technology should be more than enough. Did I underestimate this world’s technical capabilities? Is that why it never occurred to me?
He might have been looking down on this world’s engineering level too much. This was a world where steam locomotives raced along iron rails. With pocket watches already in existence, simple mechanical devices like slot machines and pachinko should be perfectly doable.
And if they couldn’t build it? He’d just throw money at the problem until they could.
Mikhail nodded to himself.
“Your Highness?” Laura called out with a puzzled look.
Instead of answering, Mikhail reached for a nearby report sheet. He flipped it over to the clean back side, dipped his pen deep into the inkwell, and began to draw.
A rectangular box with three windows side by side. A long lever attached to the side. Then he sketched another machine beside it—a vertical board densely studded with countless nails.
Josepina stood up and moved to his side. She peered over his shoulder at the crude drawings.
“What… is this?”
Mikhail set down the pen and grinned triumphantly.
“Something fucking awesome.”