Mimata Chieri
Taira Shizuku told me to have a good talk with Grandfather and headed off somewhere else. Before she left, I asked if she wasn’t having lunch. She replied that she had no appetite and wouldn’t be eating. She must have felt full just from watching me eat….
Of course I’d eaten enough to make anyone full just by looking. Taira Shizuku kept offering me more, and I couldn’t exactly refuse. On top of that, I’d just had lunch with Taira Danjo as well, so it looked like I’d need to absolutely punish myself with exercise once I got back to the Human Resources Development Center today.
“Ahem…! Let’s eat lunch first and talk afterward.”
“Yes….”
I had wanted to start with the conversation so I could digest the wagashi I’d just eaten, but… I answered in a slightly sullen tone and picked up my chopsticks.
The lunch was delicious, of course. It was lightly seasoned Japanese cuisine, which didn’t perfectly match my preference for stronger flavors. Still, the fact that it tasted good at all was probably thanks to the main house chef’s exceptional skill.
“You were attacked yesterday, I hear?”
“Yes.”
After finishing the meal, Taira Danjo began not with the favor but with what had happened yesterday. A shooting incident was certainly a bigger deal than any request.
“Do you know who attacked me?”
“First, allow me to correct you. It wasn’t you who was attacked. It was your mother.”
Not me, but Jin Mija? Why? As far as I knew, Mom was just an ordinary office worker at an advertising company.
“To cause pain to you—and by extension, to me and the entire Taira family.”
“What? Who…?”
“Look at this.”
PERSONNEL FILE
Name: Tochimura Kaminojo
Position: Deputy General Manager, Planning and Coordination Office, Minamoto Group Headquarters
Classification: Radical faction within Minamoto
Details: Orchestrated the attack on Jin Mija to inflict pain on Taira Ryuta, Taira Danjo, and the Taira family.
At a flick of Taira Danjo’s finger, one of the secretaries standing behind him handed me the document. It contained a printed profile of the individual.
“Was this done by the Minamoto side?”
“The man called Tochimura is considered part of the radical faction even inside Minamoto. According to our group’s findings, this was entirely his doing. I’ll give you an opportunity. Any man of the Taira family must be able to deflect the blade aimed at him and drive a sword through his enemy’s throat. Well? Will you take revenge with your own hands?”
“Yes. Please allow me to handle it personally.”
Taira Danjo gave a nod that said he understood.
“I’ll send a few people to assist you. See what you can do.”
“I have a few questions, Grandfather.”
“Of course. You should clear away anything you’re curious about. Ask freely.”
“Why exactly are the Taira and Minamoto on such bad terms?”
There had always been one thing I wanted to know. Even back when I was playing as the youngest son of Megacorp or in the previous work TMC, the story only ever said the two families weren’t on good terms without explaining why. I was curious what had happened in the past to create such hostility.
“To the Japanese public, the bad blood between Minamoto and Taira is officially attributed to the Genpei War. But that is not the case. A thousand-year-old grudge is not enough to keep two families fighting forever.”
The Genpei War was the civil conflict at the end of the Heian period between the Minamoto (Genji) and the Taira (Heiji). The Minamoto victory paved the way for the establishment of the Kamakura shogunate.
Of course, I never believed the thousand-year-old grudge between Taira and Minamoto was still alive.
“Besides, it’s unclear whether we are even descended from the Taira of that era. After the Minamoto destroyed them, countless samurai and daimyo with no clear bloodline began using the Taira surname at will. Do not repeat this story anywhere. Plenty of people in Japan still obsess over questions of legitimacy.”
In the end, the current Taira Group was most likely unrelated to the Taira of the Genpei War, so any lingering grudge from that time was impossible. The Minamoto side had won, so they had no reason to hold a grudge either.
“Isn’t the Minamoto family also different from the one from the Genpei period?”
“In their case, it is the same line. They were a distant branch, but after achieving massive success in business they received an infusion of blood from the main Minamoto line.”
Buying bloodline with money—the Minamoto Group really were something else.
“Since you became an adult and received the Taira name without ever hearing this, I’ll give you a simple explanation of the Taira Group’s origins. My great-grandfather, Taira Kiyotaka, founded Taira Seiko in October 1945, after Japan’s defeat in World War II. That is the beginning of our group. Taira Kiyotaka had lived in America before the war. He returned to postwar Japan and used the connections he had built there to acquire land and factories the American military had confiscated from war criminals, growing the business from there.”
This was the first time I’d heard that Taira Seiko was the root of the Taira Group. When I asked why I had never heard of a subsidiary by that name, he told me it had become Taira Robotics—one of the two main holding companies of the group. So it hadn’t disappeared; it had simply been renamed.
“So the reason Taira and Minamoto hate each other isn’t the Genpei War, but something else?”
“There are multiple reasons. One of them lies in the origin of the Taira Group I just described.”
“Don’t tell me the factories the Taira Group received from the Americans originally belonged to the Minamoto?”
“Correct.”
After that, the two families clashed over everything. But believing such constant conflict was bad for business, they decided to reconcile through a marriage alliance. After much discussion, a woman from the Minamoto family married into the Taira family during Taira Danjo’s grandfather’s generation. However, Minamoto Aono committed suicide less than a year later, turning the families into sworn enemies.
The Minamoto side claimed the Taira family had tormented her into suicide. The Taira side claimed the Minamoto had sent a woman with mental illness. No one knew which story was true.
“Yes, I believe that explains our bad relationship with the Minamoto in a neutral manner. Any other questions?”
“Is Mimata Chieri all right?”
“She’s fine. She should wake up by this evening.”
She had been shot in the shoulder or arm, not the torso, yet she would be up the very next day? Was the Taira Group’s medical technology really that advanced? Or perhaps Mimata Chieri had undergone physical modification. It could be both.
“I see. That’s a relief.”
“Since one of the people I’m assigning to you is Mimata, communication should go smoothly.”
It was surprising that she was being thrown straight back into duty.
“Good. Now that the matter of yesterday’s attack is settled, the favor I granted you remains. What is your request?”
“I want to acquire a PMC, but the conditions are numerous. I would be grateful if you could give a recommendation that makes those qualifications unnecessary, Grandfather.”
“Do you know the price of such a recommendation? Do you know what your uncles and aunt paid me to obtain permission to establish or acquire PMCs? That request cannot be granted with a single favor ticket.”
Hey, old man. You gave me the ticket but won’t honor it?
It annoyed me, but I understood. From Taira Danjo’s perspective, he had given me a wish ticket expecting something like “buy me some snacks,” only to be asked to buy an entire house.
It looked like I would have to study for the certification after all…. As I was resigning myself, Taira Danjo spoke again.
“Foolish boy! Even if you acquire a PMC, the moment your uncles and aunt learn of it you will become a target for all three of them. Besides, that is not how you should phrase your request.”
“Then…”
There were two problems. The enormous price of a Taira family member wanting to own a PMC, and the certainty that Taira Ichiro, Jiro, and Kokoro would attack me even if I paid it. In that case…!
“Please assign a woman who already possesses PMC qualifications to me as my secretary or in an equivalent position.”
I could simply install a figurehead president. The whole reason I wanted a recommendation was because obtaining the qualifications myself was a hassle. If there was already a qualified person, that solved everything. I specifically asked for a woman because I planned to secure her loyalty with my body.
“I don’t know who you take after to be so obsessed with women! I can assign such a person to you. But will you truly be able to trust the one I send?”
“If it’s someone Grandfather assigned, I simply need to make her mine.”
“Hmph! Your confidence is certainly overflowing. Very well, let me confirm once more. Your request is for me to assign a woman possessing PMC qualifications to you as secretary or equivalent, correct?”
Taira Danjo was double-checking. Hmm, I should think carefully. There might be a trap I hadn’t noticed.
“Um! I’ll modify it slightly. Please assign a ‘young woman in her twenties to early thirties’ who possesses PMC qualifications to me as my secretary or equivalent position.”
“What a shame! I was planning to assign a seventy-year-old grandmother.”
This old man…! Even for him, seventy was going too far!
“However, this request is more expensive than the favor ticket you possess.”
He acted like he would grant it, but he wasn’t refusing again, was he? If he did, I was really going to lose it, you old fossil…!
“Do not worry. I will grant the request. In exchange, you must carry out three missions I assign you later. Will you accept?”
“Three of them?”
“Yes. I already have one in mind. The other two can be decided gradually.”
In my opinion, Taira Danjo already had tasks he wanted to give me and was using this favor ticket to kill two birds with one stone. Still, I had no choice. The powerless could only endure the old man’s tyranny.
“I will do it.”
I, Taira Ryuta, hereby swear to faithfully carry out the three missions assigned by Taira Danjo in exchange for him granting my request.
“Here, sign this.”
Taira Danjo held out a prepared document. It stated that I, Taira Ryuta, would faithfully carry out three missions as the condition for Taira Danjo granting my request. As expected, he had planned to make me do something from the very beginning. A cunning old man….
I signed it with a slightly rough hand and returned it. Taira Danjo took the document with a satisfied smile.
“I will send you a woman in her twenties to early thirties who possesses the PMC qualifications you requested. You may leave now.”
“If possible, please send me a beautiful one.”
“You crazy bastard!”
I received the address of the hospital where Mimata Chieri was hospitalized and left the main house.
Aris with excessively emphasized features! Maybe one of Aris’s Irish ancestors looked like that?
For some reason Yukyung is wearing a maid hat…. I’ll make a proper maid version next time.
Yukiko-mom full of confidence even without any emphasis!