Disclaimer: I don't own YGO 5Ds
The end of the year is, once again, upon us. Unfortunately.
I've never been a huge fan of the holidays but I always enjoyed the time off, the sales, and the post-holiday discounts on chocolates. I would buy the socially required gifts, attend mandatory work functions, then have more intimate gatherings with a small group of friends and family. It's the way, I always felt, the entire holiday season should be celebrated. Unfortunately, Netherdale isn't following in my example.
As the holidays get closer, it's getting harder and harder to suppress the holiday spirit in Netherdale. I've been working very hard to control the rampant consumerism. Now, internal consumer demand is often encouraged to prop up the economy, but NDC is not yet capable of produce most non-essential merchandise and our entire holiday market is imported from the rest of the country.
... I guess I shouldn't say import, but you get the point.
Most of the current residents from NDC followed us from the Satellite, some migrated from the slums of Neo Domino, or the various poverty-stricken areas from around the country. Holiday traditions among this group is limited and generally inexpensive. Now that they finally have a bit more money in their pockets and feels secure in their future prospects, they're eager for an excuse to splurge.
Meanwhile, we, as a city, is broke enough as it is.
Maybe I should control my exchange rate with the yen? I was vaguely aware that a trade deficit is bad because I'm losing money (even though it's not my money and I'm getting goods in return). I'm also vaguely aware of manipulations of exchange rates to influence trade, though the larger political ramifications/repercussions remain a mystery to me. Plus, I would probably need a bank for that sort of thing...
I swear, the central bank thing has been on my to-do list for a while, it's just so far beyond my understanding that I've been doing my best to put it off. I hate working overtime during the holidays.
"Yuki!" Akiza all but pranced into the room with a giant smile.
Also, I should mention the rest of my team is as ecstatic about the holidays as the city at large.
"Close your eyes!" She requested with a grin.
"What?" I blinked, interrupted from my plans for a central banking system (internal rants about having to construct a central banking system)
"Close your eyes! We have a surprise for you!" Akiza repeated. Yusei, Jack and Crow streamed in, forming a straight line in front of me with Yusei obviously hiding something behind his back.
"We got you an early Christmas present," Yusei explained, obviously pleased with himself, "I hope you like it."
"You will like it." Jack added.
I obliged with smile and closed my eyes.
"Tada!" Crow cheered as Yusei presented my surprise.
"Um..." I scratched my face, a loss for words at life-like appendage in front of me, though excitement still overwhelmed my rising exasperation "Thanks guys! This is amazing!"
I had lost my left arm to remove the Red Devil from taking over my body, and in turn the Ruler of the Netherworld from taking over this dimension. Prosthetic limbs are an exclusive luxury market right now. Even though I could get my hands on as many as I wanted despite our current economic state, I don't trust any of them not to be bugged by numerous political and commercial entities. I would have just used Goodwin's, except these things really do need to be custom designed to fit each user. Designing something like this from scratch, even for Rex who's done it before, takes a ridiculous amount of time, which is why I still hadn't gotten my hand on an arm. I would have been ecstatic, except...
"You don't like it?" Akiza asked, astute to my initial hesitation.
"No, no I do. I really do." I admitted, "I've been needing this forever and we never really had the time for it. Thank you all, it must have taken forever."
"It wasn't too bad, because we all worked on it together. I built the mechanical structure," Yusei said proudly, "All wiring are protected under solid dyne so you don't need to worry about physical damage."
"I summoned Violet Witch to grow the coverings, the plant feels just like real flesh! The arm is also infused with Nature's Reflection, so it should give you some protection if you're attacked by a duel monster." Akiza added, her spirits a little lower upon seeing my apparent lack of enthusiasm at my new arm.
"I decided on the design," Jack announced, patting himself on the back for his artistic talents, "That's why the entire thing is green to match your hair, and if you press a button on the elbow, you can summon a state-of-the-art duel disk!"
My hair, by the way, is neon green. Season Zero Seto Kaiba radio active neon green. Plus, whenever I lean with my elbow on the table, I have the added risk of a duel disk popping up and hitting myself in the face.
"I... Um," Crow struggled a little bit, "I tried to stop him."
I looked at him skeptically.
"I really did," Crow defended himself defiantly, "Jack can be really persuasive when he wants to."
I looked down at the delicate, neon green arm, with a duel disk stick out in the middle of the forearm, then back up at Crow.
"If you press the button at the elbow again, the duel disk is retracted." Jack added, believing he's being helpful.
I turned to look at Jack instead, ignoring the bright barbie pink nails on my neon green arm.
"You need to stand out, Yuki!" Jack actually understood my implicit question for once, "Everybody needs to stand out in this world! Especially you now that you run Netherdale!"
Technically Kalin is running NDC, but that's another issue altogether.
"This!" Jack wielded the arm in his hand like a baseball bat, slamming it against the wall. A satisfying thud resounded across the room as my future hand knocked a fist-sized dent in my wall. "This is what you need. This is how people would know that you rule with an iron fist!"
That does sound a little tempting, but still...
"I would much rather be known as the woman who wield the Momentum, than the one who rules with a green, iron fist."
Jack shrugged, pointing to my hair.
"I didn't have a choice in that," I protested, "and I don't have time to dye my hair all the time!"
"I'll just change the color then," Akiza offered placatingly.
"Can you change the duel disk to something else too? Maybe a machine gun?" I added hopefully.
"You can't stand the recoil of a machine gun," Yusei replied thoughtfully, "I can definitely add a gun, maybe some medical devices too in case you get into trouble. I can give you your upgraded gift tomorrow." He finished with a bright smile.
... Yusei seems to have more free time than I expected, I should take up said free time with productive labor in order to minimize our trade deficits. Maybe we should get into the prosthetic limbs industry, I nodded with approval at my own idea.
The holiday season had only exacerbated the trade deficit we had since the founding of NDC. Specialized markets such as prosthetic limbs, though profitable, isn't nearly large enough to sustain a metropolis. Nor would it provide employment opportunities for one third of the Satellite populations who volunteered to follow us to construct my nirvana.
I admit, I have a rather old-fashioned approach to economic planning. As profitable as tertiary sectors are, I place a large emphasis on primary and secondary sectors. Economic self-sufficiency, more a cold war mentality than anything else, is important to me.
This requires prioritizing from the top down. Most of our limited resources are devoted agriculture, and when we can spare it, manufacturing. My plan was to profit from the subsequent, and surely inevitable demand for the food we would produce. I fully expected it to fly off the shelves (so to speak), I mean, it's food.
Worst case scenario, we could restructure polluted soil for a reasonable service fee. We are literally selling the potential to restore agriculture! We would be treated like gods!
Naturally, trade deficits hadn't really been a huge concern of mine, our agricultural exports would surely take care of that. Japan had been blessed with an almost topical climate that allowed planting season well into the fall and winter. I had expected contracts for agricultural futures to fly in long before that.
"Rawr." I whined sadly, playing with the now-neutral colored nails on my new left arm.
"It's okay...?" Galen scooted closer to me on the couch and squeezed my shoulder.
"It's not. It makes no sense." I brushed him off me.
"It actually does." Kalin tried unhelpfully.
"It doesn't." I glared. The steak and chocolate that I risked my life for apparently means nothing to these people! Nothing! These people are crazy. Not that we have steak or chocolate yet. Cocao trees requires years to grow and livestock takes longer to grow than crops, but that's besides the point. I just don't understand how the industry on which I had built our entire economy just, like, doesn't exist.
"It may take some time break into a luxury market," Rex Goodwin spoke tentatively, "Though our prices are competitive, we must be careful not to over-saturate the market too quickly."
"What do you mean it's a luxury market?" I repeated blankly, "We're not selling Luis Vittons, it's potato."
We are selling potatoes because it has the highest per acre yield of the crops available and doesn't require a lot of maintenance- crucial to our new (read- inexperienced, has no idea what they're doing) agricultural community. I chose it specifically for its higher yield so we could feed more people. Plus, potatoes are very versatile, and delicious.
"The natural food market hasn't been doing very well in light of the recent recession, it's harder to break into right now," Rex explained in an attempt to smother over my clear ignorance.
"The natural food market, oh my god." I hit my head on my desk, finally realizing my oversight,"What in Ra's name."
Now, my entire business plan had revolved around the global need for a currently non-existent agricultural industry, because, you know, that's where food comes from. The instinctive, and may I say entirely justified assumption, is that food has a fairly inelastic demand, but I forgot about the acid cubes we eat. In my defense, I never considered them food, just a temporary measure to stay alive until I can find real food again. But most people in this world had grew up with these acid cubes, and Goodwin's right, for them, food, by which I mean 'real' food, was never a necessity.
See, this is why I didn't go into business.
The advantage of having access to large amounts of money from Neo Domino (legally or otherwise) was that we can afford to make large scale investments like agriculture. The disadvantage is that when our plan fails due to my ignorance and we need to boost GDP, there're only so many industries and markets capable of compensating for our losses.
"I had sent out applications to the International Food and Drug Safety Standards Agency in the last quarter, so our produce can be certified as well." Goodwin added carefully. "After our products are cleared, it might help with our sales figures."
"Why didn't you say anything earlier!" Kalin demanded angrily, I placed my fake hand on his arm to sooth him. Rex is in a rather awkward position in the Zephyrs, I can understand why he would rather get everything done than speak about it, especially given my overwhelming confidence in the subject.
"This one's on me." I sighed. If only I had a marketing department of some sort to research the viability of these things, but we had devoted our entire literate population to the maintenance of the local government. Aside from Rex Goodwin, I was probably the only one who was aware of the existence of food safety standards, the rest of my team didn't exactly have much access to food. In my defense, I've just never been on the other side of this transaction before. At least subconsciously, I still believed in the more traditional 'well, it came out of the ground, just eat it' method. I can see why that wouldn't be adequate in large commercial settings.
"Neo Domino still has more than enough funds to sustain your investments," Rex reassured me. The rest of us looked less than reassured, we have a basic idea of how much money we always spent- Neo Domino was in the black last year, now its debt is approaching eleven digits.
"We can't rely on Neo Domino forever." Kalin admitted reluctantly.
"If agriculture isn't a sustainable source of income, we need to invest in a new market," Galin agreed, looking at me very meaningfully "I need more money for our education budget next year."
There is, of course, the obvious solution. The solution that Rex Goodwin used to turn Neo Domino into a metropolis, and one that I had tried very hard to avoid despite questions from my team.
"Fine, we'll host a dueling tournament." I grumbled, defeated. There're definitely various risks to dueling tournaments in this world, but none of the dangers outweighs a pending bankruptcy. "We'll call it..." What was that thing called again? WRGP. "World G-, no Riding Grand Prix."
We'll charge entrance fees and finally profit off of all the duelists who naturally gravitated towards Yusei's presence.
Now to somehow calculate the ideal registration fee and match tickets to maximize our total revenue. I would need to figure out... the expected financial status of tournament attendees, direct income from the tournament, expect per-person spending for each new visitor, indirect commercial income from the increase in exposure, and- ... Maybe Yusei could figure it out, I thought hopefully.
"Interesting. Very, very interesting. A new turbo duel tournament in Netherdale? I wonder what it's for." Primo mused.
"Maybe your Ghost Riders were too obvious and Tono got suspicious!" Lester replied.
"Perhaps, though that would hardly be a problem for us." Primo dismissed the comment, "Whatever the reason, it looks like our Variable is getting impatient. You're moving too slow Lester, where are the Signers you're supposed to fight?"
"I know what I'm doing!" Lester bit back, the youngest member of Aporia was feeling particularly defensive at his comments being overlooked, "What about you? I don't see Fudo's defeat in the headlines!"
"Yusei Fudo has been difficult to access," Primo explained to their leader, Jakob, rather than Lester, "He appears to working on a new project, some sort of militarized artificial limbs, I haven't been able to find him outside his laboratory for weeks."
... Yuki might have been embarrassed had she heard that.
"You will force him out then." Jakob replied slowly.
"Yes," Primo agreed, "My Machine Emperors are ready for their test drive, it'll take the best duelists in NDC to slow them down!"
"Lester." Jakob turned to the redheaded youth.
"I couldn't catch Luna and Leo after school," Lester immediately explained, "I'll hack into their school instead so I can join their class."
"I will go to Neo Domino personally," Jakob continued, "World Riding Grand Prix. This mortal might have anticipated our next move, but the Ark Cradle will be fuels by the energy from her tournament regardless. Every other variable we had witnessed only hastens the demise of their dimension, this one will be no different."
A/N: The only acceptable reason for a dueling tournament: profit!