Chapter 87: The Big Bank Withdrawal
Marie entered Don Jon's room to report the progresses of Don Jon's plans and other news. Afraid as usual, she bowed before proceeding with her report. Don Jon is sitting on his sofa as usual.
"Lord Don Jon. We've received reports from Snow Fox Bank's Midgar branch that Garter Corporation is trying to withdraw the money they made from the Ponzer Plan. Attempts to prevent them from withdrawing have been made but that may result in all of MCA losing faith in the Ponzer Plan before it can bear fruit. Their request for withdrawal came earlier than we expected." Marie reported whilst trembling.
"No. They came to withdraw their money at the right time. Let them withdraw the money posthaste. Let Garter Corporation withdraw their money and no one else. Make sure the process is as tedious as possible for the rest of them." Don Jon answered.
"O-Only Garter Corporation?"
"Didn't you hear me, woman? I said Garter Corporation and no one else!" Don Jon said whilst applying some magical pressure on Marie.
"Y-Yes! I'm very sorry, sir!" Marie bowed her head down, her hands clutching her clothes, ready to take them off in an attempt to quell his rage using her body. But before she can do that…
"Is there anything else?" Don Jon asked her.
"J-J-John S-S-mith has… b-been…" Marie struggled to speak coherently as she falls on her knees whilst hyperventilating and trembling with tears flowing down her cheeks.
Hmm… I think I overdid it. I should remember that she's not a Spellsword but an ordinary civilian. I'm still lacking in staff so I shouldn't break this one yet. Thought Don Jon.
"Breathe!" Don Jon ordered.
"W-What…?"
"Breathe slowly and calm yourself." Don Jon said. Mare proceeded to take a deep breath and managed to calm herself down. She wiped her tears and stood back up.
"Better?"
"Y-Yes… Thank you, sir."
"Proceed with the report."
"J-John Smith has been transferred from guard duties to infiltration duties. Lady Yukime sent him to spy on the MCA's movements."
"And has he delivered any news from his end?"
"He said they have begun the production of counterfeit bills… The MCA counterfeit bills I mean."
"He works fast. Indeed. The Mitsugoshi's printing method is too advanced to be replicated by the MCA and thus they have no choice but to create counterfeits of their own paper money."
"M-May I ask… why they did that?"
"Because they intend to take down Mitsugoshi with them. Once the counterfeit bills floods the market, making the supply of paper money becomes greater than demand, the value of paper money will decrease exponentially as people will start questioning the value of paper money and realize that they are merely pieces of paper with no value. Trust in paper money will fall and the banks that made them will become bankrupt in no time as people will flood the banks to withdraw their coins... and only the fastest ones can get their money back."
"S-So that's why Snow Fox Bank never made paper money!"
"Indeed. It's because I foresaw this development."
"I see…" Marie nodded in understanding, realizing how Don Jon is not only powerful but also cunning.
"Now we should only watch and wait while the MCA and Mitsugoshi destroy themselves. Heh heh heh."
I left Don Jon's room, no longer trembling in fear but in awe.
"So Lady Yukime is right. He is kinder than I expected." Marie muttered as she recalled him giving her time to calm down.
"And his intelligence and foresight… to think he thought that far ahead. Ahh… I thought that working here will be worse than in the brothel." Muttered Marie, recalling her time with stupid, impatient and abusive men in the brothel.
Besides her experiences in the brothel, she also recalled several things that happened in recent times which led her to the Don Jon Tower.
Back during the night of the Red Moon, she thought it was over when she was bitten by a ghoul and becomes a ghoul herself. By some miracle she and many others returned to normal on the same night. But before she can escape the Lawless City with her savings like she initially planned, a bunch of people from the Spellsword Association robbed her of her savings and even sexually harassed her under the guise of inspecting her ghoulish infection. Even with the name Spellsword Association attached to them, a resident of Lawless City is the same as the rest.
She was forced to return to Yukime and begged for a different job, which Yukime mercifully gave her. She was then employed as Don Jon's secretary after Yukime judged that she has the aptitude. Initially she was very afraid that she would be killed by Don Jon after hearing how he massacred the previous staff of the tower during Juggernaut's rebellion on the night of the Red Moon. Her experiences with abusive men only reinforced such thoughts. Yukime reassured her that Don Jon is kinder than what people think but she does not believe those words one bit. It was only today that she saw how kind and reasonable her new employer can be.
"I thought I would be killed if I happen to be around when he is angry. But he's surprisingly patient. Ohh... Thank you Lady Yukime. I think this job is so much better for me." Marie smiled, looking up to the future without fear and anxiety but with enthusiasm instead. She hastened her steps in order to carry out his orders of sending a message to the Snow Fox Bank's Midgar branch to let Garter Corporation withdraw their money.
A luxurious carriage carrying a huge amount of gold left the Snow Fox Bank, its owner just finished withdrawing their money.
"Haaaahhh… Finally I'm able to withdraw my money. For a second there I thought they were scamming me out of my money. Ha ha ha!" Garter muttered whilst wiping his sweat, which came from his panic, not the weather, with his handkerchief.
"But seriously. The withdrawal procedure is too tedious. I think I'll just keep my money there for a long time and withdraw it when the returns get bigger." Said a fellow merchant accompanying him, who happens to be the owner of Feigling Corporation, one of the first MCA merchants to invest in the Ponzer Plan, and who happens to be as fat as Garter is.
"I think that would be best for you." Garter replied.
"But why did you withdraw your money so early, Mr. Garter?" The merchant asked.
"You don't want to know, Mr. Feigling. Believe me." Garter replied vaguely but the implication is enough for his fellow merchant to understand.
"R-Right. I will ask no more. I don't know anything."
"Good." Garter said.
The carriage then stops as it arrived in the MCA central bank where Gettan is waiting. Garter left the carriage accompanied by Feigling and both their bodyguards.
"Garter. How goes the withdrawal?" Gettan asked, addressing Garter with an air of authority that rubbed Feigling's bodyguards the wrong way as they didn't recognize him.
"S-Sir Gettan… I…" Garter was about to reply but was interrupted.
"Oi. Don't address Mr. Garter so rudely, you animal! Don't you know that he is the president of the MCA!?" Said one of Feigling's bodyguards. Feigling can only drop his jaw as he saw what happened.
Gettan's response is to behead the bodyguard swiftly.
"Hiiiyyyy! F-Forgive me, Sir Gettan! That bodyguard acted on his own! I have no part in this! Please forgive me!" Feigling bowed down and begged for Gettan's forgiveness. His other bodyguards followed suit. Gettan ignored them and addressed Garter once again.
"Garter!"
"Y-Yes! We managed to withdraw all our money from Snow Fox Bank and can now proceed with the plan!"
"Took you long enough. Make sure the plan proceeds on schedule."
"Yes, sir!" Garter bowed his head down as Gettan left.
"M-Mr. Feigling. Who was that…?" Asked one of Feigling's bodyguards.
"Shut it! You don't want to know! Even I don't want to know… although I already know about that Sword Demon…!" Feigling answered, still bowing and unable to rise out of fear even though Gettan has left them.
"S-Sword Demon!? So he's-"
"Be quiet!"
"Y-Yes sir!"
Feigling finally rose up and accompanied Garter as their bodyguards unloads their chests containing the gold coins they withdrew from Snow Fox Bank. Some of said gold coins will be used as funds to produce the counterfeit bills that they plan to use to bankrupt both Mitsugoshi and the MCA and the rest will be transferred to the Cult via donation to the Church.
Within one of MCA's secret underground factories, a man dressed in black suit and a mask, who's clearly not one of MCA's employees, lurks in the darkness as he watched the printing machines print counterfeit bills which will be circulated to the market.
"Hmm… It's strange that they would make fake money of their own bank. What were they thinking? Too much paper money in circulation will simply make the value decrease, you know? That's what I know from watching MHK documentaries anyway." John Smith muttered to himself as he recalled teaching the Seven Shades about paper money, which is why they started creating a bank that produces paper money. The MCA obviously followed suit as they always have in order to compete with Mitsugoshi, though their products are always inferior compared to Mitsugoshi's. Strangely the Snow Fox Bank didn't do the same despite being capable of more than just creating bootleg Mitsugoshi products like the MCA. John Smith wondered why that is the case.
"Come to think of it, I too wanted to make counterfeit bills since I was a child. Ahh… those days when I tried to print paper money on regular printers. Good times. If I wasn't aiming for Don Jon's money I would've done it myself." John Smith muttered again whilst remembering the good old days on Earth.
"Oh? Someone's coming. And it's not someone from the MCA but someone familiar. Heh heh heh." John Smith said as he noticed a familiar presence entering the factory. He jumped and landed behind said person, who is a girl wearing black hooded cloak made out of slime, signifying her affiliation to Shadow Garden. John Smith recognized her as Nu, one of Gamma's assistants, as he has met her before.
"Who's there!?" The girl said as she turned to face him.
"I am John Smith. May I ask for your employee card, ma'am?" John Smith asked mischievously.
"Hmph. It's unfortunate that you saw me. I have to eliminate you." The cloaked girl created a slime sword and rushed at high speed to slay the eyewitness. But she stopped her steps as she noticed the steel threads that almost caught her. She jumped back and watched his movements warily.
"Impressive. To think you noticed my threads in this dark place before I can catch you." John Smith praised.
"John Smith, eh? Are you working for the MCA?" Nu asked in an attempt to gather as much information about this dangerous individual as she can.
"No. I worked for Snow Fox Corporation." John Smith answered nonchalantly.
"And what interest does Snow Fox Corporation have in this MCA owned facility?"
"What of you? What interest does Shadow Garden has with the MCA?" John Smith countered with a question of his own, which Nu is unwilling to answer.
"Tch. John Smith. I'll remember that name." Nu said before retreating, her intuition said she is no match for the man before her, especially within the dark where she has difficulty perceiving her opponent's steel threads, giving her a great disadvantage.
John Smith merely watched as she left the factory.
"Hmph. Wise move. I'd hate to hurt one of people Alpha hired to help my Shadowbroker plays." John Smith muttered as he too left the factory, already gathering all the necessary information he needed.
Author's Note:
So the counterfeit bills plan isn't abandoned, but Gettan is the one who did it, not John Smith. Don Jon and Yukime just watched as Gettan did all the work for them. Also Marie has experienced that bittersweet Stockholm Syndrome too.
PS: MHK is probably a parody of NHK, a Japanese TV company.
A-Yellow-Liz: I'm so excited for how the plot will turn out! It is kind of funny how I see people begging for sleeper agents every chapter though xD
Answer: I'm also pretty excited to deliver.
Also, yeah. The sleeper agent thing. I already said I have an idea on how to do it, though obviously not in the current arc.
HundredMasks: The misunderstandings are piling up, and I genuinely wanna see how it'd end up, but I can't really see how Politician Claude could save Don Jon, best case scenario it'll look like Don Jon is threatening Claude in some way, also, John Smith is getting cooler by the moment, and I'm excited for how it'll turn out for the meeting
Answer: It was a joke. Currently no plans for Politician Claude to interact with Don Jon, Though I may change my mind later if it fits the storyline. And about John Smith, I hope I can make him do a 100IQ move similar to canon (which is more misunderstandings).