Chapter 33
Shirokarasu is the female leader of a black-market organization whose livelihood is black-market dealing in Suginami Ward.
Shirokarasu was originally a hostess living in Shinjuku Ward. She had been dating and living with a host-club boyfriend, but soon after the Gremlin Disaster began, a monster devoured him right before her eyes.
That gruesome sight broke something inside Shirokarasu. It was more than enough to destroy her common sense and decency.
Taking advantage of the chaos following the Gremlin Disaster, Shirokarasu created a power base of her own. She gathered some skilled, heavily tattooed men who had known her as her boyfriend's friends, along with easily led women, and started a black-market business.
In the post-Gremlin Disaster world, everyone was desperate, and Shirokarasu made a considerable profit by exploiting people's desperation.
The small amount of cold medicine she had hidden during the forced collection of medical supplies was exchanged for a huge number of food-ration coupons.
She seduced a man in the livestock business and had him divert precious meat to her.
She sold monster blood while passing it off as Witch's Blood, and secretly bought up firearms recovered from Self-Defense Force corpses.
She gathered women with no relatives, trained them, and supplied them to men with respectable positions in the chaotic society, enjoying the profits.
Shirokarasu's gang made money hand over fist and lived lavishly despite the unprecedented disaster.
But Shirokarasu's spring came to a short end.
It was the fault of witches and wizards.
In Tokyo, witches and wizards of one sort or another maintained public order in every ward.
Most wards had food rations, assigned jobs, and patrol guards who hunted monsters as they made their rounds. Whenever a major problem arose, a witch, one of the Transcendents, came in person.
Shinjuku Ward, where Shirokarasu had lived, was under the control of the Eyeball Witch. The Eyeball Witch was a pacifist who disliked conflict, and she was lenient in her judgments of organizations like Shirokarasu's.
Once, the Eyeball Witch herself had visited. Shirokarasu braced herself for punishment, but the meeting ended up feeling like a neighborhood auntie worrying about her future. It was so anticlimactic that she was almost taken aback.
The Eyeball Witch was a soft touch.
Shirokarasu had nearly gotten carried away, thinking, No one can touch us, but ominous rumors put a stop to that.
Her fellow black-market operators in the surrounding wards began disappearing one after another.
In particular, in Bunkyo Ward, which bordered Shinjuku, every black-market operator became impossible to contact after a certain day.
There were no stories of them being arrested by the guards or killed by monsters.
They simply vanished without warning.
Some of Shirokarasu's subordinates suggested taking advantage of the situation to expand into the now-empty territory, but the female boss, realizing what was happening, smacked their empty heads and scolded them.
Someone—most likely the Wizard of Foresight, one of the Transcendents—was eliminating antisocial forces with terrifying efficiency and without anyone knowing. If something beyond human ability had happened, it was not the work of humans.
Expanding their territory was the last thing they could afford.
The Eyeball Witch was on good terms with the Wizard of Foresight. The Eyeball Witch might be soft, but the Wizard of Foresight was a man who did what needed to be done. If he took it upon himself to clean up Shinjuku Ward for the Eyeball Witch's sake, Shirokarasu's entire gang would be wiped out with ease.
Shirokarasu and her people hurriedly packed their belongings and fled in the dead of night like rabbits.
Their destination was Suginami Ward.
After fleeing to Suginami, Shirokarasu and her people turned pale and wiped away cold sweat when they realized that some of their subordinates had been unable to keep up with their hasty escape and that they could no longer contact the people left behind in Shinjuku. It seemed they had escaped by the skin of their teeth.
They spent several days feeling as though they were living on borrowed time, but nothing happened no matter how long they waited. Eventually, they realized that the Wizard of Foresight's hand was not reaching them and breathed a sigh of relief.
The Wizard of Foresight was not an omnipotent judge of sin. He could not see through and monitor all of Tokyo.
Shirokarasu's group felt safe enough to resume its black-market business in Suginami Ward.
This time, however, they abandoned their more vicious enterprises so as not to incur the Wizard of Foresight's wrath. From the order and patterns in which their fellow operators had been dealt with, they had a vague understanding of how far the Wizard of Foresight was willing to tolerate them.
Shirokarasu devoted half the income from her black-market dealings to establishing and running an orphanage for the many children orphaned by the Gremlin Disaster, currying favor with the Wizard of Foresight.
And that seemed to have worked.
Once, a letter with nothing written on it was delivered to her from the Wizard of Foresight. Half her subordinates panicked and fled just from that, so they appeared to have been marked for surveillance, but at least they had not been erased yet.
Their new base in Suginami Ward suited Shirokarasu's group perfectly. The ward was just dangerous enough to be comfortable.
The administrator of Suginami Ward, the Pebble Witch, was a NEET. She was a born social misfit who had been a NEET since before the Gremlin Disaster.
Immediately after the Gremlin Disaster, the Pebble Witch did nothing but guard her own home. But the now-deceased Vampire Wizard eventually persuaded her to protect Suginami Ward, albeit reluctantly. Since she was a NEET at heart, however, she did not work very hard and never left the manga café she used as her base.
The Pebble Witch could cast magic on gremlins and create golems with gremlins at their cores. Like the famous familiars of the Eyeball Witch, they were soldiers who acted as the witch's limbs and appendages.
These stone dolls were stationed throughout Suginami Ward and took charge of hunting monsters in the ward in place of their witch, who stayed shut in and never came outside.
But sometimes a monster would walk right past one of them, and it would remain motionless like a statue. The apparently semi-automatic golems seemed to have inherited their master's troublesome temperament.
On such occasions, the unspoken understanding among Suginami's residents was to kick the golem and force it to move. No matter how much of a NEET it was at heart, they needed it to work.
Since the golems, which did the work handled by guards in other wards, behaved like that, Suginami could hardly be called a safe place. One could hardly expect a NEET to provide socially minded governance.
Even so, it was far better than dangerous areas with no witch at all, or the ward governed by the Zombie Witch.
Perhaps it was part of her NEET nature, but the Pebble Witch hated being ordered around or lectured by other witches, which was another point in Shirokarasu's group's favor. Even when other witches demanded that organizations like theirs be handed over, the Pebble Witch would either ignore them or flatly refuse.
The Pebble Witch did not specially protect Shirokarasu's gang. But neither did she eliminate them.
In Suginami Ward, where public safety was poor enough but the witches left them alone, Shirokarasu's battle-hardened group quickly spread out and built a stable underworld.
Still, they were hardly secure. If the Wizard of Foresight or any one witch ever got serious, they would once again have to tuck their tails and run.
In any case, that was how Shirokarasu's gang took root in Suginami Ward under the name Watarigarasu. On the surface, they operated as respectable citizens running an orphanage and pawnshop; behind the scenes, they were one of the leading black-market dealers in Tokyo's underworld, carrying on energetically to this day.
Now then.
One day, after the Mushroom Pandemic had passed and the cherry blossoms had completely fallen, the trees began to sprout lush green leaves.
Shirokarasu was appraising stolen goods acquired by one of her subordinates in a room beneath the pawnshop in a Suginami Ward shopping-street building.
The veteran members could identify stolen goods, but this batch had been acquired by a fledgling. Shirokarasu herself had to check it, or she would be uneasy. It would damage the organization's reputation if a black-market outfit that passed off counterfeits got duped with one itself.
The dark basement was lined with luxury furnishings that had once belonged in hundred-million-yen condominiums. On a shelf, Shirokarasu's favorite old-world cigarette brands were neatly arranged. She sold cigarettes produced by the Tobacco Witch on the market, while personally securing old-world brands that would never be manufactured again. Bad money drove out good.
Beneath the brilliant light of a lantern lit with magical fire, Shirokarasu set her half-smoked cigarette in an ashtray and carefully examined the wand on the table through a magnifying glass.
If the fledgling's story was true, the item before her was a Year 27 general-purpose, two-layer Gremlin magic wand made by the legendary wandmaker 0933. It was supposedly a piece passed on by a graduate of Magic University who had ruined himself over a woman, but counterfeits were also circulating. She could not take his word for it.
Watarigarasu had profited from 0933's wands for a long time, but they had also suffered a major loss because of one. If this was genuine, it would make a major deal. If it was fake, it was worthless.
0933—the mysterious figure once called the “Ome Craftsman”—had become involved in Watarigarasu's business about two and a half years earlier.
Around the time Magic University opened, the mysterious wandmaker whose existence had been whispered about after the appearance of Cuanos began releasing mass-produced wands into the world.
Though they were mass-produced, the earliest Year 25 models, made with superhuman craftsmanship, were extremely attractive not only to people in respectable society but also to those in the underworld.
There were people who memorized the incantations shouted by witches simply by listening to them, hiding away the spells among them that humans could use as trump cards. Some of these rare humans had risen to become underworld kingpins, and Shirokarasu was one of them.
With a wand, a trump card could be elevated into a weapon. The profits it brought were enormous.
Year 25 wands were distributed only to Magic University graduates and could not be obtained by any other means. That only fanned the desire for wands among people on both sides of society.
Some fellow operators from other wards were foolish enough to set foot in Ome in order to negotiate purchases directly with the “Ome Craftsman.”
Of course, none of them ever came back.
To Shirokarasu, that was only to be expected. It was the height of stupidity. The Ome Witch was a crazy woman who stubbornly continued protecting a city with no one in it. She was not merely insane; she was by far the strongest of the Transcendents known as the Tokyo Witches' Gathering, a living nuclear bomb. Of course anyone who poked her would be blown away.
Let sleeping witches lie.
That was why Year 25 wands were so difficult to obtain, and even Watarigarasu had only ever brokered one.
That single wand sold for 15 boxes of antibiotics, six cases of nutritional supplements, three boxes of pills, eight boxes of chocolate, six 250-liter drums of gasoline, and ten bundles of food-ration coupons from Shinjuku Ward.
All that for a single wand.
At pre-collapse values, it must have been worth at least five hundred million yen.
That one transaction enriched Watarigarasu, solidified the organization's foundation, and allowed them to hire five more nursery teachers with childcare certifications for the orphanage.
The following year's Year 26 model incorporated a mechanism to prevent mana backflow, improving the wand's performance.
As the Year 25 models became obsolete, demand for the Year 26 model rose.
Among the stray Wizards who had learned incantations by listening to witches, those who had been unable to properly use their trump cards because of mana backflow were especially eager for the Year 26 model.
Watarigarasu went to considerable trouble to acquire a Year 26 model for a large landowner secretly operating illicit rice fields outside a witch's jurisdiction.
This time, they sold it for one of the Dragon Witch's leg bones, two rolls of Spider Witch spider-silk cloth, and ten cartons of Tobacco Witch cigarettes. Every one of those items was precious, difficult to obtain, and impossible to put a price on.
That transaction also made Watarigarasu a great deal of money. They used the profits from reselling the valuables to hire a Magic University graduate as the organization's magic instructor. They also hired five certified teachers for the orphanage and installed three new pieces of playground equipment.
But the following year's Year 27 model cost them dearly.
Watarigarasu had already cultivated a connection with one of the students entering Magic University in Year 27, and after the student enrolled, they had him divert a Year 27 wand under the pretense that it had been lost.
Just as they were deciding which major customer to sell the Year 27 model to after taking that dangerous risk to obtain it, Magic University began producing general-purpose mass-produced wands.
Customers immediately leaped at the general-purpose mass-produced wands. They were cheap, easy to obtain, equipped with a mana-backflow prevention mechanism, and their magic amplification ratio was not bad either.
There were still customers who wanted the highest-grade products badly enough to deal on the black market, but even those customers took advantage of the situation and drove the price down.
The considerable investment they had made to obtain the Year 27 model became a huge deficit when the wand's value plummeted.
The Ome Craftsman's wands were still the highest-grade products around. After all, they were highly capable and well designed.
But they no longer commanded the outrageous prices they once had.
Year 27 became a year of lying low for Watarigarasu because of the deficit, and the only major change they made was introducing a birthday-cake program at the orphanage.
The latest Year 28 model was still unobtainable because the university had tightened security after last year's lost-wand incident. The considerable losses suffered by both the organization and the orphanage in the Mushroom Pandemic were another painful blow.
On the other hand, they had managed to acquire information about the mysterious wandmaker.
According to an informant working at the Bunkyo Ward Office, the wandmaker was known among those involved as “0933.”
0933 was under the protection of the Blue Witch, was an associate of the president of Tokyo Magic University, was relied upon by the Wizard of Foresight, and had powerful ties to the Flower Witch. Most recently, 0933 had sealed the Witch of the Passing Flame and was on friendly terms with her successor, the Flame-heir Witch. The Hell Witch was also suspected of having a friendly relationship with 0933, though it had not been confirmed; she had been seen leaving Tokyo with a strange wand.
With connections like a powder keg for all of Tokyo, Shirokarasu was at a loss.
If Watarigarasu carelessly made an enemy of 0933, all of Suginami Ward would be reduced to a wasteland. The Pebble Witch's policy of refusing diplomatic interference would be a flimsy defense.
0933's creations sold for absurdly high prices.
That was precisely why they had to be handled with care.
Recently, a new 0933 product called an “Amulet,” a magical device that promoted mana recovery, had begun circulating. It was sold at Magic University's campus store and was also being manufactured in small quantities at ordinary workshops.
Rather than aiming to buy and sell difficult-to-obtain wands, they might be better off shifting to manufacturing and selling counterfeit branded goods using the 0933 name, or trading in cheap copy products. It would be safest to stay completely away from anything related to 0933, but if they could exploit the name without angering the people involved, they could outmaneuver their competitors—and make a killing.
Still, that would depend on the results of the industrial espionage operation currently being conducted at the workshop producing Amulets.
There was also something called “Secret Sauce,” supposedly brought in by the Tohoku Hunting Association, that smelled like the seed of a profitable business. Should they send more people? They had also received a tip that plans were underway to issue currency and end the rationing system, so they needed to verify that as well. Good grief, there was so much to think about.
Shirokarasu had been reflecting on the past and present when she found proof that the wand acquired by the fledgling was fake. Clicking her tongue, she threw it into the wastebasket in the corner.
There was a feature that could not possibly exist on a genuine Year 27 general-purpose, two-layer Gremlin magic wand made by 0933.
The mana-backflow prevention mechanism standard on wands from Year 26 onward was delicately embedded in the handle and capped over so that it was hidden in the joints of the wood grain.
It could not be seen by ordinary inspection, but if one bent the handle as though trying to fold it, flexing it under pressure, then dusted it with flour and blew the flour away, the joint would stand out in white.
The wand brought in had no such feature.
The Gremlin forming its core had also resisted scratching even when cut with a diamond, but it looked warped for one of 0933's works. It was unquestionably a fake.
Irritated, Shirokarasu put the cigarette she had left in the ashtray between her lips and drew the smoke deep into her lungs.
Well, it was the fledgling's mistake. It was like a puppy bringing in a piece of garbage, thinking it was treasure. A little discipline would be enough punishment for the fledgling.
The real problem was the scoundrel who had tried to pass off the fake. She needed to teach them a lesson so they would never try to take liberties with her again.
As Shirokarasu smoked and wrote an order concerning the matter, there was a sudden knock on the basement door. It was the one of the two doors that led to the ground floor.
"What is it?"
"There's a customer."
"Ah, wait a moment... Even a pebble has worries, you know."
Shirokarasu put her cigarette in the ashtray again and cast basic pebble magic on a sharp Gremlin she took from inside her clothes. She had learned the spell by presenting the otaku-like Pebble Witch with a collected volume compiling the continuation of a famous manga series that had been circulating on the market.
Under the spell, the Gremlin floated through the air according to Shirokarasu's will and clung to the door leading to the ground floor. Despite its effect, the spell consumed an absurd amount of mana and lasted less than ten minutes. Its power was barely enough to pierce a bone, but she loved it for its outstanding ability to catch people by surprise.
Customers escorted to her were not ordinary pawnshop customers but black-market clients—and important ones at that.
Because they were important clients, she needed to prepare for emergencies.
The customer who entered after the signal was a large man she had never seen before.
He stood nearly two meters tall, with thick muscles covering his body and a powerfully built frame. But he did not look particularly bright. He was like an idiot troll in a suit stretched tight over his body.
She had an early bad feeling about him, but a woman's intuition was occasionally wrong. Remaining wary, Shirokarasu asked what he wanted.
"Shirokarasu of Watarigarasu. And you?"
"Mobu. I want to sell this."
The large man calling himself Mobu barely bothered with greetings before tearing open the package in his hands and letting its contents roll across the polished ebony desk.
"Huh? Could this be...?"
Shirokarasu muttered when she saw what had emerged, suppressing the violent pounding of her heart and her agitation so they would not show on her face.
It was a top-grade wand whose quality was obvious at a glance. The distinctive features of 0933's work were clearly visible throughout it.
The sturdy metal handle, together with its delicate decorations, made it clear that this was unquestionably a 0933 custom-made wand, entirely different from the university's mass-produced models.
In other words, it was a witch's wand.
Shirokarasu rolled the wand with trembling hands, then felt dizzy when she saw the inscription Witch of Flame engraved on its handle.
It was the wand of the Witch of the Passing Flame.
The Witch of the Passing Flame had been sealed, leaving her wand without an owner. Somehow, an item far too dangerous for Watarigarasu to handle was here.
"How did you get something like this?"
"I stole it. It was hard work, you know?"
Mobu said it proudly, though there was absolutely nothing to be proud of.
If he had tricked someone out of it with smooth words, there might still have been room for an excuse. But if he had stolen it, there was no excuse that would work.
Of course, if they could acquire a witch's wand, it would be the biggest deal they had ever handled.
But in exchange, they would certainly face retaliation and lose their lives. Even the Eyeball Witch would surely be furious.
Shirokarasu took a deep breath and tried to assess the situation. There was still hope.
Perhaps one of the witches was backing Mobu and had made him steal the Witch of the Passing Flame's wand. The Witches' Gathering was not a circle of best friends.
"Who's backing you? How many people did you put between yourself and the job?"
"What are you talking about?"
"There have to be at least three of you: the thief, the courier, and you. How many middlemen did you put between yourself and the thief?"
"I don't bother with that kind of roundabout crap. I stole it and brought it here myself."
"...Who's backing you?"
"I didn't bring a bag."
An idiot proudly said something idiotic, and Shirokarasu felt a headache coming on. She desperately hoped this was a bad dream.
She could hardly believe that such an idiot had managed to steal a witch's wand, but then she remembered that today was the regular day of the Witches' Gathering.
Stealing the sister's wand from the home of the newly succeeded Flame-heir Witch while she was away was, if luck piled on luck—or misfortune piled on misfortune—certainly within the realm of possibility.
Shirokarasu quickly took out her pocket watch and checked the time. There was not much time left before the Witches' Gathering ended.
If Mobu had really used no middlemen, someone would probably have seen him. It would not be strange if the theft had already been discovered, the Flame-heir Witch had been contacted, and a search had begun.
Shirokarasu pushed the Witch of the Passing Flame's wand back toward Mobu and explained it clearly enough for even an idiot to understand.
"I can't buy this. You'd better take it back right now and beg for your life."
Mobu had almost certainly been seen by someone at some point during the crime, so the plan of saying, "I took it back from a thief," would not work. He had no choice but to apologize honestly and sincerely, and throw himself on the witch's mercy.
In a world where witches reigned as absolute powers, anyone who forgot their place and withdrew too late died.
Honestly, she wanted him gone as soon as possible. What would the witch think if she found them together like this?
A fool dying on his own was a fine spectacle, but Shirokarasu wanted no part of being dragged into that spectacle.
"What, are you scared? So the great Shirokarasu is just a woman after all!"
"You seem eager to die, but I'll leave your execution to the witch. Go on, the exit's over there."
She pointed toward the door leading to the ground floor, but Mobu complained in displeasure.
"You're way too scared. The Passing Flame Witch is already dead, isn't she?"
"No. She was only sealed. Her successor has taken over."
"So what?"
"The Flame-heir Witch, enraged because someone stole her sister's precious wand, is going to come kill you. The Pebble Witch dislikes interference from other witches, but she won't protect you from an enraged witch's attack."
"Ha! They may call the Flame-heir a witch, but she ain't one. You think I'm scared of some brat acting tough with a wand?"
"Oh, I see..."
He was being impossibly unreasonable.
Shirokarasu decided not to let Mobu leave alive. She would send him to the Flame-heir Witch as a corpse instead.
That seemed like it would get the point across faster.
Shirokarasu sent a thought to the Gremlin waiting above the door and made it attack the back of Mobu's head.
But, incredibly, Mobu detected the perfectly concealed ambush at the last moment and avoided the Gremlin's arrowhead with a nimbleness that could never have been expected from his ponderous-looking bulk.
"Whoa! That was close!"
Shirokarasu tried to send the Gremlin, which had punched a hole through the desk, charging at Mobu again, but Mobu was faster. He drew a handgun and leveled it at the center of her forehead.
Shirokarasu clicked her tongue, raised both hands, and brought the Gremlin down to her feet, then crushed it beneath her heel.
She had unconsciously underestimated him because of how idiotic he acted. His claim that he had stolen the wand from a witch's house seemed to be true.
"I could see your killing intent, Shirokarasu. I came here hoping we could make a peaceful deal, but after you pull something like this...?"
"I admit I let my guard down. But if you shoot me here, my subordinates will rush in and kill you."
"That won't happen. Did you think I came down into Watarigarasu's basement without a plan?"
She honestly had, but Shirokarasu kept both hands raised and silently urged him to continue.
"I've got my men lying low at the orphanage. If I don't come back, they're set to launch an attack."
"Huh?"
"If you want those precious little brats to stay alive, keep your people quiet. Then hand over every bit of valuables you've been hoarding!"
"............ Fine. Our vault is through the door behind me. I'm going to shout so they open the door, but don't shoot me, okay? Moeka!"
When Shirokarasu shouted, the rear door leading to the vault opened immediately with a heavy sound.
Shirokarasu spoke to Moeka, her close aide, who wore an expression that seemed to ask what in the world was happening.
"Moeka, listen carefully. 'Do everything this man says, and never disobey him. Consider his orders my orders.' Understood?"
"Yes, Boss. Then, um...?"
"Please show him inside."
"Heh. You're awfully reasonable. Good. Don't do anything unnecessary...!"
Pressing his handgun against the back of Moeka's head, Mobu disappeared into the back room while keeping a wary eye on Shirokarasu.
The door closed, leaving a moment of silence.
Then Mobu's startled voice and scream rang out, and soon the room was quiet again.
A little while later, Moeka opened the door. Her cute, childlike face was splattered with blood.
Moeka, a native of Saitama City—the world of carnage—was Watarigarasu's foremost combat specialist.
"Boss, it's done."
"Good work. Also, apparently his men are lying low at the orphanage."
"What? ............ My apologies. Understood. I'll deal with them right now."
"Please do."
Moeka raced upstairs like a gust of wind.
A subordinate who had come to check on things arrived just as she left. Shirokarasu handed him the Witch of the Passing Flame's wand, explained the situation, and sent him out to deliver it. She had debated sending it along with Mobu, but the big man was heavy and difficult to transport. It was better to return the wand alone as quickly as possible.
If she showed them the corpse later, explained what had happened, and demonstrated her sincerity, they would probably not treat her too harshly. The Flame-heir Witch was rumored to be a sensible witch, like her older sister.
Exhausted, Shirokarasu sank deep into a high-end office chair and picked up the cigarette, now burned almost to the filter, from the ashtray. She drew on it deeply enough to risk burning herself, held the smoke in her lungs, and slowly exhaled a plume of white smoke.
The people targeting the orphanage would quiet down soon enough.
Watarigarasu cherished the orphanage's children and protected them with the entire organization. They were, without exaggeration, the organization's lifeline.
It was not hard to imagine every member of Watarigarasu dying through some mysterious power the moment they abandoned their charitable work.
The entire operation was pure calculation, one hundred percent. Even so, the “Big Sister Shirokarasu” who often brought sweets and toys was popular with the orphans, leaving Shirokarasu with mixed feelings.
Children. Once they grew up, they were bound to become worthless adults anyway.
Even so, the female leader of a black-market organization found herself hoping that they would not grow into the sort of bad adults who called her “Big Sis Shirokarasu.”