Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item4 Chapter4 (section)

===Part 6===

Mugino Shizuri could not be defeated by normal means.

The ground was rumbling irregularly. All of this had apparently been a shock to the hot spring area’s active volcano.

Academy City’s plan to solve this problem was to blow away the entire mountain region with lasers fired from satellite orbit.

And yet…

“I-is this really the time for that?”

“Just do it!!”

The unmarked police car had crashed into the mountain slope, but its radio was still functional.

Detective Sobasaka pressed the button and grabbed the mic.

“Requesting support from Kanagawa Prefectural Police!! I have arrested the head of the Mugino Family in the act! We can finally settle things with him. I want to transport him out of here before his troops can take him back. I need backup ASAP!!”

What would this accomplish?

Sobasaka Michio wasn’t sure what else to do as he held the mic, but the Italian suit man appeared to be enjoying himself.

“That should do it.”

“Do what?”

“A perverse bastard who loves observing human society from his scientific ivory tower is about to join the party.”

That casual comment proved to be prophetic.

Someone who clearly wasn’t with the police spoke from the car’s police radio.



“Do you have any idea what you are doing?”



The fishing hook had gotten a bite.

The confrontation with an even bigger name was beginning.

“Oh? Why should a noble educator like you care what happens to a filthy criminal? The Mugino Family is a grain production corporation that fills 1.4 billion bellies worldwide, but we have failed to make any inroads in Academy City thanks to your agricultural buildings and clone meat. So whether I live or die seems like it should be none of your concern, ''Board Chairman''.”

“…”

This was not a secretary, an AI, or even one of the 12 members of the Board of Directors.

''He'' had personally joined in.

It had happened at the very, very last moment, but for this alone Sobasaka could only consider himself lucky.

An unpleasant sort of luck.

That was a terribly unreliable factor, but in his field of work you would be brutally killed without enough of it.

“Then again, maybe it is your concern. Because we do have our fingers in every pie related to food. For example, the sweets industry. You know, crepes, pancakes – things like that. Could it be that even you could be in some trouble there?”

Was that old man making a joke here? Sobasaka’s eyes widened, but to his further surprise, the response from the police radio was entirely serious.

“So that was intentional on your part.”

“That’s right, big shot. For another example, there’s barley and wheat.”

The Italian suit man grinned.

A chill fell over the air.

“You mustn’t waste food. Even a child knows that’s a vice. And barley is an ingredient in malt.”

“…”

“Malt is most well-known as an ingredient for beer, but it has more uses than that. But you already knew that, didn’t you? Malt is a natural chemical factory. It’s a crucial ingredient for making the fine adjustments needed in a culture medium for making agar and gelatin.”

A culture was a way for humans to grow living things for their own purposes.

They were an inextricable part of the health and food industries.

“Plant-based agar and animal-based gelatin…why, aren’t those foods? Oh? And aren’t glucose and salt necessary parts of biological research? Well, would you look at that. Our fields of work are more similar than I thought.”

“Academy City can produce and grow all forms of food in our massive agricultural buildings. In high quantities.”

“Ah hah hah. Maybe so, but the unit price is quite different depending on whether it is meant for food or research. After all, research supplies are always kept dirt cheap because they don’t need any extra added value. What percentage of your total production would that eat into? If you redirected all of that to your labs, Academy City’s food businesses would start going under one after another. You could cover it up on paper, but there’s no hiding the reality.”

Academy City was nearly 100% self-sufficient thanks to its agricultural buildings and clone meat.

That much was true.

But…

“Academy City is too fixated on your self-sufficiency rate on paper. People can’t eat numbers. Focus too much on that and you put off ensuring people actually have food on the table. Hitting you with any other ingredients would be a pain and I’d feel bad doing it to your people, so we’ll stick to wheat and barley for now. Glue, art supplies, fermented products like penicillin and streptomycin, and high tech lab supplies. Academy City is actually very reliant on malt and agar. Aren’t you?”

Of course, Academy City received help from foreign groups around the world – the so-called “cooperative institutions” – so the Mugino Family could not ''directly'' contaminate them like this.

Nevertheless…

“So will you rely on major grain producing regions like France and Australia? You think you’ll be fine thanks to your cooperative institutions? …C’mon now. We are Mugino. Did you really think anyone could outdo us in the field of wheat? We fully control 1.4 billion stomachs worldwide and we have at least some influence on everyone else’s dinner tables. If the world’s most powerful grain production corporation applies pressure, it doesn’t matter that you’re Academy City or that you have cooperative institutions. Do you really think you’ll be able to find any wheat or barley for you? Even a single grain?”

The air seemed to strain.

Sobasaka held his breath just listening in, but the Mugino head appeared to be enjoying it.

Was he the sort of person who could convert a thrill into strength?

“You’d be in trouble if you lost your malt and other ingredients, right? Same for agar and gelatin. And for sugar and salt. Your human esper development and most any other research with the term ‘bio’ in it would grind to a halt. But if the head of the Mugino Family is arrested and accused of being a gang leader, the global food economy will be thrown into chaos. And the wheat and barley supply network might just wind up in a crisis too. A major one.”

To repeat, Academy City and the Mugino Family did not make any direct deals with each other.

But food supply wasn’t so simple. If one region didn’t have enough food, it could trigger a chain reaction of shortages. And when shortages were predicted, people would start planning to stockpile the food and sell it at a markup. That chaos would eventually engulf Academy City and its cooperative institutions, causing even greater chaos.

So even without a direct link, there were ways to indirectly apply pressure to Academy City.

It just took some doing.

This was not about the quality of weapons or number of troops. This was the first and final trump card available to the Mugino Family as a global grain production corporation. It was a new form of using food as a weapon.

“Do you want me to escape?” asked the Mugino Family head.

The gang lord kept going with the rope around his neck.

“Then you need to think carefully.”

However…

…

…

…

The air currents clearly came to a halt. Even Sobasaka could sense the great tension.

This had to be a gamble for the Mugino Family.

It was a huge wager that put his life and fortune at risk.

They had only managed to survive so long despite being so obviously suspect because the grain production corporation that filled 1.4 billion stomachs was valuable to the people who ruled the world.

And a threat naturally led to a recalculation of the risks and returns.

If Academy City’s ruler’s calculations determined that the city did not need the Mugino Family, the punishment would be swift. The laser weapon parasitically-attached to someone else’s satellite would send down glowing death and create a giant crater in the Kanagawa mountains. Everything the Mugino head had built and the justice and common sense Sobasaka believed in would be blown away like scraps of paper.

Needless to say, Academy City was powerful.

Make an enemy of them, and your organization would be dismantled from the outside and inside.

That was no exaggeration.

The reason the police, the JSDF, and all the other basic systems even children were familiar with had failed to function was because someone had decided it wasn’t worth the risk. It was a cruel and coldhearted decision, but as far as “correct or not” went, their calculation was likely correct.

But this man was taking the risk.

He was directly confronting the city’s leader with no tricks.

This was indeed a gamble that the government and public power could not make. Grasping at an aggressive opportunity while risking death was the realm of the shady gang leader.

The five seconds that passed were excruciating.

Was that a long or a short time to spend in thought for the Board Chairman who managed Academy City?

They had their answer.



“''Very well.''”



Two simple words.

With that, the police radio went silent.

Sobasaka moved a frightened look between the radio and the Mugino head’s face.

“H-hey. What did that mean? You could take it a yes or a no!!”

“Let me tell you one rule of the shadowy part of the world. If you intend to kill someone, you don’t bother responding at all. Someone like that isn’t worth speaking to, so you silently pull the trigger. (I should know. I’ve done it a lot myself.)”

Did that mean they had survived by the skin of their teeth?

The exceedingly thin skin of their teeth?

“This will only work once. Now he knows of a flaw in their global supply chain, so he will soon rework their supply routes and fill in the holes. All while weaving in some kind of PR campaign, of course. The trump card of the Mugino Family’s demanding compliance has been used. The lord of Academy City isn’t kind enough to let us get away with this again.”

But even if it was a one-time thing, they had gotten through it.

They no longer had to worry about a threat from above.

But that didn’t meant it was over.

“The stage has been set. Don’t die now, you fools.”