MTL NOVEL Episode 50 - Thirty Days of Turbulence
Episode 50: Thirty Days of Turbulence
One month later.
Travel-worn and exhausted, the young man paused in front of the familiar apartment door, gazing at the long-unseen view outside the corridor, taking a deep breath.
“Landlord-san is back! It’s been so long, I missed you!”
Before he could use his key to open the door, the girl wearing an apron jumped out from inside with a cheer.
“…Don’t we see each other every day though?”
“But Landlord-san who was always a shut-in before, this time actually got to travel around the country, I’m so jealous, I wanted to go too!”
“Hey hey, I nearly died several times, you know! Besides, if those people had found Amazu Manor, things would have gotten even more troublesome.”
“Yay♫~ I’m so happy!”
Not knowing what she was happy about, Miyagi-san pressed her soft body and warm temperature against him.
“But now everything’s fine.”
“…Mm.”
The novelist nodded silently.
His gaze fell on the television in the room.
On the screen was a spacious Japanese-style room, where people sat around discussing something with solemn attitudes. Among them were faces of upper-class figures often seen in political and economic news.
And that girl in a black kimono embroidered with flower petals sat straight-backed in the front position. Her black straight hair fell to her waist, the young and beautiful head of the family coldly observing with an aloof attitude.
He of course knew that Yayoi was going to attend some secret meeting today. However, he hadn’t expected Miyagi-san to even get footage from such a place. Wasn’t that supposed to be a place where recording wasn’t allowed?
“Now Yayoi is fine.”
“Calling her by first name! That’s so sneaky!”
“That’s what you’re concerned about?!”
However, thanks to Miyagi-san’s information, the vast majority of related documents and legal relationships, including real estate, companies, securities, and stocks, had been successfully transferred.
And the ownership of the remaining unspeakable evidence, handles, family secrets and interpersonal networks had also been basically handed over. Even the former Niwa Daizo could no longer do anything.
In the past few years, Yayoi had been carefully cultivated by Niwa Daizo, so she naturally had some influence within the company.
Besides that, she had also actively contacted forces and individuals both inside and outside Niwa Enterprises who were dissatisfied with that overbearing plutocrat’s rule. The successful invasion of the mansion and breakthrough of security personnel had also relied on them.
However, to complete the revenge plan, her enemies were more than a dozen family members with legal inheritance rights and dozens of illegitimate children.
Setting aside how to overcome them – even if Yayoi could ultimately obtain the position of family head, what she would get would probably be just fragmented “inheritance.”
Then, the only way was—
“To suppress the information that Niwa Daizo was seriously injured and now paralyzed in bed. At the same time, let Yayoi, as Niwa Daizo’s representative, gather back most of the family’s power before this information leaked.”
If you couldn’t defeat the enemy, then borrow the enemy’s own power. In other words, “borrowing the tiger’s might.” After forging Yayoi’s identity, use Niwa Daizo’s authority within the family enterprise to achieve the goal.
‘After receiving an attack from the inside, decided to hide in the background and let the new wife come forward to rectify the family business.’
For the usually reckless and suspicious Niwa Daizo, it wouldn’t have been strange for him to do such a thing. Moreover, he had indeed said similar things in the past, and the family members all knew this.
Perhaps Niwa Daizo was using this method to test their loyalty — quite a few people had such suspicions. To avoid retaliation afterward, no one dared to act rashly.
By the way, when the novelist had proposed this plan, he was teased by Yayoi with words like “Just being someone else’s fiancée no longer satisfies Liang’s desires, you’re starting to extend your evil hands toward other people’s wives?” Please look at the timing first!
Anyway, due to the authority established by Niwa Daizo in the past, things went more smoothly than imagined. The only person who tried to resist at that time was his son Niwa Keiji. However, when this guy tried to sabotage the plan, he was instead restrained by other family members.
“You mean that man… Well, yes, we were in a cooperative relationship before. After all, we had the same person we wanted to kill. But now, he’s completely useless, just a stumbling block for us.”
Those were Yayoi’s words to the novelist one day in the car, casually spoken. They decided that man’s fate.
Then, after half a month that felt like dancing on a tightrope flew by, when the family members realized that Yayoi’s identity was just a forgery, they began their final desperate counterattack. That was also the most dangerous seven days the two spent together.
A total of seven assassination attempts.
The novelist and Yayoi traveled across half of Japan to escape the pursuit of professional killers. If not for the help of people they met by chance and Miyagi-san, he and Yayoi would probably now be two corpses in a roadside garbage heap.
“Give me a break… I’m just a genuine ordinary high school student, you know?”
Among the attacking assassins, the most memorable were a foreign giant who could shatter telephone poles with one punch and had undergone cybernetic body modifications, almost like the Terminator; and a reportedly retired race car driver who relentlessly chased them through mountain roads in a modified car going 380 kilometers per hour…
The world behind the scenes seemed to hide an even worse face than the novelist had previously imagined.
After that—
“After Yayoi herself gained control of Niwa Daizo’s past wealth and power, she posted bounties on her enemies in the assassin industry through ‘ParadiseLost.'”
Only then did things come to a conclusion.
“Sounds amazing… Most importantly, we got to see Landlord-san’s great activity!”
“It seems like it could be made into an action movie… but I actually didn’t do anything.”
He was serious.
The one who miraculously usurped power from the Niwa family members was that girl who had spent ten years weaving a once-in-a-lifetime conspiracy.
If there was anything special about him, he was probably the only person who stayed by Yayoi’s side throughout. In short, just an inconspicuous follower role.
“Basically just like those annoying characters in movies who run around screaming in the gunfire, always holding back the protagonist… Ah, please don’t make me recall such embarrassing memories!”
If possible, please be sure to delete all scenes with him. Even if it’s a decorative role in an action movie, at least it should be a beautiful girl with big assets, who would cast an unlikeable shut-in male high school student for such a role!
—”But you know.”
Miyagi-san asked softly.
“In the end, Landlord-san still chose to risk danger for that girl… right? Why go to such lengths?”
“…”
The novelist spoke slowly, as if weighing his words.
“A month ago. When I saw Yayoi in the hospital, she was holding a syringe, probably planning to kill Niwa Daizo with an injection. However, after I arrived, Yayoi immediately abandoned this plan and chose another path.”
Whether surrendering or fleeing – giving up on one’s life must be happier than continuing forward bearing past suffering and hatred.
“Isn’t that a bit strange?”
“Does Landlord-san think this change had something to do with you, so you should take responsibility too? But Yayoi-san clearly used such a complicated plan to create an alibi for herself. Doesn’t that show she had that intention from the start?”
That was exactly right.
Even now, the novelist still couldn’t understand at all why Yayoi would choose the path of revenge and conspiracy between the two paths.
“…”
To this, he could only remain silent.
Those thirty days of youthful turbulence and rampage seemed like some kind of empty illusion, yet were firmly imprinted in their small world.
“Landlord-san, maintaining an observer’s composure is very difficult. You should understand that now, right? I just didn’t expect you would go this far for another girl…”
The “I’m so jealous so jealous so jealous” gaze was being fired “pew pew” at him. But the novelist, who was lowering his head drinking tea, clearly hadn’t noticed.
“Is that so? That might be because I quite like her… ahem!”
The room’s temperature seemed to drop.
Even if there was no formal relationship between them, saying such things in front of a girl who had confessed to him before was too insensitive.
He quickly corrected himself.
“Uh, no… not in a romantic way? Just in terms of as a ‘person’! If we’re talking about lovers, that would be just as bad! I just want to live a peaceful life…”
“‘Just as bad,’ huh…”
Miyagi-san’s expression was somewhat strange, but anyway not a happy one.
“What ‘peaceful life’! Your actions and words are completely different! Such a liar! Landlord-san is a liar! Big liar!”
The girl puffed up her cheeks and pounced on him like an angry child, “thump thump” hitting his head like whacking moles in an arcade.
Ow— That hurt! What to do? Miyagi-san seemed really angry!
“Click click.”
There was a slight sound from outside the door.
The novelist, thinking a savior like an insurance salesperson had arrived, while holding his beaten head, said loudly “Coming—” and looked toward the corridor.
What met his eyes was black kimono and black hair. Yayoi was standing outside the door, expressionlessly staring at him being pinned down by Miyagi-san.
Well, maybe not a savior?