"They're 'taking a walk.'"
Seiji Fujiwara explained with a soft chuckle. "My system is interfering with the vestibular system in their inner ears, the part responsible for balance and orientation. In their perception, they're struggling forward toward the farmland the entire time. In reality, they'll just wander that little patch of forest like headless flies until dawn, until they collapse from exhaustion."
He let go and stood. He looked down at her from above, the way one looks at a pitiful pet.
"Good. The little nuisance is handled. Now, we still have plenty of time before sunrise. We should continue our unfinished 'research.' This time, I expect you to perform a little more 'professionally.' After all, your senpai is still watching from the side."
...
...
At dawn, the sky was just beginning to lighten.
A sizable crowd had already gathered before the Chitanda Family's main field. The atmosphere was suppressed and strange.
The Ministry of Agriculture officials, led by Sasaki, all wore grave expressions.
They came carrying a mix of mocking amusement at the spectacle and a desperate "might as well try anything" hope. Eru's father, by contrast, looked haggard and despairing. He stood there only because of the phone call he'd received the night before. He clung to a sliver of unrealistic, last-resort fantasy.
In the distance, a number of journalists who'd caught wind of the event had also arrived.
They'd set up their cameras and equipment, ready to record this absurd scene.
Six o'clock sharp.
Three black Rolls-Royces glided in soundlessly, like ghosts. They came to a precise stop at the edge of the field path.
The doors opened. Seiji Fujiwara stepped out. He wore a sharply tailored black suit, his bearing leisurely. Behind him followed two girls. They were as beautiful as dolls.
Fuyumi Irisu was dressed in an immaculate black skirt suit.
She wore a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, her expression cold, like a secretary stripped of all feeling.
Eru Chitanda, meanwhile, was dressed in a plain white sundress. She kept her head lowered, her long hair falling across her cheeks, hiding her expression. But everyone noticed that the Kamiyama Region's most famous young lady was not wearing socks today. Her bare feet, snow-white and delicate, were pressed against the cold ground.
This bizarre detail made everyone who saw it furrow their brows.
But no one said anything.
"Mr. Fujiwara, you really came." Sasaki stepped forward to greet him, his smile not reaching his eyes. "We've all been waiting to see your 'miracle.'"
Seiji ignored him. He merely glanced at the watch on his wrist.
"Right on time. But before the main act begins, let's take care of last night's 'little nuisance.'"
The words had barely left his mouth when sirens wailed in the distance. A police car came roaring up. An officer hurried to Sasaki's side, saluted, and reported loudly:
"Sir! A few kilometers away in the forest, we found a group of suspicious individuals. Every one of them was exhausted and disoriented, like they'd been collectively sleepwalking all night. According to preliminary questioning, they've admitted that Kengo Yamamoto of Abundant Future sent them to commit arson."
The news struck everyone present like a thunderclap.
The mockery on the faces of Sasaki and Eru's father instantly turned to shock and horror.
They stared at Seiji in disbelief.
Last night... last night he had actually stopped the arson? How had he done it?
The crowd was rattled and uncertain.
At that moment, several black business vehicles also pulled up.
The doors opened, and a group of black-suited bodyguards stepped out. They roughly dragged Kengo Yamamoto from the car and forced him to his knees in front of Seiji. Kengo was listless, his face still carrying traces of arrogance and confusion.
"Now, the cast is complete." Seiji looked down at the kneeling Kengo from above. A cat-and-mouse smile spread across his face. "Mr. Yamamoto, I'm looking forward to your next expression."
He wasted no more words.
He pulled a remote control from his pocket. It was palm-sized, minimalist in design, entirely black.
He turned his head and glanced at Eru beside him.
In a playful tone, Seiji said softly, "Eru, get ready. Now, you're going to witness with your own eyes just how powerful the 'answer' you traded your body for really is."
Under the gaze of the crowd, he pressed the first button on the remote.
No sound, no light, nothing happened.
Sasaki and the others assumed it was just a piece of theatrical nonsense.
At that moment, the change began.
Out in the field, the swarming pests were gnawing at the last bits of green plant matter.
They suddenly seemed injected with the most violent stimulant, becoming frenzied and erratic. They crashed and bit at one another in a frenzy, producing a teeth-grinding "click-click" sound.
The entire field looked like a pot of black porridge boiling over.
"This... what is this?!" Sasaki staggered backward in fright.
Kengo, still kneeling on the ground, watched this scene of utter strangeness. The arrogance on his face finally vanished, replaced by deep unease and fear.
"You... what did you do?!" He pointed at Seiji, his voice trembling.
"This is just the prelude." A cruel smile spread across Seiji's face. "I call it 'Agitation' mode. By emitting infrasonic waves at specific frequencies, I interfere with their nervous systems and drive them into the most primitive frenzy. Now..."
He turned to Eru beside him, as if instructing a student.
"Eru, you press the second button."
He held the remote out in front of her.
Eru's body shook violently. She looked at the black button, then at the unmistakable look in Seiji's eyes. She knew she had no choice.
Under the watchful gaze of everyone present, this saintly young lady extended her trembling hand. With humiliation, she pressed the button with her own hand. That button decided the destruction of countless lives.
The climax of judgment had arrived.
A red light lit up on the remote.
In the field, the frenzied scene halted instantly.
What followed was even more terrifying. Everyone present was horrified beyond measure.
All the pests, as if receiving a single command from a god, turned and began to ravenously, frantically devour the nearest member of their own kind.
Cannibalism.
They tore at one another, swallowed one another. They carried out a self-destruction of unprecedented scale in the most brutal way possible. The crisp sound of carapaces being crushed combined into a symphony from hell. Everyone present felt a shudder rise from the depths of their souls.
In the span of a few short minutes, the once-overwhelming pest swarm had been reduced to scattered remains. The remains were mixed with bodily fluids and fragments, sickening to look at.
The field fell into dead silence.
Only the sound of wind passing through remained.
Witnessing this scene, like divine punishment from heaven and an execution by a demon king, the minds of Eru's father, Sasaki, and the others went blank. They stared fixedly at the young man. He stood there at ease, even with a faint smile on his face. The same thought rose in all their hearts at once. That thought overturned the worldview they'd held for decades.
"This isn't human power... this is a god, or... a devil."
Dead silence blanketed the field.
The air was filled with an indescribable smell, a mixture of soil and rotten stench.
But at this moment, no one cared about that.
Every gaze, like iron filings drawn to a magnet, was locked tightly onto the young man. Remote in hand, he resembled a god or a demon.
This world-shattering scene branded three different witnesses with three different marks. Those marks would never fade, filled with awe and dread.
...
Sasaki looked at the sickening insect remains scattered everywhere, then back at Seiji, who was at ease.
It was as if Seiji had merely stepped on an ant. Sasaki's legs went weak, and he could no longer support his own body. He fell with a thud, dropping to his knees right there in the muddy field path.
Science, reason, rules, procedure...
These things he had believed in his whole life and lived by were ground to dust before this surreal "miracle," not a speck of them remaining.
Behind him, the younger officials were also pale as ash. Some were even dry-heaving. The way they looked at Seiji was no longer the contempt and skepticism of before, but the most primitive, purest fear.
Sasaki trembled and crawled forward a few steps on his hands and knees.
He didn't dare lift his head to meet Seiji's eyes. He could only bow deeply, nearly prostrating himself. His tone was filled with fervor and reverence, like a fanatic seeing a god descend for the first time.
"Mr. Fujiwara... no! Lord Fujiwara! Please... please forgive our previous ignorance and offense! We... on behalf of the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, will unconditionally and without reservation cooperate with your every directive! Your will is our highest guiding principle!"
His attitude shifted in an instant from half-belief to fanatical, unreserved worship and obedience.
...
Eru's father.
This obstinate old man, his traditional worldview had been utterly destroyed in those few short minutes, then forcibly reshaped.
Trembling all over, he walked up to Seiji and knelt even more completely than Sasaki. He went straight into the most respectful Dogeza posture, pressing his forehead deeply against the cold earth.
He didn't dare meet Seiji's eyes.
He used only the most humble, most deferential honorifics, his voice quavering.
"Lord Fujiwara! This old fool was blind! This old fool deserves death a thousand times! Please accept the most humble apology from me and from the entire Chitanda Family!"
He raised his head, tears streaming down his old face.
But his face carried a fervor, like one released from suffering.
"Thank you! For saving the Chitanda Family's land! From this day forth, this land, our entire Chitanda Family, are willing to serve you!"
Standing behind Seiji, Eru heard her father speak these words with his own mouth. Her body swayed violently, nearly collapsing into a faint.
She had thought, at the start, that she was sacrificing herself for her family.
But now, her sacrifice had been treated by her own father as a natural offering, a "tribute" presented to a god.
This double betrayal and despair plunged her already-shattered heart into a bottomless abyss.
...
Kengo Yamamoto knelt collapsed on the ground, staring blankly at the scene before him, where one figure was being worshipped by all.
He had believed in money, power, and violence.
But that worldview, faced with the power Seiji had displayed, was as fragile as a sheet of paper. It was a power that didn't reason.
"Devil... you're a devil..." He pointed at Seiji, shouting incoherently. "Heaven's punishment... this is heaven's punishment..."
He suddenly burst into wild laughter. The laughter turned into wailing. Snot and tears streamed down his face. He rolled around on the ground in a state of madness.
"It's over... it's all over..."
Seiji didn't even bother to look at him again. He simply waved a hand at the black-suited bodyguards beside him.
The bodyguards understood. They dragged this thoroughly broken stepping stone away from the scene, like dragging a dead dog. His mission as the "clown" was complete.
Seiji looked at Sasaki and Eru's father kneeling before him. A faint smile appeared on his face, like a god looking down upon his worshippers.
"Very good." He said lightly. "Your devotion is received."
...
...
Night fell once again.
The people of the Kamiyama Region had fallen into a kind of revelry.
Within that revelry mingled ecstasy and awe. Legends about "the Fujiwara heir" and "the living god descending upon Kamiyama" began to spread at viral speed. They spread through the entire region and out toward the rest of the country.
But at the eye of the storm, in Seiji's penthouse suite, all was dead silent.
Seiji sat leisurely on the sofa.
He was conducting a video call with his finance team. On the screen were several curves.
They represented the stock prices of several agricultural technology companies under the Fujiwara conglomerate, climbing wildly in a brutal, near-vertical line.
Without spilling a drop of blood, he'd resolved the pest crisis, and along the way acquired nearly every agriculture-related company in the Kamiyama Region that had been on the brink of bankruptcy. He'd thoroughly subjugated the Chitanda Family and the local agricultural system. With this, the two pillar industries of the Kamiyama Region, medical and agricultural, were both firmly in his grasp.
The other two "desserts" of this feast, Fuyumi Irisu and Eru Chitanda, were at this moment kneeling at his feet. They wore identical silk nightdresses, styled like maid uniforms.
Fuyumi was carefully trimming his nails.
Eru, head lowered, was massaging his calves. Her posture was clumsy but earnest. Her face still bore no expression, but her slightly trembling hands and lips occasionally pressed tight from tension still betrayed the unrest within her.
After ending the call, Seiji enjoyed the service of these two pampered daughters of fortune. He closed his eyes in satisfaction.
At that moment, Fuyumi spoke. Her voice was as steady as ever, but carried a touch of gravity.
"Boss, an urgent report just came in. The president of Abundant Future's Japan branch, Masao Takahashi, is personally leading a team to the Kamiyama Region. His private jet lands in one hour."
As she spoke, she respectfully held out a tablet to Seiji.
On the screen was Masao Takahashi's detailed file.
He was a middle-aged man, looking gentle and refined, a smile always on his face. But behind the gold-rimmed glasses lurked a venomous, snake-like coldness.
"Unlike that brute Kengo Yamamoto who only knew how to use force," Fuyumi analyzed in an extremely professional tone, "Masao Takahashi is more skilled at using rules, the media, and political connections to achieve his goals. Coming personally this time, he likely won't resort to crude methods like 'gene weapons' again. He'll challenge us, or rather, your 'miracle,' on the level of public opinion and law."
Seiji took the report. Looking at the photo of Masao Takahashi with his blade-hidden smile, the corner of his mouth curved into an interested smile.
"A smarter snake? Good. I was getting tired of the game of cracking walnuts with a hammer."
...
...
At the same time.
Hundreds of kilometers away in Tokyo, a discussion about him was also quietly underway.
The location was Japan's most elite institution: Shuchiin Academy.
In the Student Council Room.
Kaguya Shinomiya was reviewing documents.
Her personal attendant, Ai Hayasaka, stood respectfully beside her, reporting in a steady tone the latest information collected by the Shinomiya Family's vast intelligence network.
"...Regarding the two major incidents that recently occurred in the Kamiyama Region, we've confirmed a correlation of over 95% with the Fujiwara conglomerate's heir, Seiji Fujiwara."
"As for his methods... according to analysis from our technical department, the first incident's viral solution appears to have employed reverse-engineering algorithms beyond current understanding. And the second incident's pest solution cannot be explained by current technology at all."
Kaguya listened without lifting her head.
She merely turned a page of the document and offered her assessment in her cool voice:
"Using absolute power to crush the rules, ignoring process, demanding only the result. Truly the way of a barbarian."
Ai hesitated, then decided to continue her report.
"Also, milady... regarding Seiji Fujiwara himself... we've also gathered some unverified rumors. It's said that during his time in the Kamiyama Region, his private life has been... rather chaotic."
[Read 60+ chapters ahead on Patreon: patreon.com/NiaXD]