Chapter 101: Acceleration (3)

Translator: Dreamscribe

Ryu Hyuk's unexpected report from the other end of the phone.

"Commander. Sato Shota's weakness... is Kamijo Yuu."

Inside the moving taxi, Kang Jae-ha tilted his head slightly. Sato Shota's weakness was Kamijo Yuu? Then, with the phone still pressed to his ear, he glanced at Kamijo Yuu sitting beside him. She was staring down at her phone, drawing small, deep breaths.

Because their next stop was her agency, 'Mirai Stage'.

Naturally they were headed there for the contract termination, and right now she was probably lining up the words that would buy her freedom.

In any case, Kang Jae-ha turned his eyes forward again and rubbed his chin.

'Sato Shota's weakness is Kamijo Yuu. That's a little unexpected.'

Recalling the Sato Shota he'd seen earlier, Kang Jae-ha spoke to Ryu Hyuk on the other end of the line.

"Keep going."

Ryu Hyuk's answer came immediately.

"Exactly what I said. Sato Shota's weakness is Kamijo Yuu, and Sato Shota cares about her a great deal."

"Cares about her."

"Yes. It isn't clear what form that caring takes, but... it's certain. Sato Shota's weakness is Kamijo Yuu."

"Hm."

"I heard from Lee Chan-hoo that you met him. Honestly, his weakness strikes me as strange too. Not family or anything like that, but Kamijo Yuu. Back in the Mercenary Corps, the two of them never even seemed that close."

"All right, understood."

Ending the call with Ryu Hyuk, Kang Jae-ha turned it over in his head. To be precise, he replayed the conversation he'd had with Sato Shota not long ago.

'Sato Shota, who pretended not to know the actress Kamijo Yuu back in the Mercenary Corps.'

On top of that, the pretense held without a break. Right up until Kamijo Yuu died. And even after returning to this world, Sato Shota had been watching over her without Kamijo Yuu ever knowing.

'When I asked if he was after her, he said he was protecting her, didn't he?'

He'd even added that since he was protecting her, Kamijo Yuu was not to be touched. The look in Shota's eyes had been sincere. He'd thrown out a threat about having an organization behind him, too. Running back over all of it, Kang Jae-ha slowly crossed his legs.

'Sato Shota's weakness is Kamijo Yuu, huh. Was this bastard actually a fan of Kamijo Yuu? Not just a fan, but a Hardcore Fan.'

Meaning not a fan of hers as a comrade in the Mercenary Corps, but possibly a fan of Kamijo Yuu, Japan's A-list actress.

Now that he thought about it, back when Kamijo Yuu and the others were slaughtered in the Other World, Kang Jae-ha had raged, and so had Sato Shota.

'If he's a Hardcore Fan, then just about everything he does makes sense. Including Kamijo Yuu being his weakness.'

It was still just a hypothesis, but the odds looked good. Well, being a Hardcore Fan probably wasn't the whole of why she'd become his weakness. Being a fan was only the starting point. As a Hardcore Fan and as a comrade in the Mercenary Corps, he'd watched over her for a long time, and somewhere along the way Kamijo Yuu had likely become something more than someone he simply cared about.

Human beings sometimes fix on a purpose or a goal when they're in pain, or when things get hard enough to kill them.

Something to focus on blindly.

'And for Shota, that was Kamijo Yuu.'

If he'd been a Hardcore Fan of the actress Kamijo Yuu from the very start, then quietly watching over her from behind and protecting her, exactly as he was doing now, made sense too. From the Mercenary Corps all the way through to this world.

In other words, the guess was that Kamijo Yuu had been the driving force that let Sato Shota endure more than a decade as an Interrogator.

Kang Jae-ha tried imagining it from Sato Shota's point of view.

Dropped out of nowhere into the Other World, and there stood Kamijo Yuu, the actress he'd been a fan of back home? His heart would have hammered like mad, and from that moment an enormous sense of connection would have taken root.

'If I'd been him, I'd have tried to protect Kamijo Yuu too.'

Well, the weakness was identified, but between Lee Chan-hoo's investigation and Ha Yeon-ji's Discernment for lies and the rest, Sato Shota's vetting still had a way to go. Even if he was a genuine Hardcore Fan of Yuu, Shota might still belong to an organization, just as he'd claimed himself.

If he belonged to a team or an organization made up of former Mercenary Corps comrades, he was priority one for surveillance.

'But if that's not the case.'

-Swoosh.

Kang Jae-ha looked at Kamijo Yuu in the seat beside him and thought of Shota.

'Putting Shota on Kamijo Yuu as her guard wouldn't be a bad move.'

Assuming, of course, that he really was her Hardcore Fan.

Several dozen minutes later.

Kang Jae-ha and Kamijo Yuu met back up with Ha Yeon-ji and Cha Chung-hyeon in the lobby of the hotel they were using as lodgings. When Jae-ha told them Kamijo Yuu's role in 'Spring at the Borderline' was confirmed, they were sincerely delighted.

"Whoa! Congratulations!! It's just... having a comrade who's an actress is still surreal to me."

"Congrats-"

Picking up enough of the Korean from the mood and the words, Kamijo Yuu grew flustered. The deepening flush on both cheeks was proof.

"Thank you. Ha, having people congratulate me kind of makes me want to cry. I'm going to the restroom for a second."

Watching Yuu walk away, Kang Jae-ha suddenly said to Ha Yeon-ji and Cha Chung-hyeon.

"I met a new subordinate."

"Sir?"

"Whoa!! Seriously?"

Kang Jae-ha gave the two startled listeners a brief rundown of only the essentials about Sato Shota. Ha Yeon-ji was the quicker to react.

"So the Interrogator guy was Japanese. More to the point, his weakness is Kamijo Yuu?? Why?"

Cha Chung-hyeon answered at his own leisurely pace.

"Maybe Sato Shota happened to see Kamijo Yuu somewhere and fell for her."

His answer ran close to Kang Jae-ha's own guess. Whatever the case, confirming Sato Shota came first.

"For now, don't say anything to Kamijo Yuu until we're sure."

"Yes, Commander."

"Yep."

Then Kang Jae-ha swept a light glance over their surroundings.

"And keep your All-around Vigilance tight while we're in Japan."

As he always told them, what it came down to was don't let your guard down. As Cha Chung-hyeon and Ha Yeon-ji nodded, Kamijo Yuu came back. Soon Kang Jae-ha and his subordinates climbed into the van that had been prepared.

The first destination was 'Mirai Stage'.

The closer they got to the agency, the more tension showed on Yuu's face, and around the time the 'Mirai Stage' building came into view, Ha Yeon-ji clicked her tongue in amazement.

"Wow, look at the reporters swarming the place."

Because dozens of reporters had gathered around 'Mirai Stage'. There were plenty of guards holding them back, of course. Soon Cha Chung-hyeon, at the wheel, asked.

"What should I do?"

Kang Jae-ha answered as if it made no difference.

"It's fine, pull into that parking lot over there."

"Yes, sir."

Kamijo Yuu already had a meeting scheduled, so after the guards' inspection they were able to enter the 'Mirai Stage' parking lot. Not long after, Kang Jae-ha and Yuu were seated in one of the meeting rooms inside 'Mirai Stage'.

Ha Yeon-ji and Cha Chung-hyeon waiting in the car

Once she was actually sitting in the meeting room, the tension seemed to drain out of Kamijo Yuu quite a bit, and she showed a smile.

"This is the end with this place too."

Kang Jae-ha, his face changed, smiled faintly.

"It's your last time, so let them have it."

"Have what??"

"Anything. A homemade bomb. No, just not candy."

Right then about three people came into the meeting room. They were from 'Mirai Stage', and one look at their haggard faces was enough.

'Barely a drop of color left in those mugs.'

He could feel just how chaotic and dire a crisis 'Mirai Stage' was in right now. Well, obviously, since 'Matsuda Hideo', the founder who had reigned over the Japanese entertainment industry for decades, was now an international criminal.

In any case, the 'Mirai Stage' staff looked at Kamijo Yuu and led with an apology.

"We are truly sorry, Ms. Kamijo Yuu. We will do everything we can to stabilize things as quickly as possible."

Kamijo Yuu answered them immediately. Her face was unshakable.

"Terminate my contract, please. Right now."

The 'Mirai Stage' staff's eyes went wide, but they understood soon enough.

"......Understood, please give us a moment."

Because there were plenty of artists besides Kamijo Yuu wanting to terminate their contracts with 'Mirai Stage'. Honestly, Kang Jae-ha had come along fully intending to step in if they started running their mouths, but.

'They're terminating more meekly than I expected.'

There was nothing for him to step in about.

Afterward.

Once the contract termination between Kamijo Yuu and 'Mirai Stage' was finished, Kang Jae-ha went straight into meetings with the candidate agencies for MEG's Japan Branch. He'd originally planned to send Kamijo Yuu home at this point, but.

"Kamijo Yuu, you come along too."

Kang Jae-ha instructed her to join them. The Sato Shota he'd seen earlier weighed heavily on that call. Well, Kamijo Yuu was going to belong to MEG's Japan Branch anyway, so there was no problem in having her along.

At any rate, out of the candidate agencies Ha Yeon-ji had researched, Kang Jae-ha had picked five in total.

None of them were particularly large in scale, but they were all competent. The catch was that fierce competition had left them in serious financial straits. Straits was putting it politely; at the rate they were going, their collapse was plain as day.

And so it was night by the time all five meetings with the Japanese agency candidates were over.

Most of the talking in the meetings was handled by the masked Kang Jae-ha, with Cha Chung-hyeon, who had a grasp of each agency's cash flow, cutting in from time to time.

And in the van on the way back to their lodgings, Kang Jae-ha made his decision.

"'Neon Media', the one we met with last. We're buying that one."

Of the five agencies it had been the most passionate, and it mattered a great deal that Neon Media's CEO clearly understood what was wrong with the Japanese entertainment industry. It also helped that among the five, Neon Media's money flow was the cleanest.

Neon Media's CEO was named Yoshida Ren.

Late forties, and he'd come out of a major corporate agency. He'd been running 'Neon Media' for over ten years, and it was an actor-focused agency. It had produced quite a few actors, but the mega-agencies had apparently poached every last one of them.

Corporate bullying, if you wanted to call it that. Then again, in Japan that kind of corporate bullying was routine.

Soon Kang Jae-ha gave his orders to Ha Yeon-ji and Cha Chung-hyeon.

"'Neon Media'. Start the acquisition. The company name goes to 'MEG Production'."

MEG's Japan Branch was settled. The name was 'MEG Production'. The main business would basically be agency work, but since they'd also be running production and investment and the like, they went with Production. In any case, once the Japan Branch acquisition was finished, 'MEG' would have four subsidiaries, counting 'MEG Production'.

Sorting out the future blueprint in his head, Kang Jae-ha spoke to Kamijo Yuu in Japanese.

"Once the 'Neon Media' acquisition wraps up, you'll be working under 'MEG Production', Kamijo Yuu. The 'Spring at the Borderline' contract can be signed after the transfer to 'MEG Production' too."

"Yes! I'm so, so excited for what's ahead."

"You'll be under 'MEG Production' as an actress, but don't forget you're a member of 'MEG'."

"Of course! Those are my roots, how could I ever forget that!"

After that, Kang Jae-ha wrapped up his business in Japan neatly over roughly two days, from Kamijo Yuu's freedom to the matter of MEG's Japan Branch. He kept steady tabs on the situation with 'Matsuda Hideo' and 'Mirai Stage' as well, and 'Matsuda Hideo' grew more and more famous worldwide.

Not as a renowned producer, but as a monstrous criminal.

'This much and it'll roll along on its own from here.'

Soon Jae-ha boarded a flight to Korea with Ha Yeon-ji, Cha Chung-hyeon, and Kamijo Yuu. For the record, Kang Jae-ha had instructed Kamijo Yuu to stay in Korea for up to two more weeks.

For two reasons.

Until the acquisition of MEG's Japan Branch was finalized, and until the confirmation on Sato Shota was done.

Practicing for 'Spring at the Borderline' in Korea was no problem anyway.

And starting tomorrow, Monday the 19th, Kang Jae-ha was going to be busy all over again.

'Tomorrow's the audition day for the supplemental members for the 'Kisera' rebuild.'

Because there was more than enough to do in Korea too.

Then, that night, Kang Jae-ha could be found not at home but in the 'MEG' conference room. Standing beside him was the narrow-eyed Lee Chan-hoo.

"Commander. Sato Shota. I've been watching him for a few days now, from the moment you told us about him until today. We've got his occupation."

"What is it."

Lee Chan-hoo reported what he'd dug up.

"Sato Shota, looks like he's running a Detective Office."

*****

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