Kays Translations

Chapter 119: Peace Through Competitive Exclusion

In the end, the Golden Standard Staff was auctioned off for 81 billion yen to the CEO of Wuxian Group, a Chinese gremlin industry company. In terms of the previous era’s currency, that would be equivalent to about 162 billion yen.

That’s on the scale of a national budget for a small-to-mid-sized country.

The origins of Wuxian Group trace back to a Class-A Type 1 monster named Tao Tie, which once wreaked havoc across China.

Tao Tie was a monstrous creature that consumed living things and grew without limit. It spread a gaseous, virtual form over China’s urban centers. Before answering the Demon King’s call and departing for America, it had, over the span of a few years, brought death to an area with a radius exceeding 500 kilometers.

No one survived under Tao Tie’s control. In fact, in China, Tao Tie was more notorious than even the Demon King.

Afterward, a vast lifeless region was left behind, and people from surrounding areas who had escaped the disaster began to settle there.

In particular, the fertile lands along the Yangtze River attracted diverse crops and livestock—specifically domesticated monsters, or “mamonos.”
The most organized and large-scale of these monster ranches was founded by a group led by “Transcendents” (locally called Xian) who had survived in hiding in the mountains during Tao Tie’s reign.

This became the Wuxian Group.

Wuxian Group diligently redeveloped these uninhabited lands into expansive monster farms.

India also has a thriving monster industry, but its nature differs from China’s.

In India, the focus is on harvesting materials like leather, bones, fangs, and meat from beasts. It’s also the top exporter of Dhun, tiger-like beasts prized as mounts.

Conversely, China excels in breeding gremlin-producing beasts, led by the Red-Eyed Carbuncle.

The Red-Eyed Carbuncle is a massive rabbit-like creature, about the size of a car, with a red gremlin embedded in its forehead.

Though it’s classified as a Type-B Class 2 threat, it’s non-hostile toward humans. It regularly sheds its gremlin, which has a natural dual-layer structure.

The male Carbuncle’s forehead gremlin eventually drops off once it reaches a certain size. The beast collects the shed gremlins in its nest to appeal to females.

The more and better-quality gremlins stored in a male’s nest, the more it signals to the female that he’s well-nourished, healthy, long-lived, and strong.

If the female likes the nest, she eats the stored gremlins and bears the same number of offspring as the number of gremlins consumed.

The Red-Eyed Carbuncle breeding industry involves feeding the males, disguising oneself as a female, sneaking into their nests, and stealing the gremlins.

These naturally dual-layered, spherical, and sizable gremlins are ideal for use as wand cores.

Wuxian Group also breeds other magical beasts: some that quickly regenerate after their gremlins are extracted, others that fatten their gremlins by consuming others. All have valuable traits tied to gremlin production.

The fertile Yangtze soil yields plentiful crops, which feed vast numbers of people and monsters. And these beasts, in turn, produce vast quantities of gremlins. Through this cycle, Wuxian Group has earned its reputation as the world’s leading gremlin production enterprise—a global corporate titan.

Wuxian Group has the capital to pay 81 billion yen.

With the discovery of resurrection magic and soaring demand for the ghost-type gremlins essential to it, the magic beast industry is in the spotlight.

Just as Japan is now investing in Mamono-kun to study ghost gremlin production, Wuxian Group has also received massive investments and is riding a wave of success. Its stock market valuation continues to climb.

That said, a one-time cash payment of 81 billion yen (while not impossible) is a lot, so Wuxian Group proposed a mix of cash and stock transfer instead.

I don’t really get that stuff, so I handed off the whole negotiation to the Spider Witch.

I understand that stock has value and can be converted into cash. But when people start talking about unrealized gains, resistance levels, or income gains—I’m lost. Maybe if I studied it over time, I’d understand, but I’d rather spend that time making more wands. That would be far more meaningful.

All I care about is that the staff I made—the Golden Standard Staff—was valued at 81 billion yen. That’s enough for me.

Of that value, most of it likely comes from the technology itself. The staff’s practical use alone doesn’t justify such a high price.

Without the chantless casting mechanism embedded in it, the price wouldn’t have skyrocketed. I knew this, so I bundled the Golden Standard Staff together with its blueprint, materials list, and even the method to manufacture the chantless mechanism.

For the past 80 years, chantless magic was the exclusive domain of the Blue Witch (excluding Iruma).

If owning a piece of the secret behind the legendary Blue Witch’s power costs 81 billion yen—well, apparently it’s worth it.

Still, it’s the most basic form of the mechanism. It’s two generations behind Kyanos in terms of performance.

As long as others are just copying my designs, they’ll never surpass me. After all, I have the Demon King Gremlin as a reference.

Since they paid such an outrageous amount, I’ll show some courtesy and refrain from selling the chantless mechanism to others for a while.

But the technology will inevitably spread.

The magic university still holds parts and analysis data from the Demon King Gremlin I sent long ago. Yamagami-san is already developing new technology from it.

If a massive enterprise like Wuxian Group enters the chantless casting industry, it’ll draw attention and likely attract industrial spies too.

They’ll use my chantless mechanism—based on the Demon King Gremlin—as reference. Wuxian Group will develop their own from it. Then other nations will study that. It’s a guaranteed domino effect.

Thinking that way, the 81 billion yen isn’t the price for exclusive rights, but for early access.

Eventually, chantless magic tech will spread worldwide. But by winning the Golden Standard Wand, Wuxian Group gets a head start in research and development ahead of every other organization. That’s what the price represents.

A few days after the auction, I still couldn’t quite grasp the value of 81 billion yen.

It was just too much. Beyond comprehension.

Besides, it’s not all cash—part of it is in stock. And about 35% of that will be taken as income tax.

According to the Spider Witch’s mid-term financial report, after everything’s settled, my actual bank balance will likely increase by somewhere between 5 and 10 billion yen.

And yet, I still can’t really wrap my head around it.

I couldn’t spend that much even in a thousand years. What am I supposed to do with it? There’s no point in having this much money.

My goal was to give my staff a high value and satisfy my pride—not to spend the money I earned.

I could, like I once did in that Shinagawa factory, just dump the money somewhere random, but no promising investment target comes to mind.

When I tried to invest in the Spider Witch’s Spider Silk brand or Fuyou’s rice brand, both of them turned me down.

Fuyou even said something like, “Honestly, I’ll pay you—just sign this contract saying ‘Upon my death, I become Fuyou’s fertilizer ♡’.” Terrifying.

Troubled, I asked Mamono-kun, who happened to be visiting Okutama, for advice on what to do with all the money.

Mamono-kun actually shows up in Okutama fairly often. While he often uses it as a meeting spot with the Professor, today he had come to ask Hiyori about ghost-type monsters.

Having encountered a wide variety of ghost monsters on her travels, Hiyori knows more about them than most monster scholars—though her knowledge leans more toward how to defeat them rather than raise them. Even so, the information she holds is incredibly valuable.

After monopolizing Hiyori from noon until evening, Mamono-kun was told by a tired Hiyori that she needed to start making dinner, cutting their conversation short.

Just as he was about to leave, I caught him and made him sit back down in the living room to ask for advice on how to spend the money. Mamono-kun poured hot water into the dish on top of his head like a teacup to refresh himself, and replied thoughtfully:

“If it were me, I’d invest in the monster industry. Protecting rare species, offering rewards for kappa sightings, or breeding and raising ghost monsters, for example.”

“Well sure, you’d say that. But isn’t there something more… fitting for me?”

I don’t dislike monsters—I even keep Mokutan. I like the spider monsters that serve the Spider Witch too.

But still, using this absurd amount of money on that doesn’t feel quite right.

When I complained, Mamono-kun calmly continued with his thoughts.

“No, no. Honestly, I think investment is a solid option. You don’t have to invest in the monster industry. When it comes to personal fortunes too big to spend alone, it usually comes down to either donation or investment.”

“Ahh, yeah… that makes sense.”

It’s true—people who were rich in the previous era always seemed to be investing or doing charity. Makes sense.

“What about saving it for your future with the Blue Witch?”

“What do you mean, ‘future’?”

“You’re in a relationship with her, right? Looking toward marriage? You’ll need money for the wedding, a new home, a family-use tiger mount… You can rack up all kinds of expenses before and after marriage.”

“Marriage? Nah, I haven’t talked about that with Hiyori.”

“What? You haven’t?”

Mamono-kun tilted his head, listening to the sounds of Hiyori cooking in the kitchen.

“We’ve just talked about, like, staying together for the next 80 years, and maybe having kids.”

“…You’ve gone that far and haven’t talked about marriage?”

“Nope.”

“????? …Well, I guess every couple is different. Everyone’s different…”

Mamono-kun repeated that to himself like he was trying to believe it.

What? If you’ve got something to say, just say it.

“If you’re not considering saving it, then maybe donations? To charities?”

“Not a bad idea. But I’ve heard there are lots of fake charities that are just cover-ups for government dropouts and cronies. Doesn’t leave a great impression.”

“Ahh, I’m not an expert, but yeah… I’ve seen some stories about authorities investigating stuff like that. If you’re not comfortable with donations, then investment really is your best option.”

“So we’re back to that. You got any recommendations—other than monster stuff?”

“Recommendations? Outside of monster-related ventures?”

“Yeah.”

When I nodded, Mamono-kun started counting on his fingers and listing options:

“The steam engine sector has been a stable investment for ages. Recently, the Hizugi Group acquired the oil plant near Lake Biwa, and there’s always a lot of trading activity there. The gremlin business is also stable. I forget which company it was, but one of them recently developed a new type of gremlin—something elastic or flexible—and was looking for funding. There’s also the Frontier Corps. That’s more of a donation than an investment, though. Ultimately, the Ministry of Defense controls it, and if you want to influence the corps, you’d need to send people more than money. As for startups, mana calculators are the hottest thing right now. You’ve probably heard of it too. Yamagami-san, the guy who invented them, is talking about launching a lab. That’s pretty close to your own field, right? So investing there might have meaning. And in terms of foreign companies… maybe Sip Life Iron, the living iron company? There’s talk that the Kobayashi Sword School has agreed to lend out their magic swords in exchange for help expanding into America. It’s unclear if this will lead to breakthroughs in living iron research, but precisely because of that, a big early investment could really pay off.”

Mamono-kun rattled off several candidates, but none of them really clicked with me.

While listening, I realized they all sounded familiar. None felt particularly new or surprising.

Investing in something that’s already popular just doesn’t sound that fun.

Besides, Mamono-kun seems to be focused on investments that would yield returns.

That’s not what I’m after.

I don’t want returns. In fact, if I profit, it defeats the purpose. I’m trying to spend money—if it turns into more money, I’m just making the problem worse.

“Sorry to be picky, but… is there something fun to invest in that won’t make money?”

“A… a fun investment that won’t make money? At that point, wouldn’t it just be better to donate? Or maybe fund a hobby? If it’s staff-related, there’s the collection of 0933-series staff—that could eat up a fortune—oh.”

“Yeah, sorry, I make those.”

My bad for being the money tree!

As I kept shooting down his ideas one after another, Mamono-kun looked increasingly troubled. And honestly, so was I.

“I’m getting tired of this. Maybe I should just throw it all somewhere random and be done with it.”

“All 81 billion yen!? If that’s the case, how about throwing some into the Monster industry? It’s a great industry, really!”

“Oh come on, that’s just favoritism.”

“Not at all! It’s a truly wonderful investment that contributes to world peace.”

“That’s a bit much.”

“It’s not! There’s even an actual Peace Through Competitive Exclusion project.”

“What the hell is that?”

My interest piqued, I listened to what Mamono-kun had to say—and it turns out, the monster industry really is doing a lot for world peace.

Of course, part of it is about defending one’s territory from external threats using monsters as weapons. But more than that, the competitive exclusion initiative is key.

Competitive Exclusion Peace refers to, essentially, territorial occupation.

The troublesome thing about monsters is that they can suddenly mutate from regular animals. Monsters born from other monsters are still manageable, but it’s a different story when everyday creatures like rats or grasshoppers in urban areas transform overnight into man-eating monsters.

Monsters that come from outside the human survival zone can be dealt with.

But handling monsters that naturally occur inside the survival zone is far more difficult.

That’s why, in the past few decades, monster studies has explored ways to control the emergence of monsters—yielding impressive results.

The basic principle is:
Create an ecosystem using harmless monsters, thereby excluding harmful ones.

The most famous and textbook-level example is the subterranean sewer ecosystem.

Long, long ago—in the domain once managed by the Hell witch—slime monsters massively overbred in the underground sewer system.

These monsters, having multiplied unnoticed underground, eventually surged to the surface in search of food. The Hell witch had to wipe them out using a wide-area mega-spell that nearly went out of control, destroying the entire city in the process.

And the same thing happened in large cities all over the world with extensive sewer networks.

Some cities managed to handle the crisis. Others were annihilated.

Competitive exclusion can prevent such tragedies.

First, prepare Ropers, a species that competes with slimes.

Ropers are tentacle-like monsters that, like slimes, prefer dark, damp waters. They eat the same food as slimes.

However, unlike slimes, Ropers don’t attack humans—unless provoked.
They share the same habitat and food supply but are far safer than slimes.

By releasing Ropers into the sewers and letting them multiply, even if slimes emerge, they lose out in the survival competition to the already-established Ropers—and vanish naturally.
No more terrifying slime outbreaks.

Creating peace through inter-monster competition—this is Competitive Exclusion Peace.

If competitive exclusion works perfectly, monsters stop appearing naturally altogether.

That’s because monsters are born from mutated animals.
If those base animals are gone, the mutations never happen.

For instance, the Fukurosuzume is a monster that mutates from regular sparrows.
But ordinary sparrows lost the survival battle to the Fukurosuzume and went extinct.

Which means you’ll never wake up to find your pet sparrow turned into a Fukurosuzume—because no sparrows remain in the first place.

Likewise, if all animals worldwide were converted into monsters, and all regular animals were made extinct, then spontaneous monster outbreaks in urban areas would disappear entirely.

Global implementation is currently impossible, but it’s already been mostly achieved in India’s capital—and in Tokyo too.

Even if only in limited regions, replacing native Earth animals with harmless monsters has proven incredibly effective.

There’s no doubt that this is one major reason the world is safer now than it used to be.

There’s even a national certification called “Monster City Designer” for specialists in competitive exclusion peace through monsters. They handle things like selecting and breeding the right monsters for each region, negotiating with local residents, and managing the ecosystem until it stabilizes.
It takes time and money.

In India, this is a national project. In other major countries, it’s often outsourced to private companies.

Despite their significant contribution to national security, Japan’s Monster City Designers are underappreciated and receive little recognition—Mamono-kun explained all this passionately.

“And so! We always welcome funding for Monster City Designers. And trust me—it’s totally unprofitable…! Sadly! But as an investment, what do you think? Even just 10,000 yen?”

“I get it. I’ll throw in 50 billion.”

“!?”

“Oh. Wait—after taxes, maybe it’ll be more like 50 billion instead of 81. Just talk to the Spider Witch about it. I’ll let her know it’s coming.”

I might be dumb, but hey—
If 50 billion yen buys peace for the world, that sounds pretty good to me!

I am a genius, after all—so I can tell this is a smart move!

Realistically, I’ve also benefited from the Competitive Exclusion Peace Mamono-kun talked about.

Fuyou has taken root in Okutama, and the Spider Witch has established total control with her spider monsters. That’s exactly what competitive exclusion peace looks like.

If I can help create more peaceful, pastoral places like Okutama just by investing, then this is honestly a great way to use my fortune.

I nodded to myself, then grabbed Mamono-kun by the beak, shook him a bit, and snapped him out of his daze.

Alright then—
The unprecedented, unmatched, world-changing, 81-billion-yen-earning genius magic wand artisan is going back to dissecting the Demon King Gremlin.
You guys handle the rest.

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