This is a translation of a j.a.panese novel. You can read the
This is a work of fiction, with depictions of violence such as death of many people at a time. It is not suitable for readers under 15.
Chapter 17: Rustle and bustle at the Osun River (Part 1)
In June, I went to mister Oba with a proposition.
" Kageyama & co would like to use the first warehouse, the one that"s nearly completed, to store some used machinerie that they"re keeping in the Apapa district for now."
I offered a lease contract to Mibu.
Mister Oba was a bit confused when he heard this.
"Say, what kind of company is Kageyama & co? What"s your connection with them?" He asked me.
I naturally expected that question.
A business with the same name as his subordinate"s wanted to loan a still unfinished warehouse from his own company, and the one negotiating in the name of that business was that very same subordinate.
"It"s my grandfather"s company.
Seeing as I"m in Nigeria now, he apparently did some research and decided to start a business that loans heavy machinery here.
He"s already looking for employees who would be willing to come to Nigeria, but it seems like that"s going to take a while… In the meantime, the construction machines won"t be of any use other than making him pay the quite expensive price of the containers at the pier of the Apapa district. That"s why he consulted me about how he could move them.
Today, I only came to you as a representative of my grandfather"s company. This doesn"t count as working for two companies at the same time, does it? I"m not even getting any remuneration from it."
I"d already prepared a plausible explanation.
Mibu"s headquartes did made a credit inquiry into Kageyama and co for the contract, but I managed to make it through that step.
As for how I did it…
Some time ago, I bought paper company in Chiba. It was an old company that only existed on paper at that point.
Then, I had my grandfather become its director.
My grandfather is over 80 years old but he"s really sweet to me and a nice man in general.
When I asked if I could borrow his name for my plans, he didn"t make things difficult at all and immediately gave me the OK.
Once that was settled, I merged the company made by Ichikawa into that paper company.
I made the paper company the main business, and I renamed it Kageyama & co.
And so, Kageyama & co became a "55 years old" heavy equipment loaning business.
While Ichikawa was the representative director in the previous Kageyama & co, the representative director in the new one is the official director of the paper company, my grandfather.
Of course, my grandfather has never worked on loaning heavy equipment.
It naturally fell onto Ichikawa to do everything, from registering and launching the business to making records of board meetings.
I"m not match for her on that end.
The gist of it all is that Kageyama & co now has a long history on top of large funds.
More importantly, what I offered Mibu is basically chance to make easy money.
With all this playing in my favor, I didn"t have to go through further inspections from Mibu.
Thus, thanks to the work Ichikawa and I put in behind the scenes, we smoothly managed to finalize the contract to rent the warehouse. We now had a place to store the 42 used construction machines and their spare parts.
"Say, Kageyama, have you heard about the gold dust in Ijebu Igbo?"
On a hot day, at lunch, mister Oba came to talk to me.
One thing to know about him is that, for a j.a.panese living in Lagos, he"s very aware of the local news and rumors.
"It"s probably just pyrite. They call it the "fool"s gold" for a reason."
"I guess you"re right… if there really was gold there, all of it would have been taken ages ago."
Mister Oba"s opinion was normal, anyone would think the same.
But little did he know that Ichikawa and I have dumped 200 hundred pounded yams into the river, each of which contained gold dust.
a.s.suming each pounded yam had 600g of gold dust, that would mean that 120kg of grains of gold have been eaten by the local fishes and monkeys, and have traveled across the river, from one end to the other.
And since we"re going to keep adding even more gold, it"s not going to run out before a while.
Today, I"m making some terrible-looking gold bars using plaster. I can"t make them look any better since their mold is a mushy candy box that has already lost its shape.
You"d think I could just spare myself the trouble and get another one delivered to me by mail, but that would require using a website that delivers mail to Nigeria from j.a.pan, and there is no way I"d ever find one…
Speaking of trouble, Charlotte would keep getting in the way if I used Regedit at home, so I sent her to the conference in Los Angels along with Lucas.
Charlotte would probably complain for a lifetime if I only let Lucas go and I don"t want her to see me making the gold bars, so this is killing two birds with one stone.
As for Ichikawa, I made her go on a business trip to j.a.pan again and then arranged things so that she"ll meet-up with the siblings in Los Angeles later.
In other words, I"m all by my lonesome in Nigeria now, and I"m making use of this time to dutifully make gold bars.
Their shape may be a bit dicey, but you could also say that gives them a bit more personality, right?
Anyway, all that really matters is their weight and purity.
It"s a good thing Charlotte isn"t in the house, I wouldn"t be able to do this otherwise.
I mean, I can"t show a teenager how easy it is for me to make money, can I?
That can"t be good for her education.
Translator"s note: Show MoreI know, I know, it"s short, but I didn"t know how else to split the chapter.