Kaijin Fighter: So I Have to Make Monsters, So What?-Chapter 1208: Old vs New Money

The question Zhen Xing had posed wasn’t entirely out of left field.

One of the oldest sources of conflicts known to man has always been the distribution of resources, and nowhere was this conflict more noticeable than the conflict between old money and new money.

Which in this case meant the Golden Gorilla Union and the Silver Jungle Dragon Shipping, respectively.

The Golden Gorilla Union had been one of the first groups to lay roots in Amber Shore, and establish itself as a mainstay by constructing and maintaining all of the storage warehouses in the region.

For a rather long time, the Golden Gorilla Union had maintained this monopoly and thrived under the leadership of their founder, Kongara Dodorado.

Unfortunately, these good times came to an end about six years ago, when their founder had died fighting an actual Goldenback Gorilla.

Many tears were shed that day, irony be damned.

Now, the Golden Gorilla Union was much too large and entrenched into Amber Shore to collapse overnight, but their influence had been steadily declining due to their current leadership, Kidanna Dodorado, lacking the same qualities as his late father.

Some said this was an advantage, others said it was the reason why they didn’t want to work with the Union anymore.

This was where Silver Jungle Dragon Shipping came in.

Originally a bit player in the region, they managed to strike it rich after a couple of risky deals and began to buy-up properties that the Golden Gorilla Union had put up for sale due to their own lack of deals. Granted, there was a bit more to these circumstances.

For reasons that could only be speculated, many of the routes that the Golden Gorilla Union had used in the past had suddenly become more dangerous due to the presence of both beast and bandit alike.

While on the flip side, the Silver Jungle Dragon Shipping company’s routes were as clean as a freshly polished bathroom.

Suspiciously so.

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There were actually a couple more incidents between the two companies that shall not be named due to such information being enough to fill it’s own chapter, but let’s just say that it wasn’t pretty in the slightest and the sheer amount of collateral damage caused by these incidents were enough to constitute disasters on their own merits.

All of this eventually led up to the Silver Jungle Dragon Shipping Company becoming their arch-enemy, and it becoming a facet of life that the two factions were essentially in open warfare.

But like any good company seeking to make profit and revenue for themselves and their employees, they were more than willing to let bygones be bygones when the right opportunity arose.

Which in this case, came in the form of the [City of Mirrors].

Settling their differences, the two factions made sure to regulate entry around the entrance to the aforementioned ruins in order to ensure that they had priority in regards to the ruins’ treasures. However, their cease-fire only applied to the area around the mysterious pagoda entrance and not the inside of the ruins themselves.

After all, who was going to go inside a dangerous set of ruins full of monsters and treasure to prove a crime with no witnesses?

Regardless of this overarching conflict though, many of the visitors that came to this neutral zone were unaware of this conflict in the first place.

And the ones that were aware, well, they usually had the sense to keep quiet about the dirty laundry of others.

Usually.

...Meanwhile, in a part of the encampment that was rather far away from the main area of activity...

^...and that was the thirty-sixth incident that deepened the rift between the two companies. To this day, fireworks have been banned from either premise.^

^That’s...disturbing,^ Zhen Liu admitted.^But highly informative. Thank you for the information.^

^Thank you for the coins!^

^How the hell do you not notice a roasted oxen full of fireworks?!,^ Lythero asked in disbelief.

^I don’t know man, rich people are weird,^ Antonio attempted to answer.

^Yeesh...^

When Zhen Liu had released Antonio’s sealed memories, he had honestly expected the man to disappear shortly after.

When one’s life gets turned upside down, and their identity becomes a question rather than an answer, most people would use that as a sign to go find a retreat somewhere and be alone with their thoughts.

Instead, much to his surprise and Lythero’s initial chagrin, Antonio had begged to tag along with them after he spent an hour reflecting on his own memories.

Evidently, that hour was all he needed to come to the conclusion that Zhen Liu was going to be his best bet in finding further answers about himself.

^My mom, she...sealed my memories for some reason, despite spending all of our time together,^ Antonio explained while begging on his hands and knees. ^I don’t know why she did it, but I do know that she gave off a feeling very similar to your zakos and Kaijin. I don’t know why, but I get the feeling I’ll probably find her again if I tag along with you. So please, let me tag along.^

Lythero had initially wanted to chop Antonio’s head clean off, due to the man’s affiliation with the Cortez Company and his own belief that there was a non-zero chance that he would betray them when the opportunity arose.

However, Zhen Liu managed to talk the man down after pointing out that it was kind of silly to punish the grunts for the actions of their leaders.

That and he pointed out that they could probably kill him faster than he could betray them.

Either way, Lythero eventually got over the idea of wanting to kill Antonio in cold blood, actually developed a mild form of friendship with the man and the newly formed trio eventually arrived to the entry pagoda to the [City of Mirrors].

Where they discovered that not only did a whole ass boomtown manifest around the place, but that the people running the show and limiting who could go in at what times, were actually mortal enemies. The enemies in question were the Silver Jungle Dragon Shipping Company and the Golden Gorilla Union.

Although, with those names being a mouthful, the general populace has been simply calling them the Silver-tongues and the Goldenbacks, respectively.

...

’Why have the last few factions I’ve been interacting with have all been business conglomerates?’

[In fairness, Executor, you have often said that corporations and crime families are essentially the same, one just has better PR than the other.]

’Point taken.’

...

From what Zhen Liu and the others had managed to gather during their time here, they had learned that those two companies were not only limiting who could go into the wandering ruins so they could secure their own profits, but that they were using the place to fight a proxy war of sorts.

Fighting out in the open was messy business after all, and had terrible PR attached to it, so the appearance of this wandering ruins was a blessing in disguise.

As to why Zhen Liu and company cared so much about this bit of information though was because of two very important details.

Number one, all entries into the ruins were placed in timed groups that had wait lists that stretched on for days. Unless, the would-be entrant happened to be a member of either of the aforementioned warring companies.

And number two, the Silver Jungle Dragon Shipping Company was one of the external factions that worked for the Golden Sabertooth Household. Meaning there was a very high possibility that Duke Diamoro was rolling with them...somewhere inside of the [City of Mirrors].

The trio had initially asked around about the presence of the Golden Sabertooth Household, only to be given answers that they were connected to the Silver-tongues.

After this revelation was made, the group had decided to ask around to see how bad the relationship between the warring factions was.

Answer: very.

Of course whether or not this information was useful was another thing altogether, and was something that the three of them had to discuss over drinks and food.

"So from the sounds of it, the Goldenbacks may very well be our best bet for you to get up close and personal with the Duke," Zhen Liu pointed out to Lythero as the three of them sat at the table of a makeshift cantina they had found. "Which leads us to even more problems."

"How so?," Antonio asked. "Can’t he just go up and convince the Goldenbacks to let him join one of their teams? Man’s an Aether Lord, that’s nothing to sneeze at."

"If this was under normal circumstances, yes," Lythero answered in Zhen Liu’s place. "The issue is that the upper limit to this particular set of ruins is so high, that the amount of Aether Lords attracted to it is enough to start a war that would kill two empires. That and I’m fairly certain they’d just reject my ass outright for not being a known asset."

"Which is why, my dear friends, we gotta find you an opportunity to make friends at the highest possible level," Zhen Liu added with a strange smirk.

"The fuck does that mean?"