Avaricious

Prologue: Taxing Start

Money.

People say it is the root of all evil. The love of money, they say. It is not the root of all kinds of evil. It is the root of ALL evil. It is not the money, but the love of money. But hear me out. Why do I care about some quote from the bible if I am agnostic? I do not believe in the existence of gods, but I also do not doubt the existence of them.

In short, I do not give a damn.

As for why I do not give a damn, well, I am fighting the American bombers. All of my team mates are dead, bombed to smithereens. It is August 29th, 1945, and the war is still intense as ever. I am on the AA gun and shooting down any American bombers that tries to destroy important military buildings. Those buildings are necessary to defend (And maybe bomb Pearl Harbor again) the nation. What I did not notice is that the American bombers are going all out on this attack.

What the hell? I barely survive that ginormous explosion that they dropped on August 6, then they dropped another huge ass bomb similar to the first one on August 9. No joke, this is literally me trying to go AWOL and run away from the bombings.

What happened:

I jumped into the ocean and hope that the bomb did not reached me. After the explosion happened, I blacked out for whatever reason. After some time, I swam to the shore and saw that the entire area is obliterated like it was nothing. And I was like: "*inhales* Where is the nearest military base so I do not get AWOL'd again by the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces." I cartwheeled my way to the nearest base if there is one that is still intact, that is. I continued to cartwheel until I found someone that could lead me to the base, and the rest is history.

Now back to me shooting down these American bombers. We AA gunners do not have the best aiming skills because the latest AA gun is not so latest now due to the Americans developing new warplanes to bomb us to hell.

During the time when I was shooting down those planes, one of my comrades approached me and looking like he has seen some ghosts. "彼らは補給トラックを爆撃しました！ 私たちは死んでいます！" I do not know what he is speaking. I, of course, replied back. "Umm, me no hablo speak espanol, dude." Did I get that right? Or did I get that wrong? The soldier looks angry at me because I said some... hurtful words about their language? I do not know. "くそ！ ここにはアメリカ人がいます！" I rose my eyebrows at that. "Umm, no. I joined this army because, well, I am in debt and have a lot taxes to pay back home."

Then the soldier just ran at me with his rifle that has bayonet on it. I deflected the bayonet by redirecting the trajectory, then I karate chop him on the neck. Jeez, this guy needs to take a chill pill. I am on his side. Did he even know that? Or is the imperial army too lax for this type of stuff? Hell if I know, I am just here for the money because I love money.

I dragged the soldier to HQ, where all the remaining soldiers are there, waiting for new orders. I have not met all these other soldiers. The high command basically just group us up and me and the others just do not talk to each other. We just follow orders. After I got to HQ, it seems like... there is only few of us left. I am guessing the others just croak and gone to the afterlife, if there is even an afterlife.

There is exactly seven of us left, including me. All six of us are just private first class. There is only one soldier who has the higher ranks than most of us. His name is Kata Hitori, and his rank is sergeant.

Damn, he got higher salary than me and the others. He got 30 yen, which equals to 6.90 dollars. I need to rank up if I want to stay out of debt. The sergeant is coming up on the stage while the six of us just sat down. The others did the Japanese sitting thing. I did not do that because I do not want to destroy my legs. Kata started to announce something.

"アメリカ人は私たちを押し戻し、私たちの都市を爆撃し、さらには民間人を殺しました。 兵士は数人しか残っていません。 それにもかかわらず、私たちはあきらめません！ 彼らを故郷から追い出し、日本の栄光を取り戻すことができます！ 反撃しない場合は、自殺しなければなりません。"

Ah... yes. I understand you. The other soldiers shouted "はい！" or something along those lines. I do not understand them, but I do understand that if I complete this mission, then I will get paid, and if I get paid, then I will earn my salary. Let's go! The sergeant left, leaving us six in the room. I look at them, memorizing their facial recognition so I won't get confused. All of them look the same. Heck, the humans all look the same. It makes me wonder why are we fighting in the first place. Oh wait... for personal gains, or some other reasons that they do not want to say. For me personally, I am just in it for the money.

Somebody tapped my shoulder. I look back and saw... whoever this guy is. "私たちはこの戦争を生き残ると思いますか？" Hmm... I just nodded. I mean, I do not fucking know what he is talking about. I am just assuming stuff. "あなたがそう言うなら。" He goes back to sitting like a lonely boy who does not know what is going to happen in the next few seconds.

As if on cue, a bomb dropped in the middle of the room, and everyone was like "Oh shi-"

Some time later, and for some ungodly reason, I was the only one who survive this. The other remaining soldiers got their guts spilled all over the floor, telling me that they are completely dead. As for me, I did not got out unscathed. There is like multiple steel bars inside my body, one of them hitting my liver. I am bleeding to death.

I saw two children running towards somewhere. I called out to them, but it was useless. Welp, there is only one thing left to do now.

"...Damn it. This is seriously going to affect my financial status and my trout farm. I already assume that all of my trout farm is destroyed. I cannot earn money with a destroyed trout farm. How will I ever financially recover from this?"

Then I closed my eyes and hope that trouts survived, so I can farm them once again to earn money.