COTE: Reactions

VOLUME 0 - Ayanokouji's name and Miki's departure.

Location: Unknown object deep in the mountains. 16 years ago.

Atsuomi ??? POV:

Mika let out a sign of admiration as she looked at the wads of cash laid out on the white table.

"There's 50 million. I made them get it in cash, just like you wanted. It won't be traced back to you."

I told Mika without making eye contact.

The amount excludes all expenses incurred during the pregnancy, such as delivery and hospitalization.

"Politicians really have an abundance of money and everything at their disposal, don't they? Was it easy for you to get 50 million?"

Mika said sarcastically, dressed in a suit she was probably not used to wearing.

Ayanokouji: "Pregnancy? Mika? Is that my mother?"

Arisu: Huh!? This place and this person, this is...

Kanzaki: That person!

Ayanokōji: "Hm? I knew that Sakayanagi had some connection to the White Room. But what about Kanzaki? Although he probably only knows my father."

Hashimoto: Huh? Princess and Kanzaki, do you know what this place is and who is in the video?

Kanzaki: Yes, I met this person once.

Arisu: Fufufu, it's unexpected that even this will be shown. Now we can get information that 99.9% of people don't have access to.

Shibata: What a strange place!? All walls and objects are white!

Katsuragi: 50 million yen, that's about 360 thousand dollars. Huge sum of money of the average person's day.

Ayanokouji: "I'm pretty sure my whole life will be shown to all students. What will they think when they see me in the White Room? Will they feel fear? Or maybe it will be disgust?"

"Money is important, but I have plenty of it to live on. That's the world on our side."

Mika laughed at me as I spoke in a matter-of-fact manner.

"The fact that your child's born doesn't affect your heart in the slightest, does it?"

"Are you going to tell me that you've awakened to motherhood now?"

"No way. If I had, I wouldn't have given the child away. To me, the whole process of conceiving and giving birth to that child is work. Nothing more, nothing less."

I was relieved to hear that.

Ichinose: That woman is heartless, how can she treat her own child like that?

Katsuragi: That's right, not every woman will go for it. In most cases, immediately after childbirth, the instinct of motherhood is triggered and the mother becomes attached to her child. But in this case it didn't happen. It was also like doing chores.

I could see in her eyes that she was speaking the truth; it wasn't Mika's superiority talking.

"I guess I was right in choosing you after all."

"Well, I don't know if the job's worth it. I almost regretted it when my belly started to grow and the morning sickness got worse. I came here to complain or something, but when I saw all this money in front of me, I didn't care anymore."

Even for Mika, who'd been receiving a monthly salary of well over a million yen, a lump sum of 50 million is a different story. I don't want to hear her complaints. When it comes to surrogacy, etc., I paid more than twice the market rate, even if it's estimated at a high level.