My Second Life as a Mafia Tyrant

Chapter 14: Watching Destruction Unfold

　Once the weekend was over, Alois returned to the university to study pharmacy and to advance his drug business. He also went there to look for Elke during a general lecture in the pharmacy department.

　Alois spotted Elke right away.

　Elke was beginning to show clear signs of drug addiction.

Tremors in her hands and body. Dark circles under her eyes. A decline in mental sharpness. Gestures that seemed to try to hide them.

The once-brilliant Elke was no longer there.

After the lecture ended, Alois made his way over to Elke.

“Are you okay? You look like you’re not feeling well.”

“I-I guess I drank too much over the weekend…?”

“You don’t have to hide it. No one’s listening.”

There was no one in the lecture hall but Elke and Alois.

“Well, I wanted some White Glass… But I can’t find the person who sold it to me before. Do you know anything, Alois?”

“If it’s White Glass, I’ve got some at my place.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

That makes sense. After all, Alois is the kingpin of the Snow White trade at the university.

“But drugs aren’t good for you.”

“Y-yeah, I know. But…”

“I get it. You’re looking for a thrill, aren’t you? Or maybe it’s more about finding peace of mind?”

“Yeah… something like that.”

The peace of mind you get from drugs is hollow. Drugs numb the brain, making you feel at ease—but that’s all. It’s a temporary respite. A peace that doesn’t lead to a fundamental solution. And because of that, people who seek solace in drugs end up craving more.

“Alright, I’ll bring some over to your place. How much do you want?”

“Just one or two…”

“Is that all?”

“No. Actually, five or six..."

"Got it. Meet me at the main gate after class."

Alois thought that making Elke his mistress would be quite easy at this point.

Junkies will do anything to get drugs. Unlike ordinary cars or electronics, the supply channels for drugs are limited. Even if you have money, you can’t get drugs without connections. If you contact the wrong dealer, you might even end up in a sting operation.

　For a naive young lady like Elke, drugs are something she’d struggle to obtain. Unlike the other junkies—those hippies—she doesn’t have those kinds of connections. Even if she found her old dealer, there was no guarantee he’d sell to her again, and there was also the risk of the university finding out.

In that sense, Alois held the key to Elke’s drug supply.

Elke would do anything to get drugs from Alois.

　She’d even become his mistress.

“See you later, then.”

However, Alois didn’t understand why he wanted Elke to be his mistress. Junkies weren’t his type. He’d been in the drug business for ten years, but he’d never slept with a junkie. He simply didn’t have a taste for that sort of thing.

But Elke had made a good first impression.

　She had something Alois didn’t have: the irreplaceable gift of a future full of hope. Alois had robbed her of that. He’d kicked away everything she’d built up. He’d led her down a path to ruin.

Perhaps, if he had to do it, he wanted to watch Elke’s ruin unfold right before his eyes. Influenced by Maverick, he might have become obsessed with the idea of ruin.

Maverick’s beloved ruin.

　A once-intelligent person descends into depravity, falls from grace, is despised, and dies in the streets. Maverick loved stories like that. But she, like Alois, is not a masochist. If anything, she is a sadist. She prefers to watch people’s ruin from the perspective of the one driving them to the brink.

The other day, she was reading a historical novel about the persecution of the “Federation’s” indigenous peoples. She didn’t empathize with the indigenous people who stood up against the persecution only to be defeated; instead, her sympathies lay with the “Federation” military forces that were cornering them.

Perhaps Alois, like Maverick, is a sadist.

At least over the past ten years, Alois hadn’t derived any pleasure from being cornered herself. But she didn’t feel any particular emotion about cornering others either.

　Well, Alois thought, people do change sometimes.

All his classes were over, and he waited for Elke in front of the main gate.

“S-sorry. Did I keep you waiting?”

“No, it’s fine. Let’s go, then.”

He had made an agreement with Maverick.

When he was with Maverick, they would meet at Alois’s apartment. When he was with other women, he would go to their apartments.

　Alois wondered what Maverick’s apartment was actually used for.

He suspected that, surprisingly, he might even be hiding a dead body there.

“White Glass. Are you having fun?”

“It’s not so much fun as it is a way to forget the bad stuff.”

“I get it. You want to run away from the bad stuff.”

But you know, if you keep running away, reality will eventually catch up with you. Drugs are an escape from reality. And they’re the worst way to escape. They make a painful reality even more painful, and when the time comes to pay the price, you’re in for hellish torment.

There is a way to escape reality completely. You just have to die from a drug overdose. Then you can say goodbye to reality forever.

With those thoughts in mind, Alois put Elke in the car and headed for her home.

　Elke’s apartment was impressive. It certainly lived up to her status as the president’s daughter. It was fully secured, and the rooms were about the same size as Alois’s apartment. The room contained several bookshelves lined with books on pharmacology.

“Here you go. Seven vials of White Glass. One is a freebie.”

“Thank you…!”

　Elke took the White Glass with trembling hands and immediately lit it.

She inhaled the smoke slowly, as if savoring it, her face contorting into an expression of ecstasy. The life had drained from her eyes; there was no trace of intelligence left—she looked as if she had already become a corpse.

A wave of pleasure and pain surged through Alois once more.

It would be fun to watch Elke’s ruin unfold like this. It would definitely be fun. He wasn’t a Maverick, but watching someone who was supposed to get what he never had fall into ruin was incredibly satisfying.

At the same time, a sense of guilt welled up within him for trampling on another person’s dreams. No, it wasn’t guilt. It was a feeling of revulsion. The fact that he had lured her down the path of drugs and led her to ruin, and the sight of Elke before him—a living corpse—evoked a visceral disgust in Alois.

　Alois even considered introducing her to a drug dealer.

But in the end, he wanted to watch Elke’s downfall. He wanted to find pleasure in it.

“Don’t you do White Glass, Alois?”

“Nope. I’m a carefree guy, so I forget my troubles right away.”

That’s a lie.

　He was still troubled. Should he leave Elke be, or keep supplying her with drugs? Eventually, she would find a drug dealer on her own. If that happened, he wouldn’t be able to watch her self-destruction up close.

Then there was the drug business.

The strange Cold War-like structure between the Wolf Cartel, the Kuste Cartel, the Schwarz Cartel, and the Greif Cartel was still ongoing. The situation was on the brink of explosion.

　This is something Alois didn’t notice in his first life.

From here, the shadows of the feud begin to appear, and they will eventually come to the surface.

Alois himself is dealing in cheap stuff like white glass. He still has neither money nor violence at his disposal. But eventually—no, he must acquire them quickly.

While Elke was smoking white glass, Alois continued to agonize.