Chapter 109 – Missed the Award

I returned to New York once again.
Texas was unexpectedly tough, with the big American oil companies connected to Rockefeller and Standard Oil rushing in droves to the oil fields that suddenly gushed forth.

At the same time, Sebastian also came to Texas, and together with the employees from Ootori Trading’s New York branch who came along, he held negotiations with the other party.

I thought selling cheap would be fine, but everyone scolded me, saying that with the kind of plan I was thinking of, I was no different from a philanthropist.

Even in the deals I initiated, what I considered harsh conditions still amounted to no different than charity from the perspective of the American oil industry.

They lavishly praised me with the outward compliment, “The Phoenix Princess truly has no greed.”
Well, behind the words, it probably meant, “This is about as far as a kid’s shallow wit can go.”

However, it was the right move that before everyone else arrived, I had diligently bought up as much surrounding wasteland and ranches as I could, piling up cash.

Later, even the oil companies that had sold off their rights began to buy up land, but the achievement of having ‘coincidentally’ secured the most promising site, which only I knew about, was highly valued afterward.

And then came the sales negotiations, but until the approximate reserves and production volume could be determined with some accuracy, the final negotiations for selling the rights were put on hold.
At first, we only received a provisional deposit as a formality. 

Beyond that, we settled on a structure where we would sell the entire rights on the conditions of a priority contract for exports to Japan, partial ownership of the concessions by Ootori Trading and Ootori Petroleum, and so forth.

Even for the time being, it sold for three times the price I had imagined.
Of course, that’s excluding the expenses of purchasing the land and such.

But from there, the negotiations continued further.

It seemed that American oil companies were not particularly pleased that Ootori had recently struck oil in Manchuria.

However, since the driller was the same party who discovered a massive oil field in America and then sold the rights cheaply, they had no choice but to make major concessions.

As a bonus from selling the East Texas oil field at a bargain, we won immunity for Ootori’s oil development and technology use in the Far East.
Furthermore, we made them agree to provide priority paid access to refining and other petrochemical-related technologies, as well as discounts on patents.

With all this, there would no longer be any Japanese company or zaibatsu capable of defeating the Ootori Group in the oil business within Japan.
Since our direct counterparts were the American kings themselves, even if other Japanese zaibatsu tried to cozy up to Ootori for technology or concessions, we could brush them off by saying, “Go talk to the American kings first before coming to us.”

And since the matter had grown too big, we also had to hurriedly request Mr. Idemitsu Sazou’s company, which oversees the oil business within Ootori, to make an emergency trip to America.
Since it had all started from my own idea, all I could do was apologize profusely to everyone involved.

As for the ranch itself, it was decided that it would be modestly operated on the parts of the land we had already purchased where no oil wells would be drilled, and eventually it would even expand to the training of racehorses.

Also, since we had bought the ranch, we decided to export horses to Japan as well.
Given Japan’s current situation, I thought there would be no shortage of demand for military horses, farm horses, or pack horses.

I didn’t know anything about the business itself, so I left it to people who were knowledgeable, but it seems we managed to acquire several horses of a bloodline descended from a legendary champion horse that had won a famous victory about ten years ago.

Apparently, there was some celebrity who was willing to part with them.
Later on, I would probably have to buy plenty of that person’s products in return.

And since horse racing is one of the means of socializing among the upper class in Europe and America, we would have to maintain appropriate relationships as well.

That said, this was simply because I happened to like horses, and I had no intention of turning it into some major enterprise.
However, doing nothing would raise suspicion and cause friction. 

Besides, not turning it into a business would be a problem as a member of a zaibatsu family, so it would lead to investing in horse breeding and other horse-related ventures.

However, it was predicted that the demand for horses in Japan would decrease year by year. 

So in the end, it would most likely be limited to racehorses only.
And if the breeding and promotion of racehorses went too far, then from the perspective of my previous life’s memories, it would end up rewriting the history of horse racing. 

Because of this, I would ironically find myself in the half–backward position of trying to keep the scale as small as possible.

“T-tired…”

“Good work. Will you have a bath?”

“Yeah. Make the water a little hot.”

“Understood. Please wait a moment.”

The villa in the suburbs of New York where I was staying had a bath installed.
And being able to use it, slightly modified, in the Japanese style was the greatest blessing.

It was probably the greatest luxury aside from Japanese food. Neither caviar nor foie gras nor silk dresses could compare.
No, It’s more like I had long since grown tired of all of them.

But the bath was different. It made me feel from the bottom of my soul that I was Japanese.

Even in another world, there are many comrades who long for baths, but that is undoubtedly the truth.
In my previous life as well, what I missed the most during overseas travel, alongside Japanese food, was a tub of slightly hot water.

By the way, the reason I was this exhausted wasn’t only because of the Texas oil field.
There was actually another matter.

For me, it wasn’t a particularly big incident, but on the world stage, a major event had occurred.
Of course, it wasn’t the great crash of American stocks.

“What the hell, those guys!”

The cause of my exhaustion was now barking beside me as I lounged lazily after my bath.

“There’s no point getting angry, you know. Maybe you’re low on calcium? Want some fruit milk?”

“Ohh, I’ll drink it! How could I endure this without drinking!!”

(Yeah, yeah, long live Prohibition. No one being able to drink alcohol really is one of the ideals, I guess.)

What I was watching with my bath-softened head was Kouryuu-sensei gulping down cup after cup of special fruit milk with great gusto.

And the reason he was so angry was because, though I had been too busy and completely forgotten, the announcement of the Nobel Prize in Sweden had begun.
In early October—today, in other words—the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 1929 was announced, and it was awarded to Dr. Alexander Fleming.

Well, that much was fine.
But the reason for the award was cited as “achievements regarding the therapeutic effects of penicillin on various infectious diseases over many years.”

Since it wasn’t for discovery or development, Ootori Kouryuu wasn’t selected.

He was the one who discovered it, succeeded in isolating it, and even brought it to pharmaceutical production.
He even held all the patents. Ootori Pharmaceuticals and Kouryuu-sensei were already raking in money from patent fees and drug sales.
However, perhaps that was precisely the problem, and Kouryuu-sensei became a little dejected.
Even so, he still praised Dr. Fleming. 

Up to that point, he was a respectable research physician and an adult.

And yet, the reason I was exhausted was partly because, right up until the announcement, the American media had been swarming into the mansion where we were staying.

Naturally, the Ootori household staff were in utter chaos trying to handle them, the guards were on edge, I had to put on my furisode like a clown and play the charming hostess, and even Kouryuu-sensei himself had been working hard to respond.
For someone like him, whose adult composure usually didn’t last long, he really did well. 

That was because he had believed he was going to win.

But once the announcement was made and it became clear that Kouryuu-sensei had not been selected, the reporters literally vanished as if the tide had gone out.
Rather than saying they left or withdrew, “disappeared” felt more fitting.

Until then, they had been asking whatever they liked, things like, “What do you think this award will be for?” or “After gastroenteritis, syphilis, pneumonia, and tuberculosis, what are you researching now?”

In America too, for the lecture tour, along with the lineup of new drugs he had developed, one of the big topics was the matter of “food allergies,” something I had whispered into him, which he had already written a paper on before coming to the U.S.

In America, where people were economically affluent and food was abundant, I thought that even the topic of food allergies—still too early for Japan—would have a sense of realism.
And indeed, it hit the mark to some extent.

At the same time, between lectures, we frequently held talks with American pharmaceutical companies for business purposes.
Of course, it was serious business, with people from Ootori Pharmaceuticals and Ootori Trading who had come along also participating.

With all of that, even though he missed the award, Kouryuu-sensei had at least been holding back his frustration, even in front of me—until a single telegram blew it all away.

No, he snapped.
Wondering what it was, I took a look at the telegram, and it was more or less what I had half-expected.

The sender was Dr. Kitasato Shibasaburou.
The message read, “Todai betrayal.” 

That alone was enough for the two of them to understand completely.

In short, what they had feared all along had simply come true.
The Nobel Committee must have debated whether to make Kouryuu-sensei a joint recipient with Dr. Fleming then sought the opinion of the University of Tokyo’s medical faculty, which held the most sway in Japanese medicine.
And they must have whispered something like, “He only discovered it by chance. It’s Dr. Fleming, who has researched it for years, who truly deserves it.”

Later, when we checked the details, it was almost exactly as expected.

And hence this outburst.

Even though I was exhausted, I couldn’t take any more, so I decided to draw my family’s treasured sword.

“It’s just one you missed, right? You can still get two more. No one’s even properly researched them yet. Well, oral rehydration solution might be a bit tricky though.”

“I don’t need you to tell me that. What I cannot forgive is the conduct of the University of Tokyo’s medical faculty!”

“You hate Todai too, don’t you? We’re the same. Jealous men are disliked, you know.”

“That’s them you’re talking about!”

“Ah, seriously, what a troublesome old man you are.”

After the predictable back-and-forth, I cut him down in one stroke like a diagonal slash.

I had anticipated that he would surely parry the first strike—the “jealous” line, which by itself would normally be fatal—so I followed it up with the second blow.
And this time, I added “troublesome” to “old man.”

For a middle-aged man of the 21st century, that double combo would be an irrecoverable blow.
And when it came as an attack from a nine-year-old little girl, it was nothing short of a mortal wound.

Even the usually thick-skinned Kouryuu-sensei was struck dumb.
Then, almost immediately, his face crumbled, and he started babbling incoherently with incomprehensible gestures.

“H-hey, Reiko, don’t you think that’s a bit cruel? I’m not saying comfort me, but at least, you know, show some restraint… something, right?”

“Nope. Having some old man barking beside me is bad for my skin. Oh, right, let me tell you something good.”

Seeing that pathetic face, I thought maybe I should give him the next little tip.

“W-what is it?”

“To make your facial skin prettier, you just slice fruit or vegetables rich in vitamin C into thin rounds and use them as a pack.”

“That doesn’t have much to do with medicine, does it?”

“It’ll be a good lecture topic, won’t it? The ladies will definitely like it.”

“Hmph, is that so?”

Good. He quieted down.

It felt a bit like I had just thrown up a smokescreen, but since I was already receiving love calls from the gentlemen of Wall Street wanting to start concrete talks, I at least wanted my own people to keep still.
Fortunately, the lectures were done, the press had disappeared, and the timing was just right.

Yes, at last, the true main stage of my journey was about to begin.

＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿
The legendary champion horse: 

“Man o’ War.”

To this day, he holds an unshakable place as “The greatest horse in American racing history,” a “Hero representing an era.”
That said, it doesn’t necessarily mean his descendants would all be fast.