Chapter 256: On the Off-Screen Uses of the Aerial Garden
Fuyuki City, Set of Fate/Apocrypha
A few crew members were gathered together, flipping through a newspaper while chatting about recent events at Toho.
If anyone were happy about the misfortune that befell Godzilla, these folks might not be the happiest, but they were definitely among the top.
"Hey, did you hear? After Godzilla's opening weekend numbers came out, several executive offices at Toho got renovated."
One crew member, legs crossed, shared the news with his companions.
Another grinned. "Pfft, that's old news! I heard that during a board meeting, several Toho executives had sudden heart attacks and got hospitalized."
"Heh, they were faking it," said a third crew member, glancing around before lowering his voice. "I heard those execs were caught embezzling the Godzilla production budget and pretended to have heart issues to dodge the fallout."
"It wasn't embezzlement—it was underreporting wages."
A calm voice suddenly cut into their conversation.
The group turned to see the director, Shinji Matou, standing behind them.
"Director—!!"
"We'll get right to work!"
"Yeah, let's go."
Seeing the boss appear, the crew members didn't care that it was still break time—they quickly got up and rushed back to the set.
"Heh~"
Watching them scurry away, Shinji let out a couple of cold chuckles.
"Hey, Shinji."
Cloris, who was walking beside him, asked curiously, "What was that about underreporting wages?"
Shinji shrugged. "Nothing really. Just typical Japanese-style capitalism."
The Japanese workplace has all kinds of bizarre quirks, and one of them is the "invisible cap on executive pay."
Maybe it's due to a kind of societal resentment toward the rich, but even though there's no official law or regulation, executive salaries in Japanese companies are often unofficially capped—typically not exceeding 100 million yen.
If someone crosses that line, the backlash from society is intense, labeling such earnings as "wasteful."
Except for a few individuals or rare cases, most executives facing that kind of backlash have no choice but to resign in disgrace.
Hence, there's a saying in Japan about the "99.9 million yen cap."
But if you think this kind of social wage cap stops Japanese capitalists from making money—think again!
Most executives earn massive profits through non-salary means like stock dividends, financial bonuses, and other perks not officially counted as "wages."
As for those executives who don't get stock options, they often turn to underreporting their income to make it seem like they only make 99.9 million yen on paper.
The latter is outright illegal, since underreporting wages means paying less tax. If someone reports them, they can get arrested on the spot.
Plenty have fallen because of this, though most of them are foreign professional managers.
It's tough for them—they can't get company shares as outsiders, but they're not going to settle for a 99.9 million yen salary either.
So… underreporting becomes their only option.
But this Toho case was a strange one—because it was internal staff who reported their own company's executives, and the accused were all Japanese.
"Normally, Japanese people know how dangerous it is to get caught underreporting wages," Shinji explained to Cloris while stroking his chin in thought. "I'd bet eight out of ten that this was an internal power struggle."
"Oooh~"
Cloris's eyes swirled mischievously, the corners of her mouth curling into a playful ω shape.
"Little Shinji~ Looks like your salary will never reach 100 million yen~ Want to come over to big sis's side? I can make movies and support you~"
Smack
Shinji flicked Cloris on the forehead.
"Miss Lissy, I never relied on salary anyway. I live off dividends."
Cloris crossed her arms, visibly unimpressed. "A man who can't even save a single yen—what's there to brag about?"
"I'm not gonna stoop to your level."
Shinji shot Cloris an unflattering hand gesture in return, then casually grabbed Jeanne d'Arc as she passed by.
"Miss Saint, we're restarting filming today. You've been on break for a while—hope your acting hasn't gotten rusty. Don't go embarrassing yourself now."
"I have not! Master, stop slandering people!"
Too bad Jeanne wasn't Martha, otherwise Shinji would've been introduced to the true meaning of a saint's righteous fist of judgment.
Honestly, though, it wouldn't have mattered even if Jeanne had gotten a bit out of practice—because today's shoot didn't involve her much.
Today was all about the Empress Semiramis and her Noble Phantasm: the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
Originally, Shinji wanted Semiramis to actually construct a real version of Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
Once filming was done, the set could be turned into a tourist attraction—Fuyuki City's very own landmark for the film studio.
As for how such a massive structure could float in the sky?
Don't ask. The answer is always: gas explosion.™
Unfortunately, Semiramis had already done the math.
Building a full-scale Hanging Gardens of Babylon would require such a vast amount of magical energy that the profits from tourism would never balance out the upkeep.
Not only would it fail to bring in tourism revenue—it would actually disrupt the summoning of other Heroic Spirits, since the magical resources needed to keep the Gardens afloat were enormous.
In the end, Shinji had no choice but to settle for a simplified, miniature version of the Gardens, to be used later as a tourist attraction for Fuyuki.
Though "miniature," it was still a pretty big deal—roughly the size of a mid-sized Ferris wheel turned on its side.
Big enough to wow tourists, small enough to be explained away with "miraculous science" so that regular people wouldn't find it too suspicious.
However, because of the size limitation, many interior scenes of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon couldn't be filmed inside it—they had to be shot in ground-based interior sets.
In fact, while Shinji had been off promoting Super 8, the Fate/Apocrypha production team had been hard at work building those sets.
Now that everything was ready, filming could finally begin.
In Shinji's version of Fate/Apocrypha, Empress Semiramis didn't appear all that much, her role was kind of like Endgame's alternate-universe Thanos.
She shows up briefly at the start to introduce her character, but spends most of the movie off-screen, AFK, preparing the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
It isn't until Amakusa betrays everyone and the story heads toward its final battle that Semiramis finally gets a significant chunk of screen time.
As a result, Semiramis hadn't really interacted with most of the cast or crew until now.
For many of them, today was their first time meeting the beautiful empress in person.
And yet… for some reason, people just didn't seem to like her.
Even Jeanne, who had already met her before, couldn't help feeling uneasy whenever she saw her—as if she were staring down some venomous snake or dangerous beast.
"She's clearly a beauty… so why does she give off such a chilling vibe? Is that part of her performance—or is she just really like that?"
Jeanne's rare bit of snark was—surprisingly—met with agreement from Amakusa.
"You're right," Amakusa said. "Back during our joint training, I actually thought she was a sweet and charming girl. But now… she really gives off the vibe of a femme fatale."
"Why, Amakusa-san, long time no see~"
Noticing the two Rulers standing together, Semiramis approached with a radiant smile and greeted Amakusa.
"Hello, Semiramis-san," Amakusa quickly responded.
"It's finally time for us to act together—I'm really looking forward to it~"
Semiramis' smile bloomed like a flower, full of innocent girlish charm.
"I… I'm looking forward to it too," Amakusa replied, though his smile was clearly forced.
Had this been the Semiramis from before, Amakusa probably would've responded more naturally.
But after experiencing her cold, venomous aura just moments ago, this sudden switch back to sweet maiden mode gave him whiplash.
Normally, when a beautiful woman treats you kindly, it lifts your mood.
If a man were lucky enough to win over a woman like that, he'd usually be filled with pride and excitement.
Even though Amakusa was a devout believer with noble ideals, he was still a guy—it's not like he was completely immune to feminine charm.
But right now?
He felt none of those things.
Instead, Amakusa felt a deep instinct to keep his distance from this empress.
Maybe it's just that her presence is overwhelming.
I guess I'm just envious of her acting skills.
Trying to be charitable, Amakusa chalked it all up to Semiramis being an exceptionally good actress.
Of course, Semiramis reserved all her sweetness for Amakusa. She was a lot less polite when it came to Jeanne.
"So, you're Jeanne d'Arc?"
The moment Semiramis looked at Jeanne, her smile vanished entirely.
"Hello. I look forward to working with you," Jeanne said politely, reaching out her hand.
Semiramis didn't take it.
"Mm. I'm sure we'll be working quite a bit together," she replied coolly.
That doesn't sound like 'working together'—that sounds like you're spoiling for a fight, Jeanne thought darkly.
How can her attitude be so different with me and Amakusa? Could it be…?
A mischievous spark of gossip-mode lit up in Jeanne's eyes.
Unfortunately for her, Semiramis had zero intention of continuing the conversation—she didn't even give Jeanne a chance to ask anything.
"Well then, Amakusa-san," Semiramis said, bowing slightly, "let's give it our all and make this film a success."
With that, she turned and walked off, script in hand, heading toward Shinji.
"…Master, about my role…"
Jeanne muttered, feeling more than a little snubbed.
She let out a sharp huff toward Semiramis' retreating figure.
"What the heck… So mysterious, my foot! You're just a glorified supporting role! Second—no, third—fourth at best!"
She counted it out on her fingers, ranking Semiramis below herself, Mordred, and Astolfo.
"Well, she certainly has presence," Amakusa said awkwardly. "The Queen of Assyria… living up to her title."
"The world's oldest poisoner… You think that big coffin-sized braid of hers is hiding the mummified bodies of all her victims?"
Jeanne muttered with pointed malice.
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