my second life as a Mafia Tyrant

10 Years Earlier Ah... the sky is beautiful. Alois von Nettesheim looked up at the sky and thought so. The pain echoed dully through his body. His abdomen, where the 9mm pistol bullet had passed through, throbbed with agony. He could feel the blood flowing out. It wouldn't stop. A chill spread through him. His body temperature was dropping rapidly. "Alois von Nettesheim!" The man holding the magical pistol that had shot Alois appeared before him. Wearing a body armor marked Narcotics Bureau over a suit, the man approached while keeping his pistol aimed at Alois. Though dressed in a suit, he wore mountaineering boots. "You... You're finished... Do you even know who I am? Do you think you've become a hero? The moment you return to your country, your career, your life—everything will be over, you bastard..." Alois tried to act tough, something unlike him. Having been chased by a man with a gun, his adrenaline was surging. He felt terrible. "Couldn't care less. I'll carry out my own justice. I don't care what the country, the government, or the president thinks. People are dying because of you. Hundreds of thousands of people are dying. Because they fight over the products you deal in. Because they use the products you sell." "What a sense of justice you have, Investigator Felix Faust..." A man burning with justice to a ridiculous degree. He had kicked aside the plans of the nation, the cartel, and Alois himself. Alois could only admire a man who had carried out justice while even defying the intentions of his own homeland. "Hey... could you give me a cigarette...? One last smoke before I die..." "Why would I do that for you?" "You wouldn't..." Alois grinned. This man truly hated him. "But I'll hear your last words." "Unfortunately, I'm an atheist... I have no intention of making a confession..." "Atheists die too. Do you really have nothing to say?" "Let's see..." Alois thought for a moment at Felix's words. "I'd tell myself from ten years ago... Stop being an i***t. Live a peaceful life. That's..." Damn it. The sky really is beautiful. ... ... "Young Master." Alois suddenly woke up. "Ah...? I survived...?" For a moment, Alois thought that the justice-obsessed man had somehow stopped the bleeding and transported him somewhere. But as he looked around, that thought was immediately denied. This was a mansion. His family mansion in Neue Nettesheim Village. There was no way that man would have brought him here. If he had taken him anywhere, it would have been prison. "Young Master...?" A man in his fifties wearing a butler's uniform, with a receding hairline, looked at him suspiciously. "W-What...? Ivo...? But you died in an accident seven years ago..." "Are you feeling alright, Young Master? This time, the problem isn't me. It's Madam's condition..." Mother's condition! Alois's brain suddenly sprang into action. That's right. It was a summer day in 1975. The world was screaming like a paranoid patient locked inside a psychiatric ward. Fifth Element Weapons—weapons possessing immense destructive power and high contamination potential through the creation of the Fifth Element, the Element of Void. The two superpowers that divided the world were constantly detonating them at testing grounds, threatening one another. From small tactical Fifth Element weapons to strategic ones capable of erasing entire cities, every kind of weapon of mass destruction continued to be manufactured, and everyone believed the world would eventually be blown apart by them. The superpower representing the capitalist bloc: The Federal Republic of Robernia by the People and the Free City Alliance of Reni and Zaltrand—commonly known as the People's Union. The President of the People's Union loudly warned of the communist threat. "We must protect our freedom. If the free world in which we live is eroded by communism and freedom is lost, then it is equivalent to the destruction of the world." And this nation, the Mairia Federation—commonly known as the Federation—which was effectively a political colony of the People's Union, also belonged to the capitalist bloc and publicly emphasized its commitment to fighting communism. The television was broadcasting the news. The Great Republic of Squarmal, a member of the communist bloc, had newly armed itself with Fifth Element weapons. Ah, he remembered this news. Because it had aired exactly ten years before he was shot by that man. Exactly ten years ago. These events were deeply engraved in Alois's memory. Because this was when his life first began to go wrong. "Young Master. Master is calling for you. If you're tired, I can inform him." "Y-Yeah. I'm a little tired. Tell Father I'll go later." Alois nodded vigorously. "Then I'll let him know." The butler called Ivo said that and left. "Damn it. What the hell..." The telegram ordering Alois to return immediately from the People's Union because his mother was critically ill had arrived two nights earlier. At the time, Alois had been studying abroad in the Faculty of Pharmacy at one of the People's Union's prestigious universities and had flown back to the Federation. Alois's father was a federal prosecutor. A guardian of justice... Or at least, he was supposed to be. But on this very day, Alois would learn the truth. Not only was his father involved in corruption, he was also a major figure in the drug trade. Alois remembered everything. How he would be forced to become an accomplice in his father's drug business. How, after his father's death, he himself would inherit and manage that criminal empire. And how, in the end, he would meet his fate by being shot dead by Felix Faust, an investigator of the People's Union's Narcotics Bureau. Alois knew that the drug trade destroyed not only the lives of those around it but also one's own life. No matter what, he had to avoid getting involved in it. But how was he supposed to explain that to his father? He couldn't exactly say that he knew what would happen ten years in the future. After all, Alois was a man of science, a pharmacy student. If he claimed that he had died ten years later and returned to the past, then sure, he probably wouldn't be forced into the drug business. Instead, he'd be sent straight to a psychiatric hospital. Besides, even in his first life, Alois had been horrified to learn that his father was involved in the drug trade and had tried to refuse his offer to become a business partner. What had he said back then that caused him to fail...? "Young Master." As Alois agonized over the problem, Ivo returned. "If you're feeling unwell, would you like to rest? Master said it would be fine to wait until you've recovered." "Yeah. I'll rest. I got a bit airsick on the flight." With that, Alois headed to his room in the mansion. His room was exactly as it had been when he left to attend university in the People's Union. It had been cleaned, but all his treasured possessions remained in their proper places. It felt nostalgic. Yet at the same time, a feeling welled up inside him that he would eventually have to leave this place behind. This room was like a ship's anchor. A weight meant to keep Alois tied to the Federation and bind him to the drug business. Lying down on the bed, Alois continued thinking about how he could refuse his father's proposal.