.
Kazuya could only sigh and confirm another one of Miyamoto's teachings. This specific girl was being petty and held on to grudges. He shook his head because this girl decided to blackmail the wrong person.
"I heard your proposal and I reject it. You may leave now" Kazuya smiled at her.
"Good, now I want you to… wait… what did you say?" Yui couldn't believe what she just heard.
"I said you may leave the same way you came in" he kept the smile on his face as this girl couldn't believe he just turned down such an opportunity.
"You… were all the things you said to the mistress a lie!? Wouldn't you do anything to save them the trouble of dealing with those shameless people?" She was getting irritated. She thought that he was a decent person for saying those things and actually admired him when he said it which was why she was disappointed in hearing his calm rejection.
"My words weren't a lie. I just don't want to deal with someone who clearly went to blackmail me without thinking about it clearly" Kazuya said it as if it was a matter of fact which irked her. He then proceeded to take out his cellphone and played a recording of their current conversation. "See? Even if I didn't go this far I would only need to say that you hold a piece of evidence to your grandmother and you would hand it over to them"
"You sneaky little fox! I'll erase it then!" she proceeded to take her phone out to erase the evidence in spite. This was when Kazuya made his move and grabbed her cellphone the instant it left her pocket.
"I advise you not to do that. You need to think about things more thoroughly. Remember, what I've been doing? I resumed recording our conversation so if you erase it now, then the consequences would be dear for you" he warned. The only reason he was not being hostile to this girl is that If the evidence she had really does make the other side take a loss in silence, then he would be grateful instead. His plan needed time to be implemented so avoiding a confrontation now would be the ideal scenario.
"You're even threatening me now!" She felt wronged. It was supposed to be her winning but it was turned over so effortlessly. She was now the one being forced into a corner.
"I'm not threatening you, I'm just stating facts" He was only responding to her threat accordingly. If Yui knew the consequence of threatening Kazuya then she wouldn't be acting so unreasonably.
"Meanie! Bully! I hate you!" she shouted. Kazuya sighed. He was the one being threatened and she was the one getting mad. Kazuya didn't feel like dealing with her anymore and looked at the video of Lee she took.
"This is certainly interesting. Good work" he praised her but she was still pouting by the side. "But like I said, you need to think a little more about how you to make the best out of the situation"
"What do you mean by that? I'll just show it to granny and the mistress and this will surely be able to help them" This part she was sure about. Lee giving the direct order and the video even captured the iconic school clock outside the window so denying would be hard.
"You forgot to take account yourself first and foremost" Kazuya looked at her seriously. "Sure, this is helpful but if they present this evidence, the first questions would be how did you get this? Who took this video? When your identity as a person of a Kouzuki household person is exposed then they can blatantly claim that this is a direct attack against them. Remember, you're a girl who took this inside the boy's bathroom. Not only will they have a reason to escalate this feud, you will also be at risk" Kazuya explained. He wasn't worried that Kyouko and Mei would take care of it but there were risks still involved.
"W-what should I do then?" Yui was nervous. She didn't even think about the points he just raised but they were indeed serious things to think about.
"Luckily, you presented this to me beforehand. I happen to have a good way to resolve this" Kazuya led her to his computer where he copied the file and then began his work.
Kazuya had a simple solution for their predicament, it would be to leave the dirty work to the public. He masked his IP and immediately posted the video on various public boards after primarily posting it on the school forums. That was not all, he even went as far and created funny memes out of Lee's raging where he made funny gifs and spread it as well.
"Young master you're a genius!" Yui was so excited that she hugged him from behind his chair. Kazuya continued doing his work and didn't pay her much attention.
Yui wasn't stupid and realized what he was doing. They could claim that they just found this video instead. Although the public didn't know the reason Lee was raging, their side could simply just give them the hint and it would be the public who decimates the conglomerate's young master and their reputation.
"No matter which world, humans always have a habit of minding other people's business. A rumor inside a small community travels at the speed of boredom" Kazuya turned at Yui who in turn looked at him. She finally realized that she had been hugging him from the back of his chair this whole time and quickly jumped back.
"I-I'll go ahead and tell them about the evidence" she couldn't look him in the eye and rushed out the building. Kazuya proceeded to do his work and went back to going to his original objective after making sure that there would be no further disturbance.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
Kazuya opened the nostalgic online game and installed it. Being a student who worked after school and studied a lot, he didn't have much of a social life in his previous life. He was given a hand me down computer and he decided to play a game out on a whim. The game was called 'New Gods Online' and it was a game he played in his previous life.
The reason he played this game was simple, there were a lot of people who got inspired from this specific game and soon became famous in the real world. Being a person who wanted to repay Mei and give her a happy life, he paid attention to these people and learned from their interviews that they played NGO and it played a great role in their success.
Kazuya followed their example and used the game as a tool to socialize with people while having fun. It was the unique community of this game that helped build a lot of those successful people. He even found himself a great group of friends who like him, were constrained by life during the daytime and wanted to take a breather when they got home. He was part of the group called 'Nocturnal Pals' and played with a with a small number of interesting people. One of them could even be considered his virtual girlfriend since they were called recognized as one of the group's couples.
"Since Tang-chan said she started out playing this game when she was given a free copy during it's release, I wonder if she'll be there?" Kazuya wondered. He was never actually able to meet this person in his last life in person but that didn't matter to both of them. They cared little about those things and enjoyed each other's company after their busy days.
Of course, meeting up with his old friend is not the main reason he was going to play this game. He needed to find the specific people so he could convince them to join the company he was going to build.
"I still have a few days before the game is officially released so I need be prepared to go through all of this" Kazuya went back to the house and went directly inside Kyouko's study to retrieve all the books she kept about business and the like. He may have dabbled in reading about businesses but his knowledge was still incomplete. He was going to build one up from the ground so he wanted to make sure that he understood everything to minimize the risk of being caught off guard.
He may have been a genius in the eyes of others but in his own eyes, Kazuya was still an inexperienced person who didn't deserve to be called one. He was a pretty average person when he was on earth in his first life and was suddenly called a hero when he went to Edea. As a person who was underappreciated his whole life, this played a large part of his demise. The hubris caused by all the praise he suddenly got made him lose sight of the important things he needed to pay attention to.
Even now, he didn't consider himself anything much. In his mind, if he did not possess the memories of his previous life then he would just be the same person he was before. He swore to never again be distracted by such shallow praises and let himself be swayed into making decisions that he didn't agree with for the sake of people he didn't even care about.
As Kazuya went off to busy himself with the preparations of his new plan, the living room just finished watching the video that Kurumi showed them. Kyouko and Mei were thankful towards Yui with providing them with such a decisive evidence but were still thinking about how to use it. The issue that Kazuya raised with Yui was now on their minds.
"Thank you Yui-chan. This is very crucial evidence" Kyouko gave her an appreciative look.
"Are you worried that using will mean escalating the relationship into a feud mistress?" Yui inquired after noticing Mei falling deep into thought.
"How did you know? There are indeed some problems but we only need to figure out how to use this without making the situation worse" Kyouko thought that Yui was worried about making things worse so she tried to let her be at ease.
"The young master told me when I showed him the video. He also took care of the issue the mistress is worried about" Yui proceeded to tell them about what Kazuya had done and everything he explained to her. Everything had already been taken care of and the best part about it is that they even dealt a blow to the Kurogane corporation without being clearly implicated by it.
"Where is Kazuya now?"
"The young master is still busy. He said that he will make this viral and began to make and spread memes around" She showed them some examples. Different types of gif images made the scenes and scenarios of the video. Some included texts and some were in looped to make Lee dance around the bathroom.
""pfftt… HAHAHAHA"" everyone who watched couldn't hold it in and laughed out loud. The tense atmosphere immediately evaporated as laughter filled the room.
"Somehow I kind of feel bad for this pervert. If these memes get used around…" Mei couldn't help but smile. She liked what Kazuya had done and it was done so in a way that both her and Kyouko wouldn't have thought of.
This reminded everyone in the room one thing; do not get on his bad side. The posts haven't been up for long and it's already spreading throughout the most brutal crowd; the internet people. His clever work has already begun to let the first people to discover it spread it around vying for the rights to have been the ones to use such funny memes first.
Back at Kazuya's lab, he finally realized how much time had past and headed to his room. There he found Mei who was sleeping soundly on his bed.
"You're late" she slowly opened her eyes as he finished changing to sleepwear.
"Sneaking up to my bed again…" This was a habit that he only thought existed in the other version where Mei would sleep in his room after getting home late for work. She would do this even as he studied or played games so he got used to it. It was only after meeting this younger version of Mei that he realized how much the quiet and cold version of her cared for him. He couldn't make her leave after he realized this.
"Come to bed Kazu. I can't sleep as peacefully if you aren't here anymore" she pulled Kazuya who was hesitating to the bed and locked her arms around him.
"Have you been awake all this time big sis?" he asked while knowing she was half asleep when he entered.
"A little. I'm kind of excited for what's going to happen later. Our clashes with the Kurogane corporation don't always have a very favorable conclusion for us so I'm looking forward to this one thanks to Yui's video" She was in a very good mood.
"Big sis, I want to ask you a favor" he figured that this would be a good opportunity to ask for her assistance"
"What is it Kazu? If it's something your big sis can do then consider it done"
"But it must be kept a secret from mom until the right time to tell her. If you can make this promise then I will tell you" Kazuya made sure to mention this since she was Kyouko's right hand woman after all.
"A secret between us…" Mei loosened her hold on him and lowered her gaze and looked at him. "Is it something bad?"
"Not at all. I just want to borrow big sis' authority as one of my guardians to sign a few papers for me"
"Papers? What for? We can't pre-sign a marriage contract" Mei tried to fool around to mask the nervousness she was feeling. This was the first time he asked for something so she definitely wanted to grant it but aside from not telling Kyouko, she was going to exercise her rights as one of his guardians to sign legal papers behind her back.
"I plan on making my own company"
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