Chapter 112.

I slumped back in my chair defeated. Those old farts part of the board of directors were all stuck up with their heads held high above the clouds. They only listened to how much profit could be made. If it meant leaving a defect in an item only noticeable after the warranty ran out, they’re the type to leave it in there purposely.

Boss was too optimistic and I didn’t understand where her confidence came from in this venture.

“Dio, to begin with, we don’t need them to reveal their top-secret schematics to our repair technicians. All you need to do is train our technicians on how certain common defects can be fixed. If it’s anything complicated that they can’t solve, they can have it sent to us at corporate where you can deal with it personally, or you can locate the source of the problem and provide a method to fix it to one of our technicians here.”

“In theory, it sounds like that could be possible to accomplish, but I doubt it would work out well in practice. We’d likely be overloaded with work until large delays become apparent with repairs in the long run due to an abundance of backlog piling up.”

“That’s the exact point where we have a chance to expand the business.”

“Boss, repairs become less possible and feasible as technology advances due to how complex the subcomponents are becoming, you should know that, right?”

“Of course I’m aware of that, but that’s because big companies are more and more prone to keep their schematics on the lockdown. If they were shared with repair shops, many things deemed unfixable would suddenly be fixable again.”

“Dio, if the big guys want to play dirty and exploit consumers, then don’t you think we should strike at their weakness? What would happen if their reputation sunk to rock bottom? Their sales would plummet. If pressure was applied to the big wigs from other angles as well, I’m sure they would cave in.”

“Other angles? What other angles of attack are there?”

A shiver ran down my back when I noticed the razor-sharp look of a predator in her eyes. Her look right now contrasted greatly with the woman I knew. “You should know the world isn’t a pretty place, Mr. Genovese. Business isn’t such a pretty thing either. Sometimes a heavy-handed approach is necessary when dealing with people that just refuse to listen to reason no matter what is said to them.”

Instinctively, I vaguely understood what she meant by that. My boss definitely wasn’t a normal woman, that much I was certain of. The cold emotionless eyes locked onto my own was more than enough proof for me to arrive at that conclusion. Did she know something?

“Are you scared of me?”

“Of this side of you... a little.”

I definitely didn’t expect the lighthearted conversation we’d started off with would take such a dark turn.

“The scummy big wig executives who take advantage of the little bit of wealth and power they’ve accumulated are all rotten to the core, Mr. Genovese. You shouldn’t feel any sort of sympathy for them. If they were to mysteriously die one day, not a single person would grieve for them. At the end of the day, they only care about their personal gain and social standing. Anyone below them is viewed as either disposable pawns or slightly useful pawns they can exploit until they break.”

“Right.”

I was too afraid to refute her, and in all honesty, deep down, I somewhat agree with her to a certain degree. What I’d seen was more than enough to make me think the same way.

But just what was my boss’s identity? 

“I’ve dumped a lot on you today, for that, I’m sorry. You can take these documents home for today and work on the presentation there. Tomorrow I’ll come over to your place to help you out. I’ve still got other matters to take care of. I’m counting on you for this. Please don’t let down my expectations.”

“Y-yeah, I understand.”

I stacked up the scrambled documents together in one pile, immediately got up from my seat then left the room with all the documents in one hand. When I was outside the room I felt the color drain from my face. I’d only just gotten here for my shift, but I was told I could return home and work from there?

The business boss is terrifying. Peter wasn’t kidding, she definitely had a side that was like a devil. She hid the two extremes to her personality behind that neutral and cold business smile of hers really well.

Was this enough for me to call her a psychopath though? I wasn’t too sure. Either way, I definitely couldn’t call her a normal woman like she claimed she was. Normal women surely don’t think of casually attacking a larger company’s weaknesses.

When I returned to my desk I put all the documents into a briefcase I hadn’t used for quite some time now. I always kept it here at work in case I ever needed to safely transport anything to and from work. With such a thick stack of documents, they would definitely be damaged if I just willy-nilly tossed everything in my backpack.

“Senior Dio, are you leaving already?”

“Yeah, Boss assigned me with quite the troublesome task and told me I could work on it at home.”

“You have my sincere condolences.”

“Peter, you sure ran away quickly with your tail tucked between your legs when you realized you weren’t fired.”

“Haha, well... it would be bad if she had a sudden change of heart, right?”

“Whatever. Let the others in our group know that I’ll likely be away for a few days on a business trip with the boss. Make it damn well clear that it’s strictly business and nothing else. It’s just an opportunity to form a business partnership with one of my previous workplaces that sprung up. There’s no funny business to be had here.”

“Oh? Are you getting promoted as soon as you return after a sick leave?”

“I’m not getting any sort of raise for this, so no.”

“It must suck to be you right now Senior Dio. Once again, you have my condolences.”

“You have no idea how bad it actually is. Be glad you’re a simple junior repair technician with a normal life ahead of you, I really envy you for it.” I was definitely what people called cursed. If such an unscientific thing existed that is.

“Well, I’ll see you next time.”

“Yeah, whenever next time will be.” I might die from overwork after all.

I let out a long dejected sigh when I exited the building and returned to my twilight world apartment where all sorts of weird shit occurred. 

But even if I moved, would things go back to normal? Or was it already too late for me? Ugh, but the rent was so cheap that it was practically a steal. So what if some creepy shit happens? I just had to suck it up, get used to it, and avoid losing my sanity was all. Besides, even when I wasn’t here weird shit still happened, so even if I moved it was unlikely it would stop. In that case, I’d be stuck with high rent and I’d still have to cope with all this nonsense anyway.