"A task to open a shop?"
After reviewing the system task, Fujino stroked his chin, stood up from the sofa, walked over to the fridge, grabbed a bottle of green tea, twisted the cap, and took a few gulps.
The coolness spread, and Fujino's mind raced with thoughts.
Opening a shop was an idea he'd had long ago.
But after thinking it over, he'd given up.
Even as an ordinary person in his past life, he knew how difficult opening a shop was.
His memories in this world corroborated this.
As the young master of the Fujino Zaibatsu, he naturally had some exposure to market research.
In Japan, the cost of opening a shop was prohibitively high.
Even excluding rent, labor, and initial resource costs, at least one million yen was needed for startup capital.
Fujino wouldn't dare gamble with one million yen.
Putting a million into the system guaranteed at least a few enhancement cards.
Playing the stock market might allow recouping the principal, maybe even a small profit.
But going all-in on a shop...
Most likely, he'd end up losing everything, down to his last pair of boxers.
Entrepreneurship – it was even trickier than stock trading.
But those were his previous thoughts.
Now, with the system as a safety net, he could go all out.
Putting his thoughts aside, a sharp glint flashed in Fujino's eyes.
He then opened the system's profession interface:
[CEO: Primary (0/100)]
[Sub-Profession Skills:]
[Business Acumen: Primary (Increases success rate of business decisions by 10%)]
[End-of-Month CEO: Primary (Increases Affinity by 5%)]
[Overbearing CEO: Primary (Increases Aura by 5%)]
"A 10% increase in the success rate of business decisions... With this 10% probability, the system's requirement of running a shop shouldn't be too difficult."
Fujino glanced at the Business Acumen skill, then turned his attention back to the system's startup task. "Besides, there's the three million yen system reward as a safety net. Even if I fail, I won't lose anything."
Of course, as long as it wasn't some bizarre type of shop, the success rate likely wouldn't be 0%.
Even if the shop ultimately failed, it wouldn't really be a loss.
With the system's three million yen reward cushioning the blow, the worst outcome would just be wasted effort.
Weighing the pros and cons,
Fujino felt this system task was practically handing him money.
He immediately accepted the system task.
[System Task Accepted]
The system prompt sounded in his ear.
Fujino put the green tea back in the fridge.
He walked slowly back to the sofa, sat down, turned on the TV, and began agonizing over what kind of shop to open. "Convenience stores, dollar stores, clothing stores... those are definitely out. If they fail, dealing with the leftover inventory would cause significant losses..."
Combining memories from his past life and this world, Fujino eliminated several unsuitable options.
After thinking for a moment, he suddenly recalled the industry most suited for him—
The food service industry.
"If it's food service, that's definitely the top choice for my startup."
Fujino began weighing the pros and cons: "The first floor of the detective agency can be used as the venue. For food service... just need to procure some ingredients, and it can be easily started. Even if it fails eventually, it won't tie up too much capital..."
After some thought,
Fujino realized that food service was currently the most suitable option for him.
The barrier to entry in the food service industry was extremely low.
If done well, it was possible to become an overnight success.
In this era, there were still many opportunities for the underdog to rise.
It hadn't yet fallen into the predicament of twenty years later, where market monopolies made entrepreneurship a dead end.
Having decided his future shop would be in the food service industry, Fujino didn't make any further plans yet.
He currently only had 2.2 million yen on hand.
The system task required three million yen.
Clearly, it wasn't enough.
"Looks like I still need to make money..."
Fujino shook his head, then turned his attention to the Pianist profession he had pulled earlier along with CEO:
[Pianist: Primary (0/100)]
[Piano Hands: Your hands are very suitable for playing the piano, possess basic piano knowledge.]
[Steel Soul: Primary (When playing the piano, you have a 5% chance to enter the Steel Soul state. In this state, you will gain the original composer's proficiency with the piece, achieving excellent performance results.)]
The Pianist profession only had two skills. From a practical standpoint, it was definitely less useful than CEO.
These effects might be great skills for a pianist.
But for Fujino, who didn't own a piano, had no interest in playing, and certainly no spare cash to buy one, it seemed rather useless.
A piano cost hundreds of thousands of yen.
With that money, he'd rather...
pull some wondrous little gadgets from the system.
Actually, calling it useless wasn't entirely fair.
At least the Pianist skills included passively mastering the piano.
With this passive skill, if he ever encountered someone showing off their piano skills in the future, he could thoroughly interrogate them, followed by a swift face-slapping performance.
"Beep beep!"
Just then, his phone, tucked in his pocket, suddenly beeped with a notification.
His thoughts interrupted, he took out his phone and saw a new text message notification.
It was from Suzuki Sonoko.
Suzuki Sonoko: ************
Suzuki Sonoko: That's the address for that chat room.
Suzuki Sonoko: Oh right, definitely don't say I'm a girl, okay? My persona in that chat group is a man in his thirties.
Fujino: Understood.
Fujino, hailing from the information age, could understand Suzuki Sonoko's persona of a thirty-something uncle.
After all, he wasn't unfamiliar with doing such things himself.
Except, unlike an uncle, he pretended to be an eighteen-year-old beautiful high school girl.
Putting his phone away, Fujino took out the laptop he had pulled some time ago and placed it on the coffee table.
The laptop was primarily white. On the display lid was an image of a girl in a white formal dress – this must be the 'Bride' the system mentioned.
Next to the Bride was a certain 'Mi' logo...
Such a thin and light laptop might not be remarkable in Fujino's original time.
But in this era, where laptops were still like briefcases, this was definitely a product far exceeding current world technology.
If he remembered correctly, this laptop's graphics card should be a 4090.
And a full-power one at that.
Its theoretical floating-point computing power seemed to be around 100 TFLOPS, or one hundred trillion floating-point operations per second.
What did this computing power mean?
China's Yinhe-4 supercomputer in the year 2000 had a floating-point computing power of one trillion operations per second, while Skynet from Terminator performed sixty trillion floating-point operations per second.
In other words, the laptop he held was already powerful enough to crush any supercomputer in the world – its technology level surpassed this world by twenty years.
"This laptop in my hands is a bit ridiculous..."
Fujino looked at the laptop, feeling its weight was somewhat significant.
He then opened the chat room address Suzuki Sonoko had given him and joined a chat room named: [Magic Lovers Alliance].
—— Yet who could have imagined that twenty years later, a graphics card possessing computing power surpassing this world's supercomputers, even exceeding Skynet from science fiction, would be used by people to generate lewd images...
Before joining the chat room, there was a naming process.
Fujino casually made up a pseudonym and joined.
Upon joining, Fujino saw the members actively discussing magic topics.
[Phantom]: Did anyone see Gunter von Goldberg's magic show today?
[Silent Ventriloquist]: Is that the world-famous illusionist magician?
[Red Herring]: I went to see Goldberg's show. He should be an illusionist type.
[Vanishing Pani]: Where did Red Herring get the tickets? You know, Goldberg's tickets are incredibly hard to get. I waited at the ticket window early the other day and still couldn't grab one.
[Red Herring]: Just lucky, I guess.
[Sun Xiaochuan has joined this chat room]
[Phantom]: Sun Xiaochuan? What a strange name.
[Vanishing Pani]: A newbie joined?
[Ikasama Doji]: Who invited them?
[Magician's Apprentice]: It was me. This is a friend of mine; he likes magic too.
[Sun Xiaochuan]: Hello everyone, I'm Sun Xiaochuan.
"Sun Xiaochuan? What a weird name?!"
Kuroba Kaito looked at the newcomer in the chat room and commented.
Meanwhile.
"Red Herring?"
Fujino, sitting in front of his computer, looked at the username [Red Herring] in the chat room and couldn't help but pause.
If he remembered correctly, this guy should be Kuroba Kaito, right?
Although he couldn't recall the specifics of the 'Magic Lovers Murder Case' offhand, he did remember the name Red Herring.
It should be the username used by Kuroba Kaito or Kaito Kid himself.
"Knock knock knock!"
Just then, a knock sounded on the door.
Fujino put the computer away, opened his bedroom door, and saw Miyano Akemi standing outside.
"Fujino-kun, dinner is ready."
"Dinner?"
Fujino looked somewhat puzzled.
Normally, Fujino was the one who prepared dinner at home.
"Ai-chan and I saw you came back so late, and then had to receive a client right after, so we tried making something."
"Is that so?"
Fujino glanced back at the clock; it was already 8:00 PM sharp.
Turning back, he nodded and smiled gently. "In that case, I must taste Akemi-nee and Ai-chan's cooking..."
Third floor, Miyano Akemi's room.
Tonight's dinner was made together by Ai Haibara and Miyano Akemi.
It was curry.
"Fujino-kun, how did we do?"
Miyano Akemi put a mouthful of curry rice into her mouth, swallowed, then looked up at Fujino with an expectant expression.
Nearby, Ai Haibara also calmly lifted her head, her placid gaze fixed on Fujino, seemingly also waiting for his answer.
"Hmm..."
Fujino looked at the curry.
Although he only knew how to cook home-style dishes, honestly, judging by the texture, this curry was indeed quite good.
It was just a bit bland.
It would be much better with a little more seasoning.
After thinking for a moment, Fujino didn't say anything discouraging, replying, "It's quite alright. Akemi-nee, I remember this is your first time cooking, right?"
"Actually, Ai-chan made dinner today."
Miyano Akemi smiled, looking towards Ai Haibara. "I just helped out a bit."
Ai Haibara lowered her head, silently bringing a spoonful of rice to her mouth, a faint blush seemingly appearing on her cheeks.
So she made it.
No wonder the flavor was so mild.
This kind of taste, while healthy, didn't stimulate the appetite.
For a young person like him with decent taste buds, this curry was already quite bland.
Elderly people often preferred slightly stronger flavors because their taste buds gradually degenerate.
He really didn't know how Dr. Agasa managed.
After dinner, Fujino had just returned to his bedroom when he heard the doorbell ring from the second-floor detective agency.
"Are there still clients at this hour?"
Fujino, already changed into pajamas, took out his phone and checked the time.
It was already nine PM.
He felt somewhat puzzled.
Usually, clients coming to the detective agency mostly arrived during the day or afternoon.
It was rare for anyone to come at night.
However, one thing was certain: whoever it was, if they commissioned something at night, the pay would definitely not be low.
Holding onto his doubts, he walked towards the second-floor detective agency.
Just as he reached the bottom of the stairs, he saw two figures standing outside the agency door.
One was an old man, the other was also an old man.
One old man wore a brown suit. Fujino recognized him; it was Curator Ochiai, whom he had knocked out before.
The other, a portly man in a black suit, Fujino didn't recognize.
But judging by his appearance, he should be wealthy.
"Curator Ochiai?"
"Mr. Fujino!"
Seeing Fujino's figure, Curator Ochiai looked exceptionally excited, rushing forward to give Fujino a big hug.
"Ahem."
Fujino cleared his throat lightly, feeling quite awkward being hugged like this.
A girl was fine, but an old man... never mind...
Silently pushing the old man away, Fujino looked at the radiant Ochiai, asking puzzledly, "Curator Ochiai, why are you at my house?"
"Actually, I came to express my gratitude."
Curator Ochiai also felt his behavior was somewhat inappropriate.
Taking two steps back, adopting a respectful expression, he explained, "Thanks to you, Mr. Fujino, the Medieval Museum was saved. I've been busy handling museum affairs recently, so I didn't have time to come over. Today I finally had some free time, so I came specifically to express my gratitude."
"I see."
Fujino paused, then recovered and asked, "Did you win the lawsuit?"
"We won."
Curator Ochiai nodded. "Thanks to Mr. Fujino helping me contact Attorney Kisaki. With her help, we won the case some time ago."