DOOMED TO BE A VILLAIN



"Did you get all that?" Davies suddenly turned to Daniella who had been standing beside him all this while, and received a nod as she brought out her phone and typed a few things into it and a few seconds later a *ding* sound came from her phone.

Lee Jung and the onlookers wondered what the golden-haired young man was checking on his phone on the bequest of Davies, and a few seconds later, they got their answer.

"Lee Jung, age: 21, nationality: ***** *****"

"Personal assets worth: 2.57 billion powerstone dollars,"

"Account balance: 105 754 976 powerstone dollars,"

Daniella recited aloud Lee Jung's bank details as well as some personal information.

"Oh wow, he can pay for it, I'm sorry I did not believe you," Davies laughed lightly and mockingly apologized to Lee Jung who was staring in absolute shock with a half-ajar jaw.

"What? Cat got your tongue, or do you believe that any of the information is wrong?"

"Should we go on to transaction details and hear about that?" Davies asked with a slightly puzzled look on his face, but his eyes glinting in merriment and his mocking tone showed that he was enjoying the situation.

Lee Jung dared not believe that the information was wrong as he knew it to be correct, especially as these values were shown on the status screen of his system interface.

"H-How did you get access to that information,"

"What kind of person are you to be able to get this kind of information from the Yorkshire Imperial Bank?" Lee Jung asked, his brain ringing alarms and his cautiousness and wariness of Davies shooting off the chart.

"The kind that owns more than half of the damn bank," Davies replied scornfully, throwing out a shocking revelation like he was talking about the color of the sky.

"What? You didn't think that Imperium and Imperial sounded a little too similar? He continued with a mocking tone, not paying attention to the expressions of everybody whose brains had currently short-circuited due to his shocking revelation.

A few years ago, he had wondered what to do with the excess funds he had on hand, but since he hadn't come up with a good idea of where to put his money to work, he decided to deposit all of it in a bank, but because he didn't want information of how much money he had in a bank getting out, he decided to just buy the whole bank,  and that was exactly what he did.

He bought out the majority of the shareholders to avoid raising too many eyebrows and put his money into the bank but hid all information about how much he had in the bank and even the fact that he had a bank account with the bank.

The only thing the other shareholders and the management officials of the bank knew was that Davies Lake had bought a majority of the shares of the bank, and ever since then they never had to worry about their accounts as they never ran out of money. This was what had enabled them to grow this much.

"Anyways, even if you have the money," 

"I fear for your account balance, so I'll do you a favor and buy the stone, you can hold on to the little amount of money you have," Davies said with a pure look, making it seem like he was actually doing Lee Jung a favor.

The onlookers would have fallen for his act if not for the sarcasm in his tone that he made no effort to hide as that went against his goal of thrashing up Lee Jung's "face" in front of a crowd.

Lee Jung's face turned red in embarrassment and anger upon hearing Davies's words and only the knowledge that nothing would come of him trying to hit Davies across the face prevented him from launching an all-out assault on Davies's face.

Normally, by no rights should he be ashamed of having only just over a hundred million powerstone dollars, but when his wealth was compared with the hegemon that was Davies's wealth, his account balance was meager enough that if the money was added to Davies's wealth, he wouldn't notice it as it had too few zeroes.

Davies's clever use of his words only served as the icing on the cherry of his embarrassment, and they did exceptionally well in infuriating him, but even after going through all of that, something helped him stay calm and not act irrationally as that would cause him to lose every chance of gaining the rare-grade power stone.

The benefits he stood to gain from the power stone were too great for him to lose it to Davies because he was trying to defend his pride, so he stayed calm and did not give up his claim to the power stone, but the rare-grade power stone was slipping through his fingers, and it was slipping fast.

He would soon lose the rare grade power stone to Davies and would only be able to bite his fingernails in regret if that happened, but just as he was losing hope on what to do or say that would give him a chance to take possession of the stone filled with the mana that he so sorely needed.

"What seems to be the problem over here?" an old benign voice rang through the voices of the people at the scene.

An expensively dressed old man who was accompanied by the attendant that had originally met Davies, Fiona, and Daniella on the ground floor, was the one who had called for clarification on the issue.

"President!" the attendant who was beside Fiona called to the old man and hurried toward him to explain the situation to him.

The sixty-something-looking old man was the owner of this establishment, Diamonds In The Rough. He had come to this floor because of the attendant that had rushed to tell him about the presence of Davies Lake on the premises.

He had come out to meet with Davies to give him a good impression and maybe even try to establish a relationship with him, but upon reaching the place where he was supposed to meet up with Davies, he had stumbled upon a gathering crowd due to something going on and he demanded an explanation immediately, he couldn't let rampant happenings like this take place inside of his turf.

The attendant quickly explained the situation as best as she could, and before long the old man had a grasp of the things that had happened. 

In a nutshell, it was two customers fighting over a commodity of their establishment, there was only one issue, the identities of the two people fighting over the commodity.

On one side was Davies Lake, a well-known genius with wealth and power that the old man had no hopes of ever glimpsing in his whole life, while on the other side was someone he knew and recognized, someone who had saved the life of his wife just a few days ago, Lee Jung, a promising young man.

The man was currently in a dilemma, if it were anybody else but Lee Jung, he wouldn't even bother listening to the story and would have just directly kicked him out, but he didn't want to come off as ungrateful and disrespectful to Lee Jung, even though he was older than him by quite a margin.

Normally, if the old man's brain was functioning properly, he'd realize that there was only one important person here, and that person was the one he was supposed to adhere to and favor in this situation, but due to fate's hand currently fingering his brain and shutting down the brain cells that were used for comprehensive thinking, the man was lost for words and unable to make a decision quickly in this situation.

Suddenly his face brightened up as he came up with an ingenious solution that would solve this whole situation, but it was unknown whether it was actually an idea of his own, or an interference from fate to try to rescue her agent from the tight situation that he currently found himself in.

"Why don't we leave the decision of who gets the stone to a round of stone gambling," the benign-looking old man said, inwardly feeling pleased with himself that he had come up with such an ingenious idea that would let him take a step back while giving an equal chance to both characters to get the stone without it seeming like he favored anyone over the other.

"Yes! Yes! Let's do that!" Lee Jung almost squealed in happiness at being given the right to take what rightfully belonged to him in the first place. He had no fear of going up against anyone in stone gambling as he had a strong belief in his luck and felt that he wouldn't lose to anyone as he was obviously the chosen one, the main character of this world… but if only he knew that he was not the only fated protagonist prowling the planet of Leivandage.

"What?" Davies couldn't believe his ears at the words that had just come out of the stupid old man's mouth.

'Is he high or something?'

'... or has he been fingered in the brain?' he wanted to ask somebody but felt like no one would be able to give him an answer that would calm down his rising annoyance.