**Chapter 162: Red Herring [4k Chapter]**

"Is it the task of opening a store?"

After checking the system task, Fujino rubbed his chin, stood up from the sofa, walked over to the fridge in the room, took out a bottle of green tea, twisted open the cap, and took a few gulps.

The coolness spread, and Fujino's mind was filled with countless thoughts.

Opening a store was an idea he'd had for a long time.

But whenever he thought about it, he gave up.

In his previous life, he was an ordinary person who knew how difficult it was to open a store.

The memories of his current life in this world also confirmed this.

As the eldest son of the Fujino financial conglomerate, he was naturally exposed to market research.

In Japan, the cost of opening a store is incredibly high.

Even if you don't consider rent, labor, or the resources needed to get started, you still need at least 1 million yen in startup capital.

Fujino didn't dare to gamble with 1 million yen.

Throwing 1 million into the system would at least guarantee a few enhancement cards.

Stock trading has a chance of recouping the principal, maybe even making a small profit.

But if you go all-in on a store...

Chances are, you'd end up with nothing but a bitter loss.

Starting a business is even trickier than playing the stock market.

But that was his thinking in the past.

Now, with the system to back him up, he could afford to go all out.

Putting his thoughts aside, a gleam flashed in Fujino's eyes.

He then opened the system's career interface:

**President: Beginner (0-100)**

**Secondary Career Skills:**

- **Business Acumen: Beginner (Increases success rate of business decisions by 10%)**

- **Monthly President: Beginner (Increases charisma by 5%)**

- **Domineering President: Beginner (Increases presence by 5%)**

"Increasing the success rate of business decisions by 10%—with this 10% probability, running a store as the system requires shouldn't be too difficult."

Fujino glanced at the career skill "Business Acumen," then turned his gaze to the system's entrepreneurship task. "Besides, there's a 3 million yen system reward as a safety net. Even if I fail, it won't cost me much."

As long as it's not some strange kind of store, the success rate shouldn't be zero.

Even if the store ultimately fails, it's not a loss.

With the system's 3 million yen reward as a safety net, at worst, it's just some wasted effort.

After weighing the pros and cons in his mind, Fujino felt that this system task was practically handing him money.

He immediately accepted the system task.

**[System task accepted]**

The system prompt sounded in his ears.

Fujino put the green tea back in the fridge.

He slowly walked back to the sofa, sat down, and turned on the TV, once again falling into the dilemma of what kind of store to open. "Convenience stores, dollar stores, clothing stores—these definitely won't work. If they don't succeed, getting rid of the inventory will cause a considerable loss..."

Combining his memories from his previous life and this world, Fujino ruled out some unsuitable options.

After pondering for a moment, he suddenly thought of the most suitable industry for him—

The food and beverage industry.

"If it's a restaurant, it would indeed be the best option for me to start a business."

Fujino began weighing the pros and cons of opening a restaurant. "The first floor of the detective agency could be used as the venue, and for a restaurant... as long as you buy some ingredients, you can easily start it up. Even if it doesn't work out in the end, it won't tie up too much capital..."

After thinking it over, Fujino realized that a restaurant was the best option for him right now.

The food and beverage industry has a very low barrier to entry.

If you do it well, there's even a chance of becoming an instant hit.

In this era, there are still many opportunities for ordinary people to rise up.

It's not like twenty years later, when market monopolies leave no room for startups.

After deciding that his future store would enter the food and beverage industry, Fujino didn't make any further plans.

Right now, he only has 2.2 million yen on hand.

The system task requires 3 million yen.

Clearly, it's not enough.

"Looks like I still need to make some money..."

Fujino shook his head and then turned his attention to the pianist career that he had drawn earlier along with the president career:

**Pianist: Beginner (0-100)**

- **Piano Mastery: Your hands are well-suited for playing the piano, and you possess basic knowledge of the instrument.**

- **Soul of Steel: Beginner (When playing the piano, you have a 5% chance of entering the Soul of Steel state. In this state, you will achieve the proficiency level of the original performer, resulting in an exceptional performance.)**

The pianist career only has two career skills, which in terms of practicality, are definitely not as useful as those of a president.

For a pianist, these effects might indeed be good skills.

But for Fujino, who doesn't own a piano, isn't interested in playing the piano, and doesn't have spare money to buy one, they seem a bit useless.

A piano costs several hundred thousand yen.

If he had that kind of money, he'd rather...

Use it to draw some interesting system items.

Actually, calling it useless isn't quite right.

At least the pianist's career skills include a passive skill for proficiently playing the piano.

With this passive skill, if he ever becomes famous and encounters someone showing off with a piano, he can give them a taste of their own medicine and deliver a swift face-slap.

"Beep beep!"

At this moment, Fujino's phone in his pocket suddenly rang with a notification sound.

Interrupted from his thoughts, he took out his phone and saw a new message notification.

It was from Sonoko Suzuki.

**Sonoko Suzuki:** ************

**Sonoko Suzuki:** This is the address of that chat room.

**Sonoko Suzuki:** By the way, don't tell anyone I'm a girl. My persona in that chat group is a man in his thirties.

**Fujino:** Got it.

Fujino could understand Sonoko Suzuki's persona as a 30-year-old man, given his experience in the information age.

After all, it's not like he hasn't done something similar before.

Except, instead of a middle-aged man, he disguised himself as an 18-year-old high school girl.

Putting the phone away, Fujino took out the laptop he had drawn a while ago and placed it on the coffee table.

The laptop had an overall white design, with a picture of a girl in a white dress printed on the display cover. This girl should be the "Bride" the system mentioned.

Next to the bride, there was a logo that looked like "Mi"...

Such a thin and light laptop might not have been anything special in Fujino's time.

But in an era when laptops were still like suitcases, this definitely counts as a product far ahead of the current world's technology.

If he remembers correctly, this laptop's graphics card should be a 4090.

And it's a full-powered one.

The theoretical floating-point performance is about 100 TFLOPS, meaning 100 trillion floating-point operations per second.

What's this performance like?

China's Galaxy 4 supercomputer in the year 2000 had a theoretical floating-point performance of 1 trillion operations per second, while Skynet in "Terminator" had a floating-point performance of 60 trillion per second.

In other words, the computer he's holding is enough to crush any supercomputer in the world—its technology level is twenty years ahead of this world.

"The laptop I have is a bit ridiculous..."

Fujino examined the laptop in his hands, feeling its weight.

---

Then, he opened the chatroom address that Sonoko Suzuki had given him earlier and joined a chatroom named "Magic Enthusiast Alliance."

—But who would have thought that twenty years later, a graphics card that could outclass the world's supercomputers and even surpass the processing power of sci-fi's Skynet would be used to run... lewd images.

Before joining the chatroom, there was a naming step.

Fujino casually made up a pseudonym and joined.

Upon entering, he saw everyone in the chatroom fervently discussing magic.

[Phantom: Did anyone go to see Günther von Götterbach's magic show today?]

[Laconic Ventriloquist: You mean that world-famous illusionist?]

[Red Herring: I went to Götterbach's show. He seems to be an illusionist magician.]

[Vanishing Pani: Where did Red Herring get the ticket from? You know, Götterbach's tickets are really hard to come by. I went to the ticket counter early the other day, but still couldn't get one.]

[Red Herring: It was just luck.]

[Sun Xiaochuan has joined the chatroom.]

[Phantom: Sun Xiaochuan? What a strange name.]

[Vanishing Pani: A newcomer joined?]

[Ikasama Boy: Who invited him?]

[Magician's Apprentice: It's me. This is a friend of mine; he also likes magic.]

[Sun Xiaochuan: Hello, everyone. I'm Sun Xiaochuan.]

"Sun Xiaochuan? What a weird name!"

Kaito Kuroba eyed the newcomer in the chatroom and commented.

On the other side.

"Red Herring?"

Sitting in front of the computer, Fujino noticed the username "Red Herring" and was momentarily stunned.

If he remembered correctly, this guy should be Kaito Kuroba, right?

Although he couldn't recall the specific details of the magic enthusiast murder case, he did remember the alias "Red Herring."

It should be the username used by either Kaito Kuroba or Kaitou Kid himself.

"Knock, knock, knock!"

At this moment, a knocking sound came from the door.

Fujino closed his laptop, opened the bedroom door, and saw Akemi Miyano standing at the entrance.

"Fujino-kun, dinner is ready."

"Dinner?"

Fujino looked a bit puzzled.

Normally, Fujino was the one who prepared dinner.

"Ai and I saw that you came back late today and had to entertain a client afterward, so we decided to give it a try."

"I see."

Fujino glanced at the clock; it was already 8 PM.

Turning his head back, he nodded and smiled, "In that case, I'll have to taste Akemi-san and Ai's cooking..."

Third floor, Akemi Miyano's room.

Today's dinner was made by both Ai Haibara and Akemi Miyano.

It was curry.

"Fujino-kun, how did we do?"

Akemi Miyano took a bite of curry rice, swallowed, and then looked at Fujino with a face full of expectation.

Next to her, Ai Haibara also lifted her head calmly, her eyes turning to Fujino as if waiting for his response.

"Well..."

Fujino examined the curry.

Although he only knew how to cook basic dishes, to be honest, this curry tasted pretty good.

Just a bit on the bland side.

Adding a little more seasoning would improve it a lot.

After a moment's thought, Fujino refrained from saying anything that might dampen their spirits and replied, "It's not bad. Akemi-san, if I recall correctly, this is your first time cooking?"

"Actually, today's dinner was made by Ai."

Akemi Miyano smiled and looked at Ai Haibara, "I just helped out a bit."

Ai Haibara lowered her head, quietly took a spoonful of rice into her mouth, and seemed to blush slightly.

So, she made it.

No wonder the flavor was so mild.

This taste, while healthy, lacked the ability to stimulate the appetite.

For someone like him, with relatively good taste buds, this curry was already quite bland.

Older people tend to prefer slightly stronger flavors because their taste buds have gradually declined.

He wondered how Professor Agasa managed.

After finishing dinner, Fujino had just returned to his bedroom when he heard the doorbell ringing from the second-floor detective agency.

"Do we have a client at this hour?"

Already dressed in pajamas, Fujino took out his phone to check the time.

It was already 9 PM.

He felt a bit puzzled.

Usually, people came to the detective agency during the day or in the afternoon.

There were rarely any clients at night.

But one thing was certain: whoever came to make a request at night would surely offer a generous reward.

With that thought, he headed to the second-floor detective agency.

As he descended the stairs, he saw two figures standing at the entrance.

One was an old man, and the other was also an old man.

One of the old men was wearing a brown suit; Fujino recognized him—it was Director Ochiai, whom he had met before.

The other man, wearing a black suit and with a bulging belly, was someone Fujino didn't know.

But judging by his appearance, he seemed like a wealthy person.

"Director Ochiai?"

"Mr. Fujino!"

Director Ochiai looked extremely excited when he saw Fujino, immediately giving him a big hug.

"Ahem."

Fujino cleared his throat, feeling a bit awkward being hugged like this.

It's fine if it's a young woman, but an old man... no thanks.

Silently pushing the old man away, Fujino studied the radiant Ochiai with a puzzled look, "Director Ochiai, what brings you to my house?"

"Actually, I came to express my gratitude."

Director Ochiai also realized his behavior was a bit inappropriate.

He stepped back a couple of steps, showing a respectful expression before explaining, "Thanks to you, Mr. Fujino, the Medieval Museum was saved. I've been busy with museum matters for the past few days, so I didn't have time to come by. Today, I finally had some free time, so I came to express my gratitude."

"I see."

Fujino paused, then asked, "Did you win the lawsuit?"

"We won."

Director Ochiai nodded, "Thanks to your help in contacting Attorney Kisaki, with her assistance, we won the case the other day."

(End of this chapter)