I’ll Take On The Modern World—And Dominate It—Relying On No One But Myself.

A Fateful Encounter.

“I seriously have no idea what’s causing this.” Noda commented as he poured sauce over his fried mackerel.

“I feel like something similar happened in the past…” Shouta mused while eating simmered vegetables, trying to jog his memory.

They were in the employee cafeteria of Astral Telecom.

Shouta and Noda were employees of Axis Staff, a company primarily engaged in human resource dispatch. Both had been assigned to Astral Telecom, working within the company’s operations division.

The system servers they were in charge of had encountered a serious issue—a kernel panic, an event where the OS detects a fatal internal error and forcefully restarts.

While Noda seemed completely at a loss, Shouta felt an uncanny sense of déjà vu.

Later in the afternoon, a meeting was scheduled involving not only Astral Telecom’s development team, but also Delta Five, the vendor providing the servers, to discuss countermeasures.

“Well, it’s out of our hands. All we can do is wait for Delta’s report.”
Noda said matter-of-factly.

“Delta” was shorthand for Delta Five.

At that point, Delta Five was still analyzing the core dumps, and their findings would be presented during the meeting.

***

(Wait… Shiratori?)

Upon arriving at the meeting room, Shouta noticed a familiar face.

(Hold on… if that’s the case… could it really be…?)

A deeply unsettling feeling—unlike anything he had ever experienced—washed over him. It was so strange, so indescribable, that it left him frozen.

“Wha…?!”

Seeing that person triggered a massive shock through Shouta’s body—so intense that nausea instantly followed.

“Hey, Hiiragi! Your face is pale! Are you okay?” Noda, who had just finished exchanging business cards with a Delta Five representative, called out in concern.

“S-Sorry… I need to go to the restroom…”

“O-Okay… sure.”

Shouta staggered toward the restroom.

***

“Urgh—ghk—bleghh…”

Shouta emptied everything he had eaten that day.
(And the simmered vegetables were so good, too…)

“Why is he here…? Well, I guess it’s not entirely impossible…”

With nearly half a century of life experience, Shouta wasn’t easily rattled. But this time, he was completely shaken.

By the time Shouta returned to the meeting room, the meeting had already begun. He had braced himself for being reprimanded, but Noda had apparently smoothed things over.

“So, what you’re saying is… you still haven’t figured out the cause?”
Akaishi pressed, responding to Delta Five’s report.

Akaishi was a section chief at Astral Telecom and the supervisor to whom Shouta and Noda reported during their assignment. Clearly, he wasn’t satisfied with the report.

Meanwhile, Shouta couldn’t focus on the discussion. His attention kept drifting to a certain individual in the room.

“Delta, let me be clear—this is your last chance!”
In the end, the meeting concluded without identifying the root cause. Akaishi’s anger remained unresolved.

Shouta, who had missed the chance to greet one of the Delta Five employees earlier due to his abrupt exit, now exchanged business cards.

Shouta and Noda also carried Astral Telecom business cards for such occasions.

“My name is Isurugi. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

The name on the card read “Isurugi Kagetaka.”

“Noda, sorry—I’m still not feeling well. I’ll take a short break.”

“Ah, okay. Don’t push yourself.”

Driven by a surge of emotion from deep within his chest, Shouta began to follow Isurugi.

He didn’t know why. He just felt that fate had brought them together.

Since Isurugi had a guest ID card, he would need to formally check out of the building.

“There he is!”
As Shouta had anticipated, Isurugi was with Shiratori in the lobby.

He wondered if there was a way to get a moment alone with Isurugi—
And just then, Shiratori stepped away. Probably to the restroom.

(This is my chance! But… what do I say?)

Approaching a complete stranger out of nowhere would naturally raise suspicion.
Worse yet, Shouta had been staring at Isurugi during the meeting—his impression likely wasn’t great.

He needed to bring up a topic that was both natural and compelling while Shiratori was away.

(Think… remember…)

Shouta strained to recall what situation Isurugi was currently facing.

“Um… Isurugi-san?”

“Yes? What is it?”
Isurugi responded cautiously, clearly on guard.

“The issue this time… it’s with the CPU, isn’t it?”

“—Wha?! How did you know?! …Oh!”

Isurugi’s eyes widened, and he immediately realized his slip.

(Bingo. This might work.)

Bringing up internal information that only insiders would know was a good way to earn his attention.

“Pardon my forwardness, but if you’re willing to hear me out, I believe I can help resolve this issue.”

“W-What?!”

“I’ll email you the key points on how to isolate and analyze the problem. There isn’t enough time now, so I’ll send it to the address on your card.”

As he said this, Shouta looked around nervously. It would be bad if Shiratori overheard what came next.

Then, in a whisper, he spoke words only Isurugi himself could possibly know:

“I know everything about you. Your first crush was in third grade—same class—”

Isurugi’s face froze, terror in his eyes.

(Yeah… that’s the natural reaction.)

Of course, no one knows a person better than themselves. Shouta had fully expected that kind of reaction.

“Please understand, I have no intention of threatening you.I just want a private conversation. If you’re willing to trust me, please contact the number on the back of the card I gave you.”

Shouta had prepared a special card in advance with his personal contact info, just for this situation.

Isurugi stood there, stunned—likely overwhelmed by everything that had just been revealed.

“Isurugi, what’s going on? —Oh, hi there.” Shiratori returned, and nodded in recognition of Shouta.

(That’s enough for now. If he’s the one I think he is, he’ll respond.)

“Shiratori-san, Isurugi-san—thank you for your time.”
Shouta politely took his leave.

“Hey, Hiiragi, are you really okay?”

“Yeah… sorry. I’m fine now.”

Back in the Astral Telecom office, Shouta began drafting an email to Isurugi, reflecting on past events.

He clearly remembered how, back then, the CPU analysis had taken far longer than expected and become a serious issue.

Since it was a bug that could only occur due to thread contention, he decided to explain how to reproduce it in concise terms.

With that much information, Delta Five’s analysis team should be able to build a test case right away.

“Noda, I think I’ve figured out a fix for the issue from earlier.”