DOOMED TO BE A VILLAIN

"Hey Daniel, how much is this place worth?" Davies asked while looking like he was doing his best to calm his rising annoyance.

"... A few billion… I don\'t know the exact amount, I\'m sorry," Daniella replied to him and apologized, but did not understand what the worth of this place had to do with the current situation.

"A few billion, huh?"

"And I lost a few billion, hmm… I guess I can take this place as an apology…" he said with a slight smile as he arrived before the old president.

"...!" the old president was so stunned he went silent at the words that had just come out of Davies\'s mouth which requested him to hand over his business as an apology like it was some cheap candy, but before he could recover his ability to speak and protest, another string of words came out of Davies\'s mouth,

"... or you could simply get me a few billion worths of power stones in the next hour…" Davies gave the old man an alternative that was equally as difficult as the first one while he walked past the old man and moved towards the elevator.

Fiona and Daniella followed him wordlessly, living behind a crowd that had been shocked and stunned too many times today by all sorts of things. 

It was only after Davies had disappeared into the elevator, that the old man came back to his senses and realized that he should have at least retorted to Davies, and he quickly made to chase after Davies as he realized that if Davies was unsatisfied, or even worse, if he was pissed off at what had happened today, losing the Diamonds In The Rough was going to be the least of his worries.

In his alarmed state, he had forgotten about the protagonist that was the cause of his downfall as he chased after Davies to the elevator.

Lee Jung was even more pissed off that he had just lost all of his money on something that ended up stolen from him and his eyes darted around the crowd looking to see if he could find the culprit, but in his frenzied state, he hadn\'t bothered to notice that Davies who had lost a great deal more than he did, hadn\'t made a single effort to try to recover the stones he had just lost.

Everybody else at the scene also didn\'t think too much of Davies\'s actions to recover the lost stones… or lack of them thereof. They either ignored the notion completely or they thought he had figured that someone who was able to steal that many stones unnoticed would have found it easy to get away from the place.

They also ignored the fact that Davies had not taken much time to lay the blame onto the old president and other staff members of the \'Diamonds In The Rough\' and had quickly and overbearingly demanded reparation from them instead.

They hadn\'t ignored these things because they had suddenly become stupid overnight or anything of the sort, but rather it was because of the way Davies had led the whole situation and made them think the way he wanted them to think.

Right from the start, he had given off the vibe that he had been dragged into the whims of the old president to ensure a fair situation due to the "moonstone" he had tried to purchase at the same time as Lee Jung. 

He made people think that though he wasn\'t happy with the situation, he had gone along in order not to cause an issue at the shop, and he had also shown his annoyance by trying to hurry things up and simply buy all the stones so he could end the dumb stone gambling game.

Though the method he had tried to use were tyrannical methods that could only be done by someone as rich as he was, he had also not forced or threatened anyone into selling to him and had simply increased the prices a few times instead.

Due to all the previously mentioned actions, all the people who were watching the situation with interest had the impression that he was excessively rich and irritable enough to not want to have his time wasted.

After he wasn\'t able to buy all the stones, he had given in and let the other competitor, Lee Jung, also purchase his stones, once again showing that he had no wish to waste time on mundane things, and if money didn\'t solve the problem, he stopped trying.

Lee Jung then proceeded to reveal Davies\'s true identity, adding the character of a young genius to not be messed with, to him in their views after which what had happened had happened.

With all of these, the crowd thought Davies Lake to be an excessively rich young man who didn\'t like bothersome things and would usually resolve bothersome situations with money, otherwise, he just wouldn\'t bother himself.

Of course, they knew that there was more about Davies Lake than what they could see and thought about him, but the little they knew (or what they thought they knew about him) wouldn\'t let them think for a second that he was the one behind all of this.

Anybody looking at this from an outsider\'s perspective would instantly see that there was something wrong with the situation, but there was no one like that in the crowd, and when the people who were there told this story outside, the story would be distorted and be told from their views, thus making it almost impossible for anyone to come with the conclusion that Davies purposefully targeted the establishment, and even if they did come to that conclusion, there was a lack of a reason for such a situation as a mere \'Diamonds In The Rough\', that sold nothing but power stones didn\'t warrant Davies personally taking action to crush or even take over the place if he wished.

He could very well do the exact same thing with a few phone calls from inside of his bedroom while getting a lap pillow from any of his women, unfortunately, they wouldn\'t know that the cause for everything that had just happened was the fair-looking, young man of Asian descent who was his supposed competitor in the proposed stone gambling game.

Though this kind of result was because of nothing short of genius-level thinking, Davies wasn\'t able to think up such a plan with such a result because he was a genius at espionage, or a master spy, or any of that shit… rather it was due to experience of his misfortunes that came in the form of his previous reincarnations.

For him, this was not a happy topic as the price he paid for this level of skill was unimaginable pain and despair, but that was another topic to be left for another day, right now, he was back in front of the \'moonstone\', the beautiful milky white rare-grade power stone that had been the start of every conflict he had with Lee Jung inside this place.

He simply waited with Daniella and Fiona standing behind him in silence. Fiona looked like she wanted to say something, but she did not trust herself to be able to speak to Davies right now as she did not know what kind of reaction would come forth due to her speaking, so she kept quiet.

They had not waited there for more than a minute when they heard hurried approaching footsteps,

"Mr. Lake," an old-sounding male voice called out with respect in his tone.

\'Is that respect I hear in your tone old man, I wonder when you came back to your senses,\' Davies snickered inwardly but outwardly maintained an unperturbed face that barely turned over to look at who had called him.

"... Have you made your decision?" Davies simply asked and returned to viewing and appreciating the beauty of the moonstone.

"Er… about this…" the old man began to perambulate. 

(A/N: perambulate can be used as a slang that means talking nonsense in circles and not getting to the point)

"W-We will need more time to gather billions worth of power stones, so we as-" the old man was trying to ask Davies for more time, but Davies quickly interrupted,

"Then hand over the building…" Davies cut in without looking up from what he was doing before the man could say anything further.

"Ah… this… We can\'t do-" The old president was trying to speak his refusal when Davies interrupted him again,

"I don\'t think you understand something,"

"... I\'m not asking you… I\'m telling you,"

"You don\'t get to have a say in this…"

"You either give me the damn building, or you prepare the power stones for me in the next one hour…"

"... though there is a third option…" Davies spoke slowly and clearly so that his words could sink in.

"But it\'s pretty much just the repercussion of you not picking one of the first two options…" he finished his words with a wicked smile appearing on his face.