The Transcender Without a Golden Finger

Inside the game company, Anshera, who had finally found where the helmets were stored, had sparkling eyes. After directly stowing away over a dozen helmets into her storage bag and casually tossing down a piece of gold weighing several pounds, she looked at Rikka.

"Let's go."

Seeing this, Rikka wanted to say something, but after noticing the massive chunk of gold on the floor, she just nodded.

The two girls came and went silently, leaving without a trace.

Just as they walked out of the company's main entrance, Kayaba Akihiko, who had also finished all his preparations, walked out with them. He headed alone to his car, silently making his way toward his already prepared safe house.

What Kayaba Akihiko didn't know, however, was that as he left, his junior—who supposedly felt incredibly apologetic toward him—silently lowered his head.

In the man's hands was the business license for this company, Aincrad Co., Ltd.

On the license, besides the various gaming qualifications, the name Kayaba Akihiko was written next to the legal representative.

This Aincrad Co., Ltd. owned the rights to the game Sword Art Online, which included various unpatented core technologies.

But even though this company belonged to Kayaba Akihiko, its largest shareholder was him, Koizumi Koichi.

And his identity was that of a transmigrator who followed Kayaba Akihiko around, previously discovered by the evil cultivator whom Chen Changsheng had casually killed before the worlds had merged.

Without any cheat abilities, and with only a half-baked understanding of various games, anime, and world politics, Koizumi Koichi didn't have a smooth time even after transmigrating.

Fortunately, his identity in this world wasn't bad. After experiencing the classic transmigrator trope of both parents passing away, he inherited enough wealth to live a life of complete laziness and comfort.

Originally, that was exactly what he planned to do. He lived day by day without immense wealth or power, but relying on his parents' savings and his shallow knowledge from his past life, he invested in many future corporate giants, thus living a very prosperous life.

Because he knew the most about games in his past life, the majority of his investments were in gaming companies.

As his massive investments yielded substantial returns, his status gradually rose.

Especially among small and medium-sized gaming companies.

Thus, during a certain banquet, he met the president of a medium-sized gaming company who wanted to get to know him. He didn't know this president, but at the time, the man was accompanied by a blonde girl named Yuuki Asuna.

At that moment, Koizumi Koichi finally realized what kind of world he had transmigrated into.

However, as a hardcore gamer in his past life, he didn't care at all about Yuuki Asuna, who was still in elementary school. Instead, he used his connections after that to find Kayaba Akihiko, who had already graduated from college. He spent some money to get into Kayaba Akihiko's alma mater, and then approached him as a junior, expressing his willingness to invest in him.

Moreover, Koizumi Koichi showed extreme sincerity, willing to spend a fortune to invest in Kayaba Akihiko to open a studio and a company, with the promise that the company would be entirely led by Kayaba Akihiko. He swore he would never seize power or interfere with any of his decisions.

Kayaba Akihiko was incredibly thrilled by Koizumi Koichi's appearance and felt deeply grateful to him.

However, he had no idea that Koizumi Koichi simply wanted to play virtual reality games.

Thus, over the years, the two collaborated closely. Eventually, when Kayaba Akihiko felt his technology was mature, he founded Aincrad Co., Ltd. Although Kayaba Akihiko was the founder and leader of the company, he gave 90 percent of the shares to his angel investor, Koizumi Koichi.

Seeing this, Koizumi Koichi instantly knew that Kayaba Akihiko was still planning to create that death game.

But he just let it happen.

He knew very well that once the game was fully developed, Kayaba Akihiko's life would enter its countdown.

Thanks to the abundant funding, this version of the game was even richer in content than the one he knew, better optimized, and the open beta even had a hundred thousand spots.

Yet Koizumi Koichi still never thought about stopping Kayaba Akihiko.

Because from the very beginning, he never considered himself a citizen of this country. Aside from Kayaba Akihiko, whom he had known for years, he didn't care much about anyone else in this nation.

Moreover, after that, he would completely inherit Kayaba Akihiko's legacy. He believed that, when the time came, he would definitely be able to create the most fun game in the world.

Compared to the boring real world and a Japan that had its spine broken by America, he was much more willing to immerse himself in the gaming world and live a life of intoxicated dreams.

However, he did not know that this world had already quietly undergone a massive change.

The destruction of more than half of Tokyo earlier was, in his memory, merely a massive gas leak that triggered a huge explosion, followed by an earthquake.

Therefore, in his understanding, this world was just an ordinary technological world.

...

After Rikka and Anshera got the gaming helmets, they didn't go straight home. Instead, at Anshera's suggestion, they went to find Rikka's friends.

On a large bridge, Rikka held Anshera's hand and waved from afar.

"Sanae! Over here!"

Hearing Rikka's call, a girl with long blonde twin-tails, the ends of which were tied with mysterious cloth spheres, excitedly trotted toward her while hugging a book.

"Master! As soon as I heard you say there was something great, I immediately brought my familiar, deth!"

Behind the girl, another girl with short chestnut hair, slightly older than the blonde, had her face darken.

"Hey! Who are you calling a familiar?!"

These two girls were none other than Rikka's little shadow, Dekomori Sanae, and Rikka's high school classmate, Nibutani Shinka.

Because she had joined the chat group, even though Rikka still had her chuunibyou personality, she was no longer interested in establishing any chuunibyou clubs. After all, she was forced to spend most of her time cultivating, leaving her with very little free time.

Even so, she hadn't cut off contact with Dekomori Sanae, and miraculously, Dekomori Sanae had still met her frenemy, Nibutani Shinka.

However, because of Rikka, Dekomori Sanae had found out very early on that Nibutani Shinka was the true identity of her idol, Mori Summer.

But Dekomori Sanae was extremely dissatisfied with her current normal appearance, so the young girl decided she absolutely had to help Mori Summer find her lost true self.

To do this, she had even stood at the gates of Rikka's school several times, holding up the dark history quotes from Nibutani Shinka's chuunibyou phase and reading them aloud.

Thus, the destinies of the two girls became thoroughly intertwined.

...

Seeing the two girls approach, Rikka smiled and held up the two boxes containing the gaming helmets.

"Sanae, Mori Summer, look!"

"What's this?"

"Don't call me by such an embarrassing name! But this thing... could it be the gaming helmet for the soon-to-be-released Sword Art Online?"

The two girls had different reactions. Nibutani Shinka looked especially awkward upon hearing the name Mori Summer.

Hearing this, Rikka nodded and looked at the two girls.

"Sanae, Mori Summer, let's all go on an adventure to another world tomorrow!"

...