Multiverse Mastermind: Starting in Naruto

Chapter 934: Chapter 698: The New Employee Fired by Tony Stark!

Stark Industries Tower.

These days, Stark Industries could practically be called red‑hot.

A few months ago at a press conference, the boss of Stark Industries, Tony Stark, had rather casually announced to all the reporters present that he was Iron Man.

In that moment, it completely ignited people’s worship of and longing for Superheroes.

There were always a bunch of reporters lurking around Stark Tower, hoping to catch a glimpse of Tony Stark and snag an exclusive interview with this billionaire.

However, Tony Stark hadn’t shown up in front of Stark Tower’s main entrance at all these past few days. He seemed to really enjoy flying around in his Iron Man armor, going straight from his beachside vacation villa all the way to the roof of Stark Tower.

Today was no exception.

A jet‑flame cloud suddenly streaked across the sky!

Amid the amazed cheers from the crowd on the ground, the red suit of armor traced an elegant arc through the air and landed directly on the roof of Stark Tower.

Tony Stark spread his arms, letting the machinery help him remove the armor from his body. Pepper Potts, the female secretary waiting nearby, hurried a few steps toward him, walking up to Tony Stark as she reported on the company’s situation.

Ever since Tony Stark shut down the weapons division not long ago, Stark Industries’ revenue structure had shifted, and during this painful transition period, the affairs of this giant conglomerate had been piling up more and more.

"Pepper, hang on a sec..."

Tony Stark covered his chest and gave a light cough, waving a hand to signal Pepper to pause. He rubbed his chest and forced himself to look perfectly fine: "Jarvis, get me a drink first."

Jarvis was the artificial intelligence Tony Stark created.

And in a sense, Jarvis understood Tony Stark’s physical condition better than anyone. Ever since Tony Stark had an Energy Block for his Iron Man suit installed in his chest, he’d been facing the problem of palladium poisoning, and only chlorophyll could alleviate it.

"Yes, Boss."

Jarvis’s mechanical voice was utterly emotionless.

As it accepted the order Tony Stark had given, a mechanical arm appeared in front of him, holding a cup of greenish vegetable juice.

This was extracted from some kind of plant; just from the color alone you could tell it didn’t really look like something a human being should be drinking...

It had to taste awful.

And not just your average awful.

"..."

Even though Tony Stark had been relying on this vegetable juice to ease his poisoning symptoms, his cheeks still couldn’t help twitching when he saw it.

Unfortunately, there was no cure for palladium poisoning. Only the chlorophyll in the vegetable juice could provide relief. He didn’t have any other options.

Tony Stark reached out and grabbed the glass of vegetable juice, forcing down a few gulps while casually chatting with Pepper beside him to distract himself.

Tony Stark brought up a plan he’d thought about before: "Mm, Pepper, if everything goes smoothly next week, all of this is yours..."

Because the palladium in his system had poisoned him so badly, Tony Stark wasn’t sure how much longer he could live. Lately he’d been planning to gradually transfer everything in Stark Industries over to Pepper Potts’s name. This woman was the person closest to him.

"Tony, don’t..."

Pepper rubbed her forehead, looking a bit dejected.

Clearly, this woman wasn’t like everyone else. She didn’t like Tony Stark’s arrangements at all, and even felt that ever since her boss became Iron Man, his already very self‑centered brain had picked up a few extra bad habits of arrogance and bravado.

"Of course, if it doesn’t go smoothly, that’s fine too..."

Tony Stark glanced at his secretary’s helpless face, and his mood finally brightened a little. He chuckled lightly: "It’s not like anyone can stop me from making my own decisions anyway."

Sadly, Tony Stark’s good mood didn’t last long.

Because when he and Pepper walked over to the glass terrace, he leaned on the railing and looked down toward the office area below, catching sight of a black‑haired young man holding a cup of juice.

You could tell the kid really liked juice.

The black‑haired young man seemed to sense someone watching him. He slowly turned his head and saw Tony Stark above, and he also noticed the vegetable juice in Tony Stark’s hand...

Hmm...

At this moment, they really should have been the same kind.

The young man smiled and lifted his juice in a little gesture, then clamped the straw between his lips again and happily went back to sipping.

"..."

Tony Stark felt utterly miserable. Watching someone happily downing a sweet juice while he was stuck choking down this bitter, indescribable vegetable juice in his hand...

The guy even lifted his cup at him!

How was that not a provocation?

Even though Tony Stark knew in his heart that the young man had no idea what was going on, that subtle contrast still made Tony feel a bit uncomfortable...

"Who is that guy?"

"I don’t know yet..."

Pepper Potts shook her head, glancing down at the black‑haired young man drinking his juice, her brows knitting slightly: "He’s probably one of the new hires from lately..."

"He looks like an interesting guy. Let me check..."

Tony Stark pulled out his phone, and a virtual screen appeared in front of him. His fingers slid lightly as he snapped a shot of the black‑haired young man.

A moment later.

The ID photo of a black-haired young man, squinting as he smiled, appeared in front of Tony Stark. Just judging from this photo alone, anyone would definitely think this black-haired young man was a good person.

Uehara.

That was the black-haired young man’s name.

But matching this photo was Uehara’s pitifully thin file; he didn’t even have a home address listed—Stark Industries had provided him with a company apartment.

Normally, employees of Stark Industries needed a flashy résumé and degrees from some pretty famous schools, but this black-haired young man called Uehara seemed to have nothing at all. You couldn’t see any qualifications that would let him work at Stark Industries.

Jarvis was a very smart AI.

Besides pulling up Uehara’s file, he also pulled up all the video footage of Uehara from the last few days, all of it taken during his working hours.

Most of the time, this guy called Uehara was drinking juice and playing games, looking completely out of place compared to the other employees at Stark Industries.

Without a doubt...

This was a slacker.

This guy wasn’t working seriously at all; it looked like he was just coasting at Stark Industries. How did someone like this even get into the company?

"Looks like our HR department made a teensy little slip-up..."

Tony Stark’s expression turned faintly weird. He slowly turned his head to look at Pepper Potts beside him and couldn’t help saying, "How did someone who spends every workday doing nothing but drinking juice and playing games get through the internship period?"

"I don’t know..."

Pepper Potts held her temples, feeling a bit of a headache coming on. "HR wouldn’t go so far as to send the file of a completely irrelevant employee to my office—and by the look of it, his job is completely irrelevant too..."

"Wait... we need to talk about a very serious issue here."

Tony Stark flicked his fingers a few times on the holographic projection, directly hacking into a computer’s operating system—the work computer used by that employee called Uehara.

The machine’s programs were all the hottest games on the market.

Just a rough glance at the storage was enough to tell that his work computer was packed full of games. He’d even uninstalled a few internal work programs from Stark Industries just to free up space for some massive game.

"Let’s talk about this serious issue..."

Tony Stark, bored out of his mind, flipped through the games on that computer and lazily analyzed, "You’re telling me his job is irrelevant... but the question we really need to ask is... does it look like this guy has actually worked at all?

Let’s see how many games he’s downloaded on this work computer... Hm... they’re all JP-localized or Chinese-localized... a few of them are pretty high-skill-demand titles...

But this guy hasn’t even beaten them. Doesn’t seem like much of a gamer—his save files are worse than what I could crank out in a few minutes of casual play... And these games with built-in malware plug-ins...

Good thing the firewall we built ourselves isn’t half bad..."

"Enough..."

Pepper Potts couldn’t really handle Tony Stark’s venomous commentary anymore. She kept rubbing her temples. "I’ve said it before, I’m really not cut out to be the CEO of Stark Industries..."

Over this period of time, Tony Stark had gradually handed all of the company’s affairs over to her, and before too long, something like this had already slipped through the cracks...

Of course, one slacker slipping into the company was a minor issue.

The real problem was: how did someone like that get in at all?

Did this mean that after she took over the company, the HR and administrative departments had been phoning it in with her orders, not even willing to handle the simplest hiring process properly?

"All right."

Tony Stark was never too used to seeing a woman show a vulnerable side. He reached out and rubbed her forehead with his finger, speaking with rare gentleness. "Pepper, this isn’t your fault. Just fire the guy and be done with it. It’s just a tiny breach-of-contract fee..."

"He should still be in his internship period..."

Pepper Potts kept massaging her temples.

"Then just fire him outright!"

Tony Stark looked at Pepper Potts, who was getting a headache over such a trivial matter, patted her bangs, and chuckled softly. "That way we don’t even have to pay his severance... not that Stark Industries really needs to worry about that."

Tony Stark’s mood had been sour again, but after rooting out a slacker who’d snuck into Stark Industries, his good mood seemed to return...

With that thought, Tony Stark leaned on the glass railing and glanced again at the black-haired young man still drinking juice below, unable to resist a little mischief.

The open-plan workspace of Stark Industries.

Uehara slowly finished his juice. He’d just met one of this world’s main characters, Tony Stark. In a while, getting his hands on a collection of Mark-series Iron Man suits was practically in the bag.

Uehara was in a pretty decent mood right now.

Just as Uehara returned to his desk, planning to spend the whole day gaming and slacking off, he noticed a new pop-up window on his computer screen.

[Mr. Uehara, you’ve been fired.]

[From your boss, Tony Stark.]

"..."

Seeing the termination notice in the pop-up, Uehara’s expression turned a little ugly, and his whole mood plunged into gloom.

After a long while.

Uehara finally calmed down. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and calmly took a picture of the termination notice on his desktop.