The Launch

It was already the end of March and it was time for Kazuya to officially launch the complete application.

Kaguya had already set up many things within the company including hiring some of the staff for the company and renting the office building.

Kazuya was sitting in his office with Kaguya who was working with the marketing department and managing the timing.

"The countdown has been set for an hour. That's when the app will be launched."

"How many people in the waiting list?"

"We will have almost five hundred thousand estimated real users for the application the moment it will be launched. The beta was very successful despite the limit of five thousand units being circulated."

"That's good. We'll be releasing the application on a subscription basis. The first month will be free for every new user and after that, they'll have to get a subscription for the full version of the application. The rudimentary features will still be accessible but the most useful features wouldn't be free after the month-long trial."

"That's a good plan. Once people get used to the convenience of using this kind of assistant, it would be very difficult to transition back to normal."

"Yeah. I've set the app to go public the moment the countdown finishes so I'll debrief you about my next application."

"Sure, I'll start working on it once you give me the demo."

"You'll get access to it by tomorrow. It's a writing assistance AI. I call it NovelAI. Tons of people get writer's block and need some sort of inspiration to write sometimes. That's the purpose of this application. You feed in the rudimentary draft of your writing and it'll generate a further story for you. It's your choice to use it or try to get another draft from the application. What do you think?"

"That's… Amazing. This is going to be a very popular application among writers."

"That's the plan. It'll work on the same subscription format as the assistant with the higher tiers of the subscription using the higher performance AI and providing a better quality story."

They spent a few more minutes discussing the application and then there was a knock on the door.

*Knock**Knock*

"Come in Hayasaka-san." Kazuya invited her in.

Hayasaka walked in with a confident gait.

"Kazuya-san, you should just call me Ai."

"Sure, Hayasaka-san." Kazuya had realized that this secretary of Kaguya was horrifyingly competent. She seemed to be slightly flirty with him on the surface but he knew that it was probably something of a trust test from Kaguya.

If he acted on her secretary's temptations, he'd probably lose any potential trust that Kaguya might end up having in him.

Hayasaka went above and beyond in fulfilling her boss's tasks and did them all perfectly. Kazuya was honestly jealous of Kaguya for having such an amazing secretary.

"Hayasaka, could you call up Kei and bring the champagne and glasses?" Kaguya instructed her.

She went to call their marketing head whom Kaguya had hired for marketing management.

It was almost time for the application to launch so they would be doing a slight impromptu celebration.

Soon Hayasaka walked in with a tray in her hand with four gasses and a champagne bottle. She was followed by a beautiful silver-haired girl woman who seemed to still be in college. She was Kei Shirogane.

"How are you, Kei?" Kazuya greeted her.

"Everything's fine, Kazuya-san. It's almost time for the app to launch, so I'll have my hands full soon."

Kazuya would've objected to her hiring by Kaguya but she was unbelievably competent. He was almost surprised at how Kaguya found such a diamond in the rough. She was the perfect marketing head for the company and her ideas and work were perfect.

The weirdest thing about her was that Kazuya wouldn't find a single piece of information about her background. It was as if she just appeared one day. He knew that he didn't have enough resources to dig deep, but the inexistence of any background information was slightly uncanny to him. He assumed that she might've had a bit of a complicated past relating to Kaguya and the Shinomiya family.

"All right, guys. We have two minutes to the launch." Kazuya turned the monitor toward the occupants of the room and stood up.

Ai handed the champagne bottle to him.

As the countdown lowered, Kazuya decided to give a little speech.

"I know that we're just starting. For now, we're a very small team and company… But I know that every single one of you is the best at what you do. I trust that we'll be able to get this company off the ground and make our mark in the world. And I want you to know that it won't be possible to do without all of your help. So, I'll need all of us to work together and bring this company to heights that one can only imagine. And without further ado. 10…9…8..7…6…5…4…3…2…1."

*Pop*

Kazuya popped the champagne bottle open and it fizzled out, falling to the ground.

"Hayasaka, glasses." He forgot to add the honorific in the heat of the moment. And no one noticed except for Kaguya. It was unknown if it was a good thing or bad.

She brought the glasses to him and he filled them up.

After handing everyone the glasses, he said, "A toast. To the successful launch of our first application. And many more to come after that."

*Clink*

…

"How is the reception of the application?" Kazuya was out with Chizuru on a dinner date.

He'd brought her to a fancy restaurant to celebrate the launch of the Nexus Assistant. She was wearing a slightly revealing black party dress that left one of her shoulders bare and had a slit on the side of her leg that went up to her thigh. The black high heels were Kazuya's favorite part of her outfit along with her signature hairstyle whenever she was with Kazuya.

"It's only been 12 hours since the launch and we already hit 25 million users. Breaking quite a few records. Even if half of that number is bots that are trying to crash our servers, the reception is astounding. And it's going to increase at an exponential pace within the next few days."

"25 million… God, that's amazing. I'm so happy for you." Chizuru put her hand over his and smiled at him.

"So am I. It's astounding. You should download the app too. The assistant is very useful for a lot of things."

"I'll do that. It seems like something amazing."

"It is… You have a play soon no?"

"Don't ask me about it. It's embarrassing." She looks down and seems like she doesn't want to talk about it.

"Is it that bad?"

"Don't ask…"

"You won't be letting me come to watch, will you?"

"Not a chance."

"I have an idea… Oh, by the way. Your name is going on the dividend of the application profits."

"What?" She couldn't understand his intention.

"The profit that the company makes from that application will be shared with you."

"Kazuya I told you… Please don't take pity on me or anything. I don't need charity." She said to him with a serious face.

"It's not because of that. I need to put your name on the dividend of the application. You were the voice actor for the female version of the assistant. If I don't pay you for your efforts, then it'll cause legal problems."

"Can't you just get me to sign over the rights or something? I don't feel right taking your money."

"It's not that simple, there are complications with that stuff. And what's there to not feel right about? You're getting the money for your hard work. You did work for the application, you're getting the money for it. It's that simple."

"…Fine. It'll make paying the bills easier, I guess. I can focus more on my acting gig then."

'The effort that it takes to help this girl is crazy. I had to create a whole ass story with legal reasons just to add her to the dividend roster for the application. At least now, she won't feel tempted to go back to her rental gig if there are any money-related problems… Also, now I can finally start focusing on acquiring the necessary hardware for the level 5 AI. That thing is going to revolutionize the world…'

…

With the assistant AI work finally finished, Kazuya could now focus on other things. Specifically his other money-making ventures. He might seem to have a lot of money for now, but in the face of the requirements for the AI, he'll need far more. A few hundred million dollars was his initial estimate to buy the required hardware that can manage the base-level computation of the AI.

'I could also go the blockchain route though… Create a cryptocurrency that works based on calculating the AI's algorithms… I'd be leeching off of the world for its working and processing… I'll have to think about the ramifications of that though… It's going to take a long time.'

"That's all for later though… Today, I'll play with my pet-to-be…"