I Am The Novel's Villain

Chapter 43

As soon as Bryan left, I started to think.

Why would he think that way? I just wanted to befriend Laeticia. It never crossed my mind to court her..and besides I still wasn't sure if I can even get attracted to a girl, considering I used to be a straight one..even though I was also never attracted to a guy.

“Will you keep in contact with him?” I heard Albert ask as he handed me a tray with snacks and tea.

“For now, I'll play with him.” I answered.

“If your parents knew about this and how you let him enter the house, they'll surely be displeased.” He reminded.

“I know. That's why next time he came and I wasn't here, don't let him in. Also, could I ask Grandpa to keep this a secret?” I jokingly looked at him.

“How could this poor man say no? Especially when I was bribed with a limited edition pocket watch. ” He smiled.

I smiled. Before I forgot it, I called Tarkhan.

“What?” the other line grumpily greeted.

“Want to make some money?” I ignored his tone and asked instead.

“I'm listening.”

***
“Let who?” Tarkhan asked.

“Let me invest to your oil business. ” I said seriously.

“And why would I follow you?”. He irritatingly asked.

“Because I know you love money and as a friend I don't have the heart not to support you when I can.” I said with boredom  while chewing the cookie Albert brought.

“You know we still haven't got any authority yet and besides why are you bringing this topic now. What are you playing.” He asked seriously.

“What if I told you that there's a country in South East Asia that is possibly looking for joint exploration in their natural gas?” I said.

I just discovered how some of the places here in this world is similar to ours, with just few discrepancy. And that discrepancy is in terms of technology, developments and discoveries. The other one clearly is far more advanced. This world currently doesn't yet know the value of natural gas and when I saw the news one day of a country where people lit their water for cooking, I just knew we had to go for it.

This world only focuses in Saudi Arabia as it's main source of oil. According to the novel, its reserve will run out due to over exploitation and the search for other source of reserve begins. They never bothered to look in the other country or places like Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, Canada, Kuwait and Philippines. The last one used to be a hot topic in my own world especially the dispute of its access to its Exclusive Economic Zone filled with oil, though it's natural gas is within it's own archipelago.

Right now, I am the only one with this knowledge. It may seem dumb, but this world truly lacks the modern way of thinking of the people in the world I used to belong. I think it also stems from the fact how vague the author was in depicting this place. She just stated “A land filled with natural resource in which Richard managed to discover with Tarkhan”, “somewhere in Middle East”, “Richard managed to get the highest bidder ” of what? What is the bidder's business? Where exactly in Middle East? What land specifically and what processes  did they do to extract the oil? Did they drill the site? Hired some geologists?

Clearly, this novel is focused on “drama and romance” only. It's sickening how the author let everything be discovered by the Male Lead. Everything goes according to what he wants and he never suffered. What about the people who were behind all those tedious paperwork..the people he fired when he got elected as their company's new CEO and wanted to have younger workers..what about their family? The people who were behind in finding investors, making negotiations and contracts...and those researchers who discovered those sites? They never got the limelight they deserved. The novel just put all the credits to the Male Lead and he basked in it.