Copy & Paste Pow Chapter 41

Chapter 41: Chapter 41

Adam kept walking after scattering the broken phone pieces.

He did not slow down, and he did not look back. A few people passed him on the road without giving him a second glance. Somewhere behind him, a driver leaned on his horn for no real reason. The city kept moving like nothing important had happened.

’I survived that because Bruno wanted something,’ Adam thought. ’If he had come with a different intention, I might have walked straight into my own grave today.’

Bruno had not come to kill him. Bruno had come begging for a way to live. That desperation had saved Adam more than Adam’s own planning had. If Bruno’s mind had been set on something else, then Adam would have had to use the hidden card he had been holding back.

Even then, there was no guarantee things would have gone cleanly.

Adam exhaled slowly.

He had made a mistake so basic that he almost felt ashamed for not seeing it earlier. He had put all his eggs in one basket, then walked over and stood beside that basket himself the moment danger touched it. His company, Kenji, Shinju, and that office had all started becoming one line too early, and Adam himself had tied that line together.

’Stupid,’ Adam thought.

He had built one main point around Kenji and the company, then let too much weight rest on it. Worse, when that point came under pressure, he had exposed himself to protect it. If Bruno had shown up in a different state of mind, John might not even have gotten the chance to move against him later.

Something else could have ended Adam first.

He pressed his lips together and kept walking.

The lesson was ugly, but it was clean.

He could never trust Gonda, and he could never trust Bruno. All of them were useful, but none of them were safe.

They were assets, not pillars or foundations. The moment Adam forgot that, he would hand them a knife and show them exactly where to stab him.

’No more of that,’ Adam thought.

He would not build his future around one company, one gang contact, or one physical location again, because a snapped line should not bring down the others, an exposed front should not reveal the rest, and one person’s failure should not be enough to shake the whole structure.

Adam turned into another road and kept his pace steady. He still did not use the copied phone again. Not yet. After what had happened today, he wanted his head clear before touching anything else.

Instead, he looked inward.

Since coming back, a lot had changed already.

At first, he had been treating Copy and Paste like a miracle that could solve everything by itself. It was powerful, yes, but power was only power. Using it properly was a different matter.

He knew his body mattered.

The exercise had helped. The increase in endurance had helped. He could copy more now than he could in the beginning, and he could handle more complex things too. He had also learned that copied objects kept the state they were copied in. That alone had already opened paths he had not seen before.

He had even prepared an emergency answer in his inventory.

The small burn mark on his hand from testing that electric spark had not faded completely yet.

Adam glanced at that hand once while walking.

’Good thing I didn’t need to use it today,’ Adam thought.

His skill had grown, his body had improved, and his understanding had widened, but that did not mean he had suddenly become dangerous enough to stop making mistakes.

That part became clearer the more he thought about John.

John might not even have a system. John might not have any special skill at all. Even then, he was still terrifying.

Why?

Because John did not need last-minute panic to control people; he understood timing, pressure, and exactly where to touch a life so the whole thing tilted in the direction he wanted.

Adam had only started learning that recently.

He had manipulated Bruno and pushed Gonda into a shape he could use, but those were still rough moves made in places where luck had helped him.

John was different because he could do this for years and make it look natural. That was the gap Adam had to close.

He rubbed his forehead with one hand and kept moving.

’Think,’ Adam thought. ’Before a second company, before another front, before anything else, I need strings.’

Not random thugs or temporary allies who changed their tone the moment fear touched them. He needed someone he could direct, someone with a weakness strong enough to hold, and someone useful enough to place, move, hide, or push when needed.

That kind of person would be more important than a second office right now, because once he had one solid string, he could pull on other things through it.

Adam slowed down at a crossing and waited for two passing trucks to move before stepping forward again.

There had to be someone like that.

’There has to be someone,’ Adam thought. ’Someone from those years. Someone I can hold from the beginning.’

He kept searching his memory as he moved through the road, digging through faces, names, trying to find the first thread he could pull.