Chapter 192: Slander [2]: Gratitude

"For now," Ethan added casually, "just put the PR team on hold and don’t accept any interviews.""Right... okay," she whispered, sounding far calmer than before. "Thank you."

"Mm. I’ll handle the rest."

"...I know."

They stayed on the line for another quiet second before she finally hung up.

Ethan set the phone down.

Then he pulled his screen back open.

Athena tilted her head.

{Are you planning to address the slander now?}

"Not yet."

He scrolled through the flood of negativity — the fake viral video, the false articles, the bots posing as experts.

It was all predictable.

But then, something new and completely unexpected showed up.

It was live post.

A woman sitting in a hospital room, tears running down her cheeks but she was smiling.

[VitaBand caught my husband’s internal bleeding. He didn’t even know he was sick. Doctors said another hour and he would’ve died. I don’t care what anyone says, this device saved his life.]

Ethan looked at the video in surprise but before he could say anything another one popped up.

[A nurse here told me the ONLY reason they found my son’s arrhythmia early was because of the Vitaband. I’m terrified reading the lies online. PLEASE don’t let them scare you, this thing saved my baby.]

More and kept appearing, so much so that Ethan didn’t even know how to react, this wasn’t even part of his plan, but he guess some user’s were just sitting and watch the people believe in whatever lies were being spread.

And the best part was, these were real users showing real gratitude. OmniTech Corp didn’t even have to go out of their way to get in touch with them, they had done it willingly.

But as expected, the trolls were already gathering on each and every video being posted in support of Vitaband.

[Paid shill]

[Bot account lmao]

[OmniTech damage control]

[Nice try, PR intern]

And yet...

Instead of frowning, Ethan’s lips curved.

He was genuinely pleased with this outcome as he watched more and more people started posting videos in defense of the watch.

Whoever was orchestrating this was trying very hard to suppress the videos and drown them out with more negative ones but Athena wasn’t allowing that.

Ethan rested his elbow on the desk, cheek against his knuckles, watching the online chaos spiral and stabilize at the same time.

The trolls were loud.

But the truth was louder.

Real users, real families and real lives saved, posting without OmniTech pushing them, without prompting or even reward.

They were just genuinely grateful.

That was the kind of support money couldn’t buy, that was the kind of support Victor couldn’t kill.

Athena opened a new window.

{They’re scrambling.}

"Show me."

The negative campaign’s activity spikes were suddenly... spiking again. More bot accounts were appearing, more comments were being purchased and more paid amplifiers were trying to bury the genuine posts.

But the numbers told a different story.

For every fake comment, three real people replied.

For every ’paid shill’ insult, someone else responded with medical paperwork, or a nurse confirming it, or a family member stepping in.

The narrative wasn’t collapsing.

It was slipping out of Victor’s control.

A new notification appeared.

[A trending tag has been detected: #VitaBandSavedMe]

Ethan blinked once.

Then he leaned back and actually laughed under his breath.

"Really?" he muttered.

Athena smiled faintly, {The tag is climbing fast. Tens of thousands of posts already. Organic.}

"Of course it is."

Another video auto-played, this one had a teenage boy holding his mother’s hand.

"My mom fainted last night. The VitaBand warned us before it happened. Doctors said her potassium levels were collapsing. I don’t know who’s lying online, but this thing is real. Thank you OmniTech."

More trolls dove in moved in trying to discourage engagement on the video.

[Boohoo cry somewhere else]

[Fake story]

[These bots getting too emotional now]

But underneath those, were real replies.

[Ignore the trolls. This saved my sister too.]

[My dad’s alive because of this. Thank you.]

[People are so miserable they can’t stand others surviving.]

Ethan watched the mixture of truth and Victor’s bots collide.

He wasn’t smiling because he’d won, no, he was smiling because this was one of the rare few times since his regression that he was genuinely happy.

This reminded him of why he wanted to change the world with his tech in his past life. For once he didn’t think about world domination or even using his tech to get everything under his control, no.

This time, he was looking at how genuinely happy people were to still have the ones they loved.

And for a brief moment, a very brief one, Ethan Carter wasn’t the regressor, the strategist, the man with multiple plans.

He was just... someone who had given the world something useful.

Something that saved people.

He didn’t expect that feeling.

He didn’t prepare for it either.

It just... showed up.

Unexpected. Warm. Almost nostalgic.

Athena tilted her head.

{You’re smiling,} she noted gently.

Yes, he usually smiles, especially when he had a terrifying idea, but this one looked different, this one seemed more genuine.

Ethan touched his lips as if confirming it before chuckling.

"Huh."

It wasn’t a big smile nor was it a dramatic one. Just a small curl of the lips he hadn’t worn in a very long time.

He turned back to the screen, he first looked at the windows open, showing the chaos and the desperate attempts of the trolls and then to the wave of genuine gratitude pushing against it.

A small voice clip began auto-playing.

An elderly man sitting in a wheelchair, hands shaking as he spoke.

"If this... thing didn’t warn me yesterday... I, I wouldn’t be here. Thank you, thank whoever made this."

The old man didn’t even know OmniTech’s name, but he was truly grateful for being alive thanks to Vitaband.

Ethan exhaled slowly.

"...Good," he muttered, leaning back and closing his eyes, "that’s good."

Athena watched him quietly before asking {do you want me to suppress the slander now?}

He shook his head.

"No, let the real users talk first."

{Because they’re more effective?}

"No," he said calmly, "because they deserve to be heard and besides, I like listening to them more, than using some elaborate plan."