New York City, 8:00 p.m.
In a hidden room somewhere in Hell’s Kitchen, Phil Coulson, senior agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., frowned at the young man sitting across from him.
“So you’re telling me you’re simply naturally strong, and you don’t actually possess any superhuman abilities?” His voice was thick with skepticism, as though Calvin had just tried to sell him the most ridiculous story imaginable.
“That’s right, Agent Coulson!” Calvin sat with one leg crossed over the other and flashed him a cheerful grin.
“Everyone is born with their own special talents.
You were born with less hair than most people, and I was born freakishly strong.
Sounds perfectly reasonable to me, doesn’t it?” His eyes drifted pointedly toward Coulson’s gleaming forehead as he raised an eyebrow.
The corner of Coulson’s mouth twitched, and his expression darkened.
Strictly speaking, he supposed losing one’s hair really could be considered a talent if someone insisted on looking at it that way.
Rather than indulge Calvin’s nonsense, Coulson lowered his gaze to the thick dossier in his hands and slowly began to read.
“Mr.
Calvin, there are more enhanced individuals in the world than you might think.
You don’t need to be so guarded about this.
In fact, you can trust S.H.I.E.L.D.
We’re willing to provide you with assistance.” Calvin spread his hands with an expression of perfect innocence.
“Agent Coulson, I already told you.
I’m just naturally strong.
I don’t have superpowers.
Since when does being strong get someone dragged in for questioning?
Isn’t America supposed to be the land of the free?” Coulson glanced up at him with an almost amused look, shook his head, then returned to the dossier and began listing Calvin’s supposed “offenses.” “A few months ago, you encountered a gang attempting to rob you here in Hell’s Kitchen.
There were ten of them, and every single one was armed.” A trace of genuine amazement entered his voice.
“Not only did they fail to rob you, you took down all ten of them and then relieved them of what little money and weaponry they still had.
One of those men was kicked hard enough to land on the second floor of a building.
That goes rather beyond being ‘naturally strong.'” Calvin looked positively wounded by the accusation.
“You know I’m Asian-American.
Knowing a little martial arts is perfectly normal, right?
As for taking their cash and guns, I was preventing them from committing further crimes.
If anything, I contributed to lowering New York’s crime rate.
The government owes me a reward.” Coulson’s expression became serious.
“Mr.
Calvin, please don’t make jokes based on racial stereotypes.” He turned another page in the dossier.
“Then how do you explain killing a minor boss from a Japanese gang in Hell’s Kitchen by throwing a rock at him from three hundred meters away?” “Oh.” Calvin nodded calmly, his expression becoming almost nostalgic.
“I’m an orphan.
When I was a kid, I couldn’t afford meat, so sometimes I had to knock birds out of trees with rocks if I wanted anything decent to eat.
After doing it long enough, I naturally got pretty good at throwing things.
Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?” Coulson actually laughed from sheer exasperation and rubbed his aching temple.
The file had specifically described this man as not particularly talkative.
This was what they considered not particularly talkative?
The man could bullshit without stopping for breath.
If Calvin’s record had not clearly shown that he had never spent time in prison, Coulson might have suspected he had gone inside specifically to receive advanced training from professional criminals.
Remembering the orders Director Fury had given him, Coulson sighed before his expression turned serious again.
“Yesterday, you killed Bullseye.
He was Kingpin’s most dangerous enforcer, and considering you live in Hell’s Kitchen, I assume I don’t need to explain who Kingpin is.” He paused briefly before continuing.
“Every criminal organization in New York is looking for you now.
Kingpin has also placed a bounty on your head—ten million dollars.” “Oh?” Calvin leaned forward slightly, his tone playful.
“So what are you planning to do, Agent Coulson?
Hand me over for the bounty and spend the ten million on treating your hair loss?” Coulson instinctively reached up and touched the thinning hair on top of his head.
“You can’t take on Kingpin by yourself,” he said helplessly.
“You need support.” “You’re inviting me to join S.H.I.E.L.D.?” Calvin immediately understood what he was getting at, although genuine surprise still crossed his face.
“That’s right.
Someone with your enhanced physical strength and your…” Coulson paused for the briefest moment, apparently searching for the appropriate word.
“…exceptional work ethic is exactly the sort of talent S.H.I.E.L.D.
currently needs.” According to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s assessment, Calvin possessed some form of strength enhancement along with extraordinary marksmanship.
More importantly, however, he possessed another quality S.H.I.E.L.D.
desperately needed.
To put it in internet slang, the man was an absolute workhorse.
Coulson had gone through Calvin’s history in detail.
The guy bounced between part-time jobs all day, then somehow found even more work to do around Hell’s Kitchen at night.
He had been paid to bolster a gang’s numbers during a confrontation, fed cats for an elderly woman who ran a convenience store, repaired streetlights smashed by local criminals, and occasionally accepted assassination contracts on the side.
There was practically nothing he refused to do.
The man was a nuclear-powered workhorse.
Better yet, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s psychological assessment showed no signs of antisocial personality disorder.
Their peripheral operations needed exactly this sort of hardworking, complaint-free, top-tier workho—talent.
“I’m sorry, but I refuse…” Coulson sighed inwardly.
He was surprised, but not entirely shocked.
Apparently, Calvin really did intend to face an entire criminal empire on his own.
“…to refuse.” “All right.
Let me explain S.H.I.E.L.D.’s employee bene—” Coulson stopped halfway through the sentence.
“What?
You’re accepting?” He had been convinced Calvin would turn him down.
After all, Coulson had only given him a basic explanation of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s purpose and had deliberately avoided revealing much about either the organization itself or the benefits that came with joining.
More importantly, nothing about Calvin’s behavior so far had suggested he actually wanted in.
“What else am I supposed to do?” Calvin shrugged.
“There’s no way I can fight Kingpin’s entire organization by myself.
Besides, who doesn’t want a government paycheck?” “Very well.
I’ll pick you up tomorrow and take you to S.H.I.E.L.D.
headquarters to report in.
Here’s my card.” Coulson gave him a few more instructions, handed over his business card, then hurried away.
From the speed of his departure, he apparently had another assignment waiting for him elsewhere.
Once Calvin was alone in the empty room, the corners of his mouth slowly curled upward.
“Well, damn.
I didn’t know there were story missions.” [Phil Coulson has issued you a mission.] [Mission: S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Workhorse] [Objective: Join S.H.I.E.L.D.] [Notice: You have entered a side-story route.
Completing story missions will grant significantly greater rewards.] The truth was that Calvin was a transmigrator.
In his previous life, he had been an orphan.
One night he had simply gone to sleep, only to wake up in the Marvel universe.
He had not taken over someone else’s body, either.
He had started this life from infancy.
For twenty perfectly ordinary years, Calvin had lived without remembering anything about his previous existence.
Then, several months ago, those memories suddenly returned, and a cheat ability awakened alongside them.
Its name was every bit as straightforward as its function: The Game of Life System.
As the name suggested, the system treated reality much like a video game.
Complete missions issued by NPCs, and Calvin received rewards.
And as everyone with even a passing familiarity with Marvel knew, a few years from now, a certain bald purple bastard named Thanos was going to snap his fingers and erase half the life in the universe.
Calvin had absolutely no desire to discover whether he would end up in that half.
That was why he had spent the last several months working himself half to death, building relationships with every useful “NPC” he could find, raising their favorability, establishing connections, and accepting as many missions as possible.
His efforts had finally begun producing results.
Unfortunately, the mission Coulson had just given him made everything he had done over the past few months feel like one enormous joke.
[Mission Complete.] [You have joined the S.H.I.E.L.D.
faction.] [Achievement Unlocked: The World Above] [Lottery Chances +1] [Mission Rewards: 1,000 EXP, Phil Coulson Favorability +10, Item: Logger Vick Brand Hair-Growth Tonic] [Logger Vick Brand Hair-Growth Tonic: Spraying this onto your head slightly increases your physical strength at the cost of causing hair loss.] [Evaluation: I went bald…
and got stronger!] “This is just one side mission—and an absurdly easy one at that.
How the hell are the rewards this good?” Most of the ordinary missions Calvin had spent countless hours grinding only awarded one or two hundred EXP.
Plenty of them did not even reward an item.
Yet all he had done here was agree to join S.H.I.E.L.D., and the system had handed him rewards this generous.
It was ridiculous.
Most important of all was the achievement reward.
Lottery Chances +1.
That was the truly valuable prize.
According to the system’s description, the lottery could produce all kinds of miraculous items and superhuman abilities whose value far surpassed ordinary mission rewards.
Whatever came out of it, there was apparently no such thing as a weak prize.
Before joining S.H.I.E.L.D., the only way Calvin had ever obtained lottery chances was by increasing his level.
Every level gained awarded him one additional draw.
Naturally, he had assumed leveling was the only method available.
Instead, he had just nodded his head and earned an extra draw on the spot.
So what exactly had all those months of grinding levels made him?
A genuinely first-class workhorse?
[Level: 6 (3,700/10,000)] [Lottery Chances: 1] “If the rewards from a side story are already this ridiculous, what the hell will the main storyline give me?” Calvin knew how the major events of the Marvel universe were supposed to unfold, but he had never intended to involve himself in any of them.
If the mission prompt had not suddenly appeared, joining S.H.I.E.L.D.
would not even have crossed his mind.
For one thing, getting involved with superheroes inevitably meant getting dragged into increasingly troublesome situations, and Calvin hated unnecessary trouble.
For another, until tonight, he had never realized that the system distinguished between ordinary missions, side stories, and the main storyline—or that the rewards differed so dramatically between them.
Now that he knew, avoiding the plot was no longer an option.
If Calvin wanted to grow stronger as quickly as possible and ensure he would still be alive when the really dangerous events began, he would have to dive straight into the mess.
Then another thought occurred to him.
Joining S.H.I.E.L.D.
had unlocked an achievement.
So what would happen if he joined HYDRA, the organization that had spent decades hiding within S.H.I.E.L.D.’s shadow?
If he could infiltrate HYDRA as well, he could progress through two side-story routes at the same time.
His growth rate would skyrocket, and S.H.I.E.L.D.
could serve as his stepping stone into the main storyline.
Basically, he just needed to play both sides without getting caught.
As for loyalty…
‘Whichever organization gives me the most missions for the least amount of work is my bro!’ ‘HYDRA, hurry the hell up and recruit me!’ ‘HYDRA, hurry the hell up and recruit me!’