“Today really is my lucky day.” After leaving the safehouse, Calvin stopped by the convenience store he frequented and bought thinly sliced beef, lamb, meatballs, and a whole assortment of vegetables.
He was going home to make himself a huge pot of spicy hot pot and celebrate properly.
He had discovered an entirely new way to take advantage of the system and earned another lottery draw in the process.
That meant he could grow stronger much faster from now on, putting him another step closer to surviving whatever insanity the Marvel universe planned to throw at him.
That was definitely worth celebrating.
Calvin had not used the lottery chance the system had just awarded him, though.
He planned to perform a little ritual first and let superstition work its magic.
Everyone knew that when you were dealing with pure RNG, not indulging in at least a little superstition was basically wasting the roll.
What if it actually worked?
As for the threat from Kingpin, Calvin was not particularly concerned.
From what he had observed so far, this was definitely based on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, although it did not seem to be a completely faithful version of it.
Some details were clearly different, which meant he was probably dealing with some kind of MCU variant.
The Kingpin of this universe was taller than average, enormously overweight, absurdly muscular beneath all that bulk, and powerful enough that his influence stretched throughout New York.
Beyond that, however, he was still just Kingpin.
Compared to the monsters who would eventually start destroying cities, cracking planets apart, and screwing around with entire timelines, Wilson Fisk barely registered on the cosmic scale.
If Calvin actually decided to deal with the oversized crime lord, it would not exactly be effortless, but he was confident he could handle it without much trouble.
Kingpin, after all, was still fundamentally human.
Whether the same could be said about Calvin anymore was considerably more debatable.
The only reason he had allowed Fisk to continue running wild in Hell’s Kitchen was because the man was an excellent mission generator.
Many of the more difficult missions Calvin had encountered over the past few months had ultimately been connected to Kingpin in one way or another.
For the time being, keeping the criminal ecosystem intact was simply more profitable.
Main-story and side-story missions were great, but a hardworking gamer still needed his daily quests.
Before long, Calvin arrived at the place he currently called home.
It was a narrow three-story townhouse squeezed between two larger apartment buildings.
Until a few months ago, he had been living in a basement apartment.
Once the system awakened, however, Calvin had started participating in some of Hell’s Kitchen’s more…
traditional local industries, and the extra income had finally allowed him to upgrade.
Humming cheerfully to himself, he walked toward the front door in an excellent mood.
The instant his palm touched the handle, however, his smile disappeared.
Something was wrong.
[Ability: Hero of the Furniture Store] [Effect: Whenever you are touching furniture or are surrounded by a sufficient amount of furniture, your Strength, Constitution, Skill, and Perception increase dramatically.
The more furniture around you, the greater the enhancement.] [Evaluation: If the universe were one giant furniture store, you’d already be invincible!] It was one of the special abilities Calvin had obtained from the lottery.
Ridiculous as it sounded, the ability was terrifyingly powerful.
Calling it borderline conceptual would not even be much of an exaggeration.
The moment Calvin touched the door, which the system apparently counted as furniture, his Perception surged and immediately picked up a faint sense of danger from the other side.
He did not hesitate.
Calvin kicked off the ground and launched himself nearly ten meters backward.
The instant his feet touched down— BOOM!
A deafening explosion tore through the night.
Most of the first floor vanished in the blast, and the entire townhouse lurched dangerously as flames erupted through the shattered structure and thick black smoke rolled into the sky.
“Fuck!
I’ve only been renting that place for a month!” “Fisk, you piece of shit!” Calvin did not need forensic evidence to figure out who was responsible.
He had even accepted assassination contracts from Kingpin in the past.
Apparently, all those previous business dealings meant absolutely nothing to the bastard.
Then Calvin’s expression shifted.
“You’re still going?” When the explosion failed to kill him, dozens of figures suddenly appeared at the windows of the neighboring apartment buildings.
Every one of them was armed.
Several were even carrying rocket launchers.
RATATATAT!
The gunmen opened fire with unnerving discipline.
They were far too calm and coordinated to be ordinary street thugs, and a storm of bullets and explosives immediately came pouring toward Calvin with enough firepower to equip a small military unit.
“Trash.” Calvin remained perfectly calm.
Against that overwhelming barrage, he activated another ability he had previously obtained from the lottery.
‘Dead Eye!’ A strange gunshot seemed to crack inside his head.
The world instantly shifted into a muted amber hue.
Everything around him slowed to a crawl.
Even the bullets tearing through the air became visible, each one leaving a pale trail through his vision.
Red marks appeared over the gunmen’s heads.
Calvin held a small desk lamp in his left hand.
At some point, a gleaming golden handgun had appeared in his right.
He drove his legs against the pavement and sprang backward at an angle, leaving a shallow crater where he had been standing.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
While still airborne, Calvin pulled the trigger again and again.
His finger moved so quickly that the dozens of gunshots seemed to overlap into a single rolling burst.
One after another, the assassins took bullets through the skull.
Blood and fragments sprayed across the rooms behind them before their bodies collapsed, the kills so instantaneous that none of them had even had time to feel pain.
Calvin landed, sprang away again, and cleared the blast radius just before the rockets struck.
Fire erupted behind him.
Bathed in the orange light of the explosion, he casually spun the golden pistol around one finger before blowing the smoke from its barrel.
[Ability: Dead Eye] [Effect: Activating Dead Eye grants bullet-time perception and greatly enhances observational ability, allowing the user to identify weaknesses with ease.
Additional functions include X-ray vision, precision targeting, and mastery of ranged weapons.] [Evaluation: You could become the greatest gunslinger alive.
Just try not to get any brilliant ideas.] [Item: Golden Desert Eagle] [Effect: Infinite ammunition.
Infinite durability.
Never jams.
Can absorb different materials and forms of energy to alter the properties of its ammunition.] [Evaluation: Loud, flashy, and violently excessive.
Just don’t let Deadpool find out you have it.] “That fat bastard Fisk really underestimated me.” Calvin glanced around the surrounding buildings and clicked his tongue.
“Let’s see…
only thirty-three assassins?
And he thought that would be enough to kill me?
Keep dreaming.” He returned the Golden Desert Eagle to his system inventory, then turned toward what remained of his house and sighed.
“Looks like I’m sleeping somewhere else tonight.” He shook his head, but the amusement in his eyes gradually cooled.
“Fisk, Fisk…
if you want to play dirty, I guess I’ll have to play along.” Losing the house was infuriating, but remembering everything he had gained today quickly improved Calvin’s mood again.
Soon enough, he was strolling away from the burning building while humming to himself.
Not far from the scene, a man with an aggressively receding hairline lowered the binoculars he had been using to watch the entire fight.
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard.
Without making a sound, he disappeared into the darkness.
…
Before long, Calvin arrived at his destination: the top floor of an old apartment building.
He knocked.
The door opened to reveal a man wearing dark glasses standing inside a nearly pitch-black apartment.
A radio in his hand was playing a news report about Stark Industries’ announcement a few days earlier that the company would be shutting down its weapons manufacturing division.
“What are you doing here?” The man’s voice was cool and distinctly unwelcoming.
Calvin grinned.
“Matt, obviously I came here to sleep with you.
Your ex isn’t around, right?” A vein twitched on Matt’s forehead.
He had barely opened his mouth to respond when Calvin slipped past him, switched on the lights with practiced ease, and dropped onto the couch as though he owned the place.
Clearly, this was not the first time he had done this.
“Kingpin blew up my house.
I’m crashing here tonight.” “Kingpin?” The moment Matt heard the name, his entire demeanor sharpened.
“Do you have solid evidence?
Destruction of property combined with attempted murder would be more than enough to put him behind bars.” “Forget it.
Fisk is way too careful to leave evidence that obvious.” Calvin shrugged.
“But I know it was him because I killed Bullseye yesterday.” The man standing in front of Calvin was Matt Murdock, attorney, blind man, and—unknown to most of New York—the vigilante Daredevil, whose name had become a nightmare for the criminals of Hell’s Kitchen.
At the moment, one of Matt’s greatest ambitions in life was to finally put Wilson Fisk behind bars.
“What?” Matt’s voice rose noticeably.
“You killed Bullseye?” “Technically, Bullseye hired me to kill Bullseye,” Calvin replied.
“…What?” Matt stared at him in utter confusion.
Despite possessing hearing far beyond anything a normal human could manage, for a moment he genuinely wondered if he had somehow misheard Calvin.
Calvin smiled and began to explain.
“Apparently, the guy injected himself with some kind of drug.
It boosted his physical abilities by a lot, but it also screwed with his head.” “He put out an assassination contract on himself.
I happened to accept the contract, and, well…
you can see how that turned out.
He probably figured he could have some fun terrorizing an ordinary hitman.” Calvin spread his hands.
“Unfortunately for him, he got me instead.” The entire situation had been every bit as bizarre as it sounded.
Calvin had been equally confused when he discovered that Bullseye himself was the client.
However, the contract had triggered a system mission, and Calvin believed deeply in treating system missions with the respect they deserved.
So he had respectfully sent Bullseye to the afterlife.
Come to think of it, Bullseye was also the reason Calvin had become friends with Matt in the first place.
During one of their previous encounters, Bullseye had nearly killed Daredevil.
Calvin happened to be nearby and saved Matt on a whim, and after running into each other several more times, the two had gradually become familiar.
“He injected himself with some kind of drug?” Matt immediately seized on that detail, his expression becoming grave.
“Could Fisk still be conducting human experiments?” “Who knows?” Calvin spread his hands again.
“Either way, I’d recommend not going after Fisk right now.” He looked Matt up and down.
“You’re way too weak.
If you go after him in your current condition, you’re basically volunteering to get killed, and I really don’t feel like saving you a second time.” “…” Matt’s breathing stopped for a fraction of a second.
Color gradually crept into his face as his fists clenched tightly, remained that way for several seconds, then slowly relaxed.
Without another word, he climbed onto the roof.
A moment later, the unmistakable sound of fists hammering a heavy bag began thudding through the ceiling.
[Matt Murdock Favorability +1.] [Current Favorability: 81.] [Special Function unlocks at 90 Favorability.] “…What?” Calvin stared upward.
Hearing the system notification immediately made him wonder whether Matt had awakened some very questionable preferences somewhere along the way.
Still, him leaving was convenient.
Calvin finally had the privacy to use that lottery draw.
His only regret was that all the ridiculous good-luck charms and ritual items he had prepared were sitting on the first floor of his house when Fisk blew it up.
If he got something terrible from this draw…
Well, Wilson Fisk could look forward to a nice long swim in the Pacific.
Calvin opened the system interface and stared at the single lottery chance displayed there.
Then he carefully washed his hands, clasped them together, and began praying with complete sincerity.
“Lady Luck, RNGesus, Jesus, God, every saint in heaven, and whatever other cosmic being happens to be listening…
please give me something good.” He took a deep breath.
“System, start the lottery!” [Congratulations!
You have obtained Ability: Wind Technique.]