On the streets of Manhattan, New York.
Matthew, now dressed in casual clothes, strolled along the sidewalk.
Beside him, Eleanor held a huge brown cardboard box in her arms.
The two walked down the street, flanked by passing vehicles on both sides.
A cold wind swept through the street, causing pedestrians to tighten their coats.
Feeling the heavy weight in her arms and the faint scent of tobacco wafting from the cracks of the box, Eleanor didn’t need to guess to know what was inside.
Only…
“Sir, I recall you never used to smoke, did you?”
Hearing Eleanor’s question from beside him, Matthew didn’t stop.
He turned his head and replied, “You remember correctly. Indeed, I don’t have a habit of smoking.”
“Then why are you…” A hint of confusion flashed in Eleanor’s eyes.
“To benefit the people’s livelihood,” Matthew said without any hesitation.
“To benefit… the people’s livelihood? With cigarettes?”
“Why not?” Matthew looked at Eleanor.
“You know, everyone has a different definition of happiness.”
“Your happiness might come from shopping or a salary raise… but for some, giving them a few cigarettes can make them Happy all day.”
“Just like them.” Matthew looked at the scattered homeless people on the street.
“Look at those people…”
Matthew gestured with his eyes.
Eleanor followed Matthew’s gaze.
She saw several unkempt, disheveled homeless people sitting on street benches and in corners, surrounded by piles of old clothes and bundles.
A few scattered flies buzzed around them, but they seemed completely oblivious.
Just looking at them, Eleanor felt as if a suffocating stench was lingering at the tip of her nose.
“Ross, isn’t this also a way of ‘benefiting the people’s livelihood’ for them?”
With that, Matthew turned to take the cardboard box from Eleanor’s arms and walked toward the homeless people at the corner.
Eleanor hesitated for a moment.
Though she felt some resistance in her heart, she still quickened her pace to follow him.
Just as Matthew expected. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
Different people have different thresholds for happiness.
The same goes for benefiting the people’s livelihood.
An ordinary person’s greatest worry might be money, but the worries of the homeless are even humbler…
Just by giving them a few cigarettes, System Points would flood into his account.
Of course, there were also those who were ungrateful.
Matthew had only one way of dealing with such people…
“Gimme that back!”
As the saying goes, even a landlord doesn’t have surplus grain.
Taking my things and not counting it as benefiting the people’s livelihood?
In your dreams!
Come back when you learn how to be grateful!
After half a day, although the System Points came in dribs and drabs, they had soared from the original thirty points to two hundred points.
For Matthew, this was already a handsome income.
Not only that, but he had also obtained five Alpha-type Hunters, three Lickers, and one ‘Grave Digger’ from the battle pass rewards.
The threshold for obtaining the next battle pass reward had also risen to three hundred points.
Clearly, compared to throwing around huge sums of money, this kind of behavior—spending a small amount of money to achieve big things—satisfied Matthew much more.
However, looking at Matthew, who was handing out cigarettes with a mysterious smile and getting happier the more he distributed them, Eleanor practically had a question mark floating over her head.
Did her boss really love doing charity this much?
How could handing out cigarettes make him so Happy?
But…
does giving tobacco to the homeless really count as benefiting the people’s livelihood?
Why did she feel that this would only make the already chaotic neighborhood even more chaotic…
Despite her thoughts, Eleanor didn’t voice any doubts.
She simply followed quietly behind Matthew, helping out from time to time.
Not far away, beneath Stark Tower.
Tony Stark, who was holding a young lady in his arms, suddenly paused in his tracks as if he had spotted something…
Pushing up his sunglasses with a finger, his gaze shifted toward Matthew, who was handing out cigarettes to the homeless on the street.
“Happy, are you saying… that guy is actually the newly appointed head of security for the Umbrella Corporation?” He turned to Happy behind him with a look of surprise.
The young man was smiling while handing them out; anyone who didn’t know better would think he was seriously ill…
“…Maybe this newly appointed head of security likes helping the poor?”
“Helping the poor? I think he’s probably just putting on a show. Otherwise, his hobby is really too bizarre, don’t you think, Tony?” the young lady beside Tony Stark teased.
At those words, both Tony Stark and Happy were taken aback.
A few seconds later, Tony Stark released his grip on the young lady.
“Sorry, you should head back on your own. To be honest, what you just said really ruined my appetite…”
With that, Happy flagged down a taxi and forced the lady, who still wanted to say something, into the backseat.
Once the taxi drove away, Tony Stark helplessly said to Happy, “What a shame. Seeing a disgusting fly on the plate before the main course ruined my appetite for dinner.”
“I think that compared to finishing the meal only to find out you’ve swallowed a fly, spotting it early to cut your losses is actually not bad. What do you think, Tony?” Happy said with a smile.
Hearing this, Tony Stark shrugged.
“That’s true…”
Compared to swallowing a fly and feeling disgusted after the fact, it was much better to notice it beforehand.
While the two were talking, Matthew, who had just been surrounded by the crowd, encountered his first trouble since coming to this World…
“Matthew Lawrence, I’ve been looking for you for a long time!” a voice gritted out, forcefully dispersing the crowd around Matthew.
Following the direction of the voice, Matthew saw the newcomer’s appearance and instantly remembered him.
Pietro, a low-level thug leader in Maggia, responsible for issuing and collecting loans.
He was the one who had issued the twenty-thousand-dollar student loan that Matthew’s predecessor had borrowed.
Logically, his predecessor should have paid off the twenty-thousand-dollar loan long ago, but everyone knew that loan sharks from a gang were never as simple as paying back the principal plus normal interest.
With all kinds of miscellaneous interest piled up, the amount Matthew had to pay back now was even higher than the principal.
If you didn’t want to pay, this group of unscrupulous people who would do anything for money had plenty of ways to torture you.
The most common way was forcing you to smuggle drugs; other than that, they could literally harvest your organs for you.
Their methods could be described as extremely brutal!
It was precisely because Matthew had thought about the consequences of not signing that inheritance document back then that he had decisively become one of the shareholders of Umbrella Corporation.
But apparently, Pietro was not yet aware of the change in Matthew’s identity, which was why he acted so fearlessly.
“Matthew, I didn’t expect that after not seeing you for so long, you’d actually have the leisure to hand out things to these people… Since you have this spare cash, how about we settle our old debts?!”
Pietro shoved aside the homeless man blocking his path and walked up to Matthew.
The stench unique to drug addicts on him made Matthew frown slightly.
At the same time, the gang of thugs behind Pietro surrounded Matthew, looking very much like they would send him to meet God today if he couldn’t produce the money right now.