Watching someone else scrub her underwear felt incredibly strange, so Daisy decided not to linger and headed straight back to her room.
Just as she was about to leave, Maki seemed to remember something.
“I’ve finished cleaning the bathroom as well.
You can use it anytime.” After running around all day, a shower sounded like a great idea.
She had just taken off her shirt when she realized Maki had walked into the bathroom wearing Daisy’s undergarments.
There was an unusual gleam in the other woman’s eyes as she offered, under the pretense of helping, to scrub Daisy’s back.
Daisy firmly refused.
If she were a man, perhaps something amusing might have happened.
As things stood…
Absolutely not.
Over the next few days, Daisy gradually went from feeling embarrassed to accepting Maki’s care.
Aside from the most private matters, Maki took care of everything related to her daily life—food, clothing, housing, and transportation.
Daisy had to admit…
It was surprisingly comfortable.
As the two became more familiar with one another, Maki also began carrying out what she saw as her duty as a “retainer” by constantly offering advice.
She believed Daisy’s clothing was too androgynous and failed to highlight her natural beauty.
Leaving the house without makeup or jewelry was, in Maki’s eyes, practically a sin.
Daisy listened attentively for several days.
Whether she would actually follow any of the advice remained another matter.
A few days later, once everything had settled down, Maki hesitated several times before finally revealing that she wanted Daisy to teach her close-quarters combat.
Daisy knew her own limitations.
She didn’t know any martial arts or combat techniques.
She relied entirely on overwhelming physical ability.
Instead, she advised Maki to focus on her studies first, obtain a lawyer’s license, find a proper job, and think about combat training afterward.
Meanwhile, Daisy continued monitoring the people involved in the earlier incident, but everything remained quiet.
No one seemed interested in looking for her.
Life went on.
The school closure became official.
One day, Daisy even spotted James Wesley in the distance with a bruise still visible on his face.
The school board formally signed the agreement with the investors, and students with enough resources or connections gradually transferred elsewhere.
“Daisy, what are you planning to do now?” Angela asked sympathetically.
Naturally, Daisy couldn’t tell her she intended to take on S.H.I.E.L.D.
and HYDRA.
Angela would probably think she had lost her mind.
The two simply weren’t thinking on the same level.
Angela worried about credits and scholarships.
Daisy’s thoughts revolved around the Chitauri, Thanos, the Five Cosmic Gods, and countless other looming threats.
After eating with Angela and watching her leave for her shift at the convenience store, Daisy suddenly found herself with nothing to do.
Sitting alone on a bench by the roadside, she watched the endless flow of pedestrians.
She mentally reviewed her finances.
Over the past few days, she had bought law books, clothes, daily necessities for Maki, and groceries.
More than two thousand dollars of her ten-thousand-dollar reward was already gone.
That left roughly eight thousand.
What should she do with it?
“Hm?” A slightly distorted vibration suddenly entered her perception.
She turned toward it.
An elderly woman leaned heavily on a cane while studying Daisy with curiosity.
She appeared physically frail, moving forward with a stooped posture and slow, trembling steps.
The woman’s face was deeply lined with age.
Daisy extended her senses carefully.
Her vibration struck something that felt almost gelatinous before immediately rebounding.
At that moment, only one person in New York came to mind who possessed such power.
Madam Gao of the Hand.
The four-hundred-year-old monster.
Was this merely a coincidence?
Or had someone sent her?
Daisy refused to jump to conclusions.
“Can I help you?” she asked in English.
The elderly woman’s weathered face curved into a faint smile.
She answered in Chinese.
“Little girl, your eyes are as beautiful as the stars in the night sky.” Even without using her powers, Daisy could feel the overwhelming malice radiating from her.
Picking up her backpack, she muttered, “Crazy old woman.” Then she quickly walked away.
She had gone less than three hundred meters when hurried footsteps echoed behind her.
Swish.
Swish.
Looking back, she spotted two burly men following her.
There were still plenty of pedestrians nearby.
Fighting in public wasn’t impossible, but it would attract far too much attention.
She immediately decided to lure them somewhere less crowded.
For now…
She would run.
In stories, heroines who constantly threw themselves into danger usually glanced back nervously while hurrying away in panic.
Often they simply couldn’t run very fast in pencil skirts and high heels.
Daisy had no such concerns.
She always wore long pants and canvas shoes.
Grace and elegance could wait.
Without hesitation, she took off at full speed.
The two men chasing her were stunned.
They had never expected a woman to react like that.
Remembering their orders, they immediately broke into a sprint.
Five hundred meters later, they were the ones left stunned.
She was unbelievably fast.
She dashed through the streets like a nimble leopard.
Agile, powerful, and incredibly athletic, she vaulted over obstacles that would have stopped most people.
Occasionally she even ran along walls, changing direction with the fluidity of an experienced traceur before clearing another obstacle.
With her satchel slung over one shoulder, Daisy seemed almost weightless.
The two men, meanwhile, relied purely on brute strength, crashing through obstacles like charging bears.
“Get people to cut her off ahead!” one bald man shouted into his phone.
Daisy’s objective was simple.
If she could lose them, great.
If not…
She absolutely could not reveal her superpower in public.
After crossing two more streets, she found an iron gate blocking her path.
She didn’t hesitate.
Planting one foot lightly against the gate, she used the rebound to propel herself upward, caught the top edge with both hands, swung her legs over, and flipped cleanly to the other side.
The two pursuers could only stare.
Daisy weighed barely a hundred pounds and cleared it effortlessly.
At nearly twice her weight, neither of them could hope to follow the same way.
The maze-like streets offered countless alternate routes, so they immediately split up.
They knew the neighborhood well and had plenty of backup.
Daisy’s speed was the only unexpected variable.
Otherwise, capturing a lone woman alive hardly seemed difficult.
Moving swiftly through the tangled alleyways, Daisy listened carefully to footsteps approaching from every direction.
She calculated the distances between each group.
Treating her like prey was their biggest mistake.
She placed one hand against the ground and extended her senses.
Very quickly, multiple vibration signals entered her perception.
The encirclement was closing.
Daisy melted into the shadows.
When a man with heavily tattooed arms walked past her hiding place, she thrust out one hand and unleashed a Vibration Wave toward the back of his head.
The tremendous kinetic force hurled him more than three meters through the air.
His forehead slammed into a wall, and he collapsed unconscious without making a sound.
Daisy calmly stepped out.
Putting on a pair of gloves, she searched his clothes and found a P239 tucked into the back of his waistband.
She ejected the magazine.
Only four rounds remained.
Next, she checked his wallet.
One hundred and fifty U.S.
dollars.
“So broke…” Daisy clicked her tongue in disappointment before wiping the mud from the soles of her shoes onto his clothes.
After all, she had just run through a muddy ditch, and her shoes had gotten dirty.