The press conference turned chaotic. My own press conference was scheduled after Tony's, but it just fizzled out.
"Should I be thanking Tony for getting me out of an annoying thing?"
Then I got a call from the house on the island.
[An intruder is on the island. We have them restrained.][Master]
"Really? Who is it?"
[Identity confirmed. Name: Natalia Alianovna Romanova, Gender: Female, Age: 24, Affiliation: S.H.I.E.L.D., Codename: Black Widow.]
"Oh~ Show me on screen."
I looked at my smartphone. Natasha was wearing the skintight agent suit from the movies, and she was either trying to escape the cell or begging to be let out—I wasn't sure which—banging hard on the door.
"Hahahaha~ This is funny."
Right now, the island's security level was impossible to hack even for Tony Stark, with armed drones constantly patrolling and guarding the island. And critical facilities couldn't be entered at all without teleportation. Nano and I used tech not available in Marvel, so unless you broke in with overwhelming force, intrusion was basically impossible.
Seeing Natasha come to our house, it looked like my abilities got leaked to S.H.I.E.L.D. because of the Iron Monger incident.
I told my bodyguards and secretary to go home and used Teleport to return to the island.
"Minerva, connect me to talk with Natasha."
[Master.][Yes]
"Can you hear me? Ms. Natalia Alianovna Romanova?"
"You're Jin? How do you know my name? You should be at the press conference right now..."
"Breaking into someone's house and you have a lot of questions?"
"Come on, this is a first for me. Hacking doesn't work, and the moment I entered the island, drones swarmed like bees, pointed guns at me, and fired electric nets..."
"You're lucky. If you'd come in from under the sea, you'd have been shredded or roasted."
That wasn't an exaggeration. Fast-moving drones constantly monitored under the sea too, and if you somehow made it to the island, there were traps everywhere that would fry you with massive high voltage.
"You talk pretty violently. Anyway, I didn't come to fight, so let me go."
"We're not home right now, so wait about 5 hours."
"Wait 5 hours? I won't do anything, so just let me go."
"How can I trust you and let you go? Would you do that in my place?"
"…No."
"Then just wait quietly."
"Damn it!"
Thud!
Natasha, unable to do anything, kicked the door angrily and sat on the cell bed.
"Minerva."
[Master.][Yes]
"Play Baby Shark Song in the cell on loop."
[Understood.]
There was no mercy for trespassers.
I ate at home, exercised, took a bath, then checked stocks. Thanks to Tony announcing he was Iron Man, Stark Industries stock was rising sharply. I wouldn't do any more now, but the money I'd made from Stark Industries stock so far was truly enormous.
"I should give Tony another gift for this."
Then I suddenly remembered Natasha locked in the cell and checked the time. It had already been an hour past the promised time.
"Oops, it's been 6 hours. Well… does it matter? Minerva."
[Yes][Master]
"Turn off Baby Shark Song in the cell and connect me."
[Understood.]
"We're here now. How have you been?"
"Baby Shark doo doo doo doo… No, wait… You crazy bastard! Let me go."
"Who told you to sneak in like a thief? If you wanted to meet, you should've made an official request."
This seemed enough. She probably wouldn't try to infiltrate the island like this again.
"I'll let you out. Follow the path and you'll see a small boat at the dock, so take it and go. If you pull anything weird, next time it's 12 hours."
"I'm never coming back."
Natasha stormed off, taking the small boat.
[Five unauthorized cameras have been installed on the island.][Master]
Of course it's Natasha. Even in that situation, she doesn't give up and installs stuff like that on the way out.
"Collect all the cameras and hack them, plant the Baby Shark virus."
The Baby Shark virus was a virus I carefully made too. Once infected, no one but me could delete it, and it only played Baby Shark Song through speakers or screens.
And it infected all connected devices and networks, but to prevent it from spreading too much, it was designed to automatically stop infecting after a certain scale.
[Understood.]
A few days later, I got a call from the New York house. Someone urgently looking for the chairman was there, and if I said Natasha, I'd know.
"Hahaha, now she's making an official request."
I teleported to the New York house. When I arrived, Natasha was sitting in the waiting room. This time she wasn't in the skintight agent suit like when she came to the house—she was dressed well in a women's business suit.
"You! I need to talk to you."
Natasha spotted me and came over fast, glaring with an extremely angry face.
"If you don't want to get kicked out, wait. I have work to do."
"It's urgent!"
"Do I look like I have time for you? My hands control the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of employees. Counting subcontractors, it's millions. Wait."
At the loud voices, security guards and bodyguards came, but I waved them off.
"Give the lady a cup of coffee."
I told my secretary and went into my room. Honestly, I didn't have anything to do. Other than big things, Minerva handled everything.
I just went out and ate a hamburger in New York, visited the Statue of Liberty, went to Chinatown and ate dumplings, played around thoroughly, and came back after 3 hours.
When I came out of my room, Natasha had her jacket hung on a chair and was sitting in a shirt, legs crossed, drinking coffee and reading a newspaper.
"Our coffee's good, right? It's top-grade from the Panama Elida Estate."
Natasha glared at me and said,
"I've been waiting and drank five cups. It was good, but..."
"There's no time, so I'll give you 30 minutes, Miss Natasha. So what did you come for?"
"It's about the Baby Shark virus—give me the vaccine! Because of it my standing got weird."
"Oho, if you get fired, contact me. I'll hire you as secretary and bodyguard. Of course, I'll pay top industry salary."
This wasn't an empty offer. Natasha was worth that much. She could shoot guns, knew martial arts, a Pepper Potts who could fight—a secretary at the top. And she was beautiful too.
"Don't joke and just give me the vaccine!"
"I'm not joking. Anyway, there is no vaccine."
"What, what did you say?"
Natasha asked again, shocked.
"Really? You're not lying?"
"That's right. But there is a way to remove it."
"What is it?"
"On the computer with the virus, type 'I love Baby Shark' and press Enter, and the music stops. Then sing 'Baby Shark Song' into the mic 10 times without playing it, and the virus disappears from that computer. But you must keep the pitch and rhythm correct, and it must be a human voice."
Natasha looked at me dumbfounded and said,
"Wow… you're really… unbelievable. Damn it!"
Natasha got angry and grabbed her jacket, hurriedly tried to leave, but I called her again.
"Miss Natasha, take this coffee."
I handed Natasha the pack of beans she was drinking earlier. Natasha turned back, snatched the bean pack right away, and left without a word. This kind of fun, amusing thing had been rare lately. Natasha's actions were cute too.
A week passed, and I visited Tony's house after a long time. Tony was blasting music in the basement, making the Mark 4.
"Jin, long time no see."
"Nice to see you. I see you're making this without eating again."
"Ooh~ How'd you know? Amazing."
"Obvious."
I threw a burger and cola I'd taken out. Tony naturally caught the burger, unwrapped it, and started eating.
"Wow! Jin, really… This is the best burger. I can't get this taste anywhere. Tell me the recipe."
"No. It tastes this good because you only eat it sometimes."
"Geez, stingy."
Honestly, I didn't know either, so I couldn't tell him. ability at EX might replicate it?[Cooking]
While Tony ate the burger, I sat beside him and helped with the software. The Mark 3 wasn't much different, so there wasn't much to fix.
"Tony, about the Arc Reactor. Palladium causes poisoning, it's dangerous. Better look into other materials."
"Yeah, I know. I'm worried about that too. Testing several materials. I'll have an answer soon."
I could solve it for him right now, but I decided the big flow should be left alone. It wasn't like he couldn't solve it.
"Oh right! You were going to tell me about the card-throwing ability."
"Good, let's go upstairs."
We went up to the living room.
"Don't be too shocked."
"Got it."
I'd already bought another island to use as a training ground, so I opened a portal to it. [Mystic Arts] ability had evolved to [Mana Mystic Arts], so there was no problem using magic without a sling ring.
"Whoa~ What is this?"
"Come in. It's a training island I bought."
I went in first, and Tony went in and out of the portal, amazed.
"Jin! This is amazing? This doesn't make sense by what I know."
"Don't go back and forth in the middle. If the portal disappears while you're in the middle, your body gets cut."
"Hut! Got it."
At my warning, Tony stopped going back and forth and came onto the island. The island had a small log cabin for resting and a few palm trees—somewhat large. It wasn't so low that a typhoon would swallow it with waves, it had some elevation.
"This is my ability."
I took out one card and freely moved it around, then shot it toward the sea.
Boom!
The card that flew like that hit the sea surface and a water column shot up as it exploded.
"Whoa~! Cool? How do you do that?"
"I put energy from my body into things, and I can move them like telekinesis and make them bombs. And I can do this too."
I teleported behind Tony and tapped his shoulder. Then he was startled and said,
"No, how is this possible?"
"Tony, there are a lot of people with special abilities in the world. I'm one of them."
"You mean there are more people like you?"
"Yeah. Some hide it because it'd be annoying if known. Some have abilities too dangerous and national agencies block the info so people don't panic, so people don't know."
"Is it innate? Or acquired?"
"It depends. Innate people either inherit from parents who had special abilities, or are born via drugs and DNA manipulation. Acquired people mostly get abilities by accident in labs or are made by nations. There are more, but it's mostly similar. That's all I know."
"Wait, I think I just heard something insane? Made by nations?"
Tony didn't seem to know his father Howard Stark was involved in that yet.
"Have you heard of the Super Soldier Serum?"
"No, I don't know."
"Tony, during WWII, the Nazis and the US weren't just racing to develop weapons. They were also competing to make super soldiers with superhuman strength and tireless stamina. And one result of that is Captain America."
"I see…"
It seemed fine to say this much.
"Let's go back."
"Yeah, today I heard too many shocking things. I need a coffee."
We returned to Tony's house.