91 MUP: Chapter 90. Two Prompts

[Reputation points from Nick Fury +235]

[Reputation points from Natasha Romanoff+185]

In the antique shop, Ryan looked at the two-point prompts displayed on the data panel and raised his eyebrows.

"What's the matter?"

Jessica looked up, noticed the look on Ryan's face, and casually asked.

"Nothing." Ryan lowered his head to cover up the expression on his face, placed the newspaper down, and looked at Jessica.

Since the other party had entered the store, she had been drinking as if she had taken his antique shop as a bar.

Jessica glanced at the contents of the newspaper. On the page, The New York Times devoted a whole page to the report of Wilson Fisk, a famous entrepreneur and philanthropist in New York, who was accused of a number of illegal deals, including a series of crimes such as being the head of a number of violent groups and bribing in the elections. The FBI arrested him and found a lot of evidence. Soon, Wilson would start his prison sentence.

Silently withdrawing her eyes, Jessica was a little more aware of some of the inner workings of the story than the shallow way the New York Times had reported it.

For example, most of the evidence that exposed Kingpin's crimes came from the Hand and Madame Gao.

The only surviving leader of the Hand betrayed not only the Beast but Kingpin too.

Although, Jessica could perceive that Madame Gao wasn't doing it for some kind of righteous reason. However, Matt eventually chose to accept it and used it to expose Kingpin's crimes, forcing the New York crime lord into prison.

Shaking her head, she swept away the complicated thoughts in her mind.

In fact, with the death of the Beast and the Hand's defeat, the Defenders also went into virtual disbandment, with Matt returning to his life as a lawyer by day and crime fighter by night in Hell's Kitchen, and Luke returning to Harlem to continue his days as a mundane barbershop cleaner.

Danny had hoped that the group would join him in investigating what the Beast had mentioned before he died, but Jessica flatly refused, having had too many bad experiences in the past and wanting to cool off for a while.

"Sorry."

After a long while, Jessica spoke to Ryan.

"For what?"

Although he knew Jessica's reasons for apologising, Ryan deliberately made a puzzled expression.

"I meant about Wesley. Because of the battle in Chinatown, he's ..."

"For the Brotherhood, death is not the end of everything. What's more, we know about the battle in Chinatown. Wesley died as a result, but he also saved a lot of people through his fight."

Ryan's words had a comforting effect, but they clearly failed to relieve Jessica's heart. She frowned and took a hard swig of liquor. The strong spicy taste of the drink in the bottle couldn't suppress the bitterness in her heart, "Maybe, I'm not cut out for this."

Jessica glanced at the remaining half of the liquor on the counter and raised her slender eyebrows. "If, I mean if, I need the Brotherhood's help again in the future, would you guys still help me?"

'Of course, why would I reject reputation points that willingly came to my doorstep?'

Ryan happily answered in his mind, but on the surface, he still had a dull look on his face, "The Brotherhood's moves were never about fighting for someone, just as Wesley was willing to go out on a limb because of his own beliefs and fight for a mission. So, if you are dealing with an evil force such as the Hand, for example, then of course, the Brotherhood is obliged to do its part."

[Reputation points from Jessica Jones +200]

"Don't worry, there won't be a 'later'."

Ryan's words caused Jessica's heart to fluctuate for a moment. She shifted her eyes for a moment before continuing, "From now on, I'm just an ordinary private detective in Hell's Kitchen. Let the heroes play the hero."

"I hope so."

"No, it's not about hope. I'm sure of it!"

Grabbing the bottle of liquor in front of her, Jessica looked straight at Ryan and made a firm promise.

"The more you say that I have a feeling you'll have a greater chance of getting smacked in the face later."

Shaking his head, Ryan watched Jessica leave the antique shop. He flipped the newspaper in his hand and saw the other side of the New York Times paper. With a larger space than Kingpin had before, a major event that involved the entire New York City and even the US Military was reported.

Tony Stark, CEO of Stark Industries, the famous genius and playboy of New York ...

A few days ago, during his trip to Afghanistan to present his company's new weapons, he was attacked by local armed forces. His whereabouts were unknown. For this reason, the military urgently mobilised search and rescue forces to carry out rescue operations. At the same time, Obadiah Stane, the second largest shareholder of Stark Industries, also held a press conference. He expressed his hope that all forces would be mobilised and that Tony would be safe.

However, some insiders revealed that the possibility of Tony Stark surviving was extremely low. There was a high probability that something had happened to him.

'Finally. Will Iron Man appear soon?'

The New York Times story on Tony Stark's plight was lengthy, but to Ryan's eyes, it could all be summarised in one sentence.

'Then, I need to pick up the pace here too.'

As he thought so, Ryan lowered his gaze back to the system's data panel.

[Reputation points]: 23457

At over 20,000 points, it was definitely the most Ryan had seen so far.

All the trouble he had gone through, of constantly changing characters, was not in vain.

Tugging at the corners of his lips, a faint smile appeared on his face. Ryan looked at the massive amount of points in his system and started to think about his next move.

Naturally, opening treasure chests were essential. With over 20,000 reputation points, he had enough to redeem two [Bronze Treasure Chests] with C-level cards in them. The Beast's previous performance had sufficiently illustrated that powerful character cards were far more effective at gaining reputation points than lower ranked cards.

Still, there was a need to ease off first. He couldn't move too quickly. Limited by the number of clones, Ryan could only keep two clones active outside right now. Previously, Ryan himself made a cameo appearance as Ip Man in order to set the stage for the showdown with the Beast.

In truth, there was the fear of peril, especially with Tony Stark. It wouldn't be long before Iron Man would come out, and the various bogeymen would pop up in New York immediately afterwards. In particular, data from the system had previously alerted Ryan to the fact that S.H.I.E.L.D. had begun to take notice of the damage he was causing.

With all the commotion in Chinatown, Ryan hadn't expected S.H.I.E.L.D. to overlook the situation.

As a global intelligence agency, although it would be ironically infiltrated by Hydra in the future, as far as practical matters were concerned, he shouldn't overlook its great intelligence gathering capabilities and, of course, its various hidden futuristic weapons.

Anyway, S.H.I.E.L.D. was a problem.

Especially when they had noticed him.