Little Hawking Is Adopted

Near noon, Wanda's parents, Oleg and Elena, returned to the basement room carrying several long loaves of bread.

"You're awake!"

When they saw Hawking awake and chatting with the two children, their faces immediately lit up with surprise.

If Hawking had not stepped in to stop the missile, they and the two children would all be corpses by now.

The couple was deeply grateful to Hawking.

"Thank you for saving me."

Before they could thank Hawking, he put on a grateful expression and spoke first:

"I may have hit my head, so I don't remember anything. Wanda said you were the ones who saved me and brought me back. Thank you so much."

The amnesia trick was activated.

Sure enough, upon hearing Hawking's words, the couple froze for a moment before replying with sympathetic expressions:

"It's all right. The war ended last night, and the government is organizing relief efforts and rebuilding the city.

You can stay here for now. Once order has been restored a little more, we'll help you find your family."

At that moment, the couple had already begun filling in Hawking's backstory in their minds.

Hawking might have been the descendant of a Chinese family that had immigrated to Sokovia. When the war came, he had been separated from his family, then suffered some kind of injury that caused him to lose his memory.

As for the special abilities he had displayed, those could be explained as well.

The news had been reporting on mutants before. Maybe he was a mutant with special abilities.

Just like how their daughter could sometimes make small objects float, while their son could run much faster than normal children.

This little boy had saved their entire family's lives. Naturally, they had to take good care of him and do their best to help him find his parents.

"Wouldn't that be too much trouble for you?"

Hawking asked, pretending to be somewhat embarrassed.

With Wanda's parents, locals who knew the area, helping him, he could settle down for a while and focus on improving his strength.

During the time since he had awakened, aside from coaxing quite a bit of information out of Wanda and Pietro, he had also spent time specifically studying his cheat.

So far, he could clearly sense that after using the Protagonist Template once, although the template had now faded away, some things had remained behind.

The most obvious was his memories. Sun Goku's thirteen years of memories had not disappeared when the template ended. They had all remained in his mind.

Of course, they were only memories, without feelings or anything of that sort, like an extra thirteen-year-long movie in his head.

Second, he could clearly feel that his body seemed to have undergone some special change. It should be just as the earlier prompt had said: after using a Protagonist Template once, he would automatically obtain the same bloodline as that protagonist.

In other words, he had now acquired the same Saiyan Bloodline as Sun Goku.

The most direct proof was that he had grown a tail behind his butt too!

So even without using the Protagonist Template later, he could slowly improve his strength by following the Turtle Hermit Style training methods from those memories.

And thirteen-year-old Sun Goku was only the first template. As long as he diligently accumulated Justice Points according to the panel's instructions, he could continue obtaining other Protagonist Templates and gain those protagonists' physiques and memories.

As for how to accumulate Justice Points, the panel had provided an extremely detailed explanation.

He simply had to do righteous deeds. Every righteous deed would earn a certain number of Justice Points depending on its significance. Once enough Justice Points had been accumulated, he could randomly draw different Protagonist Templates.

Any Protagonist Template drawn would be obtained permanently. After each use, he only needed to wait for the twenty-four-hour cooldown to end before using it again.

During the hour when he had loaded Sun Goku, he had done quite a few righteous deeds. All of those would be settled as Justice Points.

As for what counted as a righteous deed, the panel explained that as long as he subjectively believed in his heart that something was righteous, then it was righteous.

For example, if he believed killing one evil person could save a group of people, then killing would be a righteous deed. If he believed the president had committed crimes and killing him was righteous, then killing him would earn Justice Points.

Even if everyone in the world said he was wrong, as long as he believed it was righteous in his heart, then it was righteous.

But if he killed someone simply because he personally hated them, then he would not gain any Justice Points.

Moreover, he had to personally carry out such righteous deeds. He could not use money; he had to take action himself.

For example, donating money to a charity or giving money to beggars did not count as righteous deeds. But helping an elderly person who had fallen to their feet did count as a righteous deed.

The premise was that the elderly person could not scam him. Otherwise, only giving them a beating would count as a righteous deed.

What pleased him greatly was that his Justice Points could only increase and never decrease. Doing righteous deeds earned Justice Points, while doing evil deeds would not deduct any.

Of course, while he was not especially righteous, he still had his own bottom line and would not do anything too evil.

"No, it's no trouble at all. You're such a sensible child."

Hearing that Hawking was so sensible at such a young age and spoke so politely, Elena's maternal instincts immediately surged. She stepped forward and hugged the still somewhat weak Hawking.

"Mom, I want one too!"

Pietro was dissatisfied when he saw that. He immediately jumped onto the bed and joined in.

How could Wanda, the younger sister born twelve minutes after Pietro, possibly fall behind? She followed her Older Brother and wrapped her arms around them too.

Behind them, Oleg set down the bread and hugged his wife Elena, the children Wanda and Pietro, and Hawking in the middle all together.

"Don't worry. Everything will get better!"

Hawking, held in the very center, felt slightly moved as well.

He had no choice but to use this family to survive better, yet this family seemed to genuinely regard him as one of their own.

This doesn't seem so bad.

In his Previous Life, ever since he could remember, all he had heard were his parents' endless arguments. They had even fought each other physically, and at their worst, they had used knives.

And they had never avoided doing so in front of him.

Later, his parents divorced, and he became a burden, kicked back and forth between them like a ball. Once his parents started new families and had children of their own, he was even more neglected.

So, truthfully, he did feel somewhat envious of such a loving family.

Though they were not wealthy, the family was always full of laughter when they were together.

A week later, Sokovia gradually returned to normal order. Because so many people had died in the city and there was a severe labor shortage, both Oleg and Elena found decent jobs.

That day, as usual, they took Hawking to a special agency that handled missing persons cases.

"We are very sorry, but because of that damned war, much of the city's records are missing. We cannot find any record matching him, and among the reports filed by people searching for missing family members, none of the descriptions match him either.

So his parents and family probably perished in this war.

You can choose to send him to an orphanage, or you can choose to adopt him."

A plump female staff member explained this to Oleg and Elena in the room with a deeply regretful tone.

A moment later, Elena and Oleg emerged from the room, their eyes slightly red. They walked over to Hawking, who was playing with Wanda and Pietro, crouched down slowly, and asked gently:

"Little Hawking, would you be willing to become our child, to be Wanda and Pietro's Older Brother?"

Hawking looked at Oleg, then at Elena, and smiled slightly.

"I would."

"I have an Older Brother! I have an Older Brother!"

Before Elena and Oleg could say anything, Wanda and Pietro were already cheering.

After spending a week together, they had both grown very fond of this Older Brother who took such good care of them.