"Mr. Rorschach!"
The moment he saw Rorschach appear, Jarvis, who had been waiting by the car, immediately stepped forward to greet him politely.
"Jarvis, have you been waiting long?"
"I just arrived as well. Please get in, Mr. Rorschach. The banquet has already been arranged."
Jarvis walked around to the other side and personally opened the car door for Rorschach.
It had to be said that Howard Stark's butler looked more like a gentleman than Howard Stark himself in every way.
Though Howard Stark was no longer young, his playboy nature had not changed much.
"A banquet? Didn't you say it was just a simple meal? Stark doesn't need to make such a fuss."
Rorschach glanced at Jarvis.
"Mr. Rorschach saved Mr. Stark's life, so naturally we cannot be too casual." Jarvis gestured for Rorschach to get into the car.
"Saved his life? That's putting it too seriously."
Rorschach shook his head and said nothing more.
In any case, Howard Stark lacked everything except money. A banquet was a banquet. It was a good chance to indulge a little.
"Sir, target spotted! I repeat, target spotted!"
Just as Rorschach was about to get into the car, his body suddenly paused.
His super hearing had inadvertently picked up a voice.
"Can you confirm it?"
Another voice came through the receiver right afterward, carrying a trace of excitement.
"He matches the sketch by as much as eighty percent. We can confirm that he is the target we're looking for!"
"Good. Keep a close eye on him!"
"Yes, sir!"
The conversation ended there.
"Mr. Rorschach?"
Seeing Rorschach momentarily distracted, Jarvis could not help calling out tentatively.
"Oh, it's nothing."
Rorschach waved a hand and got into the car as though nothing had happened.
At the same time, however, he became wary.
He immediately looked through the car window in the direction the voices had come from.
Sure enough, he saw a capable-looking young man of around thirty with a crew cut secretly watching him from an inconspicuous corner.
And after Rorschach got into the car, the other man immediately got into a car as well.
Once Jarvis started the vehicle, that car followed at a carefully concealed distance.
Rorschach was certain that man's target was him!
"Who could it be?"
Rorschach fell into thought.
Honestly, he had not been reborn into this world for very long. He had not offended anyone, so who would be watching him?
But then he thought about how he had killed Sabretooth, Red Devil, Riptide, and several werewolves...
Fine. Rorschach took back what he had just thought.
But Sabretooth had died so long ago, and Caliban had more or less confirmed that Shaw had not traced him. Could the people targeting him be werewolves?
But would werewolves really have "sir" this and "sir" that? That seemed rather out of place.
Had those guys developed an orderly, tightly organized structure too?
That should not have been possible.
On the surface, Rorschach sat in his seat with his eyes closed, resting, but inwardly, he was calculating and analyzing.
Yet no matter how much he thought, he could not reach a definite conclusion. In the end, he simply stopped thinking about it.
Once those people showed themselves, everything would naturally become clear.
54th Street, New York.
Inside a temporary command center.
A look of excitement hung on Stryker's face. At last, he had finally found that guy!
The deaths of Sabretooth and Zero had always weighed heavily on Stryker's mind, and he had naturally spared no effort in investigating them.
Yet for some reason, aside from the Amusement Park, those two killers had not left behind even the slightest trace!
This infuriated Stryker.
In the end, he could only helplessly decide to let the matter go.
But just when there seemed to be no way forward, a new opportunity emerged. Stryker had unexpectedly obtained a highly useful clue from Lucien.
An Eastern young man who had beaten a werewolf to death with his bare hands!
Though Stryker was not a mutant, he understood mutants better than almost anyone.
In his experience, the overwhelming majority of mutants were Westerners. Easterners were exceedingly rare.
At the very least, despite dealing with mutants for so many years, Stryker had never encountered a single Eastern face!
Combined with the fact that both incidents involved hand-to-hand combat, the implication was already quite obvious.
So Stryker had people begin investigating.
Using the tavern where the incident had occurred as the center, along with every one of the man's known connections, he deployed a large number of personnel to stake out and investigate the area.
The middle-aged man who had entered and left the tavern with Rorschach, the tavern's actual manager, Howard Stark, whom Rorschach had saved, and so on.
All of them were connected to Rorschach.
They were all placed under surveillance.
And as Howard Stark's representative, Jarvis was not spared either.
However, that middle-aged man had been Raven in disguise, while Caliban, the tavern's manager, was highly cautious. After the "agent shootout" incident, they had immediately relocated.
There was simply nothing to uncover.
Instead, they made a major breakthrough through Jarvis, from whom they had not expected much. This was something Stryker had not anticipated.
"Have you finally found him? Sir, I'll go capture him right now!"
The fiercely loyal Wade volunteered himself and stepped forward.
"Wait, Wade!"
Stryker stopped Wade directly. "You cannot act alone this time. I'm assigning you two tactical squads, and you will command them!"
"Sir, isn't that a bit excessive? Do you really think that's necessary? We're just capturing one person, not going to war!"
Wade said speechlessly.
Was his superior taking that guy too seriously?
So what if he had killed Sabretooth? What was the big deal?
"Wade, you are an important candidate for the X-Weapon program. Nothing can happen to you! I will not take any risks." Stryker naturally had his reasons.
"So you really think there's a chance I could fail? Sir, I'm deeply hurt. I thought that after all this time, you understood me very well, but it seems you still don't understand me well enough..."
"Shut up, Wade. Your mission this time is to bring him to me while ensuring your own safety."
Stryker had no time to trade barbs with Wade, so he cut him off. "If you cannot bring him back, then... bring back the serum!"
For Stryker's research, the serum would be enough.
Of course, Stryker's primary goal was not to kill Rorschach, but to uncover the mutant organization behind him.
But if that proved impossible, he could only settle for the next best thing.
Before you continue