Mr. One Hundred Million Dollars

Whoosh!

Saitama vanished. A few seconds later, the yellow sand finally began to swirl. It was probably the perfect illustration of the saying, "If I press E fast enough, even the sandstorm can't catch me."

As soon as Saitama disappeared, Skye quickly opened the map and watched the tracking signal.

A small red dot was moving across the electronic map. Of course, it didn't look like it was moving very fast at that scale, but if you zoomed in, the speed of that red dot was astonishing. Even Happy Jeep at full throttle couldn't catch so much as a glimpse of it.

"Great! Even if he's unlucky and heads in the wrong direction, at that speed, he can cover the entire Middle East without missing a spot in three to five days at most. He'll definitely find Tony Stark, as long as he's still alive." Skye spoke with confidence, her eyes sparkling and her brows dancing. She could practically see a hundred million dollars waving at her.

Meanwhile, Saitama was racing straight ahead. Whether it was a sand dune or some other obstacle, everything beneath his feet might as well have been flat ground. With a whoosh, he covered a thousand—or even ten thousand—meters.

In a dark cave, dim lights cast an orange glow, bringing a little warmth to the cold place.

There were two people in the cave, both middle-aged men. Neither looked well. Their faces were pale, dark circles ringed their eyes, and their eyes were faintly bloodshot. They were suffering not only physically but mentally as well.

"It's finally finished." Tony Stark looked at the crude little device, made with such primitive tools, and exhaled. A faint, relieved smile appeared on his face.

"Tony, are you sure this thing will work? And its main material is palladium, right? That stuff is highly toxic to the human body." Yinsen looked at the fist-sized device, worried.

"Relax, Yinsen. It'll be fine. And in these circumstances, it's still a lot better than carrying around a battery I don't even know which electric scooter I stole it from every day." Tony glanced down at the scooter battery attached to his chest. It powered a crude electromagnet that held the shrapnel from the Jericho Missile in place, keeping it from piercing his heart.

To be honest, the electromagnet made from a stolen scooter battery had saved his life, but it was crude and ugly, with no technology in it at all. It was completely unworthy of Tony Stark.

"All right. Given the circumstances, this is the best we can do." Yinsen shook his head and sighed, then helped Tony insert the device into his body.

"Ah... oh... ooh..." Tony made strange noises until the device was fully in place inside him.

Yinsen wiped the sweat from his forehead. "Tony, the sounds you made were, um, a little too distinctive. I absolutely won't do this again next time."

"Don't worry, Yinsen. I promise. I'll never let another man inside my body again."

Yinsen rolled his eyes. "How does it feel?"

"Great. Better than ever. I feel like a robot with a brand-new battery."

"That's good. But what do we do next?"

"Obviously, this." Tony stacked his sheets of draft paper together. When he shone light through them, the image of a robot appeared before him and Yinsen.

"Oh, this is—"

"Shh. This is the Jericho Missile. A powerful missile I designed." Tony worried that they might be under surveillance—which, really, would be perfectly normal. What he was concerned about was someone discovering his true intentions.

Just then, the terrorists outside grew suspicious and rushed in. Tony hurriedly scattered the draft papers.

"What are you doing? Tell me, what are you doing?"

"We're making the Jericho Missile. Really, we're just making the Jericho Missile."

"Then tell me, what's this? What's this?" The terrorist pointed at the discarded electromagnet, then at Tony's chest.

"An electromagnet. It's just an electromagnet. We needed to make some changes, or Tony would have to carry around the battery all day and wouldn't be able to work. We just made a new battery so Tony can focus more completely on building the Jericho Missile and work more efficiently." Yinsen explained loudly.

The ignorant terrorist eyed Yinsen and Tony suspiciously. When Tony saw him looking his way, he hurriedly forced a smile, doing his best to look harmless and nonthreatening. The former Tony Stark, the wealthy owner of Stark Industries who had lived in luxury since childhood, had been forced to change under these circumstances. He looked truly miserable.

"Hmph!" The terrorist snorted and turned to leave.

Yinsen and Tony both breathed a sigh of relief. It was a relief that they hadn't been grabbed by the head and shoved underwater this time. But then their expressions hardened. They had to finish their Iron Suit as soon as possible and escape this hellhole.

"Hey, hello! Do you happen to know where Mr. One Hundred Million Dollars is being held?" Saitama came across a group of armed men on the road. They might have been terrorists, or they might have been someone else, but he didn't care. He simply walked up and asked.

To Saitama, it was as ordinary as asking for directions when you were lost.

"Gibberish, gibberish..."

Well, the two sides didn't speak the same language. They couldn't understand what Saitama was saying, and Saitama couldn't understand them either.

In the end, with no way to communicate, the terrorists pointed their guns at Saitama and fired several shots. Saitama flashed aside, then threw a punch—

So, yeah, communication was really important. If the two sides could understand each other, well... the result probably wouldn't have been any different...