Still Iron Man in This Area...

Hearing that Tony's two requests were actually this simple, Toby immediately felt that spending even one more second thinking about it would be disrespectful to that 5% stake, so he agreed on the spot.

Kill one person and save two people once in exchange for 5% of Stark Industries, worth at least tens of billions—what was there to hesitate over?

This deal was practically absurdly worthwhile!

It took Toby from a net worth of a few hundred million straight into the tens of billions!

Of course, even after getting that 5% stake, he would not be stupid enough to cash it out directly.

Unless Tony Stark himself died, cashing out Stark Industries stock would always be the dumbest thing to do.

The smartest move was to leave it in Stark Industries and let Tony make money for him!

Seeing Toby agree without hesitation also put Tony much more at ease.

Several tens of billions of dollars was certainly no small sum, but money was something he could earn back quickly if he lost it.

He only had one life!

Especially after experiencing the Ten Rings kidnapping, Tony understood even more clearly how important it was to have a powerful backup plan.

Otherwise, once he was kidnapped, there would be no outside hope at all. He would have to rely entirely on himself!

And Toby, this extraordinary guy who had found him in the vast desert even before the military had, was undoubtedly the most reliable backup!

So to Tony, using 5% of his shares to buy one future life each for himself and Pepper was really not expensive!

If anything, he had gotten the better end of the deal!

And now that Tony had been upgraded from a five-hundred-million-dollar client to a fifty-billion-dollar client, his treatment from Toby naturally rose to the highest standard.

During the drive back, Toby kept Tony supplied with a small blanket, water, food, and snacks. He even pressed the accelerator much more gently than before.

Tony and Yinsen, who had been beaten from time to time in the cave, finally experienced a long-lost sense of safety like being home, and soon fell asleep in the smoothly moving car.

On the way back, Toby remembered the route they had taken on the way in, so by deliberately avoiding certain areas, they did not encounter any other local terrorist factions.

They drove all the way to the nearest airport in Afghanistan.

Kingpin's people had already made arrangements. They promptly delivered three tickets, led the trio through a special passage, and the three of them boarded through the back way without even going through security.

After several connecting flights, the three of them successfully returned from the cave to the "peaceful" and "free" United States after three days.

Though it could not really be said that all three of them had returned, because Dr. Yinsen was originally from Afghanistan.

But his home in Afghanistan had already been destroyed by the Ten Rings. With nowhere else to go, he could only follow them back to New York.

And in Afghanistan, not only had his home been destroyed—his wife and daughter had long since died beneath the Ten Rings' guns.

When Tony first learned of this on the plane, he was utterly shocked.

Because that was not what Yinsen had told him in the cave.

Back then, Yinsen had constantly encouraged him in the cave, urging him to stay alive with him. For his family, and for the people they loved, they had to survive no matter what!

It was precisely because of Yinsen's constant encouragement that Tony, who had never had many attachments in life, had continued to hold onto hope.

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And in the end, he was telling him that Yinsen had actually been the one who had completely lost hope in life?

At least Tony Stark still had Stark Industries, which his father Howard Stark had left behind. To carry on his father's legacy, he still had something to look forward to in life.

But Yinsen did not even have a home anymore...

And on the plane, Yinsen finally told Tony the truth.

He truly had lost everything long ago. His home, his family, even his hometown—they had all been completely destroyed.

And they had been destroyed by Stark Industries missiles used by the Ten Rings.

When he had first met Tony, when the Ten Rings ordered him to perform the surgery to remove the shrapnel from Tony's chest, he had briefly considered killing Tony, the true culprit.

But in the end, he gave up...

Because he understood that weapons were never at fault, nor were those who created them. The ones at fault were those who used them.

Even if it had not been Stark Industries missiles that destroyed his hometown that day, missiles from some other arms manufacturer would have fallen and destroyed it.

And Yinsen believed that someone like Tony, standing at the pinnacle of human intellect, should not waste his talent solely on war. He should accomplish something in changing the world.

That was why Yinsen had done everything he could to save Tony and woven a well-intentioned lie, pretending to be someone who gave Tony hope in desperate circumstances and shared Tony's goal of escaping...

Until the very end, Yinsen had never even expected to survive.

He had intended to use his life to buy Tony a chance to live, while he himself remained on the land where his wife and daughter had been buried.

But Toby's arrival changed everything...

After hearing the truth from Yinsen, Tony remained in a daze even after getting off the plane and setting foot on New York soil again.

He felt no joy at having escaped death. Instead, he only felt that the weight on his shoulders had grown heavier...

Before, he had lived without a care in the world.

But two months ago, Yinsen had given him an artificial heart in that cave, granting him a second life.

And now, Yinsen's words had poured something heavy into that artificial heart...

Those things were called... responsibility!

Just as Yinsen had said, he, Tony Stark, should not merely be an arms dealer, a playboy, a billionaire, a genius scientist, a man who had slept with every cover girl—he could also be... a superhero who changed the world!

When Tony raised his head again, the light in his eyes had changed. It had become brighter, more resolute!

The two people who noticed Tony's change wore very different expressions.

Yinsen felt gratified—gratified that he had not misjudged Tony, and gratified that his efforts had not been in vain.

Toby, meanwhile, tugged at the corner of his mouth, feeling somewhat helpless and speechless.

Sure enough, no matter how vast heaven and earth were, the will of the universe was greater. Even with his interference changing things, Tony Stark had ultimately still embarked on the path of Iron Man!

Still, while Tony's resolve to become Iron Man had not changed, that did not mean nothing had changed.

For example, this time, Tony did not return as flamboyantly as he had in the original story, holding a press conference the moment he came back and announcing to all of Nurima that their Emperor Shit Stark had returned.

Instead, he quietly returned to his seaside villa with Yinsen and Toby, without notifying anyone.

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