That Monster Has Appeared Again

Ava Ellis egging Linda to abscond with the money was purely pointless blather. She knew better than anyone that as long as Sean White dared to verbally admit the money was his—

That lousy ledger would pin the massive loan on Linda in minutes!

Linda Carter had nothing but contempt for Doctor Ava's idle nonsense. She remembered perfectly well how she had fallen into this pit in the first place.

A chance encounter on the street~

She had merely verbally agreed to let Doctor White ease the pain of her acute appendicitis~

Biu~

Two hundred and forty-four thousand, gone~

The pain was gone too~ Linda had even been quite happy at the time and wanted to ask Doctor White how he had done it.

Who would have thought that Doctor White would pull out an appendix and tell her, "That'll be two hundred and forty-four thousand dollars!"

How could a little nurse like her possibly have two hundred and forty-four thousand dollars?! She remembered trying to resist at first~

But that doctor's face turned nasty, and he said this:

"Then I'll put it back in~"

Linda had surrendered immediately out of fright!

Linda Carter had always been a materialist, but from that moment on, her convictions had become somewhat shaky. In her eyes, Doctor White was a mixture of demon and angel.

She had personally seen terminal cancer patients on the verge of death instantly recover completely in Doctor White's hands. It was practically more miraculous than God!

She had also seen people who defaulted on their debts get tortured half to death. It was crueler than any demon!

"Ava, why did you start working here?"

Linda finally asked the question.

But the question was like pressing a stop-time button. Ava Ellis instantly froze like a paused image, not moving at all—she even stopped breathing!

If she had background music right now, it would definitely be: What a painful realization~

One second, two seconds... five seconds later, Linda curiously turned to look at Ava Ellis and found her petrified.

Linda understood at once~

She must have had an experience even more miserable than Linda's...

With a sigh~ They were both fallen souls beneath the same sky~

Sean, the instigator behind it all, could only wander around Manhattan with Yuriko out of boredom. He had to kill time until four in the afternoon before he had somewhere to go.

Vanessa did not like him going to the bookstore to disturb her, so he truly had nowhere else to go~

Bored out of his mind, Sean had Yuriko buy one copy of every newspaper at the newsstand, intending to use his limited time to concern himself with national affairs~

But as soon as he thought that, he realized: what the hell did the United States' national affairs have to do with him?

Still, he had already bought the newspapers. Not reading them would be a waste.

Then Sean discovered something interesting. Most newspapers were touting mutants as a disease~ They needed to be cured!

Only a handful of newspapers spoke up for mutants, but their angle was flawed. They were basically approaching the issue from the perspective of genetic mutation!

Sean felt those newspapers were using a reverse tactic. Just look at the examples they rejected.

Atavism? Antibiotic abuse? Electromagnetic radiation? Chemical pollution?

Wasn't that still pushing mutants toward the identity of "patients"?

Only a small newspaper called Mutant Diary gave an honest analysis of the current situation. Its editor was clearheaded. She believed that, aside from a small group of bad actors ruining mutants' reputation, many mutants also had appearances that differed from ordinary people. She used the "Uncanny Valley Effect" to explain this.

She was exactly right. People truly felt disgust and fear toward outsiders who looked very similar to themselves.

But hardly anyone read such a small paper. If Sean had not cleared out the newsstand, who would read something like this?

Sean took note of the editor's name. Sally Floyd?

He had no impression of her~

He skimmed through the paper. Aside from mutants and Watson Company, which was developing drugs to cure mutants, there were retrospectives on Tony Stark—nothing but his various inventions and gossip.

It felt as though Tony Stark would never return, and they were educating everyone about his history~

Come to think of it, before Tony Stark became Iron Man~ there really had not been a single superhero publicly known to humanity~

When Sean flipped to the end, he was about to toss aside all these overly repetitive newspapers when he suddenly spotted a tiny news item.

"That Monster May Have Returned!"

That was the headline!

It immediately caught Sean's attention. Looking closer, he found that it was an old story from Brazil. The green monster had appeared again. It was the story of Hulk showing his might in Brazil, with no photos, only a few descriptions.

Then he checked the date: April 1, 2007... April Fools' Day?

Annoyed, he tossed the newspaper aside. No wonder it was such a tiny item—it was outdated~

It was already 2009!

Tsk~ It had been two years~ Hulk should have made his way to the United States by now, right?

At that thought, Sean's hair suddenly stood on end. He remembered that when Hulk fought Abomination, it had been on Broadway! How had he forgotten that?!

It felt like his house had collapsed at the wrong time!

He really had to keep a close eye on this from now on. Otherwise, if a car came flying over~ wouldn't his new house have to be rebuilt again?

Sean spent the entire afternoon agonizing over it, feeling like the day had been damn fulfilling!

"Knock knock knock."

Someone knocked on Sean's car window.

When he turned to look, Sean's expression changed.

Misty Knight, a patrol officer.

He and this Black policewoman had a story that had to be told.

Well... it would not be told here :P

"You can't park here!"

Misty said expressionlessly.

"..."

Shouldn't she be knocking on the driver's window for this?

"Yuriko, back to the clinic."

"Wait!"

Sean looked innocently at Misty. "Is something wrong, Officer Knight~?"

"This car was seen near a dock in Queens the night before last. Do you have anything to say about that?"

"Really? I have no impression of it at all. What happened?"

"Keep pretending~"

Misty did not press Sean any further. She merely curled her lip and let him leave.

Sean quickly had Yuriko drive away. He was somewhat allergic to women like Misty.

Speaking of Misty, it went back to when he had first arrived in New York six months ago.

At the time, Sean had just arrived in New York with Vanessa, who was still a cat, and was busy dealing with inheritance matters when some lunatic tried to rob him!

Who was Sean?

The original owner of his body had been a high school sports star! Combined with the fighting skills honed by infinite stamina~

Before transmigrating, he had also been a reckless troublemaker who was constantly writing self-criticisms!

Robbery?

What a joke. Before the gun could even be pointed at him, Sean knocked the guy down with a single punch.

Then came a brutal beating~

And, as luck would have it, patrol officer Misty saw it!

That woman had tried to arrest Sean on the spot. Since the thug getting beaten up was Black, this straightforward policewoman thought Sean was bullying him!

She had not been wearing her uniform at the time, so Sean had thought she was the thug's girlfriend or something...

And then?

Then Sean pinned Misty to the ground and humiliated her...

Well... he gave her butt a good hard spanking~

He could not really hit anywhere else~