Hell's Kitchen 2.0

The moment Leon left Tony Stark, he regretted it.

Why?

Because he didn't have a plane to get back!

The more dashing he'd been when he left, the more despairing and miserable he was when flying back alone against the freezing wind...

A full three days!

Three whole days!!

More than seventy hours!!

The Sky Dance Technique had even reached level three!

Leon had never seen anything about this in the movies! They just whooshed away in an instant! Gone with a swish.

Wasn't it always like that? Why had no one ever mentioned that you couldn't get through airport security without flying?

By the end, Leon didn't even have the energy to curse anymore. Thankfully, no one knew about this...

"Then let this not-so-glorious stupid incident sink into oblivion forever!"

Three days after rescuing Tony Stark, three days after Tony Stark got home, Leon finally! Returned to the Big Apple!

The moment Leon, in Mystic Bee form, flew into his house, he changed back to normal, stripped off his clothes, and went straight to sleep.

The past three days had tortured him terribly.

While Leon was up in the sky trying to find his way, getting lost, and trying to find his way again, Tony had, just like in the movie, announced the closure of Stark Industries' weapons research and manufacturing divisions. As soon as the news broke, Stark Industries' stock plummeted, and the entire company fell into panic.

Tony had always been a troublemaking bastard, but he was a bastard who could make money.

So everyone had been willing to put up with him back then. They might have hated him, but no one hated money.

Now things were different. An annoying guy who couldn't bring them profit was just an annoying guy.

Thus, Obadiah joined forces with numerous shareholders in an attempt to isolate Tony—or simply go all out and drive him away!

But then Tony Stark showed Obadiah another source of profit.

"You really managed to miniaturize it!"

Looking at the miniature reactor in Tony's chest, Obadiah could hardly believe it.

As Howard Stark's business partner, Obadiah naturally knew about the massive reactor standing in Stark Industries' facilities that supplied power to the entire company.

If this thing could be miniaturized, Obadiah could already think of countless applications for the product!

Every single one could make them industry leaders!

But the problem was...

"I don't intend to make this technology public, nor do I plan to use it for profit."

That was right. Tony Stark rejected Obadiah.

Although the old man spent a long time trying to persuade him, Tony never budged. Tony knew perfectly well that if this technology fell into the hands of someone with ulterior motives, the damage it could cause would be far beyond one missile—or even a truckload of missiles.

The plan died before it could even be born. Naturally, Obadiah wasn't willing to accept that, though on the surface, he still supported Tony.

After spouting a pile of meaningless praise and putting on the full act of a kind elder, Obadiah left Tony's mansion.

After stepping outside, Obadiah turned back for one long look.

Howard... don't blame me...

A little after one in the morning, Leon, who had slept for fourteen hours, was finally awakened by the need to pee.

After coming out of the bathroom and lying back down, he couldn't fall asleep no matter what.

He was tired, thirsty, hungry! His whole body was filled with a strange, artificial sort of mental excitement.

If a normal person suffered insomnia at one in the morning, they'd definitely be irritable as hell, and their mental state the next day wouldn't be great.

But Leon wasn't a normal person...

So he simply got up and started making breakfast.

A midnight snack?

Whatever. It was his first meal after waking up, so by his schedule it was breakfast. By the time, it was a midnight snack!

Nothing wrong with that!

As a genuine night owl! Leon's line of work meant he couldn't go around cracking people's heads open in broad daylight. What kind of impression would that make!

So Leon was more accustomed to the middle of the night anyway. After all, there were more clients out at this hour!

Naturally, after eating and drinking his fill, Leon "put on his work clothes," took Mystic Cat form, and jumped out the window.

Don't ask why he didn't use the door. How could a cat use a door?

It wasn't like there weren't any windows!

Honestly, a cat's agility was truly amazing. Wasn't there a saying? A cat's agility was seven times that of a cat!

Nimbly weaving around the neighbor lady's unreasonable laundry lines, then calmly avoiding the rare plants of the old man downstairs, Mystic Cat Leon landed gracefully—and then spent a full minute chasing a mouse...

"Fuck! I knew this skill had something wrong with its cat brain!"

As everyone knew, cats possessed something called a "hunting instinct."

Most living creatures had no desire to attack or kill pointlessly when they didn't need to eat.

But cats were different. Whether it was fish or little birds, even when they weren't hungry, they'd still want to hunt them, bite them to death, and leave them where they fell.

In that regard, they were extremely similar to humans!

Mystic Cat Leon.

Both a cat and a human!!

Oh-ho~ Double the fun!

So after cornering the unfortunate mouse, Leon kindly built it a nest out of cement blocks and stones as compensation.

Nature's wind and rain always took especially good care of weaker lifeforms. Thinking of that, Leon found a bigger stone and placed it on top.

"This time, it should be foolproof, right!"

After doing his good deed for the day, Leon was in high spirits as he strode around the corner in search of victims... ah, no, souls in need of redemption.

Around two o'clock, Leon, who had been out for an hour, squatted on the street in confusion, his mind filled with one question.

"Could it be that I've traveled to some parallel world again?"

It was only natural for Leon to have that question.

In the old Hell's Kitchen, once night fell, it was pure chaos!

If there weren't gunshots and cries for help in the streets and alleys, people couldn't even sleep!

After all, this was Hell's! Kitchen! Damn it!

Logically speaking, Leon wasn't moving slowly. He'd casually wandered through three or four blocks in an hour.

Shouldn't he have been taking clients from one end to the other by now!

There weren't any!

Not a single crime!

"If it weren't for all the English on the streets and these familiar roads, I'd think I'd traveled back again!"

Could it be because of... me?

After thinking about it, that really was possible!

Kingpin had previously unified Hell's Kitchen's underground world for the most part. Only Owl could barely contend with him, and even then, he was merely hanging on.

After Owl allied with Kingpin, Kingpin had become the true underground king.

And as luck would have it, on the very day they formed their alliance, Leon came knocking to check their water meters.

He handed out several free iron pineapples, and Owl, that cosplay enthusiast, died on the spot. After Leon toyed with Kingpin for a while, he went to the real underground.

Leon wondered whether Mephisto liked the guy.

Leon had always been meticulous in his work!

To the point that, by the end, there hadn't been anyone left intact in Kingpin's building.

Wasn't Kingpin considerate, though? If he hadn't done all that preliminary consolidation work, it wouldn't have been so easy for Leon to wipe them all out in one sweep~

But even so, it shouldn't have turned Hell's Kitchen into a place where people didn't even lock their doors at night.

Leon wasn't a normal person!

The little issues, minor disputes, and petty thugs that others couldn't be bothered with? Leon loved them!

And so came the tragedy of someone using his clones to beat up petty thugs like a madman just to train his skills.

During that time, Hell's Kitchen's petty thugs turned pale at the mention of cats. In severe cases, just hearing a meow made their eye sockets ache.

Now, anyone in Hell's Kitchen who didn't own a cat was too embarrassed to chat with their neighbors!

Solid black cats might not have been welcome elsewhere, but in Hell's Kitchen, they were practically worshipped!

After all, everyone knew: Hell's Kitchen's black cats weren't for catching mice—they were for keeping burglars away!

Mystic Cat Leon, good job!