Huh?
Why were they making it personal now?
His words hit a sore spot, and the young Black men's eyes reddened.
Sure, we're trash, but you can't just say it to our faces!
Even trash has some pride, okay?
They were about to attack when Josen asked, "You guys are trying to rob me, right?"
"...So what if we are?"
"Because that means I can act in self-defense."
They exchanged looks. Was this guy an idiot?
"Cut the crap." Their leader drew the pistol at his waist, a battered Glock 17 covered in scratches, and pointed its dark muzzle at Josen. "Hand over all your money!"
One minute later.
Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang...
A fierce burst of gunfire erupted somewhere in Brooklyn. From the sound alone, the shooter was clearly a true master of American quick-draw combat, emptying his magazine in a single second.
Inside the alley.
Josen kept one hand in his pocket and raised the other, spreading all five fingers.
His black trench coat billowed without any wind. All he needed was a pair of sunglasses to look like Neo from The Matrix.
As the shots rang out, the five young Black men saw Josen attempting to catch bullets with his bare body, and their smiles grew vicious.
But when the bullets froze in midair as though trapped in mud, the vicious grins had barely exposed their gleaming teeth before turning into terror.
When Josen left the alley, five gang members stood respectfully behind him, their faces bruised and swollen. They insisted on contributing every bit of cash and every phone they had, each promising to turn over a new leaf and sit at the kids' table from now on.
Unable to refuse their insistence, Josen had no choice but to accept everything.
At least his operating funds and equipment for the next few days were now taken care of.
Meanwhile, poor Peter was still mopping the floor of the closed burger joint.
With equipment on hand, Josen was no longer fumbling in the dark.
Connecting to this world's internet brought a vast sea of information before him.
Searching on several phones at once, Josen skimmed through local New York news at a glance.
As he kept digging, he soon discovered that the epicenter of Brooklyn's massive earthquake lay directly beneath a building called Fisk Tower.
Seeing the name of the building's owner further convinced him that he was on the right track.
Kingpin.
His real name was Wilson Fisk, a Marvel supervillain and one of Daredevil and Spider-Man's archenemies.
So Josen also visited Hell's Kitchen on Manhattan's west side, spreading his psychic power over the entire neighborhood. However, he found no sign of the devil who loved that neighborhood more than life itself.
Likewise, this New York City had no flashy Stark Tower, nor was there any news about the Avengers circulating online.
Taking into account the MCU Peter who had also traveled here, this world was most likely a stage reserved for spider-themed heroes.
The scene returned to Brooklyn in the early morning.
The Melody Coffee Shop stood near the center of Brooklyn. Although the area could not compare to Manhattan across the river, it was still one of the most bustling parts of the borough.
Across the street from the coffee shop stood a commercial tower that soared into the clouds, with a luxurious banquet hall on its top floor. It stood far taller than almost every surrounding building.
This was Fisk Tower, the private property of Kingpin, emperor of New York's underworld.
If a traditional Spider-Man were here, he would probably already have begun the full investigative routine: disguise, infiltration, combat, and theft of core secrets.
As someone with psychic powers, however, Josen had far more convenient methods.
Just as when he had searched for Daredevil the previous night, invisible psychic power rippled outward above the city, silently enveloping the entire tower.
Throughout the process, the ordinary employees busy inside the building noticed nothing unusual.
From Josen's perspective, there was nothing unusual inside the building either.
His psychic view spread downward from the banquet hall on the top floor, revealing the offices of each department. Employees moved between floors, making every moment count as they squeezed out every last bit of profit for their boss.
Conversations, reprimands, arguments, curses, the clacking of high heels on marble, the rapid tapping of keyboards, and the unspeakable activities of a man and woman in a bathroom stall...
For a moment, all the scenes inside the building were processed by his psychic power into sounds and images, then transmitted clearly into his mind.
After scrutinizing it all with a critical eye for a while, he even gained a general understanding of confidential matters such as Kingpin's business empire, his finances, and how many competitors he had disposed of yesterday.
Josen had to admit that, for a company with underworld ties, all of this was perfectly normal.
The epicenter was underground, so he would keep going down.
His all-reaching psychic power extended downward. After passing through a solid layer of concrete, the world before him suddenly opened up.
The building's underground parking garage had been excavated all the way down to one of Brooklyn's abandoned subway stations, creating an enormous experimental space beneath the city that covered an area comparable to four or five soccer fields.
Inside the vast hollow in front of the laboratory, a large Particle Collider had already been secretly assembled. Its two emitters faced each other like a pair of large-caliber gun emplacements. It was easy to imagine how much energy the high-energy particle beams they fired would contain!
That solved the case. This enormous machine was undoubtedly the culprit behind the disruption of space-time and the massive earthquake!
A central control room sat to one side near the ceiling of the chamber. Through its glass, over a hundred busy researchers could be seen sitting at computers, typing away and working hard. Leading them was a thin female scientist with wildly frizzy hair and a white lab coat. Her expression was excited and her eyes feverish as she passionately explained something to an exceptionally powerfully built, tall, bald man.
Just like in the original story, everything above ground was merely a smokescreen to deceive outsiders. Dr. Genus next door would have called it the work of a true professional.
"Listen to me, boss. We're only one step away from success. Yesterday's experiment..." Dr. Olivia Liv Octavius's impassioned explanation abruptly stopped, and she glanced around in confusion.
Kingpin was unusually large, but he was certainly not flabby. His custom black suit was stretched taut over powerful muscles that looked almost inflated. Wherever he stood, he was a bulletproof wall.
Noticing that her explanation had stopped, he lowered his head slightly and followed Dr. Octavius's gaze around the room with cold eyes. "What happened, Doctor?" he asked in a deep, rumbling voice.
"Um..." Finding nothing unusual, the female version of Doctor Octopus frowned and withdrew her gaze, asking suspiciously, "Just now, did any of you feel... how should I put it... as though you were surrounded by liquid?"
Hmm?
Inside the coffee shop, Josen raised an eyebrow as he monitored them.
Doctor Octopus could actually faintly sense the presence of his psychic power. She certainly lived up to her reputation as a top scientist. Though she was up to no good, she was a genius whose abilities in certain areas far surpassed those of ordinary people.
If she were in the One-Punch Man world, she would probably mutate into a technology-based Monster in no time.
Before you continue