"Could everyone sit down? Please, all of you, sit down. That way, you can all see me, and I can..."
The room fell quiet. Everyone sat on the floor like elementary school students, listening to Tony's speech of repentance.
With no choice, Obadiah sat down too, maintaining a respectable fake smile.
But when he heard that Tony was shutting down Stark Industries' weapons division, he lost his composure. The fake smile he had managed to maintain vanished.
Like flies catching the scent of rotting flesh, the reporters surged forward. The room erupted into chaos once more.
The bombshell spread across the internet in no time, causing an uproar throughout society. The companies and people with financial ties to Stark Industries were dumbfounded. Was he slitting his own arteries right off the bat?
Even the whole of Stark Industries, from the executives to the ordinary employees, was at a loss. What are we? We're an arms company. If an arms company stops selling arms, what are we supposed to do?
Turn bullets into pacifiers and shells into baby bottles? Are we supposed to turn missile launchers into water trucks too?
"Stark Industries, let me suggest a course of action. Ready? Sell, sell, sell! Abandon ship!"
The host on TV waved a baseball around with abandon. He had probably bought Stark Industries stock too. Another one had gone crazy.
After turning off the TV, Rimuru felt this was an opportunity-a chance to get rich overnight. He could faintly hear the sound of people taking flying leaps outside, while Stark Industries' stock price kept plunging. What was the lowest it went again? Forty-something or fifty-something?
As long as he could become a shareholder in Stark Industries, even a minor one, his future life in Marvel would be a breeze.
That would give him another layer of security. His current strength made him a decent fighter for now, but what good was being able to fight? To make it in this world, you needed influence and backing.
The Hulk could certainly fight, right? Yet he was still chased all over the world like some punk.
Hawkeye was just a slightly stronger ordinary person in Marvel, but with S.H.I.E.L.D. backing him, he had a better life than most superheroes. He had a wife and kids.
Thor had originally had Odin backing him. The moment Odin died, Asgard fell apart, and Thor went from heir to the throne to a wandering prince.
Even Thanos, after losing his forces and ending up alone, had his unfilial daughter bring the Avengers to his doorstep and kill him. He wound up doing a Louis XVI, and his ashes were probably scattered too.
"Little Rimuru, are you there? Come downstairs for a moment. I need your help."
Hearing Tony, Rimuru felt that something about the plot wasn't right. Wasn't he supposed to call Pepper down?
Full of questions, Rimuru went downstairs. As soon as he entered the room, he saw Tony lying there shirtless with a huge hole in his chest. He was really opening his heart.
"Hold out your hand. Let me see it."
That left Rimuru speechless. If he hadn't known the plot, he would definitely have thought Tony was a pervert. What, are you going to make a loli island too?
"I need you to put your hand in and gently pull the wire out. Don't let it touch the sides of the socket. Relax, just think of it as a game."
It had felt pretty realistic in the movie, but seeing it up close in real life, it was not only realistic but also a little creepy. You've got some nerve, trusting me this much. Aren't you afraid I'll pull something on you?
"I've seen what you can do. If you wanted to hurt me, with your strength, you wouldn't have needed to wait until now. I'd already have been dead in the cave."
Then let's do it. If you, the person involved, aren't afraid, what have I got to be afraid of?
With Great Sage's help, he soon finished the replacement. His movements were clean and efficient, just like when he had shot people in the head in the valley.
Once Tony had recovered, he sat up and looked seriously at Rimuru across from him. "All right, it's just the two of us here. This might be a little rude of me, but can I know who you really are and where you came from? I had JARVIS look into your identity, but he couldn't find anything."
Faced with Tony Stark's sharp, probing, and tired eyes, Rimuru fell silent for a moment. The light in the basement flickered faintly in the Arc Reactor's blue glow, and the tension of the operation just now still lingered in the air.
"It's normal that you couldn't find anything, Mr. Stark," Rimuru finally said, his voice calm and devoid of any discernible emotion.
"Because I don't exist in any official records in this world. I'm an accidental visitor from another world."
Tony's gaze grew sharper, and he leaned forward slightly. "What do you mean, another world? Are you an alien?"
"I'm not an alien. I'm an Earthling, but not from this universe's Earth. I'm an Earthling from another universe."
Tony's eyes cleared at that, and his face was full of question marks.
"Do you mean a parallel universe?"
"Uh... yeah, that's about it. I ended up here because of an accident."
"Then how did you get to this universe? And what's your universe like?"
The question left Rimuru silent. His arrival here was probably an accident, but how was he supposed to explain his world? If he said it was much like Tony's world, how would he explain his slime body and those abilities? He couldn't very well say the system had done it, could he?
"My world is much like yours, but it's also a little different. Some magical powers exist in our world. Strictly speaking, I don't entirely count as human anymore."
"What do you mean, you don't entirely count as human? And what are these magical powers?"
Rimuru then showed Tony the skills he had acquired, some of the magic he had learned at Kamar-Taj, and his slime body.
Watching everything before him, Tony had his worldview severely shaken. His years-long belief in the supremacy of science was shattered just like that.
Even a genius like him could hardly handle it. A living, breathing person had turned into a slime right before his eyes. He had even reached out and touched it himself, and the sensation was almost exactly like the descriptions in games.
After he recovered, a light of curiosity slowly appeared in Tony's eyes as he stared at Rimuru. Rimuru could have guessed what he wanted even with his heel.
Rimuru folded his arms and said fiercely, "If you want to use me as experimental material, you're dead! I'll make sure you know what cruelty means!"
Seeing Rimuru trying so hard to look fierce, Tony couldn't help the smile that tugged at his lips, and he chuckled.
"What's that smile supposed to mean? Did you even hear me?"
"Got it, got it. So what are your plans now? Are you going to try to get back to your universe?"
"I can't get back anytime soon, so I'm planning to find somewhere to settle down here first. I intend to invest my technology in Stark Industries."
"Invest in Stark?" Tony scoffed. "How do you plan to do that? Let me remind you, I don't have much to trade right now except this mess and a pile of constantly falling stock. Stark Industries isn't in a good position right now. It's even a little dire."
"Stock would be just fine," Rimuru said plainly. "You and I both know it'll fall to rock bottom, but what then? Stark Industries' core value has never been just weapons. Arc Reactors, artificial intelligence, materials science... those are the real future.
"You need money to stabilize the company and time to make the transition. And I happen to have something that can quickly level out Stark Industries' stock price or even drive it up."
As Rimuru spoke, a bottle of recovery potion appeared in his hand.
"What's that?"
Tony grew curious at once as he looked at the recovery potion in Rimuru's hand, which seemed to shimmer faintly.
"It's a potion made from Hipokute Herb. It can heal any injury in a very short time." As Rimuru spoke, he poured out a little and applied it to Tony's face.
Tony felt the injuries on his face rapidly disappear. Even his skin seemed to improve. His eyes widened at once. With an effect like that, if the stuff could be mass-produced, it would be a veritable treasure bowl.
"What's this Hipokute Herb you mentioned? Can it be grown in bulk?"
"Uh... it's an herb that grows in special places. Whether it can be grown in bulk remains to be seen, but it should be fine." Doesn't it just need an environment rich in magic? It's not like the Marvel Universe doesn't have any. Worst comes to worst, I can ask the Ancient One for a dimension or something.
While they were discussing investing the magic potion in Stark, others were discussing them too.
At the Triskelion, S.H.I.E.L.D.
Nick Fury sank into thought as he looked at the two files on his desk.
Name: Yinsen... Name: Rimuru Gender: suspected female, but claims to be male Origin unknown. No record of this person.
There was nothing wrong with Yinsen's file, but this Rimuru was very suspicious. They couldn't find any information on him, not even the slightest bit. That practically had "suspicious" written all over it. In particular, the lack of any record of him struck a sensitive nerve.
If this person had been raised by some secret organization, it would have been impossible for S.H.I.E.L.D. to find nothing on him. With such a distinctive appearance-an Asian face, blue hair, and golden eyes-it would make perfect sense if he wasn't from Earth. Other people might not know whether aliens existed, but how could Fury not know?
"Coulson, try to make contact and find out where he came from."
"Arrange a plausible background for our guest, one that can withstand scrutiny. From today on, he's... a member of a special young genius program I sponsor."
"Processing, sir. Mr. Rimuru's records will be entered into the appropriate educational and community systems within the hour."
Rimuru took his hand. The first step of their partnership had been taken.
He had obtained ten percent of Stark Industries' shares and four billion dollars. Honestly, he felt nothing in particular, because he had never dealt with that much money before and had no concept of it at all.