"Moments like this are definitely worth living for," August smiled, looking at the money mountain in front of him. Turning his back to it, he gave in to his fleeting desire and, copying a scene from a film, lay down on the money mountain with his hands folded on his stomach. - Yeah... There was definitely something to that.
It took him a long time to finally save up the right amount of money for a mid-level roulette game. After the system upgrade, the price of a mid-level roulette scroll had increased tenfold. Previously, he thought that after earning a few hundred million dollars, he would become the strongest being in this universe. If already in the mid-level roulette hit such characters as Wolverine, Hulk, Deadpool and others. So, what can fall in the roulette high level?
Perhaps the rare characters from the mid-level roulette are in the high-level roulette is the usual rubbish. It would be glorious to get the power of Thanos or Dormammu, the strongest magician made entirely of mystical energy, at the very beginning of his appearance in this world.
When August spun a mid-level roulette wheel, he didn't meet any such characters at all, which meant they only appeared in higher-level roulettes. He could have continued to save up in hopes of spinning a high level roulette in the future to gain the powers of some extraordinary character. But saving up for such a roulette would take too long. He needed the powers now, not sometime in the future.
The contract with Anita was coming to an end. The mercenary had no intention of renewing it yet. He had certain arrangements with Norma. In a fairly short time with her, he could get a decent amount of money for his system. That was exactly what he needed.
Before he left, he left his contacts with Anita. The time spent with her was memorable and the annoying Stark he could accept as his friend. If she had any problems he would be ready to help her solve them at any time. For a fee of course, but as a friend he would give her a big discount.
Only then did the mercenary realise what a mistake he had made by leaving his contacts to Anita. She literally flooded his phone with messages and various offers of employment. August even had to start a second phone, putting the first one on silent mode. But even so Stark got to him, it only took her a few hours to figure out his little scheme and figure out his second phone.
She had to get rid of the newly purchased phone and harass the clingy Anita. A couple of messages sent to her and adding her as a friend on Facebook sort of solved the problem, she calmed down a bit. But now he had to spend a couple of hours every night talking to her, listening to her half-hour voice messages and watching various videos of her doing something in her workshop to the pleasant sounding rock. It began to seem as if Stark had no friends to communicate with at all. Although she had over twenty million people subscribed to her Facebook and several thousand friends. In general, although his paths with Stark diverged, they continued to closely communicate with each other.
With Anita's agreement, Shield's project, codenamed "The Avengers," began to gradually materialise. So far, the staff was being recruited, equipment was being prepared, and a place for the headquarters was being chosen. Thor had yet to visit Earth, the Hulk lived somewhere in South America, and Captain America was floating in the ice. So far, only Anita was an active member of the Avengers team. Unless you counted Widow and Falcon Eye.
While Anita was a member of the Avengers team, the government temporarily stopped trying to get her costume. At least they stopped trying to do it so blatantly. Attempts still continued, but they were fruitless. Stark Villa's defences were top notch. She was tweaking it every day, adding new details. Spies were now finding it difficult to sneak into Stark Industries as well. Each new employee went through a series of tests Anita had developed that weeded out most spies.
All in all, Anita did a good job of making mistakes every time.
The number of costumes she'd designed had passed her third dozen. Apparently she was already thinking of recreating the Iron Legion project. Dozens of remote-controlled AI drones to support her during battles. Maybe she's already using them to defend the villa, who knows? Such personal information on Facebook Stark did not write to August, knowing full well that all her posts on that messenger were being viewed by the FBI.
August was now in his own flat. In the centre of New York, in an upscale, newly built neighbourhood. Each flat here was worth a fortune. Initially, the mercenary had wanted to settle in an unremarkable neighbourhood on the outskirts of the city, but Fisk had interfered. Or rather, her men. They came in the middle of the night, the day he moved in, and knocked insistently on the door. Not knowing who they belonged to, August opened the door with his gun at the ready. Such a warm welcome from a man extremely startled the ladies dressed in office suits. Obviously they did not belong to the dark side of Kingpin and were ordinary construction company office staff sent to his home. To notify him of his receipt of a flat in a newly built upscale New York City neighbourhood.
I had to apologise to the frightened girls and make up a story about the dysfunctional neighbourhood. Invite them to his flat and buy them coffee. At the table August signed all the necessary documents to get the flat and sent the nervous girls home. The documents for the flat had already been signed and the mercenary decided not to neglect the free gift from Kingpin. He already had a million-dollar car she had given him, and now he had a flat for about the same price.
Just like that, he became the owner of a six-room two-storey flat in the heart of New York City.
After settling into his new flat, the man called Norma. He had to notify her that he was ready to sign a contract with her. Osborne was very happy to hear from him and to sign the contract of employment she called him to her home.
When August arrived there, only Norma met him on the doorstep. Hera was nowhere to be seen. From the woman's words, he learnt that her daughter was now at university. Having graduated a couple of months ago, she was enrolled at the Empire State University of New York, a private research university. Her girlfriends, Gwen Stacy and Petra Parker, were also enrolled there.
The woman escorted August into her office. Where they sat down next to each other. The mercenary read the contract carefully, using accelerated thinking, and Norma quietly watched him with a gentle smile on her face. Finding nothing suspicious in the contract, Augustus signed two copies of it. One copy of the contract was put aside in his desk by Osborne, the other was taken by the mercenary.
The deed was done and Augustus should have gone home, but he felt the gentle touch of Norma's warm palm on his cheek. The woman slowly moved towards him, watching his reactions carefully and gently touched the mercenary's lips with her own.
"Do you want it? - August asked confidently. Norma's cheeks flushed traitorously and she looked away like a little girl. Then the woman nodded her head sweetly; the mercenary took it as an affirmative answer and at the same moment threw the girl on the couch, climbing on top of her. Norma reached for the kiss again, gingerly enclosing Augustus' back with her legs.
(Norma Osborne)
That afternoon they had a torrid sex session. Osborne tried to be very active and supple, fulfilling in bed all the desires of her favourite man. She had prepared for a long time for this day and she managed to hold out until the evening. Just an hour after they had finished, Hera came home. Norma couldn't get out of bed, so the mercenary had to come up with something again. They had managed to hide the traces of their activities.
The news that August would now work for her mother pleased the girl. All the fatigue after uni was gone. After staying at Osborne's house for a few more hours, talking mostly to Hera, August returned to his flat.
The contract with Norma would go into effect a few days after he signed it. The man had some time to prepare. He planned to collect all the money he had saved up, and using a function of the system to unlock a new character. August hoped that he would get someone stronger than Viper this time.
"Well enough of lying on that huge pile of money, otherwise it would be hard to say goodbye to it.
With these words the mercenary got to his feet and looked earnestly at the mountain of hundred-dollar notes. Holding out his hand to it, he absorbed all the money into the system, automatically converting the American currency into system coins.
"Well, Almighty Random, help me," and with those words, August started up the mid-level roulette wheel.
A huge ring with multicoloured cells appeared before August's eyes. Each colour, according to the mercenary, was responsible for the rarity of the character. The lighter the cell was, the rarer it was. There were only two golden cells on the ring, from the brightness coming from their colour, it was not even possible to see what characters could be obtained from them.
Pressing the button to spin the wheel, the mercenary stared at the illusory scoreboard. Many familiar characters ran through his gaze. Some of them he wanted to get, others he didn't need. He was hoping to get his hands on some rare character. Gradually, the spinning of the wheel began to slow down. A golden cell flew past the prize sector, August looked at it with pain. The next golden cell was too far away, the wheel would not be able to reach it. All the brightly coloured cells scrolled past, as the wheel began to stop, the mercenary watched the possible winnings: Hydra Member A, Shield Member B....
"Am I going to get a statistic? - August sadly asked the system wheel. Of course the system answered him nothing. Not seeing any good winnings in the wheel, the man turned away from the roulette and went to the kitchen. All his good expectations about roulette were gone. Now he would be happy even if he got a hero like Falcon Eye. Getting him was better than some nameless soldier from a large organisation.
[Congratulations! You have won the character Red Skull (Spawn of the Millennium War)!
You get one random ability of the character - Mind of War].
The mug with the newly brewed coffee fell out of August's hands. He stared at the winning sector in shock. It wasn't the winning character that shocked him, but the colour of the sector itself, where the character was located. A deep black colour that stood out vividly against the rest of the sector. The glow from the golden cells seemed to be completely absorbed by this strange colour. It gave off a frightening sensation, a sense of hopelessness and imminent death....
August swept the tape measure away, dissolving it in the air and breathed a sigh of relief. The oppressive feeling was completely gone. Was it really all coming from the character he had won? What had happened in the universe that this Red Skull came from? Spawn of the Thousand Years War - the title refers to some long war where the Red Skull apparently took an active part. But a thousand years? Who could be at war for such a long time? Humans don't fit the bill, so that leaves aliens. Could it be that in the universe where the Red Skull came from, Hydra had defeated its opponents and found a new enemy in the form of invading aliens, or had the aliens invaded Earth during World War II? August couldn't know the answer to that, the main thing was that his world went according to its own canon and didn't deviate anywhere in particular. He's got a future war with Thanos to deal with.
"Apparently I hit the jackpot," the Red Skull's ability gradually began to flow into the mercenary's body. Opening the statistics, Augustus watched the jumping increase of two characteristics - perception and magic power. The mercenary's head ached painfully, as if millions of red-hot worms had penetrated his skull. A small drop of blood leaked out of his nose and fell to the white-white floor, heralding a torrent of blood from his eyes, ears, and nose. The mercenary's brain was tearing from the inside out, regeneration struggling to keep up with the damage. Augustus fell to the floor and lost consciousness. Level 2 regeneration began to fight the brain damage caused by August's new ability. Regeneration was now the only thing separating him from imminent death.
The man's body lay on the floor. A pool of red, thick blood spread from his body. Occasionally the body shuddered in painful convulsions, giving signs of life.
Augustus's brain was reassembling itself over and over again like a mosaic under the influence of the Red Skull's ability. A normal man would have died in the first few seconds of such a gross rearrangement of the brain. The mercenary, on the other hand, was saved by regeneration. The mind of war didn't just destroy August's brain, it encouraged it to evolve. Giving the right brain pattern for regeneration and destroying the wrong parts of the brain.
An unknown amount of time passed. The mercenary's body stopped twitching painfully a couple of hours ago. He began to breathe evenly, calmly. His eyes, sticky with dried blood, opened with difficulty. Augustus stared at the ceiling with the cloudy gaze of a pair of yellow snake eyes.
"Fuck," the man cursed through parched lips. He didn't have the strength to get up, so he crawled to the refrigerator. With a heavy rumble, he toppled it to the floor and climbed to the open door, from which food spilled out. Milk, sausage, cheese. August ate whatever he could get his hands on. It took him less than twenty minutes to eat all the food. He was still hungry. He took out his phone and went online and selected the first restaurant he came across, from where he ordered several tens of thousands of dollars worth of food. - We'll have to wait an hour and a half. I feel like my stomach is eating itself right now. Where did all the food I ate go?
When the doorbell rang, August could more or less stand on his feet. He took the food from the hands of the three delivery girls and paid them a generous tip, then sat down at the table and began to destroy the food he had brought. His body was now exhausted, the food he had ordered was magically disappearing in his stomach.
After eating all the food he had ordered, the mercenary breathed a sigh of relief. He had finally conquered the hunger that was eating him from the inside and was now fed.
"What a fool I was, how could I have forgotten about the after-effect of gaining abilities? I can't just use them, they have to be fully integrated with my body first. What would have happened if I had rolled a high-level roulette wheel from the beginning and a strong character had fallen to me? Wouldn't I have died in the first few seconds of receiving his ability? - Thinking about it made the mercenary think. Every time he spun the character roulette, he had the very real risk of dying. If a strong character fell out, the ability would simply kill August's unprepared body. - I need to improve my regeneration, it was the only thing that kept me alive today.
Involuntarily he turned towards his bedroom. There under the bed was a locked case with a perfect extremis virus inside.
"Is it worth injecting this virus into myself now? There's a huge chance that the next ability I get from Skull might just kill me. I was lucky this time, but I was on the verge of death.....
August sat pensively in the trash-strewn kitchen. Suddenly, he remembered how his characteristics had grown by leaps and bounds. He decided to see what they looked like now.
"Status...
***
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