"Yondu."

"Thank goodness."

"I thought my heart was going to drop."

When Yondu woke up, the members were relieved. But since he wasn’t fully healed yet, Yondu was laid back down to rest, and Quill piloted the ship to Knowhere.

Meanwhile, to clear up some of the misunderstandings about Yondu, I edited together the footage of the events stored in the nano-buckle and contacted Stakar.

—"Jin, you know how much I hate being associated with Yondu! And yet you’re bringing them to Knowhere? Have you decided to split from us!?"

As expected, Stakar reacted sensitively about Yondu.

"Hey Stakar, I’m sending you a video. Watch it and decide. If your mind doesn’t change after seeing this, then do what you want—I won’t stop you."

With that, I sent the edited video to Stakar. The video centered on Yondu’s own words and his heroic deeds. Since things worked out well in the original just from Rocket’s testimony, I figured that sending a compiled video would resolve things this time as well.

After traveling for a while, we arrived at Knowhere. Yondu, whose body hadn’t fully recovered, was carried off the ship on a stretcher. One by one, the Ravagers and Yondu’s subordinates appeared, and each time Yondu passed, they pounded their chests in the Ravager salute.

Watching the sight, Yondu finally shed tears. Without a word, he too slowly pounded his chest in return for their salute.

At the end stood Stakar. He looked at Yondu for a moment, then silently approached and lightly tapped his shoulder. Yondu nodded without a word, and Stakar personally lifted the stretcher to carry Yondu to the medical bay.

After that, Stakar didn’t come out of the hospital for a long time—it seemed the two had much to say to each other.

In the meantime, I returned the Milano to the Guardians members. They were overjoyed.

"Woohoo! How long has it been since we’ve seen the Milano!?"

"You guys owe me a warship now."

"Fine, we’ll pay you back."

They said that, but I had already given up on receiving anything. Given their nature, they’d probably forget about the debt after a while.

For a while, Knowhere was chaotic. Because Yondu’s family had joined the Ravager Guild, there were many issues to sort out—lodging, guild registration, and so on. But the Ravagers had no interest in paperwork, so only the guild staff suffered for a while, and I had to give them generous bonuses.

While handling all that, I heard that a bounty had been placed on Taserface. Perhaps because many of his members had left, he raided the Xandar prison to free the inmates, trying to expand his forces.

So many Ravagers were preparing to catch Taserface. With the prison break incident increasing his numbers, they needed to join forces to minimize casualties. Of course, the Guardians members, Yondu, and his family, who had fully recovered, were also going.

"Yondu, are you sure you’re okay?"

"Don’t worry, I’m not ready to retire yet. And since this happened in my family, it’s right that I finish it."

Quill seemed very worried about Yondu.

"But why are you going, Jin? Aren’t you busy with Knowhere work?"

"I need to get some fresh air too. It’s suffocating just working all the time."

Then Quill said firmly.

"We’re not splitting the bounty with you. But we’ll give you a free ride."

"Wow, so cold. Fine, do what you want."

Because Taserface had foolishly left many traces, tracking him down didn’t take long. He was on a remote planet, drinking heavily with his companions at a bar. With him causing such a ruckus, tips from bounty hunters never stopped coming.

We surrounded the bar with the Ravagers and slowly approached before launching a surprise attack. But the surprise was almost unnecessary—most of them were so drunk they were passed out. Aside from a few who were still conscious, we subdued them with ease.

But somehow, Taserface had already fled.

"How did he find out? We approached stealthily..."

"Who knows? Maybe he was in the bathroom and saw us coming. Or maybe he was off with a woman."

"What a lucky bastard."

"But we’ve secured all the ships, so it’s only a matter of time before he’s caught."

"Probably."

I saw this as an opportunity and immediately used [Stealth] to fly into the air, using [Jack Sparrow’s Compass] to track down Taserface.

Taserface was running frantically through a nearby forest, gasping for breath. He hadn’t even dressed properly, so he must have been with a woman and fled. Whoever she was, she had terrible taste.

Anyway, I appeared right in front of him.

"Pant! You’re... Jin!?"

"Yeah, it’s Jin."

"Are you here to help me!? Or to catch me!?"

"The latter, obviously. Last time we drank, your bad breath made it really hard for me. So I came to disinfect you a bit."

"Wh-what!?"

Taserface panicked for a moment, then composed himself and looked around. He seemed to be checking if anyone else was there.

"Coming alone like an idiot."

He realized I was alone and grew confident, slowly approaching me while looking left and right. He probably thought he’d catch me quickly if I tried to run.

"You’d better give up on running. If I bring in the ruler of Knowhere, my reputation will soar and gathering new followers won’t be a problem."

I smirked at him.

"Why are you laughing?"

"Because it’s so funny. Do you really think I could rule Knowhere without any abilities? So naive."

"What?!"

"Well, seeing is faster, right?"

I pointed my index finger at Taserface’s face. Then I used the [Rumble-Rumble Fruit] ability to shoot lightning and scorch his face—literally making him live up to his name.

Zzzzaaaappp—!!!

"Gyaaaaahhh!!!"

His entire face was charred black by the lightning, beyond recognition. I stopped the lightning and checked to see if it was well-cooked.

"Hmm... Disinfected nicely."

The smell of burnt flesh wafted from Taserface’s body. I left his corpse there and teleported back to the Milano to rest.

It wasn’t until the next day that the Ravagers found Taserface’s body. Seeing his face completely charred black, they guessed that an inside traitor must have shot him in the face with a plasma gun and then fled. A few of them couldn’t hold back their snickers, saying he’d certainly lived up to his name.

We did some cleanup, then moved to the Sovereign to hand over Taserface’s gang, split the bounty, and returned to Knowhere.

"Let’s go grab a drink! We made a big haul this time."

The Ravagers, with their wallets now fat, headed straight for the bar. Yondu’s family and the Guardians members followed cheerfully. I tried to go with them, but my secretaries grabbed me, saying there was too much work to do. I ended up going back to the mansion and spent the rest of my time buried in the backlog of paperwork.

After living like that for a while, all the mansions in Knowhere were finally completed. However, since there were many mercenaries around, I received a request to build one more bathhouse, so I decided to build a new one on the opposite side of the existing one. Other than that, there was nothing special to worry about.

’There shouldn’t be any major incidents for a while now.’

So I left a clone in Knowhere to handle work and moved to Mars.

On Mars, the base was already almost completed. It was just missing some materials to finish. So I quickly provided the materials and started helping out as well.

Before long, it was completed. As soon as it was finished, I used [Matter Copy] to duplicate the base, then used [Matter Manipulation] and [Matter Creation] to modify my personal base further. My base was basically made of vibranium alloy, with hyperspace capabilities and nano-particle auto-repair functions built in. I also installed the ’Anulax Battery’ I’d acquired, allowing me to reduce battery space efficiently.

And this time too, with Nano’s help, I named it after the Egyptian goddess Isis—’Isisfall’—and stored it in my inventory. I cleaned up everything on Mars to avoid future problems. Then I deployed a public-use Isisfall in a suitable Earth orbit. Since I had kept it in stealth mode and stored in my inventory, summoning it wouldn’t cause any issues.

’I should also create some androids to operate Isisfall.’

First, I decided to make androids to help run Isisfall. Since the scale was quite large, I made three in total and named them Popo, Pupu, and Pipi. The designs were already done, so production didn’t take long. And I put all remaining production capacity into making drones.

With that wrapped up, I returned to the mansion after a long time. The clone I’d left on Earth had been handling company work. After dismissing it, I checked what had happened in the meantime—nothing special besides company affairs. However, the Avengers had been deployed twice against Hydra remnants, but Hydra seemed to have prepared better after their bases were attacked, so they didn’t achieve any major results.

Instead, I received word that the ’Aurea Ho’ I’d built for each team had been used successfully this time. They seemed quite pleased with it. Hearing that made me feel good about having made it.

There was also another piece of news—Vision and Mew-Mew had developed a good relationship and were now sharing a room at the Avengers facility. Probably because, unlike the original, the Mind Stone was gone, so the connection with Wanda had disappeared. I wasn’t sure if this was a good thing, but I decided to take it positively.

So for the first time in a while, I visited the Avengers facility and took Vision and Mew-Mew to look at houses for sale in New York. The quarters at the Avengers facility were plenty spacious for two, but they needed privacy, so I decided to get them a separate place.

"How about here?"

"Oh~ this is nice. It’s close, so commuting would be convenient."

"No! It’s too close to the facility, so there’s a risk of terrorist attacks. I’d prefer a safer location for our home."

Both had transformed into human form and came out to look at houses. Vision seemed delighted just to have his own place, but Mew-Mew was extremely meticulous. Even androids have different personalities, it seems.

"Then let’s go somewhere a bit farther..."

We looked at about ten more places after that. Mew-Mew checked everything carefully while touring the houses. Vision just stood there awkwardly. Eventually, we chose a modest two-story wooden house in a quiet town near New York, suitable for a middle-class American family—with a yard and a garage that could fit two cars.

"I like this place. It’s quiet, there’s a forest nearby, and the distance from neighbors means no noise issues."

"R-right. Anyway, use the card I gave you last time for repairs and furniture. And from now on, Mew-Mew will also receive a salary. If you do hero work like Vision, your recognition will go up and you’ll earn more."

"Thank you for your concern, Jin-nim."

I had my secretary purchase the house immediately. Unfortunately, since neither Vision nor Mew-Mew were recognized as US citizens, I had to buy it under my name—and both of them knew that. I planned to transfer ownership once their identity issues were resolved, but since that required government approval, I had no idea when it would be possible.

The next day, Vision and Mew-Mew seemed to have bought various things and started repairing the house. They were discussing trivial matters like what color paint to use, and even though it was just everyday conversation, their faces were bright and happy.

’At least they look happy.’

With that, 2015 came to a close and 2016 began with the New Year. There was going to be a lot happening in 2016—Civil War, Black Widow, Black Panther, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange—major events, plus the Defenders’ affairs all piled up.