[Mission Name: Lorraine Broughton!]
[Mission Rewards: 100,000 Achievement Points, 100,000 Potential Points, 1x Treasure Discount Voucher (70% off)]
[Mission Description: You suddenly discover that the story tightly intertwined with you has seemingly just raised its curtain...]
[Mission Note: Your interest drives the system's missions. However, you are the boss, you call the shots. If you choose to decline, you can extract the (Convincing People with Logic/Force) mission rewards.]
[Mission Progress: 80%]
Locke stared at the mission with some speechlessness. Up until now, it still seemed to have 20% left to go.
This mission couldn't be called the most richly rewarded one.
But...
This was absolutely the single most time-consuming mission he had ever encountered.
He had hung out as a streetlamp ornament, and he had done it.
He had even met face-to-face with Mr. Nobody and learned exactly who this Lorraine Broughton was from the files provided.
So, why the hell wasn't the mission marked as complete?
'Could it be that the posture I used to complete the mission was slightly off?'
'That's impossible.'
'Lorraine Broughton—isn't this mission just asking me to figure out exactly who Lorraine Broughton is?'
'I already found out, and I also know what kind of person Lorraine Broughton was. What else do you want from me? You can't possibly expect me to go dig up Lorraine Broughton's bones and meet her face-to-face, right?'
'Could there be another interpretation?'
Locke blinked.
As always, the system gave absolutely no response to Locke's confusion. At this exact moment, how he wished he had a Old grandpa by his side to translate it for him.
Translate it, translate it! What the hell does Lorraine Broughton mean!
Sitting across from him, Cindy was thrilled to see Locke and Gwen nodding along. "Then it's settled! Next Saturday, we are all heading to the Long Island villa for the party."
"Sure!"
Gwen chuckled, then froze slightly, looking up at Cindy. "Wait, Long Island?"
Cindy nodded. "Yeah, what's wrong?"
Gwen shook her head. "Wasn't it supposed to be in Manhattan?"
Cindy looked at Gwen helplessly: "Just because my parents aren't home this week doesn't mean they won't be home next week. If I host the party at my house, trust me, they will lose their minds."
"Then Long Island..."
"Kahn and I bought it."
"???"
Three little question marks lined up and squeezed out of Gwen's head. She blinked. "What do you mean, you and Kahn... bought it?"
Cindy smiled. "Kahn and I opened a joint account and then bought that villa. In the future, during summer breaks or whenever, we can go to Long Island for vacations. You and Locke can come too. Over the last few years, the real estate market in Long Island has been pretty good, so it can be considered an investment."
Gwen blinked.
A joint account?
Me and Locke?
Prompted by Cindy's words, Gwen couldn't help but look sideways at Locke, who was drinking what appeared to be bottled mineral water but was actually vodka.
Locke snapped back to reality and looked at Gwen. Under the gaze of Cindy and Kahn, he let out a chuckle, looking at Gwen.
"Gwen, I told you, I won't sign a prenuptial agreement, and besides, I don't know the first thing about investments."
Mainly because Locke felt things like investments were a bit of a hassle.
Most importantly, the system never issued tasks for making money. It seemed that back when Locke was completely dirt-poor, the system was already certain that if it turned making money into a mission, Locke would break the balance completely.
Therefore.
Whether it was the forty million dollars in clear funds or the nearly twenty million dollars in the overseas family trust, the money was completely static. There wasn't even a fixed-term interest rate.
On the way back.
Gwen was flipping through the data that Cindy had sent over right before they left after dinner. It was all the data analysis on Long Island real estate provided by the broker at the time.
"What do you think?" Gwen looked up at Locke.
"Should we open a joint account too?"
Locke responded as casually as ever: "Sure."
Gwen looked at the smiling Locke.
"I am serious, Locke."
Locke's expression turned slightly earnest, and he looked at Gwen with a smile. "I have never lied to you, Gwen."
"Then, we can give it a try."
"Alright, we can call Pepper and ask her to do us a favor and open a joint account at Stark Bank. I'll transfer all my money into it later."
"...No way."
Gwen's brow twitched violently.
"I am not as rich as you."
"I won't sign a prenuptial agreement."
"That won't do either."
Gwen shook her head.
"For the joint account, we will each put in five hundred thousand. Together that makes one million. That's enough."
"One million? What can you even do with that?"
"..."
Gwen's eyelids twitched, but remembering how Locke had swiped his card to buy Star Tower apartment without even blinking, coupled with his usual extravagant lifestyle, she rolled her eyes. She didn't bother to lecture Locke on the purchasing power of one million US dollars.
But...
Gwen thought about it and gave Locke the most direct example possible.
George.
"Dad is a Senior Captain now, and his annual salary is one hundred and twenty thousand US dollars. In other words, for one million, Dad would need to work for at least eight years without eating or drinking to get it."
"...Poor George."
"No."
Gwen shook her head and said.
"Dad works very hard and puts in a lot of effort. Besides, Dad is already considered a middle-to-high-income earner. In New York City, eighty percent of the people have an annual salary of only around forty, fifty, or sixty thousand US dollars. So, one million is already a lot, Locke."
Locke shrugged. "Alright."
Although he had started this life as an orphan, he truly had no concept of money.
As the saying went.
He treated a ten-thousand-dollar bottle of Thunder Bourbon as his everyday drink, but a nine-dollar-and-ninety-nine-cent bottle of Bourbon wasn't undrinkable either. He had no interest in money itself.
After all, whenever he ran low on cash, he could just clear a mission and it would be there.
New York City was full of targets generous enough to provide for him.
His main interest lay in his mission.
He was clearly right on the verge of getting one hundred thousand achievement points and one hundred thousand potential points, yet it was stubbornly stuck on the progress bar.
What was the difference between this and using a download accelerator to download a certain torrent, having your pants already off, only to have the progress freeze at 99.9%?
Locke lay on the bed, staring at the Lorraine Broughton mission that was visible only to him. He racked his brain, thinking about where exactly his understanding had gone wrong.
But he thought of nothing.
It wasn't until Locke received a message from Egorov saying he was returning to the Lubyanka immediately that Locke still hadn't figured out the rhyme or reason behind this mission.
Late at night three days later.
Inside Egorov's room, Locke sat on a chair with his eyes gleaming crimson, looking at Egorov who stood respectfully before him.
"How are things at the Lubyanka?"
Over the last few days, the news regarding the CIA and the KGB could almost be described as trending topics.
The CIA accused the KGB of conducting an assassination operation in New York City, assassinating one of their agents, and even leaked photos of the corpse, which included the 'corpse photo' of Vanya Egorova.
But...
The KGB claimed this was fake news. As everyone knew, the CIA had always been highly accomplished at fabricating fake news.
The CIA held up the photos and even located a file on the corpse, which happened to be internal KGB data, questioning how they could explain it now.
The KGB expressed complete ignorance on the matter and stated that this person had traveled to the USA on vacation. Now that the person was dead, the CIA should be the one giving them an explanation.
In short, the two sides went back and forth, entirely lacking the sense of mystery that espionage agencies ought to possess. The media outlets were more than happy to see this happen, fanning the flames and shouting for a full-blown conflict.
Unfortunately.
After a few days of verbal sparring, both the CIA and the KGB died down. After all, in the media era, nothing could maintain its heat forever.
Today, the front-page headline for the New York media was the cheating scandal of a New York State Assemblyman.
Fortunately.
Even though the media was no longer paying attention, Locke had his own sources of information.
Egorov said. "The Lubyanka has confirmed that Lorraine Broughton is dead. My mission is also complete. Furthermore, since we lost some men this time, I need to return to headquarters to deliver a report."
Locke nodded. "What you say is your business, but I do not want anyone coming over to disturb me again, understand?"
Right now, the primary business in his scope of operations was his academic path, with occasional part-time assassin work. Although espionage work was also within his scope, now was not the time.
Holding two jobs at once was fine.
But holding multiple jobs would cause problems.
He cleared missions for the Sun God, not to come here and endure some corporate overtime blessing.
Egorov's expression was solemn.
"Understood, my Lord. Please rest assured. Since Lorraine Broughton is dead and I have already figured out how to answer, I will never let the KGB disturb you again."
"Good to know."
Seeing this, Locke stood up with a smile and said to Egorov. "Then, I wish you a safe journey. I won't see you off."
When he sent people off, it was usually a send-off to hell.
After all, hell wasn't very far away. If he moved quickly, it would take just a second. Even if he took his time, it was a matter of a single minute.
Egorov was still useful, and since he was completely under his control, there was no need to send him off just yet.
With that.
Locke turned around, pushed the door open once more, and then vanished.
The trouble left behind by Lorraine Broughton was finally resolved.
The CIA—he had agreed to join.
MI6—the father-son dynamic had shifted. Even if MI6 got screwed over by the CIA, they wouldn't dare utter a word of complaint; they could only swallow their anger.
The KGB?
Lorraine Broughton was dead, dead once again.
Furthermore, she had died right under the eyes of a high-ranking Lubyanka official, and there were plenty of witnesses.
Although the KGB wouldn't give the CIA any face, seeing that the traitor who betrayed them, Lorraine Broughton, was confirmed dead—especially since it had escalated to such a massive scale, along with Egorov's report—this should mark the end of it.
But...
...