If Sokovia had a national sport, it would be surviving tragedies and pretending they didn't leave scars.
If it had a second national sport, it would be weddings—big, loud, expensive weddings that screamed we're still here even when history kept trying to erase the country off the map.
Carl Hudson's wedding was the second kind.
The lawn was too green, like someone bribed nature. White chairs sat in perfect rows. Silk ribbons fluttered in a breeze that felt professionally hired. Reporters stood at the edges with cameras worth more than most people's apartments, and the guests—Sokovia's wealthiest, most influential families—smiled the way sharks smiled when dinner walked in.
It was a gathering of elites.
Which made sense, because Carl Hudson wasn't an ordinary groom.
And Wanda Maximoff… definitely wasn't an ordinary bride.
She stood beside him in a white gown that made her look almost unreal, like the world had decided to be kind for once. She wasn't wearing the kind of expression rich people wore at rich events. She wasn't scanning the crowd for opportunities or measuring the value of every handshake.
She was looking at Carl.
Only Carl.
And that, more than the cameras, was what made Carl's throat tighten.
Because Wanda's gaze didn't come with conditions.
It came with trust.
The priest stood at the altar, solemn and traditional, as if Sokovia hadn't spent the last decade as a magnet for bad luck. He turned toward Carl like he was about to seal a contract with heaven.
"Carl Hudson," the priest said, voice carrying over the lawn, "do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife? To enter into this marriage with her, in sickness and in health, through all circumstances, to love her, care for her, respect her, accept her, and remain faithful to her for the rest of your life?"
The crowd quieted. Even the cameras seemed to hold their breath.
Carl's brain did something extremely inconvenient: it replayed every single reason this moment mattered.
Not the money. Not the status. Not the headlines. Not Sokovia's elite watching him like he was a rising stock.
The real reason.
Three years ago, the original Carl Hudson had died in an accident so ordinary it didn't even deserve poetry. One second there was a spoiled heir with too much money and too little discipline, and the next second there was a body.
Then there was someone else inside that body.
Someone who'd learned early that life wasn't fair, and later learned that fairness didn't matter if you were strong enough to enforce your own rules. Someone who'd spent a previous life in underground fights where one mistake meant you woke up on the floor—or didn't wake up at all.
That someone was Carl now.
And standing next to Wanda Maximoff, of all people, was the first time in three years he'd felt something that didn't taste like strategy.
He met Wanda's eyes.
She looked calm, but her fingers trembled slightly, betraying how much she'd been holding back all day.
Carl smiled, slow and steady.
"I do," he said, and his voice came out clean enough that the guests would hear conviction instead of the truth: Please let this be the one moment the universe doesn't ruin.
The priest nodded, satisfied, then turned to Wanda.
"Wanda Maximoff," he said, "do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband? Will you marry him, in sickness and in health, through all circumstances, to love him, care for him, respect him, accept him, and remain faithful to him until the end of your life?"
Wanda's smile was small, bright, and dangerously sincere.
"I do," she said.
And in the exact same instant those words landed, another voice—cold, emotionless, inhuman—spoke directly inside Carl's skull.
┌─ SYSTEM ───────────────────────────────┐
│ Mission Complete │
│ Initiating Small World Extraction… │
│ Extraction Complete │
│ Check: [World Options] │
└─────────────────────────────────────────┘
Carl didn't blink.
He didn't flinch.
He didn't look up at the sky like a man hearing God whisper.
Because if he reacted, the cameras would catch it. The reporters would write about it. Sokovia's elite would chew it into rumors.
And Wanda—his wife—would look at him like he'd suddenly become a stranger.
So Carl did the only thing he'd learned to do in this new life:
He performed.
He slid the ring onto Wanda's finger, steady hands, controlled breath. Wanda's eyes shimmered. The crowd exhaled as if they'd all been personally invested in the romantic outcome.
The priest declared them husband and wife.
Applause rose.
Cameras flashed.
Wanda stepped closer.
Carl kissed her.
And the system panel, somewhere invisible behind his eyes, treated it like a quest reward screen.
That was the story Sokovia would remember.
A genius young tycoon marrying a "nobody" convenience store girl he'd dated for three years—proof that love didn't care about class, money, or political chaos.
Sokovia News would say Carl's rise had been a miracle of business talent.
They'd talk about how, after the tragic death of his parents, he'd taken over the family enterprise and transformed it from a struggling third-rate company into the most powerful private empire in Sokovia. They'd call him the youngest and richest entrepreneur in the country. They'd praise his charity foundation, his public image, his "brilliant decisions."
They would not mention the simple, ugly truth:
A dead man didn't build an empire.
A survivor did.
When Carl first woke in this world, his new body had been a wreck—soft from indulgence, dulled by alcohol and comfort. He'd spent months rebuilding it, day by day, like repairing a weapon that had been left to rust. Not because he wanted to look good in a suit, but because in the Marvel Universe, strength wasn't a luxury.
It was rent you paid to keep breathing.
And the Marvel Universe… that discovery had come early, and it had come hard.
Carl wasn't a hardcore fan. He hadn't memorized timelines and lore like a religion. But he knew enough. Everyone knew enough.
Iron Man. Avengers. New York. Aliens.
And then the part that made every other worry feel small:
Thanos.
A being and an army that erased worlds the way a bored person erased mistakes on paper.
Money alone wouldn't stop that.
But without money, Carl wouldn't even survive long enough to see the big threats.
Fortunately, Carl hadn't arrived empty-handed.
The Goldfinger was there—this system panel that issued quests like the universe had decided to gamify his survival. Main quests unlocked "Small Worlds," letting him travel into other universes to learn their power systems. Side quests gave rewards: weapons, rare items, potions, and—most useful of all—resources.
His first main quest had been Wanda Maximoff.
Contact her. Build a bond. Establish connection.
The main quest had three tiers:
Basic: become a trusted friend
Intermediate: become her boyfriend
Advanced: marry her
Originally, Carl had aimed for intermediate. Marriage wasn't something you did for a progress bar.
Then Wanda happened.
Wanda wasn't loud. She wasn't reckless. She wasn't chasing danger. She was serious about love in a way Carl had almost forgotten existed—conservative, committed, the type of person who treated "forever" like a vow, not a joke.
Her dream life was simple: a home, a husband, children, peace.
And in a universe full of explosions and gods, peace was the rarest treasure of all.
So Carl married her.
Not because the system demanded it.
Because he did.
That night, long after the guests left and the reporters ran out of questions, Wanda fell asleep beside him like she'd been holding herself together on happiness alone and finally allowed her body to stop.
Her hair fanned across the pillow. Her breathing was steady. Her face—relaxed in sleep—looked younger than she'd been forced to be.
Carl lay awake for a while, watching her.
Then he slipped out of bed quietly and stepped onto the balcony, sliding the door shut behind him.
The night air was cool. Sokovia's lights glittered in the distance. Somewhere far away, the world kept turning toward disasters it hadn't earned.
Carl focused inward.
The system panel appeared—clean, sharp, emotionless.
┌─ SYSTEM ───────────────────────────────┐
│ World Extracted: Naruto │
│ Task Completion: Advanced │
│ │
│ Rewards: │
│ - Five-Attribute Chakra Affinity │
│ - Enhanced Naruto World Physique │
│ - Identity: Prince of the Land of Fire │
│ (Son of the Fire Daimyo's younger │
│ brother) │
│ │
│ Time Limit: 3 months │
│ (More time can be earned via Side Quests│
│ and rewards) │
│ │
│ Notes: │
│ - Main World time freezes during travel│
│ - Items cannot transfer between worlds │
└─────────────────────────────────────────┘
Carl's eyes lit up despite himself.
Naruto.
Even without remembering every plot twist, he understood the power system. Chakra. Ninjutsu. Elemental affinities. Seals. Five-attribute affinity wasn't just rare—it was elite.
And the "enhanced physique" reward was almost as important. Naruto-world biology was ridiculous. The baseline was higher. Stamina and recovery were absurd. It was a better vessel for power.
Plus the identity.
Prince of the Land of Fire meant wealth, protection, and political insulation. A starting position that wouldn't get him stabbed on day one.
"Just as expected," Carl murmured. "Advanced completion pays."
Then his gaze snagged on the time limit again.
Three months.
Short.
Too short.
He scrolled down into side quests, looking for anything that offered extra time. If he was going to master chakra control, three months wasn't enough. Learning power systems took time. It took repetition. It took getting punched in the face by reality until reality stopped winning.
He found a promising side quest.
┌─ SYSTEM ───────────────────────────────┐
│ Side Quest: Settle in New York City │
│ Objective: Relocate to New York and │
│ settle down with Wanda │
│ Reward: +6 months Small World time │
└─────────────────────────────────────────┘
Carl stared at it.
"New York," he said quietly.
Not exactly the safest place.
If memory served, the first Avengers battle happened there. Chaos followed that city like a shadow.
But Sokovia wasn't safe either. Not in the long run. Not with Hydra roots buried in the world like rot. Not with future events lining up like dominos.
And there was another problem: the system's quests kept pointing toward New York. Like the city was a crossroads of fate, not just geography.
There was no punishment for ignoring quests.
Just no rewards.
And in the Marvel Universe, no rewards meant no growth, and no growth meant death.
Carl had learned that rule long before the system ever appeared.
He pulled out his phone and dialed a subordinate.
The call connected quickly.
"Master," Jack answered.
"Jack," Carl said, voice low, "take the team to New York. Accelerate the expansion plan. Real estate, legal framework, corporate presence. We go ahead of schedule."
A pause. Then: "Understood. We'll move tonight."
Carl ended the call and stared back out into the night.
Money wouldn't protect him from Thanos.
But without money, he'd be vulnerable to everything smaller that killed people long before cosmic threats showed up.
He wasn't going to be poor in a world like this.
He wasn't going to be powerless either.
He returned to bed quietly and lay beside Wanda again. She shifted slightly in her sleep and murmured something soft and unintelligible, then settled.
Carl closed his eyes and let himself feel one thing that wasn't strategy.
Warmth.
Home.
Because tomorrow, he would step into another world. And if he wanted to keep this—keep her—he needed power.
Not as a fantasy.
As a requirement.
Hours later, before dawn fully claimed the sky, Carl opened the system panel one last time.
A single prompt pulsed at the bottom of the interface like a heartbeat.
┌─ SYSTEM ───────────────────────────────┐
│ ENTER SMALL WORLD: Naruto │
│ Confirm? │
│ [YES] [NO] │
└─────────────────────────────────────────┘
Carl stared at it.
Then, without hesitation, he selected [YES].
The world went silent.
And reality began to peel away.