"Really? Then what a pity. He only sent one person. Otherwise, I think General Ross could have come away looking even better."
In response to Ross's words, Killian put on a deliberately regretful expression.
"Hahaha, if he was willing to send even one person after you, that already proves that subordinate is important to him. At the very least, they'd have to be a high-level agent. If he sent another one too, he'd probably die of anger on the spot."
After hearing Killian's words, Ross burst out laughing.
At that moment, the more Ross looked at him, the more he felt his own judgment had never been better.
For a brief instant, he even found himself wondering whether he should introduce his daughter to this guy.
Young, wealthy, talented, and a standard American patriot.
He was practically the perfect son-in-law candidate.
"Is that so? Then what kind of department is this agent actually connected to? Could General Ross explain it in a bit more detail?"
After hearing Ross's words, Killian's eyes shifted slightly, and he asked with a curious look.
"Hm... it's not exactly impossible to talk about. Since you've already come into contact with them, I'll tell you. S.H.I.E.L.D. is subordinate to..."
After Ross spent several minutes explaining things, Killian finally put on an expression of sudden realization.
"So that's how it is. In that case, based on what you're saying, their main area of responsibility is homeland security. Does that mean they think my company's products could threaten U.S. security?"
"We've had researchers on our side discover signs that data may have leaked over the last couple of days. It seems the battlefield deployment of the Tyrants must have been noticed by them."
"Otherwise, they'd have had no reason to infiltrate your research base."
To be honest, Ross had already investigated this question while on the way over.
The only likely source of the leak was probably on their side.
But he had no intention of hiding that and said it directly.
After all, their interests and positions were now bound together.
Neither side wanted the other to run into trouble, so there was no need to conceal small matters like this.
"..."
"Then what do we do next?"
Killian had originally thought that S.H.I.E.L.D. had locked onto him because of some of his other experiments.
He had not expected the source of the problem to be on Ross's side instead.
"We need to make this hurt enough that they won't dare conduct investigations like this in the shadows again."
"Otherwise, they'll keep acting like rats hiding in the dark, watching you nonstop. The only problem is that we still don't know how much weight this person carries within S.H.I.E.L.D. If she's just a nobody, then that makes things harder."
As he reached the end of that sentence, Ross looked gloomily toward the unconscious woman not far away, who had been subdued by Killian's men.
After all, the importance of this agent's identity would directly affect just how outrageous his demands could be when he faced Nick Fury later.
"A nobody? Definitely not."
"General Ross, I may not know much about the organization behind her, but she herself is famous across the world of espionage."
"Born in the former Soviet Union, she came out of the terrifying special training institution known as the Red Room. They raise candidates like poison insects in a jar. Each class is trained for years, sometimes even a full decade, with hundreds of candidates taught assassination, dance, seduction, and countless other skills. In the end, only one true Black Widow is selected."
"And every other member of that same class dies at the hands of the one Black Widow who emerges."
"That's exactly why I believed that if such a famous operative showed up at my door, then I must have been targeted by some major foreign organization. I don't know why she ended up working under the S.H.I.E.L.D. unit you mentioned, but her status definitely isn't something as simple as a disposable pawn."
"Unless, of course, that Nick Fury has so much talent under his command that he can treat a famous former Soviet operative as nothing more than a foot soldier."
Seeing Ross's gloomy look, Killian smiled faintly and spoke.
"Oh? She's the famous Black Widow?"
The instant Ross heard Killian say that, his interest was immediately piqued, and he turned toward the unconscious woman in the distance with a look of unmistakable surprise.
Among the world's major military organizations, the codename Black Widow was far from ordinary.
Almost every Black Widow possessed top-tier capabilities in infiltration, combat, espionage, and more.
You could say that aside from the Soviet Union that trained them, nearly every major power had been tormented by these women at some point.
They were true ghosts of the night, silent as spiders, scaling walls, slipping past defenses, and carrying the same cold cruelty as the creature whose name they bore.
You never knew whether the woman speaking warmly with you one second would snap your neck the next.
Almost no one knew the true identities of these Black Widows.
Only after the collapse of the Soviet Union had a small amount of information about them gradually leaked out.
What Ross had not expected was that this time, he would actually see one in person.
At that moment, he almost felt like a fan meeting a celebrity.
For a while, he could not help stepping closer to examine her.
It had to be said that although Natasha was a woman, in terms of musculature she was impressively solid and powerful even compared with an average man.
Ross even felt that her fame could not possibly be due to skill alone.
There had to be other reasons that made the Black Widow group so special.
Unfortunately, she belonged to S.H.I.E.L.D.
Otherwise, if she had not had a powerful backer, he really would have wanted to drag her to his own research base and study just what kind of methods the legendary Red Room had used to train such a terrifying group of elite female agents.
He simply did not believe ordinary special forces training alone could produce something like this.
If it could, then the world would already belong to single-soldier combat units, and there would be no need for armies anymore.
Off to the side, seeing Ross wear that hard-to-read expression while leaning closer to Natasha, Killian almost thought the man was about to do something indecent if there had not been so many people around.
And so, as time dragged on, Kennedy's representatives arrived, along with several government officials, including the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury.
At that point, Killian's side had finally assembled all the support it needed.
Not long after that, ripples suddenly shimmered in the air above.
The group heard the roar of massive engines growing closer and closer.
While everyone was still looking around in confusion, they suddenly saw a scene of an aircraft cabin appear over the empty ground in the distance, as if something invisible had revealed itself.
Then a Black man in a long black coat and a black eyepatch over one eye stepped down.
(End of Chapter)
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