Chapter 494: Who is the Hardcore Tough Guy? (Part 1) (Patreon)

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In the eastern suburbs of New York, there is a certain distance from the bustling center of New York City, which results in fresh air and pleasant scenery.

From the perspective of U.S. urban planning, this place could be considered a town, but unlike the small towns most people imagine, this is actually another wealthy area of New York, or you could say, the real wealthy area. The land prices here are even higher than some parts of Manhattan.

The living environment here is quite good. The town has a long history and comprehensive facilities, with the most important feature being a very good Sanatorium.

The Bi Lie Sanatorium, established during the U.S. reconstruction period, was acquired by a wealthy businessman during World War II and underwent its first renovation. During the Cold War period following World War II, it was completely demolished, but was reconstructed after the end of the Cold War.

In modern times, real estate developers thoroughly renovated this historic Sanatorium in order to increase the land value of the New York suburbs, transforming it into a modern Sanatorium.

Previously, the apparent owner here seemed to be an ordinary oil tycoon, but in reality, he worked for the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, commonly known as the KGB.

After the purge of all KGB agents near New York due to the Hydra incident, the oil tycoon was also deported back to Russia, and his assets were seized. However, it has since changed hands and become the newly established Arkham Sanatorium.

Due to the early establishment of this Sanatorium and multiple renovations over time, it has always remained. After its most recent major renovation, it now boasts one of the world's top recuperative environments. Coupled with its favorable natural surroundings and convenient transportation to New York, real estate developers saw the potential and built a wealthy vacation village around the Sanatorium, commonly referred to as a weekend villa area.

Arkham Sanatorium features a baseball field, tennis courts, a small golf course, a park with walking trails and ponds, a music theater center, a yoga center, as well as all the medical facilities expected of a Sanatorium. After Schiller became the owner, a legally accredited mental illness treatment center is also under construction.

Inside the new Arkham Sanatorium's office, Schiller sat on a sofa by the window, looking out at the scenery beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows.

The office is located on the 6th floor of the Sanatorium's administrative building, offering a wide view. The small park owned by the Sanatorium is just downstairs, where many parents are currently playing with their children on the lawn.

You might wonder, isn't this the Sanatorium's private property? How can people other than patients enter? But in fact, these parents are all "patients" of the Sanatorium, or you could say, members.

After Schiller took over the Sanatorium, its system became more like a club. As long as you are a member here, you can use the facilities for free. Not only that, along with the establishment of the mental treatment center, there's also a water sports center and a comprehensive shopping center on the west side of the land.

Just as Schiller was basking in the sun, half-closing his eyes and feeling a bit sleepy, suddenly, the door of the office was knocked, and a nurse walked in, saying, "Dr. Rodriguez, you have a visitor."

"A visitor? Does he have an appointment?"

"No, but he says his name is Nick Fury."

"He's the one called George Washington, he needs an appointment..."

Just then, urgent footsteps and another nurse's voice could be heard from outside the door, "Hey! Wait! Sir! You can't come in, appointments are needed here, sir..."

When Nick Fury squeezed in through the crack of the door, both nurses were pushed out by him. Schiller, feeling somewhat helpless, stood up from his chair. However, Nick simply sat down on the sofa without treating himself as an outsider, and then began to observe the surroundings of the office.

It must be said that the hardware of the Arkham Sanatorium's building is impeccable. The interior decoration style here is a common modern style in the U.S., with clean and smooth lines, spotless tiled floors, large floor-to-ceiling windows that are clean and clear, and the evening sunlight shining indoors, creating a comfortable and quiet atmosphere in the room.

But Nick's first words broke the atmosphere here. He said, "I intend to reform S.H.I.E.L.D."

Schiller sat on the opposite side of the sofa, took out a box of cigars from a drawer under the coffee table, and both of them started to puff out smoke rings. Schiller, leaning comfortably against the backrest of the sofa, said, "I thought you would do this sooner or later."

"Let's not focus on that for now. You seem to be in a good mood. Looks like your vacation went smoothly this time."

Schiller smiled, and Nick raised an eyebrow. He had never seen Schiller smile so genuinely. Nick heard Schiller say, "Do you know what the most joyful thing in the world is?"

"What is it?"

"Watching others work. And do you know what's even more joyful than watching others work?"

"What is it?"

"What is it?" Nick continued to indulge Schiller.

"It's watching others do the tasks they absolutely don't want to do. But do you know what's even more joyful than watching others do tasks they absolutely don't want to do?" Schiller continued.

"It's watching others do tasks they absolutely don't want to do and getting rewarded with something they really despise. Doing it for two weeks straight, nearly exhausting themselves to the point of exploding right there, hahaha!"

Hearing Schiller's laughter, Nick involuntarily shivered. He could sense that something unfortunate must have happened to Schiller during his vacation.

"Alright, enough about that. Let's talk about you. Are you finally planning to reform the leaky ship known as S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

"The term 'leaky ship' isn't quite accurate," Nick shook his head. It was clear that he was familiar with the situation at S.H.I.E.L.D.

"Before, you had most of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s elite Hydra agents brought to the Sanatorium and then sold them to Mephisto. Do you remember?" Nick asked.

"Of course, their severance pay should have covered the deficit in your budget for the next season," Schiller replied.

"At the same time, it gave you the new facilities of this Sanatorium," Nick added. Both of them exchanged a glance, understanding each other's meaning.

Sometimes, it's not that they intentionally want to be enigmatic, but some things don't need to be spelled out too clearly. Everyone knows that the process and results of this collaboration were perfect. Reviewing the history of perfect collaboration helps set the stage for the next round of cooperation.

"But, with the workers gone, what will happen to the work at S.H.I.E.L.D.?" Nick posed a soul-searching question. He said, "Before, these people were the most diligent workers, willing to work overtime without bonuses, no complaints about transfers. Even when I lowered their insurance rates, they had no objections. My goodness, are there better employees than these?"

"None," Schiller shook his head. Nick spread his hands and said, "To be honest, if I didn't need money urgently, I wouldn't have sold them off."

"But now it's too late for regrets. I imagine these people have been sent by Mephisto to run an economics seminar in Hell. If you ask him for them back, he won't give them to you."

"I don't intend to get them back. After all, even if they work hard and devotedly, if they find out I sold them, it will surely cause a big commotion."

"Then what do you intend to do?"

Nick chuckled and rubbed his hands together, looking at Schiller. "Aren't you the head of Hydra's Americas division? How about sending a few more? What do you think?"

"You..." Schiller was rarely at a loss for words. He looked at the smile on Nick's face and said, "Are you suggesting that I send more Hydra agents to work for S.H.I.E.L.D. for free?"

"What do you mean by 'work for free'?" Nick raised his voice. He said, "Although I don't pay them a salary, I can pay you. I'll hire them for ten years, and the fees will be settled all at once. Isn't that much faster than what you earn as a psychologist at S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

Schiller was speechless for the first time. In terms of moral boundaries, he believed he had never been afraid of anyone, but today, Nick had indeed pushed his limits of understanding.

Thinking that Schiller might have some worries, Nick started to persuade him:

"You see, if I hire regular agents, there's about a 50% chance they're Hydra, another 49% chance they're KGB pretending to be Hydra, and the remaining 1% might be foolish CIA or military agents..."

"If I hire them, although I don't have to pay much money, don't need to provide insurance, and can exploit them as I like, there's another cost: intelligence."

"I have to come up with a bunch of seemingly important tasks for them to do, let them think they've gathered a lot of intelligence to report, and then have them work for me without concerns. This wastes a lot of my time and energy, creating fake emergencies and major incidents is also quite a hassle."

"Wait, if you don't have your own people, how do you stage these events?"

"A small portion relies on reliable agents like Natasha, the rest of the time, they just play off each other."

"Sending agents from New Jersey to investigate someone, while having agents from Delaware protect the same person. While one side is surveilling, the other is counter-surveilling. Everyone has tasks, everyone gathers intelligence, and everyone works diligently for me. Isn't that a win-win situation?"

Schiller pursed his lips. He suddenly realized that he had fallen into a loop of arrogance and prejudice again. He had thought that relying on moral boundaries could make him a dominant figure in Marvel, but today, it seemed that there were people beyond his own understanding.

During the initial encounters with Nick, Schiller couldn't be certain whether S.H.I.E.L.D.'s transformation into the kind of organization depicted in comic books, like SNAKE, was due to Nick's incompetence or if he had ulterior motives.

Upon the initial interactions with Nick Fury, Schiller was convinced that Nick was not simple. He wasn't as he appeared on the surface – unaware of Hydra's situation. However, Schiller still couldn't ascertain whether Nick had backup plans to deal with such scenarios.

It wasn't until the establishment of the Radiance Alliance that Schiller realized that Nick was well aware of all aspects of S.H.I.E.L.D. …

And now, Schiller had come to the realization that the situation was even more absurd than he had imagined. The entire S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn't actually the core organization. It was something Nick had concocted to extract funding. There were hardly any actual S.H.I.E.L.D. agents within; instead, it was infiltrated by spies of various sorts, all drawn in by the organization's name.

While S.H.I.E.L.D. was ostensibly a secretive organization, the reality was that every country in this world was aware of its existence. This wasn't because Nick was unaware of secrecy, but rather, it was intentional.

Everyone knew of the existence of this mysterious organization and assumed it harbored countless secrets. Consequently, they would go to great lengths to infiltrate it with spies.

The ultimate goal of these spies wasn't to receive the meager salary Nick offered; neither was it for benefits, overtime pay, or bonuses. Their ultimate aim was intelligence.

But even intelligence was something Nick conjured up with one hand while confusing the other. By exploiting the lack of information transparency between agents from different regions and the mutual distrust among various spies, he generated a plethora of unnecessary tasks, yielding seemingly useful but actually useless intelligence for everyone.

"So, all of this is your setup, a trap?"

"What do you mean by 'trap'? What do you mean by 'trap'?" Nick raised his voice in retort. "Even if the final goal of these spies is to gather intelligence, aren't they still doing work?"

Nick took a deep breath and began a more detailed explanation:

"Out of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s enormous workload, 90% is work I fabricated that's unnecessary. The remaining 10% is essential work. Out of the vast number of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, 99% are spies of all kinds."

"When these two percentages overlap, it means that even if 90% of the spies complete 90% of the useless work, there will ultimately be 9% of spies left to complete the necessary 10% of work."

"But in reality, these spies are highly capable, with great enthusiasm for their work. The 9% of spies often complete the necessary 10% of work and often exceed expectations, showing extremely high efficiency."

"And the remaining 90% of spies and 90% of the useless work enable me to secure 2000% of funding from Congress. It's a perfect closed loop, isn't it?"

Schiller genuinely began to applaud, saying, "How long did it take you to turn S.H.I.E.L.D. into this state?"

"I've had this plan since I joined S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Then why did you create the Superhero Squad?"

"Oh, about that." Nick seemed to recall something suddenly and said, "It's like this: if I can create 120% of useless work, I can hire 30% more spies. That way, I can secure more funding..."

"Think about it – a team composed of superheroes, needing organization, maintenance, logistical support, and even a psychologist like you for their mental health."

"S.H.I.E.L.D.'s workload increases by 30%, an unprecedented advancement!" Nick punched the air.

"And this seemingly mysterious setup, giving spies the chance to interact with superhero work, certainly makes them eager to join. This way, I can expand recruitment..."

"Aren't you worried that they might cause trouble?"

"Of course I'm worried. That's why they handle logistical support. Look at these superheroes – which one of them looks like they need logistical support?"

"Stark's Mech armor never stays at S.H.I.E.L.D.'s base, Captain America only needs to maintain his shield, DaredevilMatt's weapons are his cane, Spider-ManPeter – giving him a complete set of Captain America action figures isn't enough? At most, add a commemorative T-shirt."

"Aren't you afraid that someone might influence them mentally? Oh, wait, I'm the psychologist at S.H.I.E.L.D.," Schiller covered his face with his hand.

Then he extended his hand, slowly giving Nick Fury a thumbs-up.

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Next Chapter>>Chapter 495: Who is the Hardcore Enforcer?