Eighty-Six Life Foundation

Jos's sudden roar startled the girl, but before she could catch her breath, what happened next terrified her even more.

Her safety airbags were leaking!

“What did you doooooooo?!” Seeing her suddenly expanded field of vision and feeling how loose her clothes had become, the girl let out a miserable scream.

“Mhm, doesn’t your body feel much lighter now? No more aching back or sore shoulders. You don’t need to thank me too much.”

“I’d sooner thank a ghost! Give me back my boobs, now!”

“Sorry, once sold, there are no refunds.” Jos refused her request with a perfectly businesslike expression.

“I’m going to kill you!”

“Nope. You can’t do it.” Jos gave a thumbs-up, his face breaking into a DeAngelo DeNiro smile.

…

“In any case, from today we’re on the same side. Although it seems a bit late… By the way, what’s your name?” Only after the girl's rage finally subsided did Jos remember the question he should have asked long ago.

“Knife… I picked it myself. No surname, though others prefer to call me, well, Bitch.” As she spoke, Nancy’s gaze became evasive.

It sounded like a joke, but Jos saw no trace of humor on her face.

From their earlier conversation, Jos had already gleaned the basics of her background: just an orphan who’d grown up in the slums, so it wasn’t surprising she had no surname. As for her name, it was likely just a convenient word she’d chosen for herself.

Her past was simpler than Lilith’s, yet far more complicated. Simple, because the people and events she’d encountered never extended beyond her little corner of the world; complicated, because her life was worlds apart from Lilith’s single-track existence of receiving and executing missions.

In the slums, people would draw blades for a meal, and a ten-dollar bill could spark a bloody brawl. That was daily life there, and she had grown up in it.

“Er… I’m Jos. As for my profession… let’s say superhero, for now.”

Jos scratched his head, feeling the awkwardness of the conversation, and quickly changed the subject. “Since you’re with me now, you need a hero name too. Let’s call you Trembling Tornado.”

“Trembling Tornado…?”

“That’s right, Little Tornado. Also, your clothes are a mess. Here, wear this for now.” As he spoke, Jos took out a close-fitting black high-slit robe from the system space—the very outfit worn by Tornado, the S-class hero from One Punch Man.

Heaven knows why the system keeps giving me so many women’s outfits! I’m desperate, too! Am I supposed to wear them myself?!

After giving Tornado a few instructions to help her familiarize herself with her new powers and related matters, Jos finally picked up the envelope that had triggered all the day’s events and began to examine it.

…

“Hoh… Interesting… This is like a sleepyhead finding a pillow—I just happen to need a bunch of extras.” The envelope contained a lot, but Jos skipped over most of the data, going straight to the most crucial part.

It was a report, a collection report for “materials.” By materials, he meant people like Knife—now Tornado.

Beggars, fugitives, illegal immigrants—anyone living in the no-man’s-land, whose deaths would go unnoticed, all were their targets.

The letter didn’t specify the purpose for kidnapping these people, but it wasn’t hard to guess.

Although the document never named anything directly, by piecing together hints and leveraging the powers of the Useless Omniscient One, Jos eventually traced the letter’s source.

The Life Foundation!

In the film Venom, it’s the mad company that kidnapped hordes of vagrants for symbiote parasitic experiments. In this world, they couldn’t act as brazenly, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t try—and today, Jos had caught them in the act, unearthing their secret dealings!

[Side quest discovered]

[We’ve found a wild Life Foundation!]

[Main quest: Destroy the Life Foundation, physically or socially (no HQ explosions allowed).]

[Failure penalty: Your appearance will transform into Faceless Void for a month.]

[Optional quest 1—Symbiote Party: Release all symbiotes from the Life Foundation.]

[Success reward: For each symbiote that survives, you gain 1,000 points of the Source of Self-Destruction.]

[Optional quest 2—Remember You’re a Good Guy: Expose the Life Foundation’s deeds, let the world see their true nature.]

[Success reward: 100,000 points of the Source of Self-Destruction, but for every person who dies directly because of you during the quest, deduct 1,000 points; for every indirect death, deduct 500.]

[Optional quest 3—Riot, Your Mother’s Calling You Home for Dinner: Without your intervention, let Little Black defeat Riot.]

[Success reward: Contract ritual further strengthened, gain one opportunity to enhance the symbiote Little Black’s abilities.]

“Hm? The system is actually issuing a quest specifically for Little Black?”

It was normal for the system to release quests when it found something new to stir up trouble, but a quest targeted at Little Black was a first, and Jos couldn’t help but raise his eyebrows.

After checking several times and finding no other issues, Jos could only let it go and began pondering how to solve the quest.

“The main quest is straightforward—completing any optional quest essentially counts as completing it. The real challenge is this third optional quest…”

In the movie, Riot—who was supposed to be Venom’s son—ended up becoming the symbiote leader, while Venom turned into the weakest among his kind.

This was evident in their battles: from start to finish, Riot dominated Venom, who barely managed to inflict any real damage.

Now, Little Black had grown compared to the original Venom, but most of that growth was in assassination skills developed from his own traits. To go up against a powerful kin in direct combat, he was still lacking.