Kraft’s Secret Base

This man-made disaster ultimately ended with Hulk’s victory. After defeating the monster Blonsky had become, named Abomination, he broke through the military’s encirclement once again and escaped without a trace.

Not only had General Ross, who had been responsible for the operation, failed to capture Hulk, but his daughter had run away as well. On top of that, he had to face a mountain of accusations and compensation claims. Blonsky, whose fate remained unknown, might have offered some small comfort, but compared to the string of condemnations Ross was about to face, it was merely a drop in the bucket.

Yet the aftermath left Kraft somewhat astonished. General Ross was merely ordered to halt everything related to Hulk, then handed over part of his authority, and that was it. He was neither dismissed nor demoted, nor did he face a court-martial. He did not even have to issue a public apology.

All he could say was, as expected of America.

But none of that had anything to do with Kraft. Right now, he was agonizing over what direction to take next.

When Hulk had appeared before, Kraft had only felt a slight sense of urgency. Although Hulk’s displayed strength had been terrifying, the American military had not been incapable of dealing with him. Kraft had assumed they wanted to capture Hulk alive, which was why he had been able to keep escaping.

But after Abomination appeared, and Hulk displayed even greater power, Kraft finally began to worry.

In truth, no matter how strong Hulk was, he was not that much of a problem. Doctor Banner’s will restrained him from causing widespread destruction. He was dangerous, but not an issue that had to be dealt with immediately.

But besides Hulk, there was a whole crowd of lunatics conducting similar human experiments. Who knew whether one day, a monster even more destructive than Hulk, and far less controllable, would suddenly appear?

Kraft genuinely worried that one day, this world would be wrecked by those reckless idiots.

His original plan had been to slowly develop Dream Toy Company, then spend several years turning himself into a genius like Tony Stark. After gradually expanding Dream Toy Company’s industrial reach and secretly establishing his own arms factory, he would begin manufacturing the devastating weapons from his dreams.

After all, he was still young. There was no need to rush too much.

But now, it seemed Earth might not withstand those lunatics’ antics. For all he knew, Earth would already be ruined before Kraft had the chance to develop.

Having witnessed a zombie siege in his dreams, Kraft truly did not think he was worrying for nothing.

So he felt that he should speed up his research progress. But if he did that, there was a good chance he would expose what made him special. As a person of color, he did not think he would receive any preferential treatment in America. With the current influence of Dream Toy Company and Martin Lee, they probably could not withstand pressure from the authorities.

And the several solutions Kraft could think of all seemed to have their own flaws.

One was to shift the development of most of Dream Toy Company’s and Martin’s businesses toward aerospace, then establish a branch base beyond Earth. But that would likewise attract official attention, and the move would be too abrupt, making it easy for others to grow suspicious.

Building a base under the sea or underground had been part of Kraft’s slow-development plan. If he wanted to accelerate construction, an operation on such a large scale would definitely draw attention as well.

Or, as he had often considered before, he could return to his home country and cooperate with the authorities. But Martin seemed strongly opposed to that, and according to the information Kraft had found, similar experiments were being conducted there too. Besides, cooperating with the authorities would certainly reduce his freedom. Unless he had no other choice, Kraft did not want to take that path.

After agonizing over it for a long time, Kraft returned home with a troubled expression and told his adoptive father what he was thinking, hoping Martin could offer him a solution.

After listening to Kraft’s thoughts, Martin Lee began staring at him with a strange look.

Kraft felt uncomfortable under that gaze. He shifted his body and asked in confusion, "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Although I have no idea where this inexplicable sense of crisis of yours came from…" Martin Lee’s tone was strange, as though he were holding back laughter. "Kraft, have you forgotten that you have a ray gun that can freely enlarge and shrink objects?"

(T/N: No text to translate)

Damn it! I forgot about that!

Kraft smacked his forehead in frustration. With the Size-Changing Flashlight, what the hell was he agonizing over? He could shrink his arms factory down and manufacture everything right in his room. Whenever he wanted to use something, he could just enlarge it again!

Maybe someday, if he dreamed of the technology for those universal capsules, he would not even need to prepare the enlarging light anymore!

He must have crammed too much stuff into his head lately, making his thinking sluggish.

Realizing he had made a fool of himself, Kraft awkwardly scratched his head. Too embarrassed to keep facing Martin Lee’s amused gaze, he made up an excuse and slipped back into his room.

"I still have some homework to finish. I’m going back to my room to do it!"

Quinn tilted his head and chased after Kraft with his tongue hanging out. Circling around Kraft’s feet, he asked, "Big brother, didn’t you hand your homework over to Haro to handle ages ago?"

Martin Lee’s expression, which had held a faint smile as he watched Kraft flee in embarrassment, suddenly changed. "Kraft!!!"

"Stupid dog, meow~"

Bea flicked her tail, rolled over in Alice’s arms, and exposed her belly so Alice could continue massaging her.

Having found a solution and feeling pressed for time, Kraft simply had Martin request an extended leave of absence from school for him. Martin Lee had originally been unwilling to agree, but Kraft kept pestering him. Besides, ever since obtaining the learning helmet, Kraft had consistently ranked first in his grade, so Martin eventually gave in.

Kraft cleared out a large open space in his workshop for the arms factory he was about to build.

At first, he had considered making an entire basement or something similar. But after thinking it over, he had Angela to provide protection, so there was no need to waste that time. Besides, he could leave the shrunken factories out in the open, disguising them as models. No lunatic would think those "models" were actual arms factories.

As for the factory blueprints, Kraft did not copy any of the ones from his dreams. Instead, he redesigned them based on the knowledge he possessed and his own needs. To allow Angela and Haro to help build it, he had specifically removed equipment unique to the dream worlds and replaced it with equipment from this world that served similar functions.

After completing the blueprints, Kraft did not immediately begin construction. Instead, he made several construction robots called SCVs. They also came from Swann’s world, though Swann had not been the protagonist of that dream.

After handing control of the shrunken SCVs to Angela and Haro, Kraft no longer needed to work personally. He merely watched from the side as they controlled a swarm of tiny SCV robots and constructed a "model" of an arms factory in the cleared space.

This actually feels like playing a holographic strategy simulation game~

Thanks to reader 140301202320795 for the donation.

Today, the editor pulled me into the author group… There are over a thousand people, but barely anyone chats… I glanced through the member list, and I did not seem to see any familiar book titles or authors.

Today’s rambling is a bit short, so I’ll just ask for some recommendations and bookmarks…