[If there is any problem with the translations,let me know by commenting on the paragraph]
A few days later, at the joint press conference held by Stark Industries together with the U.S. military—
Tony held the prepared speech in his hand, getting ready to go on stage to explain to the press the battle that had taken place near Stark Industries.
"Tony, just read the script when you go up. We'll take care of everything else."Colonel Rhodes, spokesperson for the U.S. military and Tony's close friend from the Air Force, handed Tony an additional copy of the speech, giving him a final reminder with visible concern.
As the liaison between the military and Stark Industries, Colonel Rhodes had long since gotten used to Tony occasionally doing something reckless and unpredictable, so reminders like this became routine.
Though Rhodes knew his advice might not work, he still had to do his best—and leave the rest to fate.
"Where's Obadiah? How did you arrange that?" Tony asked.
"He's already taken a private plane this morning, supposedly going on holiday to Hawaii. You know, accidents with private jets… they're not exactly rare." Rhodes replied calmly.
Tony nodded—this could be considered a dignified end for Obadiah. He skimmed over the speech once and prepared to step onto the stage.
"Oh right, Tony—are you really telling me you don't know where those two armored people and the monsters that appeared that day came from?" Rhodes suddenly asked.
Although he had repeated this question many times before, the military insisted on getting a full and clear report.
So Rhodes couldn't stop himself from asking one last time.
Tony frowned slightly."Didn't I already tell you? Those two armored cosplayer-style people have nothing to do with me. I don't know where they came from."
Rhodes nodded, patted Tony on the shoulder, and smiled."I figured. Knowing your sense of aesthetics, there's no way you'd design something that looks like that."
"But the military keeps insisting. They want to dig something out of you—since you were the only one who came close to them."
"If they want to know, they can investigate themselves." Tony shrugged casually.
As soon as Tony stepped onto the stage—
"Mr. Tony Stark, what was the red and gold armored warrior that fell from the sky that night?"
"We heard there were strange monsters appearing in the streets and two armored fighters that looked like video game characters. Is that true? Are they secret weapons from Stark Industries?"
"Some say that flying armored figure was a Stark security officer wearing an advanced exoskeleton prototype. Is that correct?"
"Others say that Iron Man is actually you, Mr. Stark. Do you have any response?"
Once the first question came, the rest followed like a tidal wave. Every reporter wanted the latest definitive information about the massive aerial battle between two armored figures over New York and the rumored monsters appearing in the streets—a once-in-a-lifetime scoop.
The battle had begun between Tony wearing the Iron Man armor and Obadiah in the Iron Monger suit, fighting both in the air and on the ground for a long time at one of Stark Industries' subsidiary research facilities—where Obadiah had been secretly building Iron Monger.
Then, the Collapse Beast suddenly appeared, and Elena and Li Hua transformed into the Hero and Archer via a teleportation array built by Tang Dao to eliminate it.
Because Tony's armor had a sleek metallic sci-fi style, the public named him Iron Man. The other two, with obvious video-game aesthetics, appeared only briefly, and most people had fled the area during the Iron Man vs. Iron Monger fight.
So very few actually witnessed the two Kamen Rider-like figures or the Monster, and with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s swift cleanup, it remained mostly rumor—treated like conspiracy talk about Area 51 or alien experiments.
Most people simply didn't believe it and considered it an urban legend.
Meanwhile, Iron Man fighting in the sky was witnessed by tens of thousands—impossible to hide.
"Those rumored monsters and video-game armor suits?" Tony began calmly, looking at the script only briefly."I've heard the rumors. But real or not, they have absolutely nothing to do with Stark Industries. And my sense of aesthetics is nowhere near that awful. According to descriptions, they look like video-game characters. Honestly, the designs are ridiculously tacky."
"And I've never been a hero, nor do I believe I can be one."
"Stick to the script," Rhodes whispered nervously beside him.
Tony looked at the paper, paused—then crumpled it into a ball and tossed it away.
Rhodes internally winced."Again…!"
Tony looked straight ahead and calmly declared:
"The truth is—I am Iron Man."
S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters — Triskelion
In the director's office, Nick Fury watched the press conference feed, where Tony Stark publicly revealed his identity, and shook his head.
"Tony never could resist showing off. I wanted to wait a little longer before approaching him… looks like I'll need to speed things up."
"Director." Coulson knocked and entered.
"Found any clues?" Fury asked.
"We've retrieved every surveillance recording in the surrounding blocks. None captured anything useful. We found no trace of how the two armored individuals left—they disappeared as if into thin air. The military is also investigating and confirmed they're unrelated to government or military programs." Coulson reported.
Behind the scenes, the game system designer had ensured all visual recordings of the Hero and Archer were unusable.
"No surveillance captured them? Too convenient. Was someone hacking?" Fury asked suspiciously.
Coulson nodded."I suspected that too, so I had our tech division examine everything."
"No sign of hacking?" Fury said, already knowing the answer from Coulson's tone.
"None."
Although possible to hack cameras, no one on Earth could erase every trace without S.H.I.E.L.D. noticing.
"How did they leave then? Flew away?" Fury tapped the table.
"According to witnesses, they saw only a flash of light—and then the two armored figures were gone."
"Instant disappearance? Illusion? Or…" Fury muttered. Space teleportation? Impossible—no organization on Earth had that technology.
"And we're sure the military had nothing to do with them?"
"Correct. And according to multiple witness descriptions, the armor looked exactly like characters from video games."
"So are you suggesting we've encountered invaders from a video game world?" Fury glared at Coulson.
"Of course not. I'm just saying the designer was likely a mechanical genius obsessed with video games."
"A fanatic gamer-engineer, with resources equivalent to Stark Industries," Fury nodded."Any suspects?"
"None. If a major corporation had built them, they'd never use such bizarre designs—unless the developer had full decision power. Our intel has found no candidates."
"Fine. Compile the data and keep monitoring. They'll appear again sooner or later."
"Yes, Director." Coulson left.
After he was gone, Fury stood up.
"Someone capable of building fully functional full-coverage combat exoskeleton armor… comparable to Stark… and obsessed with video games."
If only he knew that his offhand joke earlier was the truth—the Bugster virus truly came from a game world, all according to Dan's script.
"Looks like I'd better meet Tony soon."
For years, Nick Fury had been preparing a response force to combat future alien threats—the Avengers Initiative. Tony, genius son of S.H.I.E.L.D. co-founder Howard Stark, was always a candidate.
But Tony had been too immature—until recently.
Originally, Fury planned to wait longer. But now the timing had changed.