Thug and Idol: 10X Rewards Second Identity System

By this point in interrogation, Michael was getting visibly tired. The stimulant's powers weren't endless, and his wounds were nonlethal, but bad enough.

"I did. I was praying when it descended upon me—the answer to all my prayers and questions. My faith had never been brighter than upon this day…"

Tristan nodded.

He still had around fifteen minutes before the truth serum would stop working. He could use it to get the least important information out of the man.

"Why do you have so much hate for celebrities, anyway? Did some celebrity girl refuse to go on a date with you, or what?" Tristan asked.

It was a shot in the dark, but the way Michael flinched, Tristan knew it connected way more precisely than either of them expected.

Michael thrashed in his bounds, spitting saliva and almost foaming at the mouth as he shouted.

"NO! They are all vile creatures, not worthy of being called 'human'. They sold their souls to the Devil, they speak with his forked tongue!"

Cutout tensed with the knife, ready to bring it down at any moment.

Michael's words echoed with a hint of supernatural authority, but it wasn't powerful enough that Tristan gave that order. Most of it seemed to be directed at Michael himself.

Tristan was momentarily taken aback.

'He believes what he says, but he still feels the need to reaffirm his belief. I… I never even thought powers like ours can be used in this way. He's brainwashing himself.'

For the sake of both of them, Tristan gave Michael a slap on a not-yet-slapped cheek.

"Shut up!" He scowled. "It'd be funny if you weren't so pathetic. Why would someone like you think anyone remotely successful will want you? You have no looks, no money, no funny and charming personality, just a head full of shit."

It really said something about the sad state of society.

Tristan asked a few more questions about Michael's background, but the answers were all like he expected: a religious family, a strict father, a "career" of being a door-to-door salesman until Michael got his system.

After that he was living off the money he got by begging for donations from Noidolism followers, mostly being stuck in a basement. He learned some basic cyber-security there, but it was far from enough to really counter Tristan.

The time ticked. Tristan was making a list of the most notable Noidolists when Michael suddenly trailed off in the middle of the question.

"Hm? Well?" Tristan urged him.

Michael opened his mouth—and then immediately closed it again and glared at him defiantly.

'Ah. The truth serum wore off. Whatever, these names were nothing I can't get by other means. And it was nothing I actually need. Most of these people are as pathetic as Michael himself—they won't move a finger without him giving them specific instructions. All they do is rant online.'

It was time to decide what to do with Michael.

He was dangerous to leave alive. Even if Tristan cut off his tongue, he could still write really dangerous messages for the world.

However, Tristan also thought that giving Michael to authorities would have solved a lot of his problems.

If the FBI got the person who was behind the bombings, then perhaps they would finally calm down with their bans.

'Yeah, as if. They won't believe that Michael was involved, anyway. I might as well come up with another scapegoat—or let them work until they run out of leads and give up.'

With that thought, Tristan looked down at the helpless person in front of him.

The man had two bullets and two slaps, but this felt like it was far from what Michael deserved. The amount of pain and hatred he brought to the world was measured in thousands of negative thoughts and a few dozen deaths.

Tristan did more harm to the world with his crime activities, but at least it was for a sensible reason. Personal gain was a sensible reason!

With a sudden surge of anger, Tristan punched Michael in the face.

The blow was hard enough to crack his cheekbone. The man moaned in pain, and Tristan snarled and punched him again.

The painkillers Michael was on weren't enough to protect him from pain induced deliberately.

"You and your fucking schemes brought me so much stress! You will feel every bit of it, helminth!"

Tristan punched more and more, letting out his anger and turning Michael's face into a mess of blood and bruises. Only three blows later, the man went unconscious again, but Tristan didn't stop for several more blows.

His knuckles got a few scrapes from Michael's teeth, but the rest of Tristan's hands stayed pristinely clean as he pulled out his knife.

With surgical precision, Tristan stabbed Michael through the eye and into the brain. Afterward, he cleaned the knife on Michael's pants and stepped away from the body.

[Task complete: destroy the mastermind behind the Los Angeles terrorist attack. Reward: your PP increased by 10000!]

Cutout put the knife away and took off his headphones.

"Should I clean this up, boss?"

"Yes. Make him disappear entirely," Tristan said. "Ask Damien if he wants to take a look first—maybe he will want to throw his own punches, or spit on the corpse. Don't let him take any trophies, though, that's just creepy."

"Uh-uh," Cutout said with understanding.

He was one of the people who worked under late Pierce, so he understood.

Taking trophies from dead bodies was creepy, and neither of the two men wanted to deal with another psycho who had a freezer full of ears. Even if he didn't show them to anyone.

Before Tristan left himself, he took one last look at Michael.

'What a loss of potential. No matter what I do, I should strive to not end up like him. Perhaps I should start by wisely investing the twenty thousand system points I've got for my last two complete tasks.'

This was a good idea.

It would also distract Tristan from thinking about the inevitably approaching meeting with his parents.

He was going to tell them a lot of things. He was going to make them SORRY.

***

Back at home, Tristan spent a while just pondering over all the system points and investing decisions available to him.

After this conflict with Michael, Tristan found that his charm was too blunt and too reliant on his personal presence. It'd be amazing to copy Michael's abilities somehow.

'I do have a songwriting skill… It can make song lyrics charged with a certain message or emotion, which can evoke a similar effect,' Tristan mused. 'But I can't just start singing when I'm in my criminal identity! Tristan Hayes is a gangster, not a cartoon villain, to sing at random!'

Tristan huffed. He would've thought about ascending the songwriting skill, if it wasn't already ascended—and it didn't give Tristan the ability to compel people with any random messages.

'And ascending acting would ascend my charisma attribute instead of making a new one,' Tristan recalled. 'I don't even know what it would do. Would it work the right way?'

Tristan wondered if he should risk this. He had enough points. He could do the ascension more carefully now and not imbalance his attributes like it happened with the intelligence attribute earlier.

Either way, he didn't have enough

Enjoy more content from empire

He thought about his future plans, too. For the tour, for the takeover of the scattered, infighting remains of Cuatro Angulos.

With that in mind, he finally began putting the points to work.

Tristan started with the criminal skills. The tour was going to be delayed anyway, and he would have time to visit Mexico first.

Even if Tristan found a scapegoat to put a blame on for the terrorist attacks, this entire situation won't blow up in an instant. Shooting some Mexicans was going to take less time than calming people down.

First, he improved his tactics skill to Impossible!! rank with 5000 Criminal Points. Then he added 3000 to the athletic and 2500 to driving skills to raise them to his general level of impossibly great.

Tristan looked at his new stats.

[======]

[Tristan Hayes (Tristan Gemello)]

[Current identity: Criminal. Second identity: Pop-star.]

[Pop-star rank: On The Olympus.]

[Criminal rank: King Lion.]

[Pop-star Points: 13002]

[Criminal Points: 1]

[===Attributes===]

~~~Pop-star~~~

[Appearance: 570 (Top Model)]

[Charisma: 1059 (The Beguiler)]

[Dexterity: 600 (Gymnast)]

[Imagination: 600 (Galaxy Mind)]n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

~~~Criminal~~~

[Fearsomeness: 1077 (Dark God)]

[Strength: 679 (Weightlifter)]

[Toughness: 800 (Bones of steel)]

[Intelligence: 1096 (Supercomputer)]

[===Skills===]

~~~Pop-star~~~

[Vocals: 6000 (Impossible!!)]

[String instruments: 6000 (Impossible!!)]

[Percussion instruments: 0 (Nobody)]

[Wind instruments: 1 (Nobody)]

[Electronic instruments: 0 (Nobody)]

[Keyboard instruments: 801 (Professional Amateur)]

[Exotic instruments: 0 (Nobody)]

[*Songwriting*: 5000 (Impossible!!)]

[Dancing: 6000 (Impossible!!)]

[Acting: 5000 (Impossible!!)]

[Production: 6000 (Impossible!!)]

[Style: 6000 (Impossible!!)]

~~~Criminal~~~

[Stealth: 6844 (Impossible!!)]

[Melee combat: 5224 (Impossible!!)]

[Ranged combat: 4836 (Impossible!)]

[Observation: 5076 (Impossible!!)]

[Driving: 5118 (Racer)]

[Athletics: 5419 (Coach Physical Instrument)]

[Medicine: 5203 (Impossible!!)]

[Interfacing: 6003 (Impossible!!)]

[Sleight of hand: 533 (Light Fingers)]

[Tactics: 5505 (Impossible!!)]

[*Strategy*: 5000 (Impossible!!)]

[Hacking: 15000 (Impossible!!!)]

[===Talents===]

[Clark Kent Effect] [Sleepless] [Clean Hands] [Bullet Time] [Hypnotic Voice] [Sight Awareness] [Electronic Sight Awareness] [Ambidextrous] [Bilingual (Spanish)] [Freezing Glare] [String Theory] [Copycat] [Detective] [Blind Shot] [Quick Fingers] [Explosive Awareness] [Heat Vision] [Remote Hypnotic Voice]

[===Tasks===]

~~~Pop-star~~~

[None.]

~~~Criminal~~~

[Make the next leader of Cuatro Angulos your puppet. Value: 1000.]

[======]

And here Tristan saw that he ran out of Criminal Points.