Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics

Everyone present deeply furrowed their brows.

"Who exactly are you? Why did you lure us here?" the pale knight voiced his doubts.

But Shiller suddenly realized something critical: they had names but no one had ever mentioned their own name; for instance, his identity was named Lodoff. So, what was Greed called?

"Your surname is Silterk?" Shiller asked, looking at Greed.

Greed slowly nodded.

"I didn't lie to you," Greed shrugged. "As I said, I'm a rich second generation; indeed, my father is Sir Silterk."

Shiller really wanted to record this and send it to Anatoli.

The pale knight also caught on, asserting, "Hunter set off the Lighthouse to draw us over; he has already seen through your ruse!"

"Didn't you decide not to go?" Greed smiled. "Since you don't want to be his guest, come to mine instead. Please, come in."

Facing the dark muzzles of the machine guns, no one could refuse; they could only follow Greed into the safety gate.

Shiller sighed internally; he should have connected the wealthy individual in the script with the 'rich second generation' Greed had mentioned.

But at that moment, Shiller suddenly remembered—if the Siltex Medical Insurance Company affair was fabricated by Greed, how could Batman coincidentally make up the same name?

Shiller thought of the letter.

If it wasn't sheer coincidence they come up with the same name—if, indeed, such a coincidence was impossible—then one must have fabricated it while the other acted in cahoots.

Greed could directly open the door here and control the machine guns. If it were a collusion, he shouldn't be able to do all that; the story had to be his creation.

Shiller also felt it was in line with his style—Batman wouldn't make up such an utterly evil organization, even if it was to serve as the antagonist.

So Batman must be the one who knew the story and was cooperating with the performance. Greed arrived early, committing murder and controlling others; what did Batman do when he arrived early?

Shiller suspected that after Batman arrived, he somehow learned the story, prompting him to leave behind that important letter, hidden in the Lighthouse for them to find, thereby sharing the clues he had investigated in advance with everyone.

Shiller wondered where Batman learned all this from because even if they had arrived relatively early, it wasn't that much earlier, and investigating a conspiracy was not nearly as simple as committing murder; it required a great deal of time.

After much deliberation, Shiller thought there was only one possibility, which was related to Batman's Talent Skill. Since his skill could control corpses, could it possibly read the memories of the dead?

Assuming it could, Batman might have encountered an extremely crucial corpse… Could it be the Detective?

Shiller had previously postulated that the Detective, famed for his remarkable abilities, might have already investigated something related to the Silterk Company and that might have been the primary reason little Silterk, as played by Greed, committed murder to silence someone.

Greed took the initiative, silenced the secret swiftly, not leaving any traces for the players upon arrival, but he did not anticipate that the Primary Universe Batman's Talent Skill was precisely to unearth secrets from the dead.

But that wasn't right, either. Greed obviously didn't kill the person in the cabin, so why would he need to move the corpse there at all? Throwing the body far away would have incurred no risk.

There would not have been the situation where everyone was led here, except for the most threatening Primary Universe Batman.

Shiller then suddenly remembered the intense discomfort he felt at the first glimpse of the corpse, as if his brain had been punched.

This effect of reduced mental health value was clearly not supposed to be Greed's doing, although it could be the system showing an effect when mental health value decreased. But it definitely meant the corpse had something peculiar about it to give him that opportunity.

"Doug's corpse is the Monster Wanderer," Greed suddenly spoke up. "You directly gazed at the monster, so of course it struck you like a blow."

Shiller looked up at him; Greed had been leading them through the dim corridors and after a few turns, a door appeared before them.

"You must be very curious about what the secret of the fish truly is. You will know soon."

With that, he opened the door. Upon entering the room, Shiller's first sight was of a huge cylindrical aquarium placed in the spacious room.

The aquarium was full of fish.

What was even more shocking was that a corpse was floating in the middle of the aquarium—the very first corpse they had seen in the cabin, the one Greed had split open, Doug.

The school of fish was frantically tearing at the flesh on Doug's corpse.

This reminded Shiller of Greed's earlier statement, "Doug is the Wandering."

"Are you feeding fish with monsters?!" shouted the pale knight, "Have you gone mad?!"

Greed, who had taken a seat in a chair nearby and spun it a couple of times, retorted, "I'm not insane. Madeline didn't deceive you either. Terrifying monsters do exist in this world, and they are intangible, but there are limits."

Being among intelligent people, Bruce immediately surmised, "You've contained the monsters?!"

"Yes, but it's a bit troublesome to explain that way. Feel free to shoot me," Greed declared, spreading his arms wide while sitting in the chair.

The next second, Shiller drew the gun from Night Owl's waist.

"Bang!" A shot hit Greed in the shoulder.

"You really don't hold back, do you!" Greed said, baring his teeth and grinning.

"It's well deserved," the Pale Knight commented. "If we didn't still need you to explain the truth, you should have taken a shot in the head."

"The fight begins..."

Shiller now understood that the System seemed to have a way to determine whether they were really fighting or not, possibly based on the level of threat or actual damage inflicted. This meant that as long as there was a great possibility of causing real harm to players, it could be deemed a fight. On the other hand, harmless play fighting wouldn't count, which is why Greed had requested to be shot first.

After entering the fight, time stopped, and they were no longer bound by character restrictions, allowing them to speak freely.

"The moment I came in, I immediately started bothering the Transcendent about things related to the opening introduction," Greed said in a relaxed tone. "I've been in a similar game before, so I'm quite familiar with the rules. I was just interested in the world setting and storyline."

"During our conversation, it was reasonable to ask anything, so he shared with me some details about the monsters, roughly similar to what's in Madeline's notes. Of course, the part where firearms can't attack monsters, that was an addition of my own."

"No wonder you took my gun to shoot at monsters," Night Owl recalled, and the others remembered too. In fact, the first one to attack monsters with firearms was Greed himself, who was so bold because he knew that rule didn't actually exist.

"There are monsters in this world," Greed stated, holding up a finger. "But there are also humans in this world."

"Given the strength of monsters compared to humans, it's impossible for humans to survive. I voiced this doubt, and naturally, the Transcendent told me that monsters have limitations."

"I continued to press for information about the monsters' abilities and restrictions, but he wouldn't tell me anymore. So I warned him that if he didn't spill the beans, I would, and the Transcendent had no objections."

"If he knew what you were going to say, he might not have been so calm," Shiller said pointedly. "He would have shut you up immediately."

"But he didn't. He missed that precious opportunity." Shiller smiled, leaning on the armrest of the chair. "So in my fabricated backstory, my father, Old Siltex, devoted his life to studying monsters and set up an insurance company that specialized in covering monster-related incidents."

"But he never intended to pay out, did he?" the Pale Knight asked, his brows so furrowed he could have crushed a fly.

"If he had, I wouldn't be a rich second-generation kid," Greed said openly, and the Pale Knight's gaze turned to one of pure disgust.

"In any case, he made a fortune from that business and growing up under his influence, I also developed a keen interest in monsters. In the insurance files of the company, I came across a very interesting case of a peculiar incident, that is, the Wandering monster that killed Madeline's family."

"Hold on, the Wandering monster appeared in the opening introduction, didn't it?" Bruce said with a furrowed brow. "That should be a monster set by the Transcendent."

"Yes, but couldn't I add some extra details to it? Even if I couldn't change its abilities and origins, would it make sense for it to have appeared before people a few times more?"

Shiller nodded, saying, "You didn't change the Wandering monster's actual settings, you just used it to construct the story of Madeline's family."

"Exactly," Greed nodded. "And the key point I'm making is that by following the clues of that case, I uncovered the Wandering monster's limitations and exploited them to capture it."

"Wait a minute," the Pale Knight interrupted. "The Transcendent actually told you this critical piece of information?"

"What critical information are you referring to?"

"The Wandering monster's weakness."

"When did I say he told me?"

Shiller realized the implication in the words, saying, "It's just backstory fabrication, after all. You don't need to know the specifics; it's enough to say that it's plausible."

"Exactly," Greed nodded again. "The limitation given to me by the Transcendent was that it just had to make basic logical sense. And as I just mentioned, monsters are not invincible; they have limitations and weaknesses that even an ordinary person could exploit to narrowly escape death."

"So is it strange for me, a moneyed, idle, crazily rich legacy, to have spent my life capturing a monster?"

The Pale Knight sighed, but Shiller didn't find it surprising; he had already realized that the way to win the game was to be bold and imaginative.

Greed's logic indeed made sense; monsters had weaknesses, and thus could be dealt with. They might not be killable, but they could be contained.

And Greed, always one to bask in the sunlight when given the chance, was the type to dare to do anything if it was possible.

The supposed insurance company specializing in peculiar incident coverage and the affair of Madeline's family were all setups for the capture of the Wandering monster.

His thoughts had never once trailed along the lines suggested by the opening introduction. He hadn't considered the Wandering monster a threat, but rather like a pig to be slaughtered from the onset.

"And I have to thank the introduction for reminding me," Greed laughed, his eyelashes casting dazzling reflections under the machine's cold light, revealing a dreamy madness.

"If I had directly asked the Transcendent what monsters there were, he wouldn't have told me. But the introduction is unchangeable, and it mentioned the Monster Wanderer. Since it definitely exists and has weaknesses, it can be captured, right?"

Shiller sighed lightly. Greed truly deserved to be one of the dominant personalities controlling the body, with his keen insight into details, utilization of clues, and wild imagination.

"Alright, you've won, my Creator," Shiller said with a smile as he looked into his eyes.

But before Greed could respond, Shiller added, "But things probably haven't gone as smoothly as you thought, right? Otherwise, why wouldn't Batman be here?"

Instantly, the triumphant smile on Greed's face froze.