Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics

"Who else wants to continue the story?" Bruce turned to Night Owl and said, "Your setting shouldn't be too complex, right?"

Night Owl sighed and said, "This is my first time playing such a game."

"I'm surprised you would cooperate with him," Bruce pointed at Greed, he hadn't forgotten that it was Night Owl who led them to the laboratory of Siltex Company.

"Didn't you cooperate with him as well? Oh well," Night Owl curled his lips and said, "In my backstory, I indeed encountered some troubles, and they could help me sort out these troubles."

"Are you talking about the story related to your boss?"

"Not entirely." Night Owl paused and said, "Your earlier analysis was correct, I am an anarchist, so in my backstory, my jurisdiction is filled with horrendous events used for revenge and extermination, and these events are so crude that they are easily seen through, yet law enforcement turns a blind eye because dealing with strange events isn't their job."

"And you want to expose it all?"

"Exactly, that's my main purpose for being here."

"But not for justice."

"No." Night Owl seemed uninterested in hiding his malevolence, he straightforwardly said, "I want them to understand what it feels like when a truly horrifying strange event befalls them. For this, I have made extensive preparations to summon a real disaster."

"You're a cultist???" The agent was genuinely a bit surprised, he didn't expect this to be Night Owl's real motive, he kept asking, "What have you done?"

Night Owl nodded and said, "When I learned that monsters have weaknesses that can be exploited, I used this information to create quite a few cases, throwing my jurisdiction into chaos."

"But after all, I'm just a small police officer, not powerful enough to take care of everyone. However, when I was unleashing strange events, I came into contact with the behind-the-scenes manipulator."

"I hope to use the manipulator to kill more useless law enforcement officials, and as I know, a force in the hands of the manipulator is on standby in Faralines."

"Wait, when you created your story, you should not have known about the existence of the Church and Old Sirteck, right?"

"I didn't know, but I was sure there was a behind-the-scenes manipulator." Night Owl's logic was very coherent, he said: "In my story, I always believed that the monster was a conspiracy concocted by some organization, not a natural disaster. Since it's a man-made disaster, of course, there would be a behind-the-scenes mastermind."

Batman understood his logic. Night Owl didn't actually know who the real behind-the-scenes manipulator set by the Transcendent was, but he firmly believed there was such a person. His purpose here was to find this person to help him sort out his current troubles, or even further utilize them.

"Did you think at that time that the manipulator behind the scenes was Old Sirteck?"

Night Owl nodded and said, "The people from the Church were unremarkable."

Everyone else looked at Arrogant then toward the agent.

The backstory designed by Shiller was indeed not dazzling. The Church line did not surface initially, instead, the Siltex Medical Insurance Company line appeared earlier, so Night Owl naturally thought that this was the game's set behind-the-scenes manipulator.

"To be honest, I'm not very familiar with this kind of game, nor do I know how to win, so it just turned out this way."

Although he said that, Bruce could still feel that he was a bit resentful. Others died for some reason, but Night Owl was actually just an innocent damage, his character setting wasn't aggressive enough, in theory, he could have survived longer.

But unfortunately, the agent wasn't reasonable.

"Is his backstory related to the main storyline?" Greed asked the Transcendent.

"Remember Jeff's new daughter-in-law?"

"That female lawyer Doris who exploded after eating the fish?" Greed frowned slightly, he said, "Isn't that part of the Pale Knight's backstory?"

The Transcendent shook his head and said, "If the Pale Knight was indeed still a well-known lawyer, it might be possible, but in fact, wasn't he impoverished?"

Greed then realized, they had previously thought that the Pale Knight had many lawyer friends, and Doris might have been involved with his previous cases, and also knew Madeline.

But if the Pale Knight had been impoverished long ago, it's unlikely he would have any connection with Doris, and if Madeline was a bad seed, self-directing and performing extermination cases to avoid exposing herself, she probably would not interact much with lawyers.

"Doris's family died in the strange event brought forth by Night Owl," the Transcendent said, "and Jeff's son saved her, and they got married."

"What is so important about this person?" Bruce said.

"Her stomach had a fish, and her death was strange, exploding from the inside," the Agent suddenly spoke up, "This should be related to a sacrifice."

"Indeed," the Transcendent nodded in agreement, he said, "This brings us to a plot outside my design."

"What is it?"

"The Deep Diver," the Transcendent sighed and said, "In my original story, they didn't exist. They were written into someone's backstory and then got summoned here."

"Who?"

The Transcendent looked at Joker.

Joker readily nodded and said, "My setting is a painter, not just any painter though. My ancestors were court painters in Europe, always serving the Royal Family."

"He was highly esteemed by the Royal Family until one day, he contracted a strange insane disease and started drawing all his characters as ugly Fish-Men. When questioned, he insisted that that's how they all looked."

"All his frightful and ugly drawings were destroyed, and he himself was confined in an insane asylum. Yet even there, he did not cease creating, continuously drawing those ugly fish-headed monsters."

"Years passed, and his paintings were scattered, yet a part of them survived and made its way to the Americas. When I saw one of the paintings, I gained the same inspiration as he did."

"I believe these monsters must exist and are around us; we just cannot see them. Certainly, their legends must have been circulated throughout the world."

"I continuously searched for related history until one day, in the records of an obscure village, I came across ambiguous eyewitness reports. They all described it as an urban legend akin to Bigfoot, but I knew I had to welcome their arrival."

Joker finished speaking, and Greed couldn't help but applaud, saying: "True to Joker and Batman's style, always weaving stories together."

Batman's setting involved this village once worshiping the Evil God, while Joker's setting had this village having witnessed monsters. Aren't those settings connected?

"So, did you summon the Deep Diver?" Bruce asked.

"Exactly, I must prove my ancestors and I are right, that these ugly fish-headed monsters do exist, and that they have already infiltrated among us, gradually replacing our friends and family..."

"Are you sure you're talking about Fish-Men, not Lizard People?"

"Close enough." Joker waved his hand dismissively, "I just thought of Faralines being a port, Fish-Men seemed more reasonable, so I fabricated this monster."

"You didn't specifically mean Deep Diver?"

"No." Joker said: "Actually, tales of these ugly Fish-Men are circulated worldwide, not unique to any mythos, who cares what those creatures coming ashore are called."

"Cough, cough." Transcendent cleared his throat, saying that indeed he hadn't directly mentioned that what came ashore was Deep Diver, but since the setting of this game was the Cthulhu Mythos, the most famous fish-monster within it was the Deep Diver.

"How were they summoned?"

"Cult sacrifices." The Joker straightforwardly said, "While in the insane asylum, my ancestor, through his paintings, got a lot of inspiration. He deduced a way to summon these mermaid monsters to prove his innocence, but died before he could implement it."

"So it involves feeding them fish, then killing them?"

"It has to be a special kind of fish," Joker said. "The kind that lived amongst these ugly Fish-Men, and after humans consume them, they'd be affected by Special abilities, drawing the monsters upon sacrifice."

"You went right to doing these things after landing?"

Joker shook his head and stated, "I didn't have much time; all this is just background setting, I never said sacrifices couldn't happen."

"So you agreed?" Bruce then looked toward Transcendent.

"I thought it'd be nice to add a few lesser monsters along the way." Transcendent said, "Actually by that time I had a premonition that you wouldn't play according to the script; I had to increase your challenges."

"That didn't work out though." Agent looked at Bruce and said, "You just sped off, depleting their oxygen, making them go back to sea to replenish."

Bruce grinned proudly.

"Alright, now only two main acts are left," Arrogant looked at Bruce and Greed, saying: "It's just your backstories left to be fully revealed. Do you have anything to say?"

Greed and Bruce looked at each other, Bruce questioned, "Shall I start?"

Greed had no objections, so Bruce began, "First, I must say my backstory was altered."

"What do you mean?"

"I told Transcendent the original version, but after making a deal with Nya, he used that book to give me a revised second version."

"I know." Arrogant snorted coldly saying: "Miskatonic University distinguished graduate."

Bruce cleared his throat, slightly embarrassed, "That was an accident, an accident, I paid money, can't I set myself a good degree?"

"First tell us about the original version." Greed said, "You said you were an agent before making deals with Nya, right?"

"Yes, I really was an agent."

"So how did you become a psychiatrist?"

Bruce silently glanced at Greed.

Greed looked back at him, both staring at each other, before Bruce finally spoke.

"This matter goes back to when the anomalies first appeared. During the global spread of strange occurrences, the US Government also made efforts to enhance national security."

"Approved by Congress, the US Department of Homeland Defense and Strategic Security Logistics Bureau was established. For years, with the government's support, they handled various anomalous events within the federation and nurtured many individuals with special abilities."

"And I, was a psychologist providing counseling services for agents..."