Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics

"Wait!"

Greed interrupted Bruce bluntly and then said, "This is plagiarism, outright plagiarism! What 'National Defense and Strategic Security Logistics Bureau'??? That's called 'Homeland Strategic Defense Attack and Logistic Support Bureau'! Do you think it's yours just by changing the name?"

"That's not yours either." Bruce said confidently, "Don't think I don't know that the boss of S.H.I.E.L.D. is Nick Fury!"

"But he is the director, I am the psychological consultant!"

"You can't pursue me for using the S.H.I.E.L.D. name because you are a psychological consultant, not the director!"

Greed slammed the table hard.

"What? Only S.H.I.E.L.D. can have a psychological consultant?" Bruce said with his arms crossed: "If that's called plagiarism, then I haven't said anything about you setting yourself up as a rich second generation."

"There's more than one rich second generation in the world!"

"There's more than one psychological consultant in the world too!"

"Stop!" an agent slapped the table, then said, "Settle your personal scores later, first explain your background stories."

Bruce smirked and said, "My background story isn't actually that complicated. Before the changes, I was a psychological consultant in a special agent organization, but joining such organizations requires agent training..."

"That's nonsense, how come I didn't have one?" Greed questioned.

"Then you should ask your dear director whether he failed to provide you with training or kept the training fee for himself." Bruce shook his head.

Greed's eyes swiveled.

"Focus!" the agent reminded.

Bruce cleared his throat again and continued: "From the introduction at the beginning, I learned that there are monsters in this world, and a monster has descended into the village, nearly killing someone."

"Smart people definitely wouldn't want to encounter a monster as soon as they enter the game, but I wouldn't count on the host's mercy. I'd rather set up my own scene so I wouldn't appear directly in the village and would rather wait till other players and monsters are in fierce battle, then I come out to save the world."

Greed seemed to recall something, he said, "I remember when we first met, you said you knew where a shelter was, and then we took Doug's body and Madeline to the cabin."

"Yes, the cabin was my setting." Bruce said: "Including the entire underground cave, Dark River, and reeds, all those were my settings."

At this, everyone was a bit surprised, Transcendent helplessly said, "Did you think I wanted you guys walking in circles in the cave? What's the sense in that? The village and the Lighthouse are the maps I carefully designed, and you hardly stayed there long, there are still many clues left in the village."

Bruce shrugged and said, "Because I knew from the beginning animation that there must be big problems with the village and the Lighthouse, I specifically built a shortcut passage, you all say how useful it was."

Even Joker couldn't offer a dishonest bad review; on the contrary, almost everyone felt that the underground cave was actually the interesting part of the game, the script originally given by Transcendent was too ordinary, just following the steps to explore the map was really not intriguing.

"How did you set it up?" Batman asked, sincerely seeking advice, as he wasn't as experienced in playing these kinds of games, and his imagination was much less compared to Greed and Bruce, wondering why he hadn't thought to build a shortcut directly.

That's why later someone discovered the underground cave; if no one had discovered it, then this shortcut would have been exclusively for Bruce's use, giving him a huge advantage when he set that up.

"It's simple, I'm a special agent, naturally, I could get some internal government news." Bruce spread his hands and said, "Actually, my purpose of coming to the village was to investigate a case about 20 years ago when a secret lab was invaded."

"The rough setting is that, during the Cold War era, to counteract nuclear strikes, the U.S. arranged underground nuclear shelters near important cities along the East and West Coasts."

"Some of these were purely shelters, but others were secret laboratories, recruiting villagers from nearby villages under the guise of recruiting shelter members for human experiments, and there was such a lab underground in Faralines."

"At that time, in order to construct this laboratory, the U.S. Military dug a crisscrossing underground cave under the village and managed to fake it as a natural cave, building a lab deep inside."

"But later, the lab was attacked by unidentified creatures, almost wiping out all the experimental staff, only an archivist escaped with the data. After the establishment of the Logistics Bureau, the files were transferred here, and the Logistics Bureau was ordered to investigate this laboratory tragedy and uncover the secrets behind it."

"Due to the recent establishment of the Logistics Bureau and the lack of manpower, there were many tasks more important than these old cases, and the expendable position like psychological consultant should be useful at this time."

"I was ordered to come to Faralines to investigate the old case, and the known underground entrance recorded in the archives was located at a former U.S. Military station, now Faralines Forestry Firefighting Bureau Ranger's cabin, which is where we were initially."

Upon hearing Bruce's explanation, everyone else suddenly realized.

Actually, the sequence in the game's opening should have been, under Doug's leadership, the main characters being chased in the village by the Wanderer, Greed descending into the village, and chasing them down into the underground cave.

Bruce descended into the cabin and entered the freezer beneath the carpet, where he and Greed met and formed an alliance. After killing Doug, they took Madeline to the cabin together.

The Transcendent complained bitterly, "It shouldn't have been like this; you were supposed to encounter the protagonist group being pursued at the entrance to the village, then rescue them, and have everyone else gather in the village…"

Batman nodded; he thought this made more sense as pre-designed maps typically consider such setups, and starting at the village would have been better.

Moreover, encountering and rescuing the protagonist group being chased by monsters right at the start would greatly enhance the engagement, making it a qualified opening.

However, Greed and Bruce, resembling Sleeping Dragon and Rising Phoenix, one ruthless and decisive, and the other boldly imaginative, reconstructed a new map beneath the original, perfectly matched, turned a routine script opening into complete chaos.

Now Batman was even somewhat impressed by the Transcendent and God of Stories; they managed to sort this out, living up to their famous reputations.

The agent looked at the Transcendent and said, "So the exciting and creative parts are all our setup, what did you do then?"

Everyone looked at the Transcendent.

"What do you mean the exciting and creative parts are all your setup? What was wrong with my original scenario?!"

The Transcendent immediately objected, almost leaping up, "My design was so rational, luring them step by step, exploring layer by layer, with a proper pace and climax after climax…"

"Old-fashioned." Greed bluntly plunged a knife into the Transcendent's chest.

"Fine, fine, go with your trendy methods!" The Transcendent gritted his teeth.

"Now it's your turn," Bruce nodded knowingly at Greed.

"I think I don't need to explain anything," Greed sat back down, crossed his legs boastfully, and said, "The most exciting part is my setup, like the ones about Old Sirteck."

"Oh, by the way, as if just remembering, Greed spoke, "You all should remember the Captain's Room in the Ghost Ship, right? The Captain is actually an ancestor of the Sirteck family, who came here with that fleet to Sigeltek."

"So, it was you!" The agent looked at Greed, "Don't tell me all this is the plot of a Sirteck ancestor."

"Not entirely," Greed thought for a moment and said, "My setup goes like this: in the early days of the Age of Discovery, an ancestor of the Sirteck family was employed by the Spanish Royal Family to pioneer new trade routes and establish colonial outposts in the New Continent."

"The ancestor of the Sirteck family was a very experienced old captain, who people always called his fleet the 'Sea Sanctuary', for they always survived various maritime disasters."

"But what no one knew was that this wasn't due to God's care—instead, the Sirteck ancestor was conducting secret rituals aimed at ensuring the safety of overseas shipping."

"Colonial activities in the New Continent made him realize that the era belonging to the New Continent would eventually come, and he became dissatisfied with merely serving the Royal commands; he wanted his own estate in the New Continent, to become a new noble."

"But this was difficult, not only did immigrants from various countries covet this fertile land, but the Spanish Royal Family was also a tough opponent. They began to suspect the Sirteck ancestor and almost discovered his identity as a cultist."

"Fearing being burned at the stake, the ancestor finally resolved during a particular overseas voyage to use the knowledge he had obtained to summon a fierce storm that completely engulfed the fleet."

"Before this, he employed the power of an Evil God to construct a safe room within the Captain's Room so he could feign death amidst the storm, and later emerge with a new identity to live in the New Continent."

"To achieve this, the Captain's Room had to be immune to the strange forces in the storm and able to carry him out of the vast sea after the storm ended."

Creating such a safe room was not easy, the ancestor spent a lot of time, finding a Magic Book filled with forbidden knowledge where he learned of an entity called 'Key of the Door'..."

"Stop." The agent raised his hand to stop Greed's narrative and asked, "What's this about Yog here?"

"Why not?" Greed said.

The agent opened his mouth but couldn't really refute it, and Greed hadn't said this so-called Key of the Door was Yog. Considering it as an original Evil God might not be too bad.

But then he suddenly realized, "A nameplate?"

"Exactly," nodded Greed. "The forbidden knowledge the ancestor acquired was actually about imbuing a nameplate with Mysterious Power, allowing him to freely travel between two rooms, which would shift along with the movement of the nameplate."

Then, Greed revealed another shocking fact.

"After the ancestor successfully escaped, he landed on the New Continent and arrived in Massachusetts, where he opened a hotel…"