Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics

Professor Shiller wore night vision goggles, extinguished the torch, climbed over the wall to its top, and from his vantage point, he indeed saw indistinct figures chasing humans at the end of the street.

At a glance, he was certain those were Deep Divers.

These creatures with fish-heads and tridents in their hands were the typical image of Deep Divers, but this village was called Farines, not Insmouth. What were Deep Divers doing here?

Professor Shiller recalled the classic Cthulhu novel, "The Shadows over Insmouth," which mentioned that the unfortunate town of Insmouth had excessively intermarried with Deep Divers, leading humans to adopt Insmouth appearances and eventually transform back into Deep Divers and return to the sea.

Yet, he was very sure that this small seaside town he was in bore no resemblance to Insmouth. All the locals he had met looked decidedly human, and he hadn't found anything related to Deep Divers. What exactly was here that had triggered this large-scale invasion by these sea monsters?

Professor Shiller couldn't help but think of the spell—if the content of the spell was to summon Deep Divers, then such a scenario wasn't impossible.

But Professor Shiller knew very well that Jeff was a modern man. Modern ocean fleets were typically equipped with ample firepower. If the effect of the spell was to summon Deep Divers, whether those fish-men could overpower the well-armed, trained sailors in the fleet was highly questionable.

Deep Divers weren't invincible, either. Although humans were naturally disadvantaged against them, Jeff's youth was during World War II, not the Middle Ages. Modern humanity's firepower could easily be described as carbon-based lifeform destroyers. How many Deep Divers could exterminate such a large fleet?

To prevent being detected by the Deep Divers, Professor Shiller quickly leaped down from the wall and stealthily moved along the side.

He knew these fish-men might have a keen sense of smell, so he held his breath as much as possible. The night vision goggles were his ace in the hole, as these Deep Divers probably assumed humans lacked the ability to see at night and thus hunted under the cover of darkness.

He quietly followed the Deep Divers.

Ahead, there were about five or six humans being chased—except for a woman, they were all men in their prime, and among them, two had guns, with the last one carrying a shotgun.

From when Professor Shiller first spotted them, rounds were fired thrice, with the last shot luckily hitting its mark. He saw the leg of the Deep Diver struck explode into a mist of blood—evidently the effect of special ammunition. Professor Shiller suspected these were the people who had ransacked a gun store.

This was undoubtedly good news as the wounded Deep Diver, now lacking a leg, couldn't continue the chase. His companions didn't bother with him and left him there.

Instead of capturing a person for information, why not catch a fish instead, Professor Shiller decided. However, he guessed that direct eye contact with such a creature might cost him mental health points, so he aimed to keep his head low and not look directly at the creature itself, approaching the Deep Diver with a crowbar in hand.

The creature immediately noticed him. Its call was somewhat like a frog's and somewhat like a dog's, with a huffing sound coming from its nostrils.

The sound entered Professor Shiller's ears, and he felt a buzz in his brain, losing some of his mental health value.

Professor Shiller immediately struck the creature's head with the crowbar.

The dull cry turned into a scream, which oddly had no effect on his psyche. Finding it effective, Professor Shiller struck the creature's nose twice more, and it could scream no longer.

Not knowing when the other Deep Divers might return, and dragging it into a nearby house might still lead to being traced by the marks left behind.

Luckily, due to the sudden outbreak of the Wandering disaster, most people hadn't managed to escape and died in their cars, which were unlocked and still had fuel.

Professor Shiller found a car by the roadside, threw the corpse from the driver's seat, dragged the Deep Diver into the trunk, and then climbed into the driver's seat.

He hadn't driven before mainly because it was the thawing season, and fresh tire tracks were impossible to conceal. Although there weren't many living people in the village, he didn't want to leave traces of his movements—walking could at least conceal footprints.

But now he couldn't care less; he had a big catch in his trunk and needed to find a good place to study it.

The sound of the engine revving almost immediately drew the attention of the Deep Divers, but Professor Shiller floored the gas pedal and sped out of the village. While these fish-people had indeed strong physical attributes and were fast runners, they couldn't keep up with the car and soon gave up the chase.

However, the noise lured the Deep Divers back, which seemed to have allowed the people they were chasing to escape successfully; Professor Shiller heard two gunshots, suspecting they had killed one of the Deep Divers.

Professor Shiller drove straight to the lighthouse, just as Bruce and Pale Knight came out.

"I told you I didn't mean to! Who knew that guy's electric shock device was so powerful! He brought it upon himself!"

"You're just too cruel; I've never seen such a cruel Batman!"

"I've never seen a Joker with such a strong sense of morality!"

"I'm not the Joker!"

"Then I'm not Batman!"

The two who were arguing paused in surprise upon seeing Professor Shiller.

Professor Shiller realized he had inadvertently gone into combat mode, but he had no intention of attacking the two; it must have been that they hadn't exited combat mode and had inadvertently drawn him in.

But whom had they just been fighting?

"Where's Joker?" Professor Shiller asked.

Bruce showed an awkward expression.

Shiller looked at him.

"You listen to me, I didn't mean to kill him, you know I haven't touched those mechanical devices for a long time. I read the numbers wrong, and then... But you can't blame me, shouldn't Joker be immortal?"

"Have you forgotten that this is in the game?" the Pale Knight said rather exasperatedly, "All our attributes depend on points. He didn't have enough Constitution Points. You depleted his health value, so of course he died."

Bruce sighed deeply and said, "Then why didn't he increase his Constitution Points? It's not like I did it on purpose, and the police are already dead, just deduct some social credit points from me."

The Pale Knight looked at Bruce as if he had seen a ghost.

Shiller almost wanted to laugh.

He really believed that Bruce didn't do it on purpose, it was more likely that he was distracted or careless. Ever since he recovered from his illness, such situations had become frequent, foolish and careless like an ordinary person—there was really nothing funny about it.

Shiller was laughing at Joker.

If things had gone as expected, this must have been Joker's trick, betting that the Batman who caught him would not kill him. But the problem was that the one who caught him was not Batman, it was Bruce.

If it had really been Batman, even if he himself said that eliminating players in the game did not count as murder, it was more about using that statement to intimidate others. Shiller still believed he would adhere to a no-kill rule in the game.

So if he caught Joker, he might indeed use some method to coax information out of him, but he probably wouldn't kill him, not only due to his no-kill rule, but also because the only one who knew the truth about the situation currently was Joker. Killing him would mean certain details would go to the grave with him, which Batman would not want to see.

Unfortunately, none of this mattered to Bruce. He did not have a no-kill rule, and more importantly, he didn't care about the details.

He didn't have the kind of obsessive compulsion Batman did, not needing to ensure every detail in every story was under his control.

From the style of Bruce's thesis writing, one could see that he was the type that believed "approximately right is good enough," details could be left to chance, discrepancies were not the end of the world, and if all else failed, he resorted to unorthodox methods, except when time could heal all wounds.

Being Batman wouldn't work, but he was a skilled civil engineer.

Joker's time with Bruce was too brief; he didn't understand him enough and still thought he was like the other Batmans—he thought Bruce was the disguise and Batman was the core. Therefore, when he fell into his hands, he had no guard up.

Bruce also consistently disappointed everyone's expectations; a classic slip of the hand sent him away.

But Shiller still asked, "Are you sure he's completely dead?"

It wasn't that Shiller was paranoid, but Joker was indeed very cunning. What if it was a feigned death?

The Pale Knight hesitated for a moment, but still said, "If someone who's been struck by lightning nine times could revive, then he might still have a slight chance of surviving."

"Your hand slipped nine times?!"

"No, only once," Bruce answered.

"Yeah, nine times the normal current, he's charred to a crisp," the Pale Knight said in distress, "You didn't even ask him anything!"

"I just wanted to test the device."

Bruce eagerly hoped the topic would pass quickly and said, "How did you end up here?"

At this point, Bruce had already noticed something amiss with the trunk. He reached out and opened the trunk, then let out a scream.

He moved too quickly; Shiller had no chance to stop him.

As Bruce climbed up from the back of the car, he said, quite shocked, "What is this? Why is it so ugly?"

The Pale Knight wanted to go over and see. Shiller stopped him and said, "That's the thing from the dock, if I'm not mistaken, it should be called a Deep Diver. I knocked one out and was thinking of finding a place to study it."

Bruce rubbed his chin and said, "That's great, the devices have been tuned. We can go try them out again."

"Don't use that crappy electric shock device again!" the Pale Knight shouted at him, "I really never thought of Batman as an electrical killer!"

"Yes, an electrical killer, what's wrong with that? I let you tune the equipment, and you don't do it. I tune it improperly, and you blame me. Are you saving Gotham with this kind of loser attitude that shirks responsibility?"

Shiller quickly slapped him on the back to shut him up, as the Pale Knight's blood pressure visibly skyrocketed.

Shiller found the rope he had left when he came down in the lobby, closed his eyes, and tied up the Deep Diver, dragging him out of the car and into the lighthouse.

The three returned to the lighthouse. Shiller saw Joker's charred body in the room with the electrical equipment.

He went over to look and indeed it was Joker. Although he wasn't sure if the Joker virus could spread in the game instance, he was certain, biologically speaking, if someone was electrified like that instantaneously, there would be no chance for any virus to spread.

This could also be a new idea for killing Joker. After setting down the Deep Diver, Shiller inadvertently glanced at him.

Then for the first time, he saw a look of terror on the ugly fish-face.