Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics

Shiller thought to himself, how could I not notice with your habit of dropping in and out of touch like this?

In fact, since the time he fought the Hunting Dogs, he had noticed that the battle report was somewhat off.

At first, he guessed that there might be reports when fighting players but not when fighting ordinary monsters, but later, when he clashed with players, sometimes there was no report, while fighting monsters again resulted in one.

Isn't this battle report a bit too whimsical?

Furthermore, since Arrogance had recruited him, Transcendent being approached by Arrogance, he guessed he was busy explaining, and hence was silent for a while.

When the voice returned, it had changed its tone completely, and the style was utterly different, fearful that others might not notice.

Before the Joker died, while being chased by Reed in the underground caves, all the Batmen's dice rolls were poor, leading to the Primary Universe Batman being severely injured; this must have been Joker's doing.

But afterwards, the dice turned black gold and no matter how they were thrown, they were a complete failure; it seemed like another of Joker's abilities, but in reality, Joker could only have one skill.

This meant that manipulating the numbers on the dice and changing their color to result in a failure should be mutually exclusive; it wasn't possible to have both.

Moreover, the latter ability was outrageous; even Greed, who could release Wind Blade, didn't have such lethal impact—that only sliced someone half, and after a certain distance, it would merely leave a shallow mark on the wall. Rather than calling it magic, it was more like a melee aid.

The intensity of everyone else's skills was also about the same, but if Joker genuinely had a skill forcing everyone to only roll failures, this balance would be too absurd.

Shiller suspected that the black gold-colored dice might indeed be tampered with by Joker, otherwise, it wouldn't revert to normal just because someone called out, but he probably wasn't using a skill, but rather, might have made a deal with some entity.

And that entity was likely Nyarlathotep.

It might not be that Transcendent approached him; he might have had his eyes on Transcendent for a long time, specifically on Battleworld.

This 'thing' was highly coveted; anyone who could understand its nature would be interested, and it's perfectly normal for Nyarla to be interested too.

Especially since he was a major shareholder in debt to Shiller, with no hope of getting his debt back, taking some interest wasn't too excessive.

This was probably why Arrogant didn't stop him, as restricting Barbados later might still require his help; giving him some benefits now didn't matter.

But one could imagine how overreaching this cunning Outer God was, just watching from the side wasn't going to satisfy him; since Transcendent invited him over and the game's script happened to involve these Outer Gods, how could he resist not stepping into the fray?

He probably used this reason to persuade Transcendent to hand the game management over to him; after all, God of Stories wasn't fond of meddling in stories, and Walter might not understand this area well, virtually only Nyarla was a professional in this field. Just broadcasting and throwing a dice, Transcendent must have thought he couldn't cause much trouble, so he simply handed it over to Nyarla.

But who was Nyarla? He wanted amusement; if there was none, he'd create his own amusement to watch; thus, he deliberately made the new broadcaster's voice entirely different from Transcendent's, solely to catch these players' attention.

As Transcend said, in this game of three Batmen, two Jokers, and two Shillers, no one was a fool; everyone was extremely alert, surely noticing the different tones of the broadcaster right away.

Nyarla had thrown down bait, and naturally, someone would take it; Joker was the first fish to bite.

Joker might have some knowledge of the Cthulhu Mythos, but not enough; otherwise, he would have known that anyone who made a deal with Nyarla met with no good end.

Of course, that's assuming the deal was completed; those who defaulted didn't count.

Although Nyarla mostly played a backdrop role in Cthulhu Mythos literature, with only his avatars sometimes having a bit more presence, nearly all authors had a rather negative view of him; all deals made with him ended in tragedy.

Like Joker.

Among the players who have died so far, Joker met the most tragic end; others mostly died from a single gunshot, but Joker, well, he was electrified to death.

This was partly due to Bruce's ignorance, but assuming Joker had already struck a deal with Nyarla, such a death wasn't surprising.

Bruce's equipment adjustments definitely needed validation; his so-called slipping could have been failing to throw the dice properly, and based on the result of the nine thunder tribulations, it was very likely a catastrophic failure.

Joker's deal with Nyarla involved the dice; he asked Nyarla to create a dice that could only result in catastrophic failure, ultimately dying by this very failure; this darkly humorous irony was precisely the hallmark of Nyarla's deeds.

Shiller didn't know how Nyarla treated Joker, but he believed it wasn't with the current tone of a resentful woman. Shiller rolled his eyes internally; it wasn't just now that he had noticed, but it was only now he dared do something about it.

If it wasn't for exploring those three ominous-looking ships, Shiller wouldn't have resorted to this measure; looking at the situation, he needed to collaborate with an Outer God anyway. Even if the end was tragic, choosing Nyarla, with his high caliber, might be better, as neither Ketayat nor Ipo Zettel could match up to Nyarla.

Although he had mentally complained several times, Shiller still closed his eyes slowly like a person who had just encountered forbidden knowledge, asking inwardly,

"Who are you?"

At this point, the normal procedure when making contact with an Outer God would be to respond with "My name is xx." After all, there were numerous ways to make contact, and no one could be sure their method was correct; verification was needed to ensure that the correct entity was responding.

But Nyarlathotep was no ordinary god.

"With our relationship, you don't need to go through those procedures, just call me Nyarlathotep."

Nyarlathotep had used Brand's voice, and immediately, Shiller lost his focus, now only thinking about the image of Shiller and Brand scheduling an afternoon card game at the club.

By the way, Nyarlathotep was really terrible at cards, and a sore loser. Whenever it looked like he was going to lose, he would secretly confuse his opponents, making them play terribly too.

"Change your voice," said Shiller.

"Alright, tell me what you need me to do."

Shiller covered his forehead because this time Nyarlathotep used the hotel manager's voice, thinking, "It would be better if you didn't change at all."

Realizing Shiller was also dissatisfied with this voice, it took some time to adjust, finally settling on a very stereotypical big devil's raspy voice.

"Can you ensure that I won't be corrupted by the forbidden knowledge in this book?" Shiller asked, holding the book.

"Is that all? I can even let you take away those three ships."

"To Lalaiye?" Shiller said disdainfully, "Making deals with you, the more conditions there are, the more miserable one dies. Just this, can you do it?"

"Actually, you can do it yourself," said Nyarlathotep. "This book sweats because the previous owner used his own skin and soul to turn this book into a living thing."

Shiller paused with his hand on the cover of the book. What was Nyarlathotep implying?

"Your talent is unparalleled. When you fall into the illusion, you can naturally see the secrets of this book without having to open it," Nyarlathotep patiently explained.

Shiller immediately understood. He looked down at the Book of Water God in his hands. This object contained human skin and soul, proving it could also be psychoanalyzed.

It might sound absurd, but Shiller's hallucinations were even more irrational, even more nonsensical.

That meant that now, just as his mental health value plummeted without opening the book, he might be able to use his talent to directly comprehend the secrets within it.

Nyarlathotep indeed was not easy to deal with, Shiller admitted he was tempted.

Making a deal with Nyarlathotep wasn't as simple as skinning a tiger; even if it was just a game, Shiller didn't want to die a gruesome death.

Anatoli could blame Nyarlathotep, mainly because they were within DC's cosmos. Nyarlathotep here was just an avatar, akin to a diplomatic ambassador, and not the Emperor himself, with limited power to call upon.

The strength lent to Anatoli was substantial, but Anatoli knew better than to shear a sheep for more wool than it could give; borrowing here and there, which for Nyarlathotep, wasn't bone-deep important.

But now, the game Shiller was in was based on the Cthulhu Mythos, even if gen'd by the God of Stories, it was still Nyarlathotep's homeland.

In the comic universe, after troubling Nyarlathotep, one could still turn to Lucifer or God, who were the big bosses in the comic cosmos. But in a universe with a Cthulhu background, aggravating Nyarlathotep was akin to poking the deputy director — parting from the beautiful world was just a matter of time.

Even facing Old Day Dominator, Shiller was extremely cautious; he otherwise wouldn't dare to look at that book, let alone make a deal with Nyarlathotep.

But now, there was a method that allowed him not to make a deal with Nyarlathotep, yet still get some grasp of the book's content, adding an extra layer of security to his subsequent explorations.

He took a deep breath, weighing the pros and cons within his mind.

Making a deal with Nyarlathotep meant being prepared to die a terrible death even if he won the game, though death was just a way to exit the game. However, Shiller couldn't be sure who was watching this scene; if any of them went mad, the trouble faced after exiting the game could be immense.

Lowering his mental health value to see might not yield anything, Nyarlathotep's words weren't necessarily trustworthy, but if successful, combined with Shiller's ability to restore his mental health value, it could virtually be loss-free.

It could only be said that if he was of any other personality trait, he would definitely choose the latter option.

Unfortunately, agents loathed mental disorder, so after a long silence, he said, "First, let's hear your conditions, Nyarlathotep."