Chapter 6128 - 5141: A Journey of Surprises (16)

Those two bastards hurriedly dug a pit, threw the body down, buried it, and then got into the car and started to escape.

At this moment, players could leave the house. Although they weren’t really interested in what these two gods planned to do next, since the game wasn’t over, they had to follow the plot.

The two of them got in the car, and the players’ light balls sat behind. Throughout the journey, Andrew kept blaming Nina, while Nina was crying the entire time. The car was driving out of the state, and Andrew’s insults grew louder.

Players were impatient with their quarrel. Ever since they discovered that these two were equally awful, they just wanted the police to come quickly and arrest them. However, the dead objects they could control couldn’t be too close to people; if the phone was in a pocket, they couldn’t control the keys to dial, so they could only hope for them to slip up, to call the police.

However, they weren’t idle; they had already begun to deduce the real culprit behind the scenes. But this deduction had nothing to do with the game’s plot; they were mainly investigating who made this crappy game, and whom it was meant to disgust.

Greed was sure the game’s designer had a Batman account, for the avatar he saw was the bat symbol, which wouldn’t be used if it weren’t Batman. But he didn’t pay attention at that time, and most Batman’s bat symbols look somewhat alike, so he didn’t know exactly which one it was.

However, after this game had been going on for so long, he could infer some traces from various clues. Of course, his primary suspect was the Laughing Bat, but after the game’s NPC appeared, he ruled out the possibility of the laugh.

If it were the Laughing Bat, then instead of Andrew and Nina now, it would have been Robin or other characters like Batman and superheroes. Laughing Bat indeed likes to make a mess, but he likes to make the mess within the Batman Family and the Justice League, rather than among independent original characters.

Put another way, his thinking is: if I have a disgusting idea, then if I make these things happen within the Batman Family, it would be even more disgusting. He wouldn’t consider if it was reasonable; if the story really couldn’t fit the Batman Family, he wouldn’t write it, instead, he would create another story that could fit the Batman Family.

Moreover, Laughing Bat’s arrogance leads him to habitually focus the story’s center on superheroes; he almost never explores issues in ordinary people’s society, and his ways of solving matters tend to be grand narratives, unlike the Joker, who likes using the small evils within everyone’s humanity.

Furthermore, while the previous two game segments were indeed long and dull, it was clear that someone was deliberately extending the game process, which meant this boredom was deliberately designed, whereas the boredom in Laughing Bat’s designs comes from its essence, and there is a distinction between the two.

And coupled with the final segment of the plot, those initial meaningless segments were to increase the sunk costs. To achieve a good ending in the last plot segment, you would have to repeatedly play this game, and thus continually experience those previous lengthy and boring segments, purely to torment people.

At this point, Greed realized that though the maker cannot yet be completely identified, whom it was meant to trap had become evident.

The key lies in the characters in the final segment of the plot.

From their perspective, the characters in this story are a bunch of gods. Nina is a water ghost dragging people down, Andrew is a rotten person full of sin, and the female police officer Madeleine, though somewhat righteous, clearly has excessive sympathy and poor judgment. Apart from the last one who perhaps deserves a rescue, the others should simply stay where it’s cooler.

But it’s because this team does not have the kind of superheroes who insist on maintaining order and justice. Shiller wasn’t entirely on the side of order; Greed was even more chaotic among them; Deathstroke no need to mention, a killer who isn’t related to justice at all; Little Superman is the odd one out in Superman, whose specialty is using youthful exuberance to commit carnage.

So to them, although failing to save the female police officer is somewhat regrettable, it’s not worth replaying from the start for such a regret. The rest don’t need rescuing; even if it results in a bad ending, it’s only due to the game’s poor character performance; a few curses would suffice.

However, some people would not think so, that person is Batman.

Don’t be misled by each protagonist in the game being extraordinary, but if you examine closely, they can also be considered pitiful individuals.

In Nina’s memory, Andrew wasn’t so bad initially. He was cheerful, loved joking, although occasionally irritable, but within controllable range, and he hadn’t done anything to harm Nina; they used to have a sweet romance.

Sure! Here is the translated text:

But ever since he got addicted to gambling and drugs, he seemed like a different person, or perhaps those two things can indeed fundamentally change a person. However, the fact that he got addicted to them can’t entirely be blamed on him alone. If it’s easier to buy drugs than medicine in a community, it’s really hard for someone growing up in such an environment to avoid dealing with these things.

Then there’s Nina, who was already pitiful with cognitive issues, and couldn’t afford the expensive gender transition surgery and subsequent care. After meeting Andrew, she was constantly manipulated and exploited, even sinking into the mire of the Red Light District, which can’t be blamed on her.

The policewoman is even more innocent. To put it bluntly, someone who chooses to be a cop rather than a Mob member inherently leans towards maintaining order and justice. If she didn’t have that Sympathy, she probably wouldn’t have become a police officer.

Especially being a cop near such a community is a high-risk profession. You never know which street might have a junkie who can’t distinguish between a gun and a fire poker. In such situations, still reaching out to help someone like Nina is a societal example, a model of not forgetting one’s original aspiration.

Batman is someone who would save even Joker. After facing such a plot, let alone the policewoman, even Andrew and Nina, and even that seemingly violent male relative, he surely wants to save them all.

The downside is, although the character’s capabilities are weak, they aren’t entirely absent, and the design is clever. Smart people can think of many clever solutions, and as long as there’s a slight possibility, Batman will try.

And as long as he tries, he has to swallow those two lumps of crap all over again. Those two protagonists seem stronger than the last segment of the story, but they actually offer no freedom at all, no room to maneuver, and no speedrun route. You’ll just have to swallow this crap.

As for whether Batman has the leisure for this, to put it bluntly, a Batman without leisure wouldn’t even participate in such a game. In fact, if he hadn’t played through all the Battleworld games, he wouldn’t experience player-created content. This is something hardcore game enthusiasts do. Such a person will complete all collections and achievements, likely serving time across all the game platforms, and won’t give up facing this kind of game.

And once this Batman obsessively wants to achieve the complete rescue ending, he must repeatedly emerge from those two lengthy and tedious games, try repeatedly in the final segment—and indeed, it’s like a straight gut to the brain, as much intake as there is output.

Clearly, just rescuing these three people isn’t a very difficult thing for Batman. In the game, the flow of time is different; being imprisoned here isn’t necessarily tougher than in Gotham.

Therefore, when these two amazing individuals drove up to the state border, in front of a small motel next to a gas station, everyone had a bad premonition.

Sure enough, these two disguised as a couple and checked into this motel. As soon as they got back to their room, Andrew proposed that they needed to get some money, or else they’d have no place to settle even if they escaped. Coincidentally, this motel and gas station are quite secluded, so why not go all the way and get some money from the owner.

But people who dare to run a gas station and motel here aren’t easy to mess with. So Andrew suggested they put on a show, lure the owner out and kill him. This way, besides getting some money, they might even swap for a good car and run all the way to Canada, becoming completely free.

Nina still followed Andrew’s every word. Despite Andrew being rotten to the core, he was quite clever. He deliberately made Nina appear very nervous, as if she’s under threat, and act like she’s very afraid of Andrew, as if she didn’t come here voluntarily.

Nina was already mentally unstable, and after a recent hospital visit, she looked worn out and exhausted, indeed not quite right. The owner noticed this easily, and so when they went to the gas station’s convenience store to check out, while Andrew was fetching something, the owner quietly inquired about Nina’s situation.

Nina took the opportunity to pose as a kidnapped innocent and seek help from the owner. The owner actually had long realized Andrew wasn’t a good person, but Nina’s appearance and demeanor were indeed deceptively convincing. Even an experienced player like Deathstroke nearly fell for it before, and the owner was no exception.

When Andrew returned, the owner let Nina hide behind the counter. Nina took the opportunity to run inside, and the owner pulled out a gun, aiming it at Andrew. While Andrew and the owner were arguing, Nina grabbed a flowerpot from the windowsill behind and smashed it on the owner’s head. Andrew immediately pulled out his gun and fired two shots, and the two of them killed the owner just like that.

The player unexpectedly got involved in this process. They tried to knock things off the counter to attract the owner’s attention, opened the freezer’s door to make the owner leave, and attempted to redirect Nina’s flowerpot or Andrew’s gun, but evidently, all these attempts failed. The player’s Strength was simply too weak, or maybe they missed a crucial step, which led to performing some futile actions.

It’s not necessarily their folly. Nobody here truly wants to play anymore; doing these things was just for show, to indicate they weren’t slacking off and tried to push the plot forward. As for rushing towards a bad ending, it’s only fair to curse the game’s planners for their heartlessness.