Chapter 4790

For a moment, greed felt a little dazed, wondering if he had somehow returned to the real world. In a virtual asymmetrical game world, how could someone so casually say, "I'll go take a call"?

You should know, this is a holographic simulation game, not some keyboard-tapping electronic game you play sitting at a computer. Moreover, it's a player-versus-player game, not a single-player game where you can pause, go to the bathroom, and come back to continue. You're telling me you need to take a call?

Where did the phone come from? Who would call you? Why must you go take a call at this exact moment?

But greed quickly gave up pondering these questions, because he felt the agent simply didn't want to carry out the original plan, casually made up an excuse, and ran off. So he could only helplessly shake his head and go find Matt himself.

But the agent really was just going to take a call. Following the directions, he came to the internal telephone hanging on the wall in the storage room.

"Hello? May I ask what you need from me?"

Arkham Batman was momentarily choked. For a moment, he also felt he wasn't in a perilous slaughter game, and the agent had merely received a bizarre telemarketing call on a Monday morning. He seemed completely indifferent to who was calling or why.

"It's me." Arkham Batman spoke. He knew the agent would surely recognize his voice, so he continued, "I used a skill on you, altering your victory condition. You should be able to see it. I just want to hear your opinion."

The agent indeed saw it. He said: "So now you want to recruit me? Have me work for you, take them all down, and then let me withdraw?"

"Exactly, are you willing?"

"Sure."

Arkham Batman's subsequent persuasive words were all choked back. The agent agreed a little too readily, to the extent that Arkham Batman couldn't help but wonder if there was some trick involved.

"Are you confident you can take them down?" Arkham Batman asked.

"Taking them down is your job," the agent said, "all I can do is not cause you trouble. But I originally couldn't cause much trouble anyway. Given my luck, I fundamentally can't win at gambling; my skill is mainly just escaping. If you don't come chase me, this game has nothing to do with me."

"You have a gun." Arkham Batman reminded him.

"Yes, but bullets aren't infinite, and now they're already less than half," the agent said, "if you want me to shoot people at a critical moment, or block their movements, that's probably impossible."

"Why?"

"They're very united," the agent said, "if I openly defect, even if I attack the non-aggressive greed, his teammates, like Matt, will definitely come attack me, and I can't beat him. By then, I will definitely be eliminated by them."

"Never mind that even if I die before them I still can't achieve victory. Your skill should be a one-time thing; if I'm easily defeated by them, then wouldn't you have wasted it?"

Arkham Batman pondered briefly, feeling the agent made sense—his ultimate skill really could only be used once in the whole match, otherwise it would be too overpowered. As long as he buys enough time, getting all five people to defect is definitely impossible.

Under the condition of only being able to have one internal line, this person must be very precious. If he dies easily, this ultimate skill would be wasted.

Gamblers aren't like him, the house—although they can be controlled, they won't be killed; they have health limits. If beaten to death, they enter a dying state; if teammates don't rescue them, they can only lie on the ground, useless.

Rather than let them charge forward, it's better to provide some intelligence from behind. After all, with the internal telephone enabling communication, information is always valuable to Batman.

Arkham Batman adjusted his thinking, saying: "I originally wanted you to fire a key shot, taking out the most troublesome person. But as you said, even if you knock him down, they might drag him back up, then turn and surround you, and you still couldn't beat them."

"So I think you'd better just gather some intelligence," Arkham Batman said, "tell me your team's financial situation and operational plans. Perhaps you could also conceal some important information to cause them minor trouble, but be careful not to expose yourself."

"I'll do my best," the agent said.

After saying that, he left, and Arkham Batman watched his retreating back. But soon he was drawn to something else—Superman had found a very important safe in the upstairs office.

Arkham Batman knew this because when the safe was opened and something was taken out, his vision suddenly turned red for a period. Arkham Batman immediately realized the safe should correspond to the previous game's seal, and the gamblers' ultimate goal is to open five safes and take the important items inside.

Although this round's plot explanation is even vaguer than the last, one can roughly guess that five felons actively ran into the casino to participate in some kind of pursuit-evasion game, with the ultimate goal of obtaining funds. The items placed in the safes should be the key to their comeback.

As the casino's house and boss, Arkham Batman naturally wouldn't allow these thieves to steal his belongings, so he pursues and kills them in the casino. Now the first safe has been opened; Arkham Batman sees that opening another safe would unlock another set; and if three safes are opened, the Batman suit will evolve; if four safes are opened, the Batman suit will be further strengthened.

Recalling the intensity of the final chase last round, Arkham Batman even began to hope they'd hurry up and open the safes.

When the first safe was opened, greed happened to find Matt. Matt gave him a large pile of chips, all he had scavenged during this period, all left for greed.

Then Matt said again: "I saw Lucifer open a box; there should be plenty of good stuff inside. I need to get it from him before he finishes gambling. You stay here, don't run around, I'll go and come back quickly."

Greed nodded. He actually wasn't too worried. Previously choosing to linger by the gambling table and engage with Arkham Batman wasn't entirely due to insufficient greed. In fact, he had a skill that could be called heaven-defying, named "Resurrection Coin."

"Resurrection Coin: When you enter a dying state, you can spend all your chips on hand to perform one resurrection, immediately returning to a standing state. The more chips spent, the higher your health in standing state, but it will never exceed 50% of your total life value. (Once this skill is used, all chips in hand are cleared, cooldown 20 minutes.)"

Although this skill has a cooldown, it has no usage limit. That is, as long as greed isn't corpse-camped or continuously slashed, he can keep relying on Resurrection Coin to resurrect and flee.

Moreover, the Resurrection Coin's requirement, while having an upper limit, has no lower limit. That is, even with only one chip on hand, you can activate this skill, though you'll stand up with only a sliver of health.

This is obviously because he lacks attack and escape means, a balancing skill given by the system. But if used well, he can still move as if through an uninhabited realm. Because after the ghost knocks a person down, it needs to carry them somewhere rather than execute them on the spot; otherwise, there'd be a chance to escape midway. As long as he takes advantage of Arkham Batman's inattention, suddenly resurrects, stands up, and flees, it'll work.

But now, greed values his other two skills more, because he is now about to begin the primitive accumulation of capital.

Greed's first skill is controlling win rate. Just as Arkham Batman anticipated, this skill can increase the win rate of gambling facilities currently in use. The value given is also very generous, higher than Arkham Batman's win rate manipulation, because after all, this is a single-target skill.

And the other skill is more interesting. This skill's name is "Quite Insightful Investor," and its effect is to select a teammate for investment. However, the way to gain returns is not by having this teammate make money, but rather: the closer this teammate is to the ghost, the longer the engagement time, the higher the multiplier on Shiler's side, and the multiplier will accumulate infinitely upward.

And when the same invested teammate is injured—that is, after being slashed by the ghost—returns are settled. And if this slash puts them in a dying state, the gains can be directly doubled.

However, correspondingly, if this teammate is far from the ghost, the invested money will decrease over time, meaning there's no guaranteed profit, and loss is possible.

Actually, the best method is to find a teammate you've communicated with, invest in him, then let him kite the ghost, slash for blood, and run back; after a brief rest, fight again. This way, you can infinitely gain money.

But in actual operation, it's impossible to be this ideal. He must first find the ghost; if luck is bad and he always can't find it, then this money will be lost; then he must wits and courage against the ghost, and the contact range required is actually quite close—at least definitely enough to trigger background music; finally, he must take a slash to trigger settlement. If any link in this chain fails, it's total loss.

Greed initially chose the agent, after all he's professional and has a gun for self-defense. Even if he takes a slash, he can turn back to restrain Arkham Batman, then flee. Investing in him would be profit without loss.

But the agent ran off for some reason, and now no one knows where he wandered off to. Greed doesn't have time to wait for him to return, but he's also a bit uneasy about Matt. Although his mapping ability is strong, he lacks control and escape means; going up to slash for blood and take a hit, he might not get away.

Greed found a gambling table, controlling win rate while gambling to earn chips, while pondering countermeasures.

Rather than binding one person permanently, it's better to try several people. Those who do investment know they need to hedge risk. Although one could let agents and Matt-like strongsters go slash for blood, but for someone like Lucifer who doesn't play well, taking a slash would be even more naturally suited.

However, greed didn't immediately invest in Lucifer, precisely because Lucifer hasn't even figured out how to play this game. He completely disregards the rules, turning the game into a street-walking gambling simulator. He's currently wandering around the casino, collecting chips, then going to gamble money.

Since he himself doesn't even know where he's going, Arkham Batman can't predict his movement trajectory. Moreover, because he indeed poses no threat, Arkham Batman won't choose to deal with him first.

The agent and Matt—one fled, one mapped—are also hard to catch. They're always circling greed, making greed hard to catch as well. So this soft persimmon, kneaded back and forth, still must go for Superman.