Standing by the fireplace, Natasha was turning the coal in the hearth with a pair of tongs as she asked, "Recognize you? What do you mean by 'recognize you'?"
"That is, that is…" Shiller hesitated slightly, then wore a troubled expression and said, "It means they've heard of me."
"Isn't that a good thing? Who would mind being too famous?"
Shiller's lips moved, but in the end, he did not utter the word 'cheater'. The others only reacted then, with Stark holding his arm and dragging out his words: "You mean they've heard about your glorious deeds?"
Shiller nodded and said: "Not all of them. Just the more recent ones and including my performance in the previous few games."
"Who's so safety-conscious?" Seeing the glare from Shiller, Natasha immediately changed her tone: "I mean, who's got such a big mouth? Why would they spread this? But don't be upset, you're famous in the Multiverse."
"Was his reputation in the Multiverse small before?" Stark rolled his eyes and said, adding gleefully: "It seems that you've been too high-profile before, causing public anger."
Shiller sighed deeply, thinking back to what happened in the last two games.
The two games he participated in required Wisdom, for he had found that Wisdom-type games typically had shorter durations and did not consume much energy, making them ideal for a round before meals.
As Shiller had predicted, Wisdom-based games were usually conducted in closed rooms, either involving questions and answers, escape, or station clearance similar to a Killer doll. On the whole, it wasn't very difficult.
But the difficulty of the game wasn't in the game itself – it lied in encountering all sorts of characters from other universes during the game, possibly even their other-universe selves.
But recently, a rumor has been spreading among the various teams - the true difficulty of the game doesn't come from the organizers or from ordinary team members, but from a scam group that spans the Multiverse and even the large world.
Yes, the wanted list clearly had four names - Shiller, Nick, Loki, and Doctor Strange.
Although these four weren't assigned to the same team, it seems their moral standards weren't to be swayed by different team associations, nationalities, or external environment.
The most serious cases were Loki and Doctor Strange, as they had contacts with similar entities from other universes even before the Battleworld opened.
Loki had previously organized a group of his own from other universes to help deal with affairs in Asgard. Although no Loki APP had been developed, Asgard had a more advanced communication device, so obviously they had a group chat.
The young Loki was mainly idle, and the old ones who survived, apart from being idle, had basically no other business. So, quite a few Lokis from many universes managed to contact each other, and revolving around the Central Universe continually tread downwards on the glorious pathway of depreciating the average level of interstellar property security.
Loki himself was quite clever, and combined with his talents, was quite suitable to conduct scams. Now with the Central Universe having developed a complete system, their scams were becoming quite advanced. For a time, all universes began to guard against fire, theft, and Loki.
Loki of the Central Universe has not been in this business for long, and the other Lokis had even less time to learn and imitate. For Asgardians, a few months isn't enough playtime, is it?
Just as Lokis were motivated and set to create new heights, Battleworld opened, and quite a few Lokis were pulled in.
If satisfaction couldn't be met in the real world, then satisfaction could be sought in the game. They say all kinds of birds could be found in a large forest. The more people there were, the more fools would show up, as well as plenty of foolish rich people.
Weapons were allowed in the Battleworld, even if you knew in advance that it would be opening and brought all your possessions, the organizers wouldn't cast you out. But due to the sudden opening, luck would determine what anyone brought, although some good things were certainly present.
If one fool in the team was cheated, there would always be a smart one who could ask the fooled person about the cheating process and who the cheater was. And within that team, everyone else would remember the smart person's analysis, and they would spread the words around in the game.
Unluckily, Loki had a distinct image, with Asgard's clothing style, speaking demeanor, and appearance differing greatly from humans, and with so many Lokis running around in the game, many had quickly realized: Damn it, there are cheaters!
As for Doctor Strange, he had previously communicated with Supreme Magicians from other universes. During the Multidimensional manhunt for the serial killer Doctor Strange, many Doctor Stranges gave a hand to the Ancient One – with the Ancient One gathered, they would also gather occasionally.
Doctor Strange wasn't like Loki who loved showing off, his demeanor was relatively low-key, but alas, he was powerful.
Both Doctor Strange and the Ancient One were insiders. Doctor Strange standing there with his energy strength was like a bright light bulb – who wouldn't see him? His powers didn't allow him to keep a low profile.
If he was strong, others would certainly be curious about why he was so powerful. Thus, Strange could only sigh deeply, slowly savor a cup of tea, and start from the beginning.
Most universes were still dealing with Demon Gods head-on, punching one if it showed up, pairing up to beat a pair; even in Doctor Strange's generation, there were times they were not able to overcome them.
Having listened to Strange's thoughts, everyone found them reasonable. But given that each universe's situation is different and the eras they reside in are also different, some barely managing their own survival, they couldn't shoulder the responsibility of the Central Universe just yet. However, both Doctor Strange and The Ancient One had plans for transformation.
But they all knew, theory alone was not enough. Practical experience was needed. They were supposed to visit the Central Universe for inspection but were dragged to Battleworld before they could do so.
Since they had idle time, they took this opportunity to seriously consider the Central Universe's method. But mere thought wasn't enough, they had an idea they wanted to try immediately and couldn't wait for even half a second.
As is well known, the Ponzi scheme was thoroughly debunked, yet people still fell for it generation after generation due to insatiable greed. Moreover, The Sanctum has accumulated rich experience in battles against Demon Gods, summarized numerous systems for different situations. So, it's not that superheroes are easy to deceive, it's that the other party possesses a Gundam.
Doctor Strange himself was well suited for deception. Even though his eloquence and acting skills were not as natural as Loki's, most versions of Stephen Strange harbored a certain resentment towards the wealthy.
The so-called love is the best teacher, coupled with the complementary magic and illusion techniques for deception, after a few rounds of games, his record was brilliant and he became a figure to be wary of.
Nick was slightly inferior. Even though he had plans to expand the workforce in the Multiverse, it was currently limited to a small number of superheroes. He hadn't found his counterparts from other universes, and the classic reimbursement system hasn't been promoted, diminishing its impact.
However, no Nick Fury from any universe is easy to deal with. Without the knowledge of the "reimbursement hero", he possessed the courage. In a place where there was no need to abide by real-world ethics and morality, Nick seemed to have unlocked his full potential, establishing his own home turf and leaving a profound impression on all participants.
Then there's Shiller. Shiller's fame alone was greater than all three of them combined. Sure enough, he had a lot of victims.
There was a theory that you could meet anyone in the world through six individuals. This wasn't unreasonable because the process from one to two, from two to four is exponential growth, and the explosion of exponentials is unimaginably rapid.
There were people in the Multiverse who already knew Shiller. Aside from hearing about Shiller from their counterparts in some Marvel universes, Shiller had already visited the main universe in DC, so plenty of people there knew him.
After coming to Battleworld, Shiller fought against a lot of people, and then many more people watched the matches he participated in. Added together, this was quite a significant number.
Word spread, and with a single case becoming ten and ten becoming a hundred, even more, people knew about Shiller.
Due to human nature, many who merely watched Shiller or heard legends about him considered him a doubtful, yet gripping, character with a mysterious aura who's also a psychologist.
But with endless amounts of gossip passing around, if one person said Shiller summoned something unknown and destroyed a stage of the theater, the next would insist Shiller summoned an Evil God and destroyed the cinema, the camp, and the stage all in one go. A third might claim that Shiller had summoned gods and Buddhas alike, dismantling everything and nearly punching a hole through Battleworld with a single fist.
Regardless of the truth, Shiller finally returned to his rightful place—being the mastermind behind all major events.
In short, a common saying among the competing teams started to circulate: If anything major happens, blame Shiller. Whether it's game card issues, campfires, abnormal space sightings in their original universe, city invasions by aliens, or even if one's trash can at the doorstep was tipped over three times in a week, don't question it; it was all Shiller's doing.
All the answers in the multiple-choice questions were guessed correctly in an incredibly improbable way.
Then they started thinking, since Shiller is so terrifying, are there any ways to deal with him?
At that moment, those who had interacted with him in the past stepped forward, providing everyone with fourteen words of guiding principle—"Ignore, don't look, don't feel, don't ask, don't answer, and don't be curious."
Simply put, as long as one encounters Shiller, regardless of what one sees, act as if they didn't see it; whatever he says, act as if they didn't hear it; whatever one feels around him, act as if it doesn't exist.
Don't ask him any questions, don't answer any questions he asks, and most importantly, don't get curious about him.
The explosive growth of the exponential function finally reached its critical point after Shiller finished his last game. Therefore, in the upcoming two rounds of the game, all of Shiller's teammates played dumb.
What's annoying was that even the second round was a ghost story script. Thor from some universe, upon seeing a Hobgoblin, shouted "Father of All Gods above!" and rushed up with an ax. Meanwhile, upon seeing Shiller, he wailed "Queen of Gods, save me!" and scuttled away.
And so, Shiller experienced a different kind of bullying from the Marvel Universe: "We're having a super cool party with plenty of psychiatric patients with complicated disorders and superheroes who need to vent their emotions. Guess who we didn't invite?"