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Barbados had actually noticed the Laughing bat before, after all his level of madness was among the top in the entire Dark multiverse, but as the saying goes, what's past is past, and now is now.
As for the state of Barbados at the time he was recruiting Laughing bat, the comics didn't elaborate, but judging from Barbados's subsequent combat situations, the Barbados group always seemed to be rather short-staffed.
Many readers who have read the comics could, after going through the entire story involving Barbados, barely name a few of his major generals. In the end, they would come up with Laughing bat on the right hand, and Court of Owls on the left, and at most, they might add Perpetua with whom there was a collaboration—beyond that, they couldn't recall anything else.
In other words, Barbados dominated the entire Dark multiverse, but after much searching, what he pulled out was just a so-called worst version of Batman, the Laughing bat.
But this is not surprising. From the comics' portrayal of the Dark multiverse, almost all of the Batmen are essentially background fillers created for the Metal event, with background stories that focus only on the novel, most are half-baked, many are just shoehorning trendy concepts, finding a General among the shorties was already good enough.
Thus, at that time, the importance of Laughing bat to Barbados was self-evident, but everything changed with the arrival of Shiller.
First was Bruce, this bolt-from-the-blue Zĭwēi Star; he didn't even require Barbados to find him himself. He came from afar, traversing vast cosmos to Barbados's domain, and he didn't come empty-handed but rather, full of dragon-slaying skills, all to serve the house of Barbados the Empress.
Once Bruce took up his post, he showed Barbados what it meant to be a pillar that upholds the heavens and a beam that spans the sea.
With his abilities alone, he organized the group's System structure on the one hand, and unflappably pushed forward with the Light Universe invasion plan, while also not forgetting to initiate the Dark multiverse investment integration project, and even spared the time to start the Dark multiverse autumn recruitment drive. If Barbados had read "Three Kingdoms", he would have to compliment him as "my Zhuge Liang".
At this point, the Laughing bat became quite awkward.
It's not like he planned to just sit in his own universe and play the role of a bandit king. Given his penchant for advance predictions, how could he not know that Barbados was rich but foolish? How could he not understand that he needed to rely on Barbados initially to have the capital to stir trouble across the cosmos?
In the original comics, Barbados was very generous to Laughing bat. He directly granted the Laughing bat the ability to alter reality, even allowing Laughing bat to pass on this ability to his subordinates.
You must understand, this kind of power is not something that can be easily conjured. Comparing it to the Legion on the Marvel side, among the many personalities of Legion, only a few of the most powerful who are countable on one hand could alter reality, and Legion is an exceptional existence even within a mutant system that has always been criticized for power creep.
So, it's not that Laughing bat couldn't leave his own universe, but he was squatting in his humble abode every day, waiting for Barbados to need him.
Then came Bruce, changing everything. Barbados stopped coming. Laughing bat had been squatting in his house until his legs went numb and still hadn't seen a shadow of Barbados. His humble home had turned into an absolute toilet.
The best plan was for Barbados to seek him out and ask for his help, but going to find Barbados himself was not out of the question either. Although it might affect the powers he could conjure up from Barbados later, as long as he could use Barbados's passage to the Prime Universe, it wouldn't be a big problem.
And so, Laughing bat went to find Barbados. Of course, all of this was revealed through Bruce's complaints, but he didn't name names, only emphasizing how tired he was already from managing human resources when one day Barbados suddenly threw a resume at him to review.
"What's not to understand?" Bruce said, "The boss wants to slot in his cronies, what can I do? I can only tell him, the person on this resume is indeed excellent, their disposition matches our company's as well, so why not take a look and let him start tomorrow?"
King Robin also became curious, he said, "Aren't you worried that he threatens your position? If he's as capable as you said, and Barbados is making an exception for him, then once he's in power, he will certainly order you around."
"That's what you don't understand." Bruce waved his hand and said, "If the boss was that keen on him, he would've just notified me to let him start, why bother giving me the resume?"
King Robin also realized this at the same time, he said, "Right, he gave you the resume, actually wanting you to reject it?"
"That's not right either." Bruce shook his head and said, "If the boss is too embarrassed to reject a known person and wants me to find a flaw, he would definitely arrange for an interview so I can turn them down in person. If I only point out flaws in the resume, isn't it still the boss who has to do the rejecting?"
King Robin and Little Bruce on the other side of the screen both nodded, Little Bruce turned to Shiller and asked, "So what does this mean?"
"You don't know?"
"I'm usually the boss."
After Little Bruce said this, he began to think as if he were the boss. Why would he do this if he was the boss?
After a moment of thought, Little Bruce had an epiphany and said, "This person might be someone I've had my eye on for a long time. I thought they were very capable back then, but the situation at the company might have been different from now. Although they're skilled, they might not fit the current company's needs, so I need my current right-hand man to vet them."
King Robin clearly also came to this conclusion. He did not know that the parachuter Bruce was speaking of was actually Laughing bat, so he speculated, "Of course, it's possible that your boss was worried you'd be unhappy if he hired that person directly."
"Give me a break, he's far from that humane," Bruce snorted, "He's just worried that bringing someone in would cause conflict between us and get in the way of getting work done."
"Then since you've shown absolutely no objections, why didn't your boss hire him?"
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"That's where you don't understand," Bruce said. "The best way to keep him from coming in is to agree readily."
King Robin and Little Bruce both squinted their eyes, clearly their minds were somewhat inflexible in this regard.
This had to trace back to Bruce's track record ever since he graduated from college. You couldn't say he had defeated any earth-shattering adversaries, nor could you say he had any unique fighting style to speak of, but there was one thing that made him the most unique Universe Batman—he was adept at palace intrigue.
Perhaps it was because he became Batman too early, with too much spare time, or maybe it was due to the rich experience accumulated from years of mutual torment with Shiller, but in any closed environment where he was up against others, Bruce would claim the top spot unchallenged.
To put it nicely, you could say he mastered applied psychology and behavioral science. To put it bluntly, he was naturally cut out for managing a large factory.
"What do you think the boss is most worried about?" Bruce asked.
"Didn't you say it already? He is worried that you two will clash and won't be able to work properly," King Robin replied.
"Sure, he worries about that, but that's not his biggest concern," Bruce said with a smile. "What all bosses fear most is their employees banding together."
"You can have one competent employee, or you can have two competent employees competing with each other, but you can't have several close, perfectly in sync competent employees. Once you do, it's time for you to pack your bags."
King Robin had another moment of realization and said, "I get it now. You want to make your boss think that you and the person he was optimistic about before are on the same side. That will make him worry whether the two of you will join forces against him."
"That's quite likely," Bruce said. "I believe there is a certain risk with the person in the resume he tossed over, he himself might be hesitating."
"If we were at the startup phase of the company, then it wouldn't matter if this guy had flaws, as long as his capabilities outweighed his flaws, capable of driving the whole company forward, fast enough, then no flaw would be a flaw."
"But now that we're at a stable phase of the company, we have to consider whether the damage caused by the flaws within a stable system can be offset by exceptional capabilities. If they just barely make up for it, it doesn't much matter whether you hire or not. If the capabilities slightly outweigh the flaws, then there's a tendency to hire."
"Unfortunately, if the capabilities are only slightly greater than the flaws, but there's also a possibility of forming cliques or establishing a new faction, then it's a firm no-go."
"But why would your boss assume that the two of you could team up just based on your word?"
"Of course it's not just because of one sentence," Bruce snorted. "It's because the two of us are very much alike."
King Robin shuddered suddenly because, although he couldn't pinpoint his feelings about Bruce, there was always an inexplicable sense of déjà vu.
At that moment, he realized where this feeling of déjà vu came from—this Batman could laugh.
Not the fake smile of the Bruce Wayne persona, not a smile put on for show. He was genuinely laughing.
What's more terrifying, he didn't just have one type of laugh; he could laugh heartily in joy, smile smugly in pride, snicker coldly in displeasure. He was just like a normal person.
At the last thought, King Robin almost screamed out loud. A normal person Batman!!!!
King Robin hardly had time to grieve over his dire fate of jumping out of the wolf's den and into the tiger's lair, as he suddenly jumped up, looking at Bruce with an almost terrified gaze.
And Bruce just smiled at him.
"Let's talk about this instead," Bruce said, pointing to the poster in King Robin's hand. "Although I always complain about how bad the company is, our team still has a lot of potential. Come on, let me introduce you to our corporate culture."
King Robin swallowed hard.
But he soon froze because with his intelligence, he immediately surmised that Bruce's boss was Barbados. Barbados had been optimistic about someone very similar to Bruce, but ultimately, Bruce played a trick and kicked him out. And Mad Laugh always had nothing but bad things to say about Barbados—could that mean...
King Robin's expression brightened visibly.
"Corporate culture... Yes, corporate culture, I am quite interested in your corporate culture," King Robin pressed his upper lip down hard, trying to maintain a steady voice. "And your corporate history—I am particularly interested in that section. You'd better give me a thorough explanation..."
"Aren't you in a hurry to find your body? Didn't you say there were a lot of important things inside?"
"It's important, but not that important," King Robin twisted his mouth into a line parallel to the ground, saying, "I think understanding our corporate culture is more significant."