Deathstroke opened his mouth. How could he not know? Joseph always seemed to think it was dangerous for him to be with Shiller, and he seemed to not have an accurate understanding of his own father's strength.
Shiller was indeed dangerous, but Deathstroke understood that madmen usually weren't too interested in someone who worked for money. As long as he stayed firm in this belief, he wouldn't be in life-threatening danger. And for a Cyborg like him, if it's not life-threatening, it's not dangerous.
On the contrary, there are many benefits to getting close to Shiller. For example, he could get jobs from the Justice League and spend Batman's money recklessly. Judging by Shiller's ability to create job opportunities, there would surely be more commissions in the future.
Deathstroke's decision to maintain a relatively close relationship with Shiller was a result of careful consideration, rather than just happening upon it. Ultimately, they all lick the knife's edge; does it matter which knife they're closer to? Joseph clearly hadn't realized this, worrying unnecessarily about too many things.
But now it was his turn. Even though he internally knew Joseph was grown up, no longer the little boy who'd hug his leg and cry, and that he had superpowers, a Range Mind Reading Technique, and a precise mental manipulation ability, leaving nothing really to worry about, he just couldn't help it.
He didn't want to appear too weak or out of control, so he pretended to speak rationally: "Joseph isn't suited for this line of work. It's not just about having superpowers. He's too soft-hearted."
"Yes, he doesn't have any innate shortcomings," Shiller said. "He's an ordinary person with normal emotions. Even if you agreed, he wouldn't become a hitman. He simply can't accept the idea of taking money to kill."
"Then why do you..."
"He's just here to bail you out," Shiller said, "and if you're thinking of changing your style to become a stealth-type hitman, you'll have plenty more of these situations in the future."
Deathstroke was speechless. Having his son tidy up after him was embarrassing. He could only imagine what Joseph was silently criticizing him for.
However, it didn't show from the outside. Joseph was having a great conversation with the Halls. From their lip movements, it was clear Joseph was pretending to be someone sent by the Justice League, and the persona he feigned indeed matched the Justice League's vibe, somewhat like The Flash, an upbeat and cheerful young man. The Halls had no suspicion and were already planning when to set off.
Deathstroke wondered if it was his imagination, feeling as though Joseph glanced his way, with a look of slight disdain mixed with helplessness. It was hard for Deathstroke to describe his current emotions.
Even though it was a non-lethal errand, with an incredibly simple task, it was still taking up Joseph's precious graduation holiday. Knowing Joseph, his entire holiday schedule was probably fully booked. Besides his graduation trip, he likely wanted to get himself a set of computer equipment to play the latest games, repair the old piano he had since childhood, and even planned to get a driver's license and find an old car to drive.
A trip to Midway City was definitely not on his agenda. Picking up the Halls and taking them to the East Coast would delay him for at least a few days. Deathstroke was genuinely surprised that he was willing.
After all, for boys at this age, it's impressive if they even open the door for their parents while playing video games. Deathstroke hadn't expected much from him, which made him deeply touched now.
However touched he was, the investigation had to continue. Last night, Deathstroke imitated the tone of their conversation again, recorded it, and sent it to his middleman.
The middleman, seemingly not wanting to ruin his reputation, must have activated many connections, as they managed to decipher some of it. However, they still had no clue what language it was, only determining it was likely a language from Earth, possibly an extremely niche branch of Arabic.
From the deciphered results, besides mentioning a priest, one word that sounded like a person's name repeatedly appeared: "Shit (Set)." It was inferred that this priest's name was Shit.
Even though they couldn't understand the content, fortunately, when humans speak, things like tone and pitch have something in common, and Deathstroke mimicked it so perfectly. The decoders concluded that this priest Shit had enmity with the speaker because every time the name was mentioned, the tone was full of gritted teeth.
Furthermore, they checked this so-called Shit, but found nothing. There were simply too many people with that name, and no mentions of any significant figures.
The trail broke off again here. Deathstroke had to find another way. Now Joseph was downstairs chatting with them; they shouldn't transform into Golden Armor Warriors. So, Deathstroke simply climbed over the wall into the yard, arriving near the bedroom they resided in.
There were no clues in the bedroom, but there was a study next door. Demonstrating utmost caution, Deathstroke took a peek inside, finding most things to be normal. However, he did find something quite peculiar among the latest manuscripts — a document written in a mysterious script he had never seen before.
Deathstroke took a picture and hurriedly left. After he sent the picture over, the middleman finally had a lead. Not long after, he sent back a rough translation and told Deathstroke that it was Egyptian.
Not the Arabic used in Egypt now, but the genuine ancient Egyptian language, in the "Holy Book Style". Usually, it was the written text used by clergy in Ancient Egypt. Furthermore, from some details, it can be judged that this belongs to the Late Egyptian Language, which appeared during the reign of Tutankhamun in The Eighteenth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, a language used for daily communication.
This left Deathstroke scratching his head. Although he knew they were experts in Ancient Egypt, wasn't this a bit too specialized? Using the ancient Egyptian language for daily conversation?
Then the information from the middleman made Deathstroke even more confused. The middleman said that the intonation of this language had completely been lost. Because Arabs conquered Egypt so early, and with such a long history from then to now, Arab culture has completely covered ancient Egyptian culture, making it impossible for the intonation to be preserved. So, one cannot deduce that the two audio clips were ancient Egyptian based solely on this.
But Deathstroke just felt that it absolutely was ancient Egyptian. These two people are very suspicious. Could it be that they were really possessed by the pharaoh's spirit?
Just as he thought of this, Joseph had already come out of the art gallery. When Deathstroke looked at him, Joseph turned his head to look back at him. Then the two of them converged on the street beside them.
"You..." Deathstroke just started to speak, but Joseph glanced around, then said, "It's not convenient to talk here, let's find a safer place."
Then they went to the lakeside of Central Lake, finding a deserted place. Joseph said, "Hall's real name is Hufu. He is the twenty-ninth son of Pharaoh Ramses II of The Nineteenth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. However, he hasn't lived continuously up to today; he has been reincarnating. His wife is his former partner, Tui Aya. Both of them have reincarnated to the present day."
"During the Ancient Egyptian period, they obtained a mysterious metal from an alien spaceship. They forged three treasures from the metal— a sharp treasure sword, a Holy Beetle Talisman, and Horus's Claw. Their minion, an evil priest named Has Shet, stole the treasure sword and used it to kill them. This led to all three of their souls continually reincarnating, with Shit being their enemy in each lifetime."
"In this life, they become archaeologists of Ancient Egypt, retrieving the Amulet and gloves. Fearing being found by Shit, they came to America and established this art gallery, living here incognito. But it seems Shit has found them again, and they are afraid, preparing to seek the protection of the Justice League."
"Both the Holy Beetle Talisman and Horus's Claw are with them. Using these two treasures, they can transform into Hawkman and Eagle Woman, enabling flight, self-healing, and immunity from true death. However, they lack strength and combat skills, and are not as strong as you."
After Joseph finished speaking, Deathstroke's mind buzzed with confusion. Is this Mind Reading Technique too powerful? Just from a few words, he figured out their past and present lives?
Seeing Deathstroke looking skeptical, Joseph didn't bother to say more. He said, "I'm not someone who just relies on superpowers to force my way through things. In fact, unless faced with very troublesome problems, I don't use my superpowers at all. If it weren't to help you, I wouldn't be doing this. Believe it or not."
"Hey, wait!" Deathstroke quickly called out to Joseph, "I didn't say I don't believe you, I just think this is too ridiculous."
Then his train of thought went off on another tangent. If the Halls are really people of Ancient Egypt, then the artifacts they created are genuine artifacts? So the mural isn't fake, it's a real Ancient Egyptian artifact!
This really shocked Deathstroke. Originally, he had reluctantly accepted the fact that the entire mural was fake; now you're telling me the mural is real— even if it might have been made less than a month ago, using entirely modern materials, pure and unquestionably new, but it's genuine.
Because it was designed and manufactured by people of Ancient Egypt, reflecting the historical culture and artistic aesthetics of Ancient Egypt, even if its medium is modern materials, it's truly a genuine artifact!
And Shiller's plan to mass-produce fake artifacts to confuse everyone wasn't fake artifact production at all, but a production line for authentic Ancient Egyptian artifacts.
This is like a book by an author dead for several thousand years being suddenly updated today and set to continue with stable serial updates in the future. This truly is unreal.
It's no wonder. That mural could deceive both Wonder Woman and the curator of the Egyptian Museum. With several transactions in these hands, not one person saw through it. Because its creator, Hall, was the direct son of Pharaoh Ramses II, a prince from the court of Ancient Egypt, counted among the artists with considerable culture and aesthetics in Ancient Egypt. If there were flaws, that would be strange.
Shiller, Shiller. Deathstroke thought to himself. You've really got some tricks. Just to create job opportunities for yourself, you even dredged up people of Ancient Egypt... Wait a minute. Deathstroke suddenly remembered something— all of this started with Batman's inexplicable disappearance. Could that also be something Shiller did?!