On the way to Salem City, Diana was clearly holding something back.
Shane was the one who noticed something was off with Diana and took the initiative to ask.
"What's wrong, Teacher Prince?"
"Oh, I wanted to tell you not to take offense at Batman monitoring you. He's always been like that, and the same goes for the things he said."
Shane raised his eyebrows in surprise at that.
"Take offense? Monitoring? What's there to take offense at?"
Diana was stunned. After all, when she had accidentally found the bug Batman had planted on her, she had thrown quite a fit.
Their flight, which had initially put her half a body ahead, slowed slightly. Diana carefully studied Shane's features.
The boy seemed genuinely unbothered, which left her puzzled.
"You've only been on Earth for a short while, yet you've already discovered something like this. Doesn't having your freedom restricted make you uncomfortable?"
Shane shook his head without hesitation. After thinking for two seconds about how to answer, a faint smile even appeared on his face.
"I've been on Earth for almost twenty days now. Aside from the three days I was unconscious at the beginning, both the week I spent recovering and these eight days I've spent with you, Teacher Prince, have felt like a wonderfully relaxing vacation to me."
"There was no training that pushed my body to its limits, and no one forcing me to fight to the death against other warriors my age, or even older."
"No instructor who beat and cursed at me whenever they felt like it."
Shane's gaze went slightly unfocused, clearly sinking into some painful memories.
"Do you know, I didn't hear the word 'vacation' for the first time until I arrived on Earth? On Viltrum, taking a vacation was a privilege reserved for warriors who were at least five hundred years old and had rendered outstanding service."
"For the first ten years of my life, every day when I opened my eyes, all I ever faced was battle, injury, slaughter... and my instructor's abuse and beatings."
When Diana had first received Bruce's communication, she had indeed treated teaching Shane as nothing more than a task.
She knew nothing about Shane's past. During this past week, she had simply trained him as an ordinary young warrior who needed help in certain areas.
To Diana, this week and more had been like reliving the training and education she had received as a girl on Themyscira.
The only difference was that she had gone from being the student to being the teacher.
It was only after hearing Shane describe his past in detail that Diana felt shocked—and pity began to well up in her heart.
"How could a species like that exist?"
When Diana had first arrived in human society and described life on Themyscira to others, their strange expressions had seemed to constantly remind her of how barbaric the Amazonians were compared with human society.
Now, Diana had experienced that feeling firsthand.
Her impression of Viltrum plummeted straight into negative numbers, while her heart ached even more for this boy who was expressionless most of the time.
"So I should be grateful you didn't lose your temper and punch Batman?"
Shane glanced sideways at the road ahead, speechless. Does this world's Diana have some personal grudge against Batman?
"After arriving on Earth, I never tried to hide most of my past or Viltrum's culture. Viltrum is a civilization that has turned invading other planets into a custom and a source of glory. It's perfectly normal for some people on Earth to be wary of me."
Shane sighed.
"To put it more bluntly, Teacher Prince, I've watched quite a few reports about the Justice League on television. Your members' personalities were fairly obvious in most interviews, as well as in the press conference when the League was founded."
"If you'll pardon my saying so, aside from Batman, most members of the Justice League give off a certain naivety."
"Superman, Flash, and Shazam are all the type who could be won over by me playing the victim a little. None of them can defend against targeted schemes."
"Aquaman, Green Lantern, and you, Teacher Prince, either have a people to govern or another organization dividing your attention. None of you can devote your primary focus to the Justice League."
Diana subconsciously began to protest, only to be cut off by Shane's abruptly shifting topic.
"I saw an old report saying that Mr. Bruce, who has dealings with Batman, enthusiastically covered most of the League's expenses back then. So you see, even the financier came through Batman's private connections."
Hidden in those words was a secret Diana had to keep, leaving her tongue-tied for a moment.
"Funding, planning, communications, changing bases, danger alerts."
"In an organization famous throughout the world, all of that is handled by one person."
Diana stared wide-eyed, completely unable to refute him for a moment. In fact, two years ago, Batman had even been the only person opposed to establishing the Justice League.
Yet now he had become the core that kept the League running.
"It's not just him. Cyborg helps too."
After holding it in for a long while, Diana finally produced a feeble rebuttal.
Shane did not speak again this time. As for Cyborg, he actually had an even sharper summary.
For example, despite possessing cutting-edge, universe-level technology, his greatest contribution was apparently serving as a supercomputer and an artificial intelligence.
In this place that claimed to value freedom of speech, Cyborg had never stepped in to control public opinion. Just look at how badly the Justice League was being criticized online.
Yet Cyborg was also the only person who, after appearing just once at the Justice League's founding two years ago, had never shown up in public again.
To the vast majority of the public, Cyborg was still merely a machine-enhanced human with powerful technological firepower.
Information about Cyborg's true abilities could not be obtained through ordinary media, so Shane had no reason to have access to the relevant channels.
Shane passed through a cloud, exhaling a breath of condensed mist, then spread his hands toward Diana, who was still glaring at him.
"I can tell that all of you are very kind people, so I understand why Batman seems difficult to deal with in your eyes."
"But to me, Batman is merely rather direct with his words. So far, he's seemed more considerate than even the gentlest instructor on our planet."
Shane was not making that up. From beginning to end, Batman had merely warned him a few times from the standpoint of an Earthling. That was still far better than the instructors who casually stomped and broke his thigh bones.
For the first time, Diana heard such a shocking evaluation of Batman, and she grabbed a lock of her hair in distress.
"Shane."
"Teacher Prince?"
Diana began grinding her pearly teeth.
"If you ever lose your powers one day, I hope you'll remember to rob a bank in Gotham City."
?
It was a nonsensical remark and therefore fell into the category of things that did not need to be addressed.
Shane flew a little lower and studied the layout of the city below for a while.
"Have we already reached Salem City, Teacher Prince?"
Before you continue