New Gods of North America

Taking advantage of the early hour, Wayne had David Mills' certificate sent to the college, and then, by imperial decree, skipped class for the day.

The morning was spent catching up on sleep, and the afternoon was dedicated to giving the members of the detective agency a grand lecture and doing some motivational work.

Currently, the overall scale of the detective agency is as follows:

Three partners, then Doug, the currently lone 'Official Agent,' who, along with Ryan and Willie, can be considered the original crew of the detective agency.

Then there are the six 'Trainee Agents' recruited later, the eight 'Outer Circle Members' recruited by Doug, the five new friends who just arrived from Conkers City, Seth, who submitted his pledge, and the extras: Peter the big spider, Parker the chef, and a little loli.

After the initial adjustments,

the friends from Conkers City were all converted into prospective 'Trainee Agents,' and three from the outer circle were also converted, plus Seth.

The 'Agent' roster reached a total of eighteen people, while the outer circle members became a total of five.

Cowardly Peter is still hard to say; for now, he can tentatively be considered the 'Sixth Outer Circle Member.'

The initially determined team for the branch office is Ryan as the head, two new trainee agents from Conkers City plus two earlier trainee agents, and the original outer circle members who have become 'three outer circle plus two trainees,'

which is a total of seven 'Agents' and three 'Outer Circle Members,' totaling ten people.

What remains at the detective agency are Wayne and the other two partners, eleven in the 'Agent' roster, two in the 'Outer Circle Member' roster, and several extras.

Compared to the situation before Doug brought people back, the combat power retained by the detective agency at this time is obviously enhanced, but nearly half has also been split off.

"Although managed by the branch office during outings, everyone is a member of the detective agency. If you have any actual requests while out, you can make them to the branch office or to the detective agency via letters."

"Because a portion of the branch office's salary disbursement has to wait for the annual settlement, if anyone applies to withdraw from the detective agency in advance, they must, in principle, return to the detective agency for process confirmation and final salary settlement. Failure to complete the 'withdrawal' process may be regarded as 'irregular departure' or 'betrayal.'"

"Our detective agency doesn't even mind if members become commercial competitors after leaving, such as attracting or recruiting members, and competing with us for business commissions or something."

"But I must make it clear that members who leave the detective agency will no longer enjoy the privileges of the Virginia State Church, nor will they be allowed to call themselves 'members of the detective agency.' If you become competitors, we also hope that the competition between us can be 'clean.'"

After saying all the unpleasant things, the rest was just "drawing big cakes" and "talking about feelings."

The Steam Train Company's commission and the establishment of the branch office are both major events for the current detective agency.

The guaranteed $6,000 contract, even without considering the additional bounty for wanted criminals, simply regarded as the partners' "investment," yields a pure dividend of $1,800 a year.

Divided among the partners, it's only a few hundred dollars a year, far from being rich and powerful,

but in this era, it's considered to be starting to live a life where you can guarantee "food and clothing" even while lying down.

After the general meeting, the real grand lecture began.

Iinesha, based on last night's situation, explained to everyone about how to deal with encountering evil spirits:

"From the perspective of our detective agency's composition, the safest way to deal with encountering evil spirits is to evacuate as soon as possible and then report the situation to the church or the Exorcist Association in a timely manner."

"However, if you encounter a situation where it is necessary to eliminate them, or you have to confront the evil spirit, then the most common and effective way to deal with it is to destroy the evil spirit's 'attachment.'"

"On this premise, you can try to sprinkle holy water, burn holy oil, and so on. Flames, sunlight, and other imagery commonly believed to be related to the 'sacred' realm are often effective. You can even consider making a loud noise or igniting gunpowder."

Iinesha drew a table on the blackboard, with the characteristics and common weaknesses of several low-level evil spirits, as well as some emergency measures.

The members who didn't experience it personally last night might be a little more relaxed, but the members who "met a ghost" were frantically taking notes at this moment.

Teacher Iinesha continued:

"Wayne and several members just told everyone about their experiences last night. Not rashly launching an attack when being misled by evil spirits is also a way to protect your companions, so you can also agree on some codes in advance to distinguish between truth and falsehood, and learn to perceive evil spirits in advance by observing flames and the like."

"The rank of the evil spirit last night should not be low; under normal circumstances, evil spirits shouldn't be able to achieve such a deep level of 'misdirection.' We can roughly use it as a reference. If you encounter one stronger than it, then I would suggest quickly moving away, or preparing for a desperate fight and leaving a will."

"Generally speaking, the direct destructive power of evil spirits of the same rank will be less than that of the Awakened, but due to the inherent characteristics of evil spirits, they may not necessarily be easier to deal with. For many Awakened, being able to directly observe evil spirits in a hidden state is a very difficult thing."

Wayne also specifically had Ryan "take photos." Many members had also been taken to the scene to visit the "ruins" before.

Although some things were not what the evil spirit asked Wayne to do, after seeing the bloody traces at the scene, many members of the detective agency developed more or less awe of evil spirits.

The biggest contrast was still that Sanders,

such a strong macho man was actually the one in the detective agency who was most afraid of ghosts...

Lina's lecture made the agents even more fearful:

"Just in case, everyone needs to leave some personal items for 'record-keeping,' so that if someone really encounters an accident, the detective agency will have a way to find everyone, or everyone's remains."

"Ah, everyone don't worry. If you are a member who officially resigns, we will return or dispose of the items used for record-keeping in a timely manner. The partners also have no hobby of monitoring or exploring everyone's personal privacy. This is just a safety guarantee measure and will generally not be used to deal with traitors."

"By the way, in order to increase everyone's courage, I plan to take Emma and Willie with me from time to time to conduct 'courage tests' on everyone. I hope everyone won't panic too much."

Lina's last words were almost spoken while looking at Sanders and two members who were obviously a little scared.

Wayne did not comment on this in class, but Wayne felt that Lina might simply find it fun to scare cowards.

But the combination that Lina pulled out,

severed limbs or pieces of flesh, doors and windows that would quietly open by themselves, various objects that could start moving around for no reason...

Seriously, even if it were put in modern society,

it would feel more than enough to run a haunted house or make a horror movie...