If the other party had been wearing a mask, then even if a little of his face had been exposed, the Wild Boar could have pretended not to know and simply brought the blade down, putting an end to everything.
But now the other party was standing right in front of him without a mask, showing his true face. If he really brought the blade down, it would be strange if the people on his side didn't go berserk.
Not to mention that during the time they'd spent talking, the police and reporters had already caught up with them. And their battlefield wasn't some deserted wilderness. There were people everywhere, whether on the streets or inside nearby apartments.
There were simply too many witnesses. Even if he had no intention of using this identity a second time, the Wild Boar didn't want to turn himself into Public Enemy Number One. Did Norman understand just how different the scale of the manhunt would be between secretly killing someone and doing it openly in broad daylight?
Thanks to Spider-Man, the optimal opportunity to eliminate the Green Goblin had already passed. Bringing the blade down now wouldn't solve a problem. It would only create more trouble.
As this thought crossed his mind, the Wild Boar came up with a way to muddy the waters.
"May the Father of Understanding guide us. Osborn, remember that chaos is not what we seek."
Since the Assassin Brotherhood that Cassandra belonged to really existed, perhaps the Templar creed could still be used to fool people.
Sure enough, that simple sentence made Norman Osborn's expression change.
It also helped the Wild Boar confirm that the organization opposed to the Assassin Brotherhood really existed, and that it might have connections with people at a certain level and above.
He had originally thought that the Abstergo Industries he'd seen in the stock market was merely a coincidence—a company with the same name.
Regardless of whether Norman Osborn could see through the deliberately misleading nature of those words, the Wild Boar retracted the kukri into his leg armor and prepared to leave.
His to-do list was now empty, but his watchlist had gained one more name.
Norman Osborn had better pray that when he put on the Green Goblin mask again, he wouldn't run into the Wild Boar.
And even if Norman figured out that the Wild Boar had been deliberately misleading him, so what?
The Wild Boar's goal was simply to muddy the waters.
The more clues there were, the less likely they were to point toward a specific individual. Instead, they would produce even more suspects.
Even if Norman could act based solely on suspicion, how was he supposed to confirm anything?
Even if he really was connected to the Templars, unless Norman Osborn happened to be the highest-ranking person controlling everything and knew the entire organization's situation, anyone else would become a thorn in this ruthless man's heart no matter how they explained their presence.
If they explained themselves, Norman could wonder whether the faction controlling this metal man was targeting him.
If they didn't explain themselves, he could wonder whether the person he'd questioned was hiding something.
This probing had allowed the Wild Boar to understand this world a little better while simultaneously shifting Norman Osborn's focus elsewhere. It had also served as a response to Norman's earlier probing.
It was a win on multiple fronts.
"Wait. What did you mean by that just now?" Curious, Spider-Man reached out and grabbed the Wild Boar Armor.
But by the time his Spider-Sense issued a warning, it was already too late.
The hand Spider-Man had used to grab the Wild Boar Armor was caught by the person inside, who secretly used his super-speed to seize it in return.
The Wild Boar had been deliberately suppressing the abilities of the person inside the armor, both to test the armor's performance and accumulate real-combat data, and to maintain his disguise.
But he finally couldn't hold back anymore.
He'd been repeatedly pestered because Spider-Man had mistakenly thought he'd killed the Green Goblin. Now that the Green Goblin was alive and the Wild Boar had already given up on killing him, the little spider still refused to let the matter go.
Fine.
The Wild Boar grabbed him and served him a Hulk special!
He slammed Spider-Man into the ground once on the left and once on the right.
Spider-Man's physiology really was formidable. Not only did the asphalt end up with two huge craters, but his body hadn't fallen apart either.
Hulk could afford to play around like this because one of his opponents had the bloodline of the Frost Giant royal family, while the other had the bloodline of the Asgardian royal family. Compared with humans, calling those two races gods wasn't an exaggeration.
Just look at the Chitauri soldiers. They couldn't survive even one serving of the combo. One smash and they were done for.
But the Wild Boar hadn't considered what would happen if he actually smashed Spider-Man to pieces.
Still, he had only slammed him once to the left and once to the right, which counted as holding back.
At least he hadn't swung him around several more times before jumping on top of the little spider and bouncing on him a few times.
After the two slams, the Wild Boar gave Spider-Man another powerful sideways throw, sending him crashing through the display window of a nearby shop.
Spider-Man was indeed one of the people with the fastest reactions in the Marvel Universe. At the moment he was thrown away, he shot a web at the Wild Boar, intending to drag him inside with him.
He didn't care in the slightest whether that might result in the two of them crashing together in some embarrassingly intimate position.
The Wild Boar had anticipated this.
A grappling hook on his shoulder shot out first and pulled a manhole cover up in front of him.
Sure enough, Spider-Man's web stuck to the manhole cover. The tremendous elastic force sent the massive iron disc flying straight toward Spider-Man.
Spider-Man had originally had a chance to dodge, but because he was so determined to capture his opponent, he ended up taking the manhole cover head-on.
He crashed through the shop's display window, and the store's alarm immediately began blaring.
The police finally arrived at the scene. Every officer raised a pistol and ordered the Wild Boar to surrender.
Regardless of whether these masked vigilantes ultimately acted for good or evil, their actions had caused considerable property damage. Whether or not the victims intended to press charges, the police couldn't simply ignore it.
But the Wild Boar had no intention of obeying the police's commands.
The grappling gun on his shoulder fired upward, pulling him away from the scene.
The small police pistols were no threat to the person inside, let alone capable of penetrating the Wild Boar Armor. There was no need to pay them any attention.
As for that suicidal spider, he only staggered out of the shop he'd smashed up after a while.
When he saw the police surrounding him, Spider-Man, whose head was still spinning, instinctively ran away as well.
The Wild Boar could afford to pay for the damage but simply didn't want to.
The little spider couldn't afford it in the first place.
Norman Osborn, who had failed to escape, raised his hands at the police's warning and was placed in handcuffs.
And so the day came to an end.
Unfortunately, he wouldn't be able to make it to the dinner he'd arranged.
Right now, he rather wanted to have a proper talk with Peter Parker.
But more importantly, he needed to contact his lawyer.
There was another question weighing on his mind as well.
Why had that organization sent someone to kill him?
Was it because the Green Goblin had killed those bank-appointed board members, and that had crossed their line as well?
Someone of little importance couldn't possibly know those words.
Sitting in the police car, Norman Osborn gazed at the familiar yet unfamiliar New York City outside.
He thought about everything that had happened in another New York City.
Everything was so...
Absurd.
It all began with the Daily Bugle's front-page headline:
"Is the Green Goblin Norman Osborn?"
The question almost became a fixture in the headlines of recent news reports, with only a few additional details added here and there.
After all, on the day Norman Osborn was arrested, a photojournalist had captured him wearing an outfit that looked "very similar" to the Green Goblin's armor.
That photograph appeared on the front pages of virtually every media outlet.
The photographer who had taken it was naturally grinning from ear to ear after selling the photograph.
Moreover, information leaked from within the police department revealed that a damaged flight glider had also been found nearby.
That gave people even more reason to suspect that the two were indeed the same person.
But a legal conviction ultimately couldn't be based on "suspicion."
It required evidence.
The bank-appointed board members who had died at the Osborn Carnival were certainly wealthy compared with ordinary people.
But compared with Norman Osborn's fortune, they were still in a different league.
As long as nothing went wrong with the board of directors, Norman Osborn remained the chairman of Osborn Industries.
Therefore, the "Green Goblin" who had caused destruction and casualties at the Osborn Carnival was, in the absence of direct evidence proving that he was Norman Osborn, nothing more than a petty thief who had stolen Osborn Industries' property and committed murder.
Hadn't Osborn Industries itself already announced that its prototype individual combat armor and flight glider had been stolen, and reported the theft to the police?
They had even provided surveillance footage proving that the theft had really occurred!
In simple terms, the police still needed to work hard to catch the culprit.
They shouldn't treat Mr. Norman Osborn as the murderer responsible for the casualties at the Osborn Carnival.
As for why those newly appointed bank directors hadn't continued opposing Norman Osborn and attempting to help the bank swallow Osborn Industries whole...
One could only say that the Green Goblin had indeed fulfilled the "mission" of his existence.
He had given everyone else a very profound lesson.
Regardless of anything else, the bank's interests belonged to the bank.
But one's life belonged to oneself.
Behind closed doors, everyone could loudly condemn the incompetent Norman Osborn for causing Osborn Industries so much damage.
But when standing in front of him, who wouldn't bow their heads and obediently nod along with whatever the chairman said?
Because there was still one crucial piece of evidence missing between the Green Goblin and Norman Osborn:
That grotesque mask.
The police had only confiscated the green armor and the damaged flight glider. They hadn't found the grotesque mask, nor had they found any footage of Norman Osborn personally committing the murders.
In fact, after professional forensic examination, the green armor used by the "Green Goblin" at the Osborn Carnival differed slightly in certain details from the equipment confiscated by the police from Norman Osborn.
Aside from both being green, there were subtle discrepancies between the two.
At least with Osborn Industries' hired lawyers delivering slick, silver-tongued defenses, the police and prosecutors would need to find considerably more evidence before they could convict Norman Osborn.
Although the Green Goblin incident had a significant impact on Osborn Industries' stock price, the shareholders' meeting had actually become more stable.
As a result, Norman Osborn's crisis had been greatly reduced.
As long as the chairman of Osborn Industries kept a low profile during the trial, he could weather this crisis safely.
What Norman Osborn needed to do now was find a new profitable market to make up for the losses caused by the military terminating its contract.
Another priority was to study the antidote to the Green Goblin serum in his own body.
Perhaps he could discover a formula that eliminated the serum's side effects while retaining its ability to enhance the human body.
A genuine mass-producible super-soldier serum.
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