What Hila experienced that night was more eventful than the entire first half of his life put together.
First, he had been caught fraudulently collecting welfare, and Gotham's angry, volatile poor had cracked his skull with beer bottles.
Not long afterward, he had been caught stealing a bottle of 20-in-1 shampoo from a convenience store. The shotgun-wielding owner had chased him for three whole blocks.
And just moments ago, he had witnessed a gang shootout outside a chemical factory.
Most people would have struggled to understand Hila's state of mind. Whether his head was being cracked open or he was being chased for stealing, an exaggerated comedian's grin never left his lips.
"Tears and sorrow only invite more suffering. The worse you feel, the louder you should laugh."
Now, dried tear tracks lingered at the corners of his eyes, while the corners of his mouth twitched upward.
"Get this damn lid off... It should fetch a decent price... Fifty dollars, eighty dollars... I can have a proper meal... A proper meal!"
Thin as a rake, Hila strained to loosen the nuts on the Chemical Storage Tank's lid.
The factory had been abandoned for two years, and its machinery was worth quite a bit.
Since nobody wanted it,
they couldn't blame Hila for being greedy.
One turn...
Another...
A little harder.
Done!
Hila hugged the heavy iron lid, swaying on the wire suspension bridge as his center of gravity tipped backward beyond his control.
Just before his rear foot stepped into empty air, he finally steadied himself.
Looking down, he saw a layer of white coagulated matter floating on the chemical pool, with strangely colored moss clinging to its walls.
No one who fell in could climb out with their bare hands and feet.
"This is so dangerous. The lid was right there. What if someone fell?"
"They'd still die if they landed on the lid."
The voice that answered him sounded like the low-frequency static of a radio being tuned.
Stuart caught the heavy iron lid with one hand, as easily as catching a flatbread tossed by an Indian Flatbread Vendor.
"Batman... My God..."
"Thank you for your envelope, lost lamb."
Beneath his mask, Stuart curled his lips.
"No... That was just an expression of surprise. I didn't mean... Okay... Let me explain!"
The man clutched the cross at his chest and babbled incoherently. Only after muttering a few sentences did he remember what he ought to do.
"I'm not a thief!"
His knees buckled, and he almost fell to the ground.
"The police will be here soon," Stuart added.
"Please, don't hand me over to the police. I'm not a thief... All this stuff used to belong to me. I just wanted to sell it for some money. I'm starving."
Hila's expression was at odds with itself: his brows sagged, yet the corners of his mouth rose involuntarily.
Stuart scratched his jaw.
The man seemed to have misunderstood him.
As a Batman on a regular salary, he naturally had to fight crime, but he wasn't so rigid that he had to arrest everyone.
Look at this poor fellow. His suit was smeared with rust and dust, and blood-soaked gauze was wrapped around his head. Compared with the vicious thugs lurking deep in alleyways, licking their daggers, Stuart really couldn't find a reason to lay a hand on him.
He picked up the wrench from the ground and walked toward the Chemical Storage Compartment.
"How much were you planning to take apart?"
"I don't understand..."
Before Hila could work out what was happening, a large iron plate flew over and landed at his feet.
"How about another?"
Thud!
Another plate flew over.
Stuart worked remarkably fast. The rusted nuts were helpless against hands more brutally powerful than steel pliers.
Soon, thick chunks of iron were piled at Hila's feet.
"What are you standing there for? The police will be here any minute. Do you want to get caught?"
Hila snapped out of his daze and, ecstatic, scooped up the steel.
He wanted to carry all of it out, but it was far too heavy. The moment he lifted one piece, the one on top slipped through the crook of his elbow.
"Hurry!"
"I know!"
"Stop dawdling!"
"Almost!"
Suddenly, Stuart heard the steel bridge beneath their feet groaning and creaking.
The next instant, the wire mesh snapped, and the footing beneath Hila vanished.
Reacting instantly, Stuart fired his grappling gun. The sharp hook pierced Hila's shoulder, leaving him suspended in midair.
The steel fell into the chemical pool, splashing up thick, foul-smelling stagnant liquid.
But the hook couldn't hold flesh. Under the pull of gravity, Hila's skin began tearing open, bit by bit.
Blood gushed from the wound in spurts, and the man dangling in midair let out a miserable howl.
"Save me... I don't want to die!!!"
Stuart secured the grappling gun and climbed down the steel cable.
But he was still a moment too slow.
Just as he was about to reach Hila's fingertips, the man fell from above, flailing his arms, and splashed into the milky-white chemical pool.
Stuart pressed a hand to his chest. It felt as though something blunt had struck him hard there.
He attributed it to the frustration of a failed operation.
"Poor bastard."
He cast one last glance at the bubbling pool.
Never forget to smile.
Hila's creed came from his mother, who had died young. His family had been poor when he was a child, and after his father went downstairs to buy milk, he never came home again.
Looking back on those days, Hila sometimes even wished he had been born into a Black family.
Wasn't it true? His upbringing had all the makings of an NBA superstar's backstory.
But his ex-wife never seemed to understand this almost masochistic way of amusing himself by reopening his wounds.
She had never laughed, nor had she ever offered a word of comfort.
Hila had realized early on that his wife didn't love him. Divorce was inevitable.
That day arrived as expected. Hila lost custody of his child and had to pay a substantial sum in child support every month.
At the time, however, Hila hadn't considered any of that a problem. He still owned a chemical factory called ACE, backed by the Elliot Family.
Hila was just one final step away from entering Gotham's high society.
And it was all thanks to those words.
"Tears and sorrow only invite more suffering. The worse you feel, the louder you should laugh."
He had always believed in those words, even after the chemical factory went bankrupt, the bank auctioned off his mansion, and he was reduced to competing with beggars for welfare.
He wasn't truly poor. He still had over a hundred thousand dollars in his bank account.
But that was all support money he had set aside for his ex-wife and child.
For now, he was merely penniless. But if a month's support payment failed to reach the designated account, his record would be marked with a violation.
Without access to loans, he would never be able to make a comeback.
And now, at last, he could escape the troubles of the mortal world.
His body rotted and dissolved in the strong acid, yet his consciousness grew ever clearer.
Did it hurt?
Of course!
But now he was more like an observer, his soul floating as he watched the man Hila had once been struggle and thrash in the acid pool, clutching his burning throat.
His flesh was peeling away, but at the same time, something new was beginning to fill the gaps.
Heh heh heh heh heh...
Hahahahaha-!
William woke from a nightmare and rubbed his aching temples.
He had somehow dozed off while listening to the system explain the save feature.
Perhaps he had been under too much pressure at work lately.
He summoned the AI assistant.
"I remember you just said there were two ways to trigger a save."
[Active and passive. You can click the newly added Load button on the panel to return to a saved point in time. It can also be triggered under certain conditions, such as when a relationship breaks down completely, or a girl's affection for you reaches zero.]
William typed "die once" into the dialogue box.
[Why would you think you might encounter danger while playing? This game isn't an RPG treasure hunt...]
"Don't question it. Just do it."
William felt rather helpless himself. The AI assistant possessed extraordinary reasoning abilities, yet remained utterly indifferent to this displaced world.
William had also explained to her that he had traveled to Gotham in 1991, and asked her for more powerful assistance.
It distributed quest items that changed the rules of the world, and could even let him reverse time like The Flash. That glimpse alone was enough to reveal how powerful the system was.
William clearly had a mountain of treasure at his disposal, yet he couldn't spend it freely.
It hurt. It hurt so much.
Later that night, Stuart returned from patrol and peeled off the Batsuit. His head hung uncharacteristically low, and even the way his limbs moved betrayed his dejection.
"Couldn't find the Batmobile?"
"I found it... It's nothing."
Stuart concealed his failed rescue.
There was something he wanted to figure out now: if it had been Batman, could he have saved that man in time?
"Would Bruce Wayne have done better than me?"
His sudden question left William unsure how to respond.
"What are you talking about? You are Bruce."
Before you continue