Marvel : Master of Role-Playing

It is unclear whether the weather is meant to be like this, or if Gotham itself harbors some kind of mysterious force.

Whenever heinous crimes occur, Gotham is always struck by torrential rain, adding a chilling layer of terror to a city already shrouded in evil.

For example, tonight, the Joker orchestrated a massacre targeting the Maroni family at one of their bars.

"Damned bastard!!!"

Sal Maroni, the current head of the Maroni family, is sitting in his office, repeatedly throwing things within reach to the floor in a fit of rage.

However, if anyone were standing behind him, they would notice that the back of his suit is completely soaked.

Not from the rain outside, but from the cold sweat pouring from his body.

Only he knows that he had originally planned to visit the bar where the attack took place to meet with a client.

It was only because the client had a last-minute emergency and couldn't make it to Gotham that he canceled his plans.

But what if the schedule hadn't changed? If he had gone, he might have ended up as a headless corpse inside that bar.

"Joker... Joker... Joker! And the Joker Gang... they want to climb over the Maroni family to rise to power, don't they?"

Sal Maroni is furious, but he knows that it's now time for them to react.

The Joker is no longer just a madman. Even the Gotham Police Department knows that, through his successful killings and certain alliances, the Joker has attracted followers and formed the Joker Gang.

If he continues to turn a blind eye and dismisses these attacks as the unpredictable actions of a madman, his position will be at risk.

Once his authority wanes, the Falcone family won't hesitate to take down the Maroni family.

"Investigate! Find out where the Joker Gang is hiding. If the Joker wants to climb over us to gain power, we'll give them war!"

...

While Maroni is planning his furious retaliation, at the bar, Gordon is leading a team of officers to conduct an investigation.

"Is it still playing cards?"

In Gordon's hand are four playing cards, all without exception from the Joker's gang. This confirms that the four massacres targeting the Maroni family over the past two days were all carried out by the criminal known as the Joker.

"Captain Gordon, four of the victims were police officers."

"Take me to the scene."

Gordon has never understood why the Joker spared him in the past, but for now, he has no choice but to set aside those thoughts. He followed his subordinates to the scene.

At the entrance, a decapitated corpse lies, the cause of death being a close-range shot to the head from a high-powered firearm.

"Modified firearms... with that kind of power."

Gordon murmured to himself. A weapon capable of shattering a person's skull with a single shot—such power is on par with a sniper rifle. The Joker's danger level is far beyond the absurdity of his criminal antics.

The second body was also decapitated, the skull crushed by a heavy object.

Gordon immediately thought of the large man listed in the intelligence reports, whom the Joker refers to as Solomon Grundy.

The third body was a suicide, with a shard of a glass bottle being the weapon.

Gordon looked around at the bar, nearly completely soaked in blood, with severed limbs and broken arms scattered everywhere. Killer Croc wasn't just a killer—while murdering, he also consumed parts of his victims. Though life with the Joker was no longer as grueling, his habit of biting into people during a fight hadn't changed.

"Given the scene, it's not hard to understand how someone could go mad and give up resisting."

Not only the police officers who witnessed the massacre firsthand, but even those investigating now, seeing the horrific state of the place, had faces as pale as ghosts.

Even Gordon, whose resolve was typically unshakable, wasn't doing well. His stomach churned continuously, and if he weren't forcing himself to hold it together, he would have thrown up by now.

"This is the last body, Captain—Officer William."

"William?"

Gordon's heart sank. Combining the deaths of the three officers from earlier with this final one, Officer William, he finally remembered—these were the same officers who had been part of the small group that had once sent him to Maroni thugs.

But at this moment, Gordon felt no sense of revenge fulfilled. Instead, he was pondering: Could this really be a coincidence?

He glanced once more at William's body.

There were no external injuries, but his mouth was stuffed with multicolored candies.

These candies were highly adhesive, and William had suffocated to death from the blockage caused by these sticky candies, unable to breathe as the sweet taste slowly led him to his demise.

"Stickier than glue!"

One of the officers picked up a candy from the floor, and it took both fingers considerable effort to pull the candy apart.

Gordon then noticed the candy residue on William's fingers.

It was clear that after the Joker had stuffed William's mouth with candy, he had simply left.

William, still alive at the time, must have tried desperately to remove the candies with his hands but was unable to. In the end, he succumbed to death, caught between the hopelessness and the sweetness in his mouth.

But now, Gordon had no time to dwell on the Joker's cruel methods of murder, as he himself was filled with dread.

Had the Joker killed these people because of him?

Did the Joker know that these people were responsible for his plight?

Why had the Joker done this?

No matter how he thought about it, Gordon couldn't shake the feeling that being targeted by someone like the Joker was never a good sign.

He had the sense that there was an even larger conspiracy brewing, one that was slowly unfolding.

Though it was just a gut feeling, his ability to survive all these years had been based on that very intuition, combined with a bit of luck.

"Joker... Joker... what is it that you truly want to do?"

...

The man Gordon had been mumbling about, Reid, had already returned to his Alfred persona and was back at Wayne Manor.

As for Killer Croc and Solomon Grundy, it was the Joker who had recruited them, not Alfred. They naturally had their own base of operations within the Joker Gang.

"49%, huh? Why won't it go up any further..."

Since Alfred's card and the Joker's soul have merged, playing as the Joker essentially means playing as Alfred as well.

The actions taken while playing the Joker, when looked at closely, all seem to benefit Wayne Enterprises, which allows Alfred's role playing percentage to rise.

This is the explanation provided by the system.

However, if Reid were to explain it himself, he would say that Alfred has gone dark, transforming into the maniacal, laughing version of Alfred.

"Yes, that's the most fitting explanation."

Soul bonds, recognition—Reid couldn't care less about those things. As long as the explanation makes sense and doesn't leave out any crucial details, how it's explained doesn't matter. After all, only he knows the truth. Why complicate it?

"But..."

Reid snapped back to the present, his eyes now focused on the map of Gotham City in front of him.

"There's just one final step left."

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