"Customer, you're the first person to ever order milk in this establishment."
After hearing Chris's order, the bartender actually pulled a carton of skim milk from the fridge and poured a full pint glass right in front of him. He maintained a professional demeanor, but he certainly wasn't warm.
After all, Chris's below average Charisma stat was working against him. While he wasn't universally loathed, he couldn't expect people to be overly enthusiastic.
"Milk is good. It builds strong bones and provides calcium."
After speaking, Chris tilted his head back and downed the entire glass in one go. Amidst the strange looks from the surrounding patrons, he let out a vulgar, milk scented burp.
Since Chris had already passed the Newcomer Trial, he was now assigned a relatively logical and legally stable identity whenever he entered a new dungeon, fitting the world's general framework.
In the shadows, he was a bounty hunter. On the surface, he was disguised as a gentlemanly foreign merchant.
However, Chris himself was utterly ill suited for the role of a refined gentleman. He had no idea how to maintain the facade and had no intention of changing himself to fit the dungeon. He remained as individualistic as ever.
Perhaps the Space had simply chosen this strange disguise so that his Vampire's Gentleman Cane wouldn't look out of place.
The bartender took back the empty glass, which still had a thin residue of milk at the bottom. But as he moved the glass, he noticed something underneath it.
A shiny, golden little beauty.
The bartender understood instantly. Without a word, his pinky finger hooked the gold chip and slid it into his sleeve.
"How can I help you?"
His tone had become significantly warmer. That single gold chip likely carried a temporary +4 boost to Chris's Charisma.
In most dungeons, a dive bar like this served as an information hub. What Chris wanted to know was naturally related to his bounty mission, info on the Moth Gang.
"I'm new in town, and I'd like to avoid trouble, or at least avoid being caught off guard by it. I want to know how many gangs are in Gotham and where their members usually hang out."
This was the cover Chris used for his investigation.
According to the bounty description and his own judgment, the difficulty of acquiring gang info should be in a range where it couldn't be bought with mere currency, but also didn't necessarily require a massacre.
If it could be bought directly, Batman would have already acquired it himself, leaving nothing for the players. And extreme violence likely wasn't the only path either.
Since the mission stated one could kill, steal, control, or coerce, it meant the target units likely carried some form of evidence or "quest item" that proved the data had been successfully gathered.
Chris's question about "how many gangs" was inspired by the pale mugger earlier, who had mentioned the "Firefly Gang."
Although a man dressed like a gentleman entering such a den of iniquity was quite unusual, Chris's reasoning was sound, and his gold was even better.
The bartender used a wet cloth to trace the number '10' on the counter. Chris tapped the bar with two fingers, signaling for a refill of milk and agreeing to the price.
Soon, a second glass of milk arrived along with a map of Gotham, marked with gang territories and hideouts. Chris pushed a stack of gold chips across the counter.
However, as Chris focused his attention on the map, he failed to notice the bartender shot a look at a group of men behind him. The men remained silent as they rose from their seats, avoiding any unnecessary noise. One of them moved to the door and flipped the sign to "Closed."
Chris might have looked the part of a professional gatherer of intel, but he was strictly mimicking what he'd seen in movies and games. He had no actual experience and was, quite frankly, full of openings.
He had anticipated that something might happen, but he hadn't considered who might be backing a place that dealt in Gotham's secrets.
Wayne Enterprises? Or. A Gotham crime syndicate?
Click!
The sound of the door being locked made Chris's ears twitch. He looked up to see the door shut tight and a group of unsavory looking patrons surrounding him, their intentions clear.
"Was it not enough money?"
Chris's eyes flickered. One hand brushed over his Polymorph cane, which then vanished from his hand.
"No, you're the most generous customer we've had in days," the bartender said, sounding genuinely surprised by Chris's calm.
"So that means this map is a fake then?" Chris pointed to the paper on the table.
"Not at all. We take our business reputation seriously. The map is real. It's just that our boss has been annoyed by some 'outsiders' lately, and he needs someone to vent on. You happen to be an unidentified outsider with a very rare Asian face, so..."
"I see."
Chris decisively folded the map and tucked it into his coat pocket before beginning to loosen his tie.
Now he understood. Someone had already targeted the boss of this establishment, and it seemed they had failed, putting the gang on high alert.
Normally, players on a bounty mission would focus on the objective itself. But players were the ultimate variables. It wasn't uncommon for someone to run into a main storyline boss, either by accident or design.
However, the fate of a non mission critical boss or a main story character usually didn't affect the rating of a bounty mission with a different focus. If someone attacked them, they were usually betting on whether the boss would drop a treasure box and if it would contain something good.
Chris's mission allowed for up to five players, all of whom were placed in the same map. Their mission progress was tracked independently.
But the actions of earlier arrivals would inevitably affect those who came later. Chris had clearly been caught in the fallout.
"Mr. Milk, if you surrender now, I can at least guarantee you won't suffer unnecessary injury during transport," the bartender offered kindly.
Meanwhile, several gang members began to laugh as they watched the slender "yellow monkey" prepare to fight back.
The largest among them, a bearded brawler who served as the gang's muscle, stepped forward. He swung a massive fist directly at Chris's face.
Fueled by racial prejudice, resentment of the wealthy, and Chris's low Charisma, the man wanted nothing more than to shatter the kid's teeth and show him that Gotham wasn't a place for weaklings like him.
Then, a surge of intense pain shot through his knuckles and forearm.
A shield, patterned with red and white concentric circles and a single white star on a blue field in the center, had appeared out of nowhere in Chris's hand, blocking the brawler's fist.
Within Chris's system logs, a notification had appeared the moment he entered the dungeon.
[Detecting first entry into a Batman related dungeon.]
[Skill, 'Game Master' active.]
[Template Loaded: Original protagonist from 'Captain America and the Avengers', Captain America/Steve Rogers.]
[Translated and Rewritten by Shika_Kagura]