บท 4: Chapter 4
[1st POV]
Two more weeks passed quickly in my new body and environment.
I wouldn't say much has happened, but some interesting moments remain.
Now, I think in the eyes of Gordon and the other cops in this world, I'm a full-fledged officer, and they're putting me to work in patrolling and arrests.
They've been convinced of my abilities and realized I've adjusted to the new environment.
In general, not much has changed over the past few weeks, except for my training and work increase.
Surprisingly, I'm able to do both better while still having time for a short break, during which I watch movies and read psychology books.
At the same time, after reading a couple of Sigmund Freud's works, I unlocked a new skill: Talk No Jutsu.
If I level that up, I could be a better brain-breaker than any Yamanaka Clan.
A knock came at the door.
Just in case, I grabbed my gun...
"Mr. Dinklage, it's Alice!"
A sweet girl's voice squeaked.
I relaxed and opened the door.
Standing before me was the girl I had saved on my first quest three weeks ago.
It turned out she and her mother were my neighbors.
"Hi, Alice. Skipping school?"
"No, it's Saturday. Day off!"
She squealed with joy.
"Mom asked me to invite you to dinner. She made a casserole. It's really tasty."
"Oh, I see. Sure, I'll come. When's dinner?"
"During dinner, of course."
She looked at me as if I were an idiot.
'Yeah, I've reached a new low. A little girl thinks I'm insane. I really am a loser, no denying it.'
"I meant what time on the clock. Six, seven, eight?"
"At eight!"
"Great, I'll be there."
"Yay!!! We'll be waiting for you."
She darted back into the apartment.
It's funny how we've become friends lately. I even tried to find excuses to avoid visiting them.
It felt awkward.
However, the family seems to like me, and Kira, Alice's mother, lives with her and her sister.
They moved into a three-room apartment after she separated from her ex-husband.
As I learned from her sister, Katherine, he took the apartment for himself and his new girlfriend.
While Kira treated me like a friend, the system kept hinting that Katherine wanted to deepen our relationship.
I don't even know what prompted such a desire. Aside from helping her sister and niece at the café, I haven't done much else.
Women are truly a mystery.
Therefore, I had to show up by eight.
It's worth mentioning that Katherine was thirty, but she looked younger than me.
It turns out that a healthy diet and working out regularly are very helpful.
On the other hand, her sister, who was two years younger, looked older—probably because of the child.
Still, they were both very attractive, and both were brunettes with blue eyes and amazing figures.
At the same time, Katherine was smaller in the chest than her younger sister.
'Ah! It looks like my testosterone is acting again.'
"Hi, Isaac! I was starting to think you wouldn't come."
Katherine smiled at me.
"How could I not? I was personally invited by the sweetest lady in the building."
"Hm. I don't recall personally inviting you."
She smiled.
"I'm talking about Alice."
"You rascal."
She playfully pouted her lips.
"But I have to admit, she is absolutely adorable. Especially when she pouts like she is right now.'
She pointed to Alice's head peeking out.
"Hello, princess."
Instantly, Alice's face turned as red as a tomato, and her face was naturally round, but now it was both round and red.
After handing over the bottle of wine I bought, I went into the living room, helped with the serving, and then we sat at the table.
During dinner, we discussed various topics, and then Katherine casually mentioned that bar for cops where I played the guitar, and she would like to hear a couple more songs.
That's when I realized she was one of those four girls I had fun with.
I agreed, and now I had a relationship of 3000 with her strong interest or desire.
While I was playing, I kept remembering more and more about that evening.
Katherine Pride, our new prosecutor, was there with her assistant and a couple of friends. One seemed to be a lawyer, and the other I didn't know.
Although she looked familiar to me, it was as if both my past self and this current version of Isaac had seen her somewhere.
However, I couldn't tell.
After an hour, Kira put Alice to bed, and she fell asleep herself.
"They seem to have gotten tired."
There's no surprise that Alice was tired after our talk since she is a little girl.
"Ha. Perhaps. I have yet to meet such attentive young men."
"Don't say that, it doesn't suit you."
"Well, I'm not young anymore."
"You're thirty if I'm not mistaken."
"You rascal, you dare to remind me of my age."
She began to "pout."
"You started it first."
I countered.
"Okay. Let's not talk about that. I wanted to thank you for my sister and my niece."
"There's no need; I…"
"There is."
Katherine's expression changed.
"She and Alice are my only family, my only close people since our parents died."
"I suspect you became the head of your little family at a young age?"
"Yes."
She seemed to drift into her memories, her gaze focused somewhere else.
"I was fifteen, and Kira was thirteen. I had to work and study. Moreover, those circumstances forced me to finish school through external studies. I graduated when I was sixteen."
She paused to pour herself more wine and then continued.
"For about a year, I worked several jobs at once, and then someone in power noticed my hard work and helped both me and Kira. Kira successfully graduated from school, and I enrolled in law school. In general, life improved…"
"But not completely."
"Yes. However, my sister was more trusting and naïve than I was, and she married a real jerk despite growing up in one of Gotham's worst neighborhoods. He cheated on her, even hit her, and she endured it until I found out. He wanted practically ran away from me. Fortunately, Kira won't return to her husband, and Alice doesn't want to be around her father and his new wife either."
"Tell me, if you're a prosecutor and have connections, how did her husband take away her apartment and win the court case?"
"I could have easily sent him behind bars. There would have been enough grounds or I could have sent him to feed the fish. Kira insisted that he roll out of her life for good. I listened to her. Luckily, he didn't claim the apartment."
"Is it from your parents?"
"One of two. The other one is in the slums. This apartment was given to us before their death by the Gotham City administration. Fortunately for us, after their death, this apartment wasn't taken from the two orphans, and we settled here. I've always liked this apartment more. New apartments—new life. This isn't my only property now. Actually, I used to live in my penthouse before they separated, and then we moved in here."
"I see."
"I'm sorry for dumping all this on you. I guess I've had a bit too much to drink."
"No problem at all. I was curious to hear about your life journey and it's necessary for everyone to vent sometimes. I can see this has been steaming and boiling inside you for a long time."
[+500 relationship with Katherine Smith.]
[+1 Talk No Jutsu]
We talked a bit more, and then I got a call from the precinct.
Arthur was practically screaming for me to come over.
...
I arrived about fifteen minutes after my conversation with Katherine.
Arthur was already dressed in body armor and ready with an assault rifle.
"Go to the armory, get your body armor and a rifle. Then jump in my car—we're going to seize a building."
"Who are we capturing?"
"No time for jokes, clown. Although… we are going to capture one clown for sure."
"Motherfker!"
I voiced my thoughts.
"Don't tell me…"
"The Joker has taken over a movie theater with a bunch of hostages, and we don't know how many henchmen this psycho has. We called Batman, but we can't just stand by."
I immediately dashed to the armory to gear up.
We drove to the theater at such speed that I can confidently say Arthur definitely has a talent for racing.
The theater was surrounded by more than a hundred police officers, not counting the fifty SWAT team members waiting for orders.
"Where's Commisioner Gordon?"
Arthur asked Bullock.
"Inside, negotiating with that psycho."
Commissioner Gordon really has iron balls.
Well, this isn't the first time he's been in such "negotiations."
I hope today there won't be any casualties.
After ten minutes of silence, Gordon contacted Bullock over the radio, who then gave orders to Arthur, me, and the two nearby cops.
"Guys, Commissioner Gordon managed to convince them to let the children out of the building. So you four are coming with me to help get them out or carry them out. We're going unarmed because that's the Joker's condition, and we don't need to provoke those insane any further."
We nodded in sync and left our weapons behind but didn't remove our body armor.
To be continued...
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