The entire renovation had cost 226,500 SP, leaving Mattheus with 25,500 SP.
He could have saved it to restock the pub or put it toward another expansion, but there was one small problem: his front door opened into Gotham.
Two-Face had already wandered inside, and Mattheus’s best customer was a member of the mafia.
Sooner or later, someone worse was going to walk through that door.
Gotham was full of murderers, monsters, criminal masterminds, and lunatics dressed like freaks.
Mattheus had no intention of relying on a stun gun if one of them walked through his door.
He needed a way to protect himself.
His first idea was magic.
Mattheus had browsed the prices of spells before and found that a number of spells were affordable, with many spells costing only a few hundred SP.
Even several combat spells were within his current budget, so with 25.5K he could turn himself into quite the mage (fulfilling one of his childhood dreams), but there was a slight problem: he could not use magic.
No matter how many spells he bought, he was a Muggle and could not use any of them.
Mattheus opened the Store and searched for a solution.
On the bright side, he found one.
On the considerably less bright side…
Mana Awakening
Awakens the dormant magical potential within an ordinary being, allowing the natural generation, storage, and manipulation of mana.
Price: 500,000 SP
Mattheus stared at the price for one second, smiled, and closed the page.
“Goodbye, magic.”
Perhaps later.
Much, much later.
His second idea was superpowers.
Superpowers did not require mana, special equipment, or years of study.
He could buy one, practice with it for a while, and he would no longer have to worry about Killer Croc wandering through his door (would he even fit tho?).
Besides, how difficult could mastering a superpower really be?
In the comics, someone got bitten by a spider, struck by lightning, exposed to mysterious radiation, or involved in a poorly regulated laboratory accident and got a power or power set.
Then, after a short training montage they put on a suit and started fighting crime.
Mattheus already had the lightning strike out of the way.
He had browsed the superpower category before, though only to look at the powers of heroes and villains he liked, and those had been way beyond expensive: Kryptonian Physiology cost several billion SP, Saiyan Physiology was only a bit cheaper, and a connection to the Speed Force cost even more.
But to survive Gotham, Mattheus did not need to become Superman, Goku, or the Flash.
Surely there had to be a few decent powers within his budget.
Mattheus sorted the category from cheapest to most expensive.
He looked at the first result, sighed, and let his phone fall onto the bed.
The cheapest superpowers cost hundreds of thousands of SP—even the completely useless ones were expensive as hell.
That left one option: Gacha.
One Gacha ticket cost 100 SP, and the potential rewards could be anything from a toothbrush to cosmic powers.
The odds of obtaining anything exceptional were microscopic, but he did not need to bend reality.
A weak defensive ability, a magical weapon, or even a decent combat skill would be enough.
Spending all his remaining SP on Gacha would be insane.
But a few thousand?
That was practically an investment.
Plus he has the will to stop himself.
Mattheus purchased one ticket.
A wheel of multicolored light appeared on his phone.
Thousands of tiny images raced for several seconds before slowing and stopping.
Congratulations!
Superman Figurine obtained!
A small plastic Superman appeared in Mattheus’s hand, one fist raised heroically above his head.
It was not even a valuable collectible.
The paint around the eyes was uneven, the cape felt more like paper than cloth, and the entire thing could not have cost more than twelve bucks.
Mattheus had paid the equivalent of a hundred.
“Wonderful.”
He placed the figurine on one of the shelves in his study.
The first attempt had been unlucky, but that meant nothing.
It was just one pull, and his first two Gacha pulls had been pretty good, so he could not judge his luck just by that.
He purchased another ticket.
Congratulations!
Black Key obtained!
An ordinary black-painted key appeared in his palm.
Mattheus waited for further information but nothing happened.
He turned the key over, examined its teeth, and waited a little longer, just in case the dramatic explanation was delayed.
Still nothing.
With a growing sense of dread, he opened the Encyclopedia.
Black Key
A key painted black.
Its corresponding lock is not included.
Mattheus stared at the description.
“…Of course.”
He placed the key inside his Inventory, mostly because he feared that throwing it away would guarantee that he later encountered the single lock in the entire multiverse it could open during a life-or-death situation.
The third ticket gave him a packet of instant noodles from a world he had never heard of.
Mattheus read the label.
“Salt-and-pepper-flavored ramen,” he said blankly.
“Delicious.”
The fourth gave him a pink sock (only one).
The fifth gave him a mug with the Daily Planet logo.
The sixth gave him a wooden spoon.
Mattheus should have stopped.
Unfortunately, every terrible prize fed the growing fire inside him.
The worse his rewards became, the more determined he was to get something worthwhile.
The Gacha was not going to defeat him.
By his tenth attempt, Mattheus had received a broken wand that once belonged to a nameless wizard, a pen, another identical Superman figurine, and a novelty pair of glasses with fake eyebrows attached.
“This is still fine,” Mattheus assured himself.
He had only spent 1,000 SP.
That was nothing.
Barely a financial mistake at all.
Then, on his fifteenth ticket, the wheel slowed—and golden light erupted from his phone.
Congratulations!
Pub Upgrade Acquired: Exile
Allows the proprietor to immediately expel any selected customer—or all customers—from the pub.
Expelled individuals may be permanently denied access.
A grin spread across Mattheus’s face.
“This is great!”
It was better than great.
If a fight broke out, he could expel everyone involved without getting his hands dirty—or bruised, stabbed, shot, burned, frozen, disintegrated, or whatever else people in Gotham did to one another.
If someone threatened him, attacked another customer, or refused to obey the rules, Mattheus could remove them without even stepping out from behind the bar.
He could ban the Joker.
Mattheus’s grin widened.
The Joker could be permanently forbidden from entering the pub, and Mattheus would never have to worry about him again.
Then he read the description more closely: a person had to enter the pub at least once before Mattheus could permanently ban them.
“So I can block the Joker forever, but first I have to let the clown inside.”
His shoulders slumped.
Crazy clowns were still on the menu.
That was unfortunate.
Still, Exile was an extraordinary security measure.
It might not protect Mattheus outside the pub, but within his territory, he could remove anyone who caused trouble—human, metahuman, alien, god, or anything else the multiverse decided to throw at him.
This would have been an excellent point to stop.
He had spent only 1,500 SP and obtained an upgrade worth millions.
He should have accepted his victory, closed the Gacha, and saved the remaining 24,000 SP.
Unfortunately, winning convinced Mattheus that another big win might be waiting only a few pulls away.
Spoiler alert: it was not.
He purchased another ticket.
Then another.
Then ten more.
Then fifteen.
Every few pulls, Mattheus checked his balance and promised himself that the next ticket would be his last.
Whenever he received something even remotely interesting, excitement flared through him and persuaded him to keep going.
He received foreign coins, children’s toys, cooking utensils, books written in languages he could not read, and several more Superman figurines.
Always the same cheap plastic Superman.
One ticket gave him a sword.
Mattheus nearly celebrated until he read the description and discovered that it was a mass-produced decorative replica made from cheap stainless steel.
He swung it experimentally, and the blade wobbled.
“Still, it’ll make a good decoration,” he told himself.
Another produced a wand.
Not a real wand, oh no, that would have been too good—it was a stage magician’s wand.
Mattheus waved it once, and a small bunch of plastic flowers popped out of the end.
He placed it beside his inventory with a deadpan expression.
There was also a bag of beans—ordinary beans, not senzu beans—a singing fish mounted on a wooden plaque, and a potion that temporarily turned the drinker’s tongue blue.
Mattheus continued.
He told himself he would stop after the next ten tickets.
No, after the next five.
The next two.
The next…
“All right,” he muttered.
“One last ticket.”
Congratulations!
“World’s Okayest Bartender” Apron obtained!
His balance kept falling until:
Insufficient SP.
Mattheus blinked and checked his balance.
Current Balance: 0 SP
For several seconds, he remained perfectly still.
He had spent 25,500 SP in a matter of minutes.
255 Gacha tickets and puff, he was broke.
His Inventory was filled with enough miscellaneous junk to stock a small charity shop, and no fewer than seventeen identical Superman figurines stood in various places around the room.
Mattheus walked over to the water dispenser, poured himself a glass, and sat on the edge of his new bed.
Wearing his World’s Okayest Bartender apron, he drank in silence while staring at a cheap Superman figurine on the opposite shelf.
“I may have a gambling problem.”