"Ugh..." Mike curled into a ball on the floor in pain, clutching the spot where he had been kicked and dry-heaving, unable to say a word.
Syl ignored Mike on the floor and began to wander slowly around the house, as if looking for something.
"Bastard... bitch... I'll tell Lord Lawrence... he'll make you pay for this..." Having regained his senses, Mike cursed the woman while backing away.
"Hmm... you don't have any paintbrushes? Well, that's expected... look what I found. A brush." Syl picked up a brush used for painting walls.
"Oh right, those 10 currency, hand them over," Syl said as if suddenly remembering, tossing the brush in her hand. "That's my money."
"Why are you stealing my money?"
This familiar question pierced Mike's chest like a sharp blade. Mike, who had just forcibly taken someone else's money, felt as humiliated as if he had been stripped naked and hung outside.
"You bitch! You're standing up for him, aren't you!" Mike seemed to have backed into a position he deemed suitable. He stood up, grabbed a table knife from the dining table next to him, and pointed it at Syl, shouting, "I only took those 10 currency out of pity for them!"
"To be honest, if it weren't for these 10 currency, I would have sold Lina to the 'Dark Alley' long ago. Who knew her useless brother would be lucky enough to survive."
"But now that I have these 10 currency, I'll put that idea aside for now. Is this redemption money? Do you understand? Redemption money!"
"Oh." Syl nodded expressionlessly. She looked at the man who was already becoming incoherent due to nervousness and asked, "Is that your acceptance speech?"
"Award? I'll give you a damn award!" Mike roared, raising his hand and throwing the table knife at the woman.
He was a good hand at throwing darts in the tavern and was very confident in his skill.
After throwing the knife, he grabbed another fork from the table and charged at Syl.
"Why don't you understand? You're going to be widely circulated as a work of art." Syl simply reached out, catching the table knife between her index and middle fingers, and said helplessly, "Perhaps hundreds of years from now, people will still admire you—through the newspapers."
In the next second, Syl flicked the hand holding the knife. The knife shot out, precisely piercing Mike's heart.
"Uh oh, a mistake," Syl covered her mouth, looking surprised. "This way, I won't be able to watch the show on your face for very long."
With that, Syl trotted over to Mike, who had already fallen backward, and crouched beside him to watch, as if eager for the spectacle.
Mike, whose heart had been pierced, was not yet dead. He looked at the smiling Syl with a face full of terror, his throat making a gurgling sound as it filled with blood.
"Yes, yes, yes, that's the expression! Can you perform that one again? Yes, that's it—that expression of resentment, Fear, and despair! Hahahahahaha!!!"
Like an artist whose inspiration had been sparked, Syl held the brush in her right hand, dipped it into the wound in Mike's chest to get blood, and then raised it to his face to start drawing.
"First, a big smiley face for you. Yes... that's the expression. Wait, let me see if you have any flour... You do, you're quite wealthy after all."
Ten minutes later, Syl left Mike's room, leaving behind a terrified corpse whose face was painted with a Joker mask made of blood and white flour.
On the floor nearby, a smiley face drawn in blood was left, with a signature on it.
—The Joker.
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