[Unit Characteristics—None] [Unit Characteristics—Gunner]
These were the detailed stat sheets for enemy soldiers marked on the Quest Items. This was also the first time Cheng Tian had seen the specific stat data of enemy troops since entering Chosen Space.
But compared to the enemy data, Cheng Tian actually noticed another issue first. Though the files had different names, the two Quest Items were treated as the same species and could be stacked in the same slot. Having suffered through all kinds of Grid Crises ever since he started gaming, Cheng quietly breathed a sigh of relief before finally continuing to inspect the Enemy Unit panels.
The numerical ranges on the panels made it clear that they described the entire population of their respective units rather than individual members. It seemed the Moth Gang had certain hard requirements when choosing its thugs.
The fighters were clearly the lowest-grade cannon fodder, perhaps not much better than the Black and White Duo Cheng Tian had dealt with in that alley. The gunners, on the other hand, had stats above average across the board and should have been the backbone of the gang in a street fight.
There were obviously higher-ranking and more formidable gang members above them.
But... why was the Spirit Attribute range for these fighter units so low?
Cheng Tian found that quite puzzling.
Yet the answer was easy enough to find in the real world—Cigarette Leaves, cheap drugs starting with A, and sharp injection equipment.
Gotham City, a Chimera based on New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, could not possibly lack such things, even if it was supposedly the most livable city on the surface.
Whether these fighters had used that stuff before joining the gang or after, and whatever their reasons for touching it in the first place, as long as they kept using it, their brains and bodily functions would gradually deteriorate together.
And when, someday in the future, their minds and bodies completely gave out, they would be ruthlessly kicked out of the Moth Gang, with someone else immediately filling their vacancies the very next second.
After all, what Gotham lacked least were living consumables willing to risk their lives for a little cash.
Cheng Tian's opening this time had gone exceptionally smoothly. As long as he did not pursue a higher completion rating, his Bounty Mission was already half complete.
It was just that Cheng had entered the instance practically naked last time, and this time, he inevitably had to strip down voluntarily again.
There was no helping it. His bloodstained suit jacket and trousers were no longer wearable, and even the white shirt underneath had been stained. He could only try to piece together a bloodless outfit from the corpses of the lackeys scattered across the floor.
Besides, after returning to reality earlier, he had tossed the Macho Strawberry Underwear into the washing machine. Cheng Tian always changed close-fitting underwear daily. What he was wearing now was a pair printed with a Super Mushroom, naturally positioned right in the center of the front.
Come to think of it, stripping naked and changing clothes beside a pile of human corpses he had personally rummaged through and left in complete disarray... either Cheng Tian's nerves were truly beyond steel, or he had never considered these corpses human in the first place.
Just as Cheng Tian had completely transformed from his previous image as an Asian gentleman into a Moth Gang low-level fighter Chimera, a peculiar sound coming from the doorway caught his attention.
It sounded like the combined noise of a tiny motor, wheels, and a car slamming into walls—the sort of racket he used to make as a child when driving a knockoff Four-Wheel Drive Car through apartment hallways.
Soon, a thud rang out from the bottom of the bar's front door, followed by the intimate contact of drill bits and a door smoking from every possible crack.
Before long, a swift shadow drilled directly through the still-smoking hole and into the bar, where no one had survived.
Squatting on the Bar Counter and sipping milk, Cheng Tian narrowed his eyes and saw that the newcomer was indeed a Remote Control Car-like Mechanical Creation. It was simply larger—more than a full size bigger than a real-world Mechanical Dog.
And almost instantly, its original Pixel Art Style surfaced in Cheng Tian's mind.
This entirely blue little remote-controlled vehicle, with two drill bits mounted on its back that extended and retracted in alternation, theoretically counted as an enemy Grunt Unit that opposed Batman.
[Unit Characteristics—Vibration Acceleration]
As a street-roaming unit deployed by the Moth Gang throughout Gotham's streets and alleys, the Little Blue Car possessed excellent patrol and reconnaissance abilities. But since it belonged to a gang faction, were its patrol targets fellow scum and rotten criminals?
Quite the opposite! (index finger pointing up.jpg)
The Little Blue Car's patrol and survey targets were ordinary civilians who dared resist the mob, police officers who earned that meager monthly salary yet were constantly forced to risk their lives, and Gotham's Richest, who haunted the streets and alleys every night, treating Supervillains and ordinary trash with equal hostility.
Yet strangely, the Little Blue Car acted as though it had not noticed the messy corpses all over the floor, bodies that had not even gone stiff yet. Its wheels rolled through blood, its front end bumped into corpses before turning around again, giving it the bizarre feeling of some clueless dumb dog out for a walk.
Meanwhile, Cheng Tian remained squatting on the Bar Counter, pinching half a cup of milk between two fingers as he stared straight at it. Before long, he began nodding to himself.
It seemed the Little Blue Car had not escaped the restrictive framework of the Original Setting either.
In terms of its form of existence alone, the Little Blue Car might have been superior even to modern Mechanical Dogs. It even had a relatively powerful Black Technology AI built in. Yet when it came to detection, it relied on ground vibrations to make judgments.
Friend or foe, only when both parties stood on the same plane could the Little Blue Car use ground vibrations and its camera, which never looked up, to determine whether a living unit was nearby. Only after confirming friend or foe based on the scan results would it decide whether to activate attack mode.
However, Cheng Tian had evaded the Little Blue Car's scan by using the difference in elevation. After draining the half cup of milk in one gulp, he jumped down from the Bar Counter. Sensing the ground vibration, the Little Blue Car immediately braked and turned around, aiming its front end toward Cheng Tian—then it scanned something strange.
An Asian face wearing a fighter's pants and a gunner's top.
The Little Blue Car's AI, capable only of handling a fixed set of pre-entered problems, froze on the spot.
As a gang with extremely high turnover among its lower ranks, the Moth Gang could not possibly go through the trouble of entering every low-level member's facial data into its computers. To conveniently distinguish gang members from ordinary people, the Moth Gang had chosen to identify them by uniforms. The Little Blue Car had only been given the uniform styles of its own side, rather than every member's facial data.
As a result, Cheng Tian had switched Chimeras, leaving it unsure how to handle the situation for the moment.
But if it did not make a move, it would be Cheng Tian's turn.
There was no particular reason. Cheng Tian simply believed that this Little Blue Car was probably a mission target capable of dropping files as well.
Captain America's Shield, with the exact same color scheme as the Stars and Stripes in American Flag Colors, appeared in Cheng Tian's hand once more. But just as he was about to throw it and split the Little Blue Car in two, the already dim bar lights suddenly went out with a snap!
Then, the battered bar door was kicked open by someone outside.
Through the underground stairs leading to the bar, light outlined a silhouette at the doorway—
The silhouette of a Large Black Bat.
Happy New Year's Eve!
And an early Happy Year of the Snake to everyone!
From the beginning of the year to the end, may you keep slithering without stopping!
Before you continue