Captain America, I Only Acknowledge Steve Rogers

"Well, aren't you a special snowflake? You're the first person to ever order milk here."

After hearing Cheng Tian's order, the bartender, who actually pulled a carton of skim milk from the fridge and poured a full beer mug right in front of Cheng Tian, seemed to have a strong work ethic, but he clearly wasn't very enthusiastic.

After all, Cheng Tian's below-average Charisma stat was there for all to see. While it wasn't enough to make people hate him, he couldn't expect anyone to be particularly warm either.

"Milk's great! Builds strong bones, you know?"

Cheng Tian finished speaking, threw his head back, and downed the entire mug in one go, then let out a ridiculously vulgar milk burp amidst the strange looks from those around him.

Since Cheng Tian had already completed the newbie trial, he would generally be given a relatively reasonable legal identity that better fit the overall setting of the current world when entering a new instance.

Secretly a bounty hunter, openly a disguised gentlemanly foreign businessman.

However, Cheng Tian himself, wearing the skin of a gentleman, was clearly unsuited to this image, or rather, he didn't know how to maintain the facade of a foreign gentleman. He wouldn't cater to the instance by changing himself, but would continue to do things his own way.

Perhaps the system just wanted to make his vampire gentleman's cane seem less out of place, so it chose such a strange disguise.

The bartender took back the mug, which still had a bit of milk residue at the bottom, but as soon as he moved it, he noticed something underneath—

A shiny little gold piece~

The bartender immediately understood. Without making a sound, he hooked it with his little finger as he moved the mug and slipped it into his sleeve.

"What can I do for you?"

The bartender's tone had clearly become much warmer. That little gold piece probably had a temporary Charisma +4 effect.

Usually, these kinds of mixed-up taverns serve as an information hub, and what Cheng Tian wanted to inquire about was naturally information related to the bounty mission, namely the Moth Gang.

"I'm new in town, and I don't want to cause trouble or have trouble find me. So, I'd like to know how many gangs there are in Gotham City, and where these gang members usually hang out."

This was the reason Cheng Tian used to inquire.

Based on the description of the bounty mission, as well as Cheng Tian's personal judgment, the difficulty of obtaining gang unit information should be in the range of "can't be bought with money, but doesn't necessarily require crazy slaughter."

If it could be bought directly with money, Batman would have already done it, and it wouldn't be up to the players. And the most extreme "kill them all" approach probably wasn't the only way.

Since it had already been explicitly stated that you could kill, steal, control, or rob, it proved that the target unit must have some kind of credential representing the successful acquisition of detailed information. In game terms, it would be a "quest item."

And Cheng Tian's mention of "how many gangs" was also a roundabout reminder from that white guy. He had mentioned the "Firefly Gang" in his previous words.

Although it was quite strange for someone dressed like Cheng Tian to come to a mixed-up place like this, Cheng Tian's reason was indeed very sound... and the little money was really tempting.

The bartender wrote a "10" on the bar with a wet cloth. Cheng Tian double-tapped the bar, asking him to refill his milk and agreeing to his price.

Soon, the second glass of milk and a Gotham map marked with territory divisions and gang gathering places were delivered to Cheng Tian. Cheng Tian also pushed the stacked gold chips over.

However, when Cheng Tian's attention was focused on the map, he failed to notice the bartender, who had accepted the gold chips, giving a look behind Cheng Tian. The people who met his eyes also got up without making a sound, trying not to make any extra noise. Then one of them went to the tavern door and hung up a "Closed" sign.

Don't think that Cheng Tian is running over to gather information in a proper manner, but this is actually all imitated from movies and games. He himself has no relevant experience, no experience at all, and can even be said to be full of loopholes.

Cheng Tian considered that there would be a situation here, but he didn't consider who would be standing behind a place that could get information in Gotham.

Wayne Enterprises? Or... the Gotham mob?

Click!

The sound of the door locking made Cheng Tian's ears twitch. Then, when he looked up, he saw the closed door, and a group of patrons who looked like they had no good intentions, all getting up, looking eager to make a move.

"Is the money not enough?"

Cheng Tian's eyes flickered slightly. One hand was caressing his Polymorph cane, and then, without him knowing when, the cane disappeared from his hand.

"No, you're the most generous one we've had in days."

The bartender, who was quite surprised by Cheng Tian's calmness, said this.

"...I see. So, this thing is just to fool me?"

Cheng Tian pointed to the map on the table.

"That's not true. We still value integrity when doing business. The stuff is real, no cheating. It's just that our boss has been very annoyed by some outsiders these days and needs a scapegoat to vent his anger. And you just happen to be an unidentified outsider, and a very rare Asian face, so..."

"I see~"

Hearing this, Cheng Tian decisively folded the map, stuffed it into his arms, and casually began to untie his tie.

Cheng realized that someone had attacked the BOSS unit here, and it looked like they had failed, arousing the vigilance of his subordinates.

Under normal circumstances, players who accept bounty missions will act around the mission itself, but the players themselves are the biggest variable. So, it's not uncommon for bounty missions to encounter main quest-level BOSSes, actively or passively.

However, in most cases, the life or death of non-mission-related powerful units and main quest-level BOSSes in bounty missions will not have any impact on the evaluation of the bounty mission itself, which focuses on different points. Even if they do take action, they are just betting on whether the BOSS can drop a box, and whether there will be good things in the box.

The mission Cheng Tian accepted could accommodate up to five players, and all five players would be placed in the same map. The completion of the five players' missions would not interfere with each other, and the completion rate would be calculated separately.

But the actions of the firstcomers would inevitably have more or less of an impact on the latercomers. Cheng Tian was clearly the one who was affected.

"Mr. Milk, if you give up resisting, I can at least guarantee that you won't be unnecessarily harmed during transport."

Seeing Cheng Tian untying his tie, the bartender kindly offered a reminder.

At the same time, seeing that the skinny Asian yellow monkey actually put on a look of wanting to resist, they, as official gang members, just wanted to laugh.

And the burly man closest to Cheng Tian, who held the position of combatant in the gang, had already taken two steps forward and swung his fist at Cheng's face.

Race discrimination, coupled with hatred of the rich, and his own low charisma, he now just wanted to knock out a few of the yellow monkey's teeth and let him know that Gotham wasn't a place where weaklings like him could come and do as they pleased.

Then a sharp pain fed back from the finger bones and the styloid process of the ulna where the fist was thrown!

A shield emblazoned with red and white concentric stripes, a blue field in the center adorned with white stars, materialized without warning in Cheng Tian's hand, blocking the bearded combatant's fist.

In Cheng Tian's information log, there was a prompt that had appeared as soon as he entered this instance:

[Detected your initial entry into a Batman-related instance—]

[Activating "Game Expert"—]

[You have successfully loaded the native protagonist template from the "Captain's Mandate" world blueprint—"Captain America / Steve Rogers".]