[Side quest "Debt collection" completed!] [Rewards obtained: Character card: Kobe Bryant ×1 NPC identity swap card ×1 (from The Sims 4; swap identities, skills, professions, appearances, etc. with one designated person for 24 hours) USD +100,000, Gotham reputation +20, EXP +20] [Player level: 4 → 5 (system shop unlocks at level 10)]
"Remember to pay my taxes for me."
Penguin lay on the floor, his face full of humiliation as he watched the man take his money.
"Don't worry."
Lynn curled his lip and closed the system panel.
"I'm an IRS special agent."
The system had originally offered him three legal identities to choose from.
An IRS agent, a CIA agent, or an ordinary junior reporter.
Lynn had chosen the IRS agent identity without a second thought.
Come on, this was the IRS!
Its full name was the Internal Revenue Service, the United States' federal tax agency under the Department of the Treasury.
In short, what the CIA couldn't do, the IRS did. Whoever the FBI didn't dare arrest, the IRS arrested.
In the United States, nothing was certain except death and taxes.
In other words, this agency was the law of the land.
Even in Gotham, supervillains had to pay taxes after a robbery. If the superhero Batman's Wayne Enterprises dodged or evaded taxes, arrests would follow there too.
After collecting the money Penguin owed him.
Lynn finally put his weapons away, still wanting more, and pushed open the door to leave the Iceberg Lounge.
Watching Lynn walk away, Penguin felt his heart start beating again.
That lunatic wasn't even human!
The crude iron armor he wore stopping bullets was bad enough, but his rocket launcher and Gatling gun seemed to have infinite rockets and ammunition.
His conference room had been blasted into rubble. Even the entire first basement level had nearly collapsed.
The damage was far more than a hundred thousand dollars!
"That goddamn bastard..." Penguin said through gritted teeth.
He tore his gaze away from the corpses of Two-Face and the gang members, took a deep breath, pulled his phone from his pocket, and dialed a number.
"Penguin? What do you want?"
A deep, gravelly voice came from the other end.
Penguin took a deep breath, then stated his demands.
"Lex Luthor, I need your Lex Industries Group's Venom Missiles. As many as possible."
"...You're going to use them against Batman?" Lex Luthor sounded surprised.
"No, against the Bat Gang!" Penguin snarled.
That goddamn lunatic had humiliated him like this. As the king of Gotham, Penguin had to get even!
"The Bat Gang?" Lex Luthor was stunned. When had that hellhole Gotham sprouted a Bat Gang?
Penguin said viciously:
"Just now, some deranged lunatic barged into my Iceberg Lounge. He was wearing alien battle armor, and he killed a bunch of my men with a Gatling gun and a rocket launcher right in front of me. He killed Two-Face too."
"Alien battle armor?" Lex Luthor asked in confusion.
"Even Two-Face died at his hands... Why are you coming to me for weapons instead of hiring mercenaries to deal with him?"
"I've already contacted Deathstroke and some mercenaries. They'll make their move when the time comes."
As though something had occurred to him, Penguin added:
"Oh, right. He seems to be an IRS agent. Watch yourself. Don't let them catch you evading taxes."
Lex Luthor: "..."
You lunatic. You're buying my weapons to attack someone from the IRS?
Have you ever seen Gotham at five in the morning?
Lynn had.
He strode out of the Iceberg Lounge, immediately turned, and headed toward the dark road beside it.
Just then, a figure appeared at his side, swinging a baseball bat toward his lower body with a sharp whoosh.
"A sneak attack? Dragon Claw!"
Lynn's expression hardened. He caught the baseball bat with one hand and viciously grabbed at the figure's chest with the other.
[Character card: Kobe Bryant (grants the power of the GOAT; manifests a Martial Soul True Body when elbowing an opponent.)] [Note: When you don't know how to strike up a conversation with a stranger, trash-talking the Mamba is a good choice.]
Huh?
Why was it so soft?
"Ngh!" The figure grunted, then burst into curses.
"Shit! You pervert! Groping me once wasn't enough? You actually dared to do it again?!"
Under the dim light, Lynn made out the figure's face.
"Harley Quinn?"
Harley Quinn hurriedly backed away, rubbing her aching chest.
Lynn studied Harley Quinn for a moment, then ventured a guess:
"You followed me? No wonder you got locked up in Arkham Asylum. You're a horny stalker."
Harley: "..."
Why don't you call yourself a serial groper?
While Lynn and Harley Quinn were talking, a violent whoosh suddenly sounded behind him.
Without even looking up, Lynn simply raised his right arm and drove his elbow hard backward into the person attacking him from behind.
The phantom of a tall, muscular Black man instantly appeared behind him and roared:
"Man!"
Bang!!
A dull impact rang out, accompanied by a woman's grunt.
Lynn turned to look behind him.
A woman was clutching her chest, staring at him in astonishment.
She was covered from head to toe in a black, skintight bodysuit, wearing a black mask that concealed her eyes and sported a pair of decorative cat ears.
Beneath the dim yellow light, the woman's eyes brimmed with shock and disbelief as she stared at Lynn.
"Catwoman... Harley Quinn, did you two come here specifically to ambush me?"
Lynn raised his eyebrows slightly, wondering if he had been too arrogant. Elite mobs had actually come to camp outside his door.
"You groped me and made a fool of me. How could I, Harley Quinn, let that slide?"
Harley tightened her grip on her baseball bat, her lips spreading into a deranged grin.
"I'm going to catch you and send you to Bowery Street in the East End. I'll let those streetwalkers milk you dry!"
Bowery Street was the poorest neighborhood in the East End and had the highest crime rate. Apart from sex workers, it was full of thieves and robbers.
A girl there had once told Harley that if she wanted a man to behave, she needed just three words: milk him dry!
"You're offering me something that good?" Lynn immediately lit up.
"Go ahead. I won't resist. Just take me there."
"Fuck! Why are you rewarding him?" Catwoman frowned deeply.
This man definitely wasn't an ordinary person, and he was this insane...
She even felt that the guy before her wasn't human.
Seeing Harley and Catwoman both standing there rubbing their chests, without the slightest intention of attacking.
Lynn curled his lip, utterly disappointed.
He had wanted to test whether his resurrection card could remove all negative status effects. If it could, he could fuck his way from south to north.
"If you're not going to fight, I'm heading back."
Before he had finished speaking, a sharp whistling suddenly came from overhead.
"Again? Does this ever end?"
Lynn grumbled and casually sidestepped, dodging a series of bat-shaped throwing blades.
Shhk! Shhk! Shhk!
The blades buried themselves in the ground, quivering. He shifted his gaze from them and looked up ahead.
Atop the roof's edge above the bank's securities exchange stood a burly black silhouette.
The figure wore an ink-black, skintight suit and a black helmet that covered half his face, with two pointed ears. Beneath the helmet, his pale, cleft chin showed a shadow of stubble.
In the gray-white moonlight, his black cape billowed in the wind. He looked like a bat demon emerging from the shadows, radiating an oppressive, icy menace.
"Threatening Bruce Wayne, robbing Joker, digging up the graves of the Waynes, breaking into the Iceberg Lounge to rob it, killing Two-Face..."
A deep, gravelly voice came from the figure.
"Tell me... what exactly are you trying to do?"
"Tch. What's all that gibberish?"
Lynn curled his lip. He could see it now: the final boss had definitely brought two elite mobs to camp outside his door.
Otherwise, why would he run into something like this just for completing a debt-collection side quest?
"Screw it, I'll take on all three!"