*Chapter 37: The Third Job*

When Police Commissioner Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent arrived at the warehouse, it was already mostly burned down.

The reason was simple: nobody called the fire department. Because calling the fire department costs money.

If someone's own house was on fire, naturally they would call the fire department. If it was a neighbor's house, maybe a good neighbor would help. But nobody knew what was in this warehouse, and nobody could find the person in charge right away, so the fire truck arrived late.

Picking up a few hundred-dollar bills scattered from the burning flames, their expressions were grave. Judging by the intensity of the fire, this warehouse probably contained a lot more money, and the presence of that amount of cash in a warehouse like this was highly suspicious in itself.

"Who could it be?"

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"Tch... Who could it be?"

"So... it wasn't you?"

A low voice sounded from behind, and Catwoman was startled. She turned to see a tall, dark figure standing there, a pair of pale blue eyes under a pair of pointed bat ears.

"You're more like a cat than me," she said, dissatisfied. "You can always appear or disappear silently."

"You haven't been around for a while—where were you?"

"Just in case you haven't heard, Falcone put a million-dollar bounty on my head."

"Me too, but I'm still here investigating tonight."

"Yeah, yeah—but I'm not a bat, I'm a cat."

"When did you get here, what did you see?"

"Not much earlier than you—and I saw the same thing."

"Just a coincidence?"

"Want to know?" she giggled. "Catch me, and I'll tell you."

The Cat and the Bat leaped and swooped through the tall buildings, chasing each other, like they were playing an amusing game—though maybe only the Cat was having fun.

"Get someone here! Open the warehouse door!"

On the other side, Commissioner Gordon and District Attorney Dent quickly used force to break open the warehouse door, only to find a mountain of ash where the money had been, along with a few stray bills that hadn't been completely burned.

"Great, now we have another major counterfeit case to investigate—and we don't have any leads."

"Not counterfeits."

"Huh?"

Harvey Dent turned his head towards a corner of the warehouse. Batman's figure had appeared in the innermost area without anyone noticing.

"When did you get in... forget it, what did you say?"

He didn't answer, he just walked over and handed Harvey a notebook.

"What is this?"

Harvey opened the notebook and asked casually.

When he saw the densely packed numbers on the page, he was startled.

"Falcone's house was broken into the other day, and his safe was opened," Batman said. "There was a ledger inside—a very important ledger. Catwoman and I were both there at the time—that's why he put a million-dollar bounty on both of us."

"Catwoman stole it? But how did you get it back?"

"I'm not sure why she wanted me to know about this, but according to her, if you follow the money, you'll end up here, in this warehouse."

"You mean..."

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Meanwhile, Cody had arrived in downtown Gotham City, the designated location for his third job tonight.

"Even though the instructions said to bring a gas mask, I didn't expect this..."

Cody held a giant Whopper in his hand and looked at the manhole cover in front of him, his mouth twitching slightly.

"Who in the world orders takeout from a sewer? Killer Croc? Is he that short of a burger?"

"Wait, no, the burger is the appetizer, I'm the main course!"

Thinking of this, Cody broke into a cold sweat. He just wanted to deliver a burger, not become one.

But then again, he had a necklace and a save point, so maybe he wasn't that afraid of death?

Just in case, Cody immediately spent 100 asset points to place a save point at this location. This way, if Killer Croc really wanted to eat him, he could simply reload.

"Or..." Cody looked at the system mall. His first and second jobs had been completed and settled, and his asset points had reached an all-time high, a whopping 20,000 dollars.

Although these asset points couldn't give him the ability to fight a mutated, cannibalistic man-crocodile with super strength, speed, endurance, and super regeneration, they could allow him to cure the other party back to normal, and then use Colt to teach him how to be a good person.

"Bring the opponent down to the same level as yourself, then defeat him with your rich experience. Rather than improving yourself, it's better to weaken others." Cody figured this out and suddenly felt confident. He flipped open the manhole cover and climbed down the ladder.

"Ugh... the stench!"

Cody hadn't climbed down for three seconds before a foul odor entered his nose, almost making him vomit.

He immediately held his breath, suppressing the urge to vomit, and bought a gas mask from the system—the gas masks in the gun store were really too expensive, far inferior to the ten-dollar domestic product in the system.

As long as it could block this stench, it was a good mask.

"Is anyone there? Hello? Who ordered the takeout?"

Inside the pitch-black sewer, he couldn't see his hand in front of his face. Cody adjusted his gas mask and then pulled out the small pumpkin lantern he'd just gotten from his system.

"This really is small..."

A tiny pumpkin lantern, just a bit bigger than a quail egg, appeared in Cody's hand. You could literally use it as a keychain. But weirdly, the pale yellow light it threw off was super bright, illuminating a good dozen meters around him, and it even felt a little warm. It even came with a cute little mini lamp post attached.

Cody held the little pumpkin lantern and headed deeper into the sewer. Inside the empty, echoing circular pipes, the only sound was his own footsteps. Even with the lantern lighting things up, he couldn't help but feel a little creeped out.

"Is anyone there? Burger King delivery!"

Aside from a few squeaking rats scurrying out of the way, nobody answered him.

Cody couldn't help but scratch his head. "Either the system's messed up, or I..."

"Solomon Grundy, born on a Monday!"

A deep, rumbling roar exploded like thunder, making the whole sewer tunnel vibrate. Heavy, pounding footsteps, like a giant beast running, closed in on Cody fast.

"Holy crap! Not Killer Croc!"