I, V, Gotham Legend

Valerie walked into the building. There was a sinkhole nearby, which led directly to the sewer.

This is the most recent commission Valerie received. Someone witnessed a crocodile man in the sewer, so a group of naughty kids formed an adventure group to go on an adventure. They haven't returned for a day yet.

Until half an hour ago, the parent of one of the children called Valerie using the number in the advertisement and asked her to take the children back.

Valerie had seen the Alligator Man before. She had beaten him up badly in Blackgate Prison last Christmas, and it was said that the guy escaped afterwards.

When they were fighting with the crocodile man, that guy kept talking about eating people, which gave Valerie a very bad impression of him. This was one of the reasons why she agreed to the employer's commission.

Valerie brought Beef and found the sinkhole leading to the sewer. It seemed that it had collapsed due to the snowstorm a few days ago, or it might have been dug out by the crocodile man himself.

There were some traces of bulldozers around, and it looked like someone was planning to repair it, but it had been left unfinished for at least three days.

Valerie took out a mask from her pocket and put it on her face, then stuck a black transmitter on the edge of the sinkhole. Then she looked at the deep pit with a heavy smell and closed her pink-blue eyes.

After preparing herself mentally, Valerie opened her eyes, jumped, and jumped down from the sinkhole.

The inertia of falling downwards blew up Valerie's blue hair. If nothing unexpected happened, the location of this sewer was deeper than the subway. Valerie fell about five floors and fell heavily onto an iron bridge in the middle of the sewer.

My feet are a little numb. It's a wonder those naughty kids could dive so deep.

Murky dirty water flowed under the bridge, and Valerie was thankful she hadn't stepped on anything wet or sticky.

The iron bridge is hollow, probably with this in mind.

Valerie took out the beef, tied it with a steel rope, and threw it over the edge of the bridge, hanging it above the water.

Hopefully we can find alligators this way.

Valerie was not idle either. She held the other end of the rope in her hand and slowly moved down into the depths of the sewer.

The sewers did not require any extra lighting, and all that was in front of her was a dim darkness. Valerie turned on the scanning mode and used her night vision to determine the direction.

When she was far away from the sinkhole, Valerie had walked into complete darkness. It was quiet all around, and the flow rate in the sewer was not very fast. Occasionally, there would be the rustling sound of some small animals running by.

It should be a rat, right? I hope it's not a mutant cockroach or something...

Valerie inexplicably thought of a game called Escape that she had played before the time travel, in which the protagonist also used the night vision function of the camera to move in a very dark environment.

Valerie, carrying the beef, gradually walked down the iron bridge and arrived at the more familiar sewer environment, which was a semicircular tunnel with sewage flowing in the middle and a dry bank on each side.

Valerie walked to the narrow dry shore with her bare hands through the mask and pinched her nose. With her other hand, she wrapped the rope pulling the beef around the back of her hand to prevent it from sinking into the water.

The sewer environment is complicated, like a maze. Fortunately, Valerie left a transmitter on the ground as a signal source, which can ensure that she can find the way back.

But Valerie could only search for this one signal now. It seemed that the signal in the sewer was not very good, and she might not even be able to make a phone call.

But no one would call me now, right?

Valerie was still walking slowly, carrying the beef in her hand like a lantern. The only sounds she could hear in the empty sewer were her own footsteps and breathing.

But just before turning the third fork in the road, Valerie suddenly stopped.

Her sensitive ears seemed to vaguely hear the sound of a man screaming.

The distance was far, but there were many branches in the sewer, so it was difficult for Valerie to guarantee that she could find the source of the sound by listening alone, but she did have a way.

Valerie blinked her large pale blue eyes, and the world changed again before her eyes.

If the world in the previous scanning mode was cold but faintly glowing, then in Miss V's eyes now, the world is just made up of monotonous green lines, and the rest is just pitch black.

Rippling mist reverberated throughout the space, something that could only be seen in this mode. Valerie stared at the ripples, and a familiar progress bar appeared in her eyes.

「Ahhhh…」

In Valerie's eyes, blue words appeared on the rippling mist. At the same time, the man's screams, which were originally blurry due to the distance, became clear in her ears.

Valerie's scanner has three modes. In addition to the most commonly used scanner that can scan biological or electronic devices and the thermal imager that can see temperature, there is also a voiceprint scanner that can see sound.

In the game, these modes can only be switched in Mewtwo, but after crossing into reality, Valerie can also switch between them on a daily basis.

Because voiceprint scanning is so useless in daily life, Valerie almost forgot that she has this ability.

Following the direction of the man's scream, Valerie ran over with the beef.

No. 23. Not very smart

Valerie ran very fast. She turned on the Swansea Westin for acceleration for the first time in a long time, because if she was a little later, the screaming man might have died.

There was a change in the voice pattern, a very sharp and hoarse laugh, exactly the same as the voice of the crocodile man she had heard.

Valerie jumped over the wall again, turned the last fork in the road, and finally saw the familiar green giant.

This was at the edge of a waterfall, so the water was rushing fast. The crocodile man was nearly three meters tall, and standing on the dry shore he could almost reach the ceiling. At this moment he was squatting, digging a vent with his hands.

The scream came from that vent, and it seemed that this was the poor victim.

Valerie did a double jump into the air and did a swallow-like flying kick, hitting the crocodile man on the head.

The crocodile man was kicked into the air like a flying slipper, and when he fell into the sewage, splashes of water two meters high were created.

After kicking the crocodile man, Valerie immediately flashed to the edge of the waterfall cliff and hid far away so that she was not splashed by the dirty water at all.

There was a surge of water, a ball of water rose, and the crocodile man climbed out of the sewage.

"I remember your smell..." The crocodile man stared at Valerie under his scales.

"You smell it? Here?" Valerie could only smell the smell of a sewer.

"I can identify every enemy."

"Well, I'm your enemy anyway, how about you let the others go? I'll trade this beef leg with you." Valerie shook the beef in her hand.

"I want you for dinner!" the crocodile man yelled, lunging at Valerie.

Valerie was a little surprised. She had fought the crocodile man head-on on Christmas. At that time, she pinned this guy down and beat him. But she didn't expect that he would be so forgetful and dare to rush towards her head-on.

Looking at the crocodile man running in front of her, Valerie moved sideways behind him, kicked him off the cliff with her right leg.

"Gah! Sooner or later I will tear you to pieces!!!" The crocodile man fell into the abyss, his unwilling roar gradually faded away until the sound of splashing into the water was heard.

Valerie was speechless. She felt that this guy didn't seem to be in a very good mental state.

Sure enough, people with high IQs like me are a minority after all!

Valerie felt deeply about her own strength.

There was a rustling sound behind her, and Valerie turned around and saw a policeman crawling out of the vent.

“…Thank you…” Because it was too dark, the policeman could not see Valerie’s appearance clearly, but he still knew who saved him.

The policeman's voice was a little hoarse, probably due to the constant screaming just now.

"It seems you are not a child..." Valerie leaned closer to the policeman and touched her chin.

"Are you here to look for the child too?" The policeman's voice was trembling. He was obviously still in shock. "I'm sorry, I didn't do anything... and Cash..."

As he was talking, he actually started to cry: "I'm sorry... I'm a loser..."

"Calm down...what happened?" Valerie didn't have time to comfort the police, but when she glanced at the scene, she found a pool of fresh blood.

"Where is the child?" Valerie frowned. The policeman did not have any major wounds on his body, and the bloodstains were from a third person.

"I didn't find the child... I'm sorry... that monster was so scary..." The policeman knelt on the ground with his head in his hands, his tone full of guilt.

"Don't get excited yet. There's still time." Valerie squatted in front of the police and took out a clean tissue and handed it to the police. "Tell me what happened first."

Seemingly aware of his own misconduct, the policeman took the tissue, sniffed, and forced himself to calm down: "My partner Cash and I came to look for the lost children, but we were attacked by a crocodile monster..."

The crocodile man first bit his partner Cash and threw him off the cliff, but the police took the opportunity when his partner was attacked to hide in the ventilation duct.

No wonder I feel so guilty.

The outline of the incident was now clear. It was possible that one of the parents of the group of children went to call the police, and the other parent came to find me.

It is also possible that the same parent came to me after calling the police because they found that calling the police was ineffective, but I didn’t expect the police to actually send someone.

Valerie nodded and stood up: "You can go back. I'll go down and take a look myself."

"What did you say..." The policeman raised his head in surprise, then shook his head violently, "No, we are the police, this matter cannot be handed over to ordinary citizens..."

"Chief Gordon will understand. Just say that your job was taken away by the famous V." Valerie interrupted the policeman's chant.

"V..." The policeman had heard of this name. He widened his eyes and finally could barely make out the blue hair on Valerie's head in the dim environment.

"Are you new here?" Valerie patted the policeman on the shoulder. "It's rare to find a policeman in Gotham who feels guilty for sacrificing his teammates."

“No…we…” The policeman wanted to say something else but was interrupted.

"No need to say anything, just go back and report. I'll take care of the child... and your teammates as well. Even if he's dead, I'll bring his body back."

Valerie's pale blue eyes sparkled, reflecting the policeman's astonished face.

The policeman swallowed hard, and finally made up his mind with difficulty: "It's just as the rumors say... You are a hero! I will report it to the chief!"

"No. I don't want to be a hero." Valerie walked to the edge of the cliff, turned back and smiled, "I'm a mercenary."

With that, Valerie leaped down.

The policeman looked at the figure disappearing in the dim environment, clenched the tissue in his hand, and his mood was ups and downs.

...

Valerie is no superhero, but she won't miss such a good opportunity to promote her name.

Anyway, she has offended all the Black Mask Penguins, so it is unlikely that she will have a bad reputation. She might as well just get a good reputation.

The cliff was very high, a height that Valerie had never tried before. To be on the safe side, she pulled a zipper on her waist, and a hang glider popped out from her clothes, allowing her to land lightly on the ground.

She learned this landing method from Batman, and she thought she could do it herself, so she did it.

The bottom of the cliff had the same circular tunnel structure as the one above, but the waterfall beside it splashed a lot of dirty water, causing Valerie to instinctively move a few steps away.

There were no crocodile men, bloodstains or police officer bodies on the surrounding dry shores. They might have fallen into the sewage and been washed away.

If it was a normal stream, Valerie might be able to try to scan the DNA to track down the missing police officer, but the sewage nearby might be filled with DNA from all kinds of people.

"Okay, let me search. If the policeman is not dead, he should want to leave this place as soon as possible..." Valerie still held the beef and walked while talking to herself.

If this is the case, then the target location should not be far away.

NO23. Trance

There are many rooms for workers to rest in large sewers, most of which are small houses made of cement. There should be some first aid supplies inside. Alan Cash struggled to crawl into such a room.

Both of his legs were broken, which made it impossible for him to move normally. He could only crawl using his relatively intact right hand.

A trail of blood was drawn along Cash's movement, but fortunately it was not a fatal wound.

Cash's left hand was gone, and his wrist, which had obvious signs of being torn, was bleeding profusely.

Although Cash should stop the bleeding as soon as possible, his clothes were stained with filth and using them for bandaging might cause infection. It was also obviously not suitable to use open flames to stop the bleeding in the sewer.

"Damn..." Cash spat out a mouthful of saliva, followed by a disgusting retch.

As a rookie policeman recently assigned to Gotham, Allen Cash can be said to be the one with the strongest sense of justice and work enthusiasm, and he is therefore highly appreciated by Commissioner Gordon.

Just this morning, a woman suddenly came to the Gotham Police Station to report a case, wanting the police to find the children who had gone on an adventure in the sewer.

Originally, this was a case that deserved serious attention, but as luck would have it, a gang war broke out suddenly, and the already understaffed police station had to focus on maintaining order in Gotham.

But the missing children could not be ignored, so Gordon had to send Cash and another police officer to sneak into the sewer to try to find the children first.

Gordon speculated that the legendary crocodile in the sewer should be the crocodile man who escaped on Christmas. Out of respect, he approved Cash and the police to use large-caliber weapons.

Gordon's serious attitude also attracted the attention of Cash and his teammates, but they obviously did not take it seriously enough.

When the crocodile man crawled out of the sewage, the three-meter-tall green monster almost filled the space in the sewer, and its hard scales bounced off all the panicked bullets.

The crocodile man bit off Cash's left hand along with the weapon, then shook his head and threw Cash into the sewage.

Cash was swept away by the rushing water and fell off the cliff. He struggled and flapped his arms. Apart from the sound of the rushing water, the only sounds he could hear were the terrified screams of his teammates that were getting farther and farther away.

He didn't even remember how he escaped, but when he finally climbed ashore, he didn't know where he was.

It was pitch black deep in the sewer and the patrol flashlight was lost. It was purely luck that we found such a rest room.

After finally crawling into the room, Cash tried his best to hide himself in the corner of the wall. The door was very narrow and it would be difficult for the crocodile man to squeeze in.

Cash leaned his head against the concrete wall, feeling the exhaustion from the blood loss in his left hand.