"The scariest and the most painful thing is to be hated by someone you truly love."
- Tohru Honda
[In exchange for the Mini Surveillance System Jammer, deducted 750 amazement points and left 997 points.]
As the exchange was completed, a small object appeared out of thin air in front of Dean.
It had been frozen in the air by a virtual disc and was waiting for him to pick it up.
The jammer was round and about the size of a solid-state hard drive. It was completely black, with the power button located at the top.
There are two indicator lights in the middle, which are red and green.
The green light indicated that it was functioning normally, while the red light meant that there were surveillance devices that were more advanced than those on Earth within a fifteen-meter radius.
Dean picked up the jammer, and the virtual disk immediately disappeared.
"Finally, I can take a break."
After finishing everything, Dean rubbed his slightly sore shoulders.
He did a lot of work today, especially with the tasks of being a Phantom Thief, and he also spent a lot of time working in the kitchen, disguising himself to be an intern named Tom.
While Dean usually cooks for himself, it is completely different from working in a large hotel kitchen.
He felt tired, not just physically exhausted but mentally drained as well.
Dean realized that the physical work he put into training for high-end magic skills was much greater than doing a few hours of work, but the physical and mental exhaustion was completely opposite.
Especially when thinking of going to school again on Monday, Dean felt even more tired.
Sometimes, he even thought about dropping out of Gotham Academy and transferring to Phelps Public High School instead.
But that was just a thought. Solomon Grundy wouldn't even send his kids there... if he had any.
With these boring thoughts, Dean lay down on his bed and slowly fell asleep.
...
On the other side, at the Iceberg Lounge.
Ignatius and his subordinate carried the sniper's body into the underground room.
This was a place specifically used by Penguin to dispose of bodies, whether they were his own subordinates or enemies he had taken down.
In Gotham, the number of actual murder cases was much lower than most people imagined, but there were a suspicious number of cases related to disappearances.
For example, there would almost always be gang fights every night, maybe two.
The locations could be in the East End or Burnley, but the exact location didn't matter.
What mattered was that the gang fights would end at night, and when the GCPD came to investigate tomorrow morning, the ground would be clean.
There would be no messy traces of blood or countless bullet casings, and they might not even find a single body.
However, the surrounding environment might be a bit messy.
So the question remained, did no one get injured in these gang fights? Or did the nearby residents hear only illusions of gunshots?
They don't know, and they dare not ask.
Unless a brave resident had the guts to call the police in the middle of the gang fight, the GCPD would have a chance of finding some dead bodies...
Gotham is known as the crime capital not because there are a lot of deaths but because every inch of this city's land covers evils crimes that ordinary people couldn't even imagine.
If there is a place in the world where people commit every kind of crime, and each crime has a fully developed industrial chain, it must be Gotham.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
There was a knock on the office door.
As Penguin was reviewing the finances of his different enterprises, he looked up and motioned with his eyes for his two large bodyguards to open the door.
He saw Ignatius walking in from the door with his face filled with extreme seriousness as if something big had happened.
"Boss, something went wrong at the auction,"
Ignatius said with a solemn tone, hinting at a sense of shame.
"Did Phantom Thief steal the diamond? Or did he figure out it was fake? Or... did you let him escape?"
Penguin interrupted, his expression unchanged as he continued looking at the financial accounts.
Since the news from the auction hadn't been revealed yet, Penguin, who was at the Iceberg Lounge, wasn't aware of the details.
"It's just a scandal about a fake diamond. It's enough to let William hold a press conference and say that he didn't know it was fake before getting it. We can spend some money to buy off a few reporters and have them write articles good for us,"
Penguin replied without looking up.
"After a while, we will re-plan the money laundering plan. As for Roman's need for clean money, let him wait a bit longer. There was an accident this time, and the fault is on our side. Then we will take 5% less of his commission."
"This... Boss... it's not that simple..."
Ignatius hesitated and stuttered.
"This time, our operations have been exposed. Phantom Thief and Vicki Vale teamed up to expose the money laundering operations. Now, Lark and William have been arrested by the police!"
"Even the two snipers I brought were defeated by Phantom Thief, and one of them is dead!"
When hearing this, Penguin raised his head sharply and stared at Ignatius with a piercing gaze and paused every word.
"What exactly happened? Explain it clearly,"
Ignatius proceeded to tell the Penguin everything that had happened.
"...I thought having Lark and William at the auction would be enough. I only needed to ambush Phantom Thief outside. But I never expected the situation to turn out like this,"
Ignatius sighed, and regret filled his face.
"At the beginning of the auction, I even called Lark to remind her to follow your orders and not act on her own will. But..."
"Phantom Thief... Vicki Vale..."
Penguin muttered the two names, then suddenly asked, "Weren't you supposed to be outside the hotel? How do you know what happened inside?"
Hearing this, Ignatius' heart tightened. Penguin is really not that easy to deceive, but he has already prepared his explanation.
"Boss, as you know, Lark and William have never gotten along with me. They are old-timers in the gang, while I've only gained your favor in the past two years. You let me remotely command the operation today, and I was worried that I couldn't control them or that something unexpected might happen. That's why I planted a bugging device at the auction in advance."
Ignatius smiled bitterly.
"It's not that I don't trust them, it's just for extra to be safe,"
Penguin stared deeply at Ignatius, who didn't have any obvious flaws in his story.
In fact, Lark had complained many times that she didn't like Ignatius, so he was right to be worried.
"Hmph! It seems like everyone has forgotten who owns Gotham City. How dare someone disrupt my business..."
Penguin angrily picks up his phone and makes a call.
"I'm offering a reward of five hundred thousand dollars to anyone who can kill Phantom Thief!"
Five hundred thousand dollars may not sound like a lot, but for the assassins in Gotham, it's a rare opportunity.
This is because lives was cheap in Gotham.
To hire a hitman to kill an adult man, it only costs ten thousand dollars. For an adult woman, it's twenty thousand dollars, and for a minor, it's thirty thousand dollars.
These prices are normal among professional assassins, and some even charge less to get more customers.
It's shocking to think that by just handing them twenty dollars, you can find a homeless person on the street to stab anyone you want.
...
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