CHAPTER 406: EXPENSIVE TOYS.

With Ghost Mode active and his head covered in a hood, Dante sneaked around New City and checked several of the locations Volcan had informed him about. He decided on three to start with, and using 8-3, he infiltrated the enemy lines and performed a deeper search.

The first location was another simple-looking office building. The first three floors were rented out to outside companies, but the fourth one and above belonged to the Daggers and their affiliates.

The fifth floor, for example, had the office of a private equity firm that’s likely nothing more than a money laundering scheme operated by the Daggers. Dante didn’t really understand the details of how it worked, nor did he care. All that mattered was that most of the deals were conducted using shards, so their coffers were likely stacked with the item.

When sneaking into the building, Dante used 8-3 for portals, but to avoid being subjected to the same agony from the previous day, he opted to switch to Type 8-1, using its Spatial Awareness to gather data.

[

Name: Dante

Species: Human

Threat Level: 2

Baseline Retention: Advanced (75%)

Stats:

Strength: 8 (+5)

Durability: 32 (+10)

Agility: 28 (+5)

Dexterity: 32 (+5)

Computing Power: 40 (+25)

Energy: 0 (+100/100)

Implants:

Neural Interface Module (C)

Optic Augmentation Module (C)

Diamond Fist (D)

Kinetic Absorption Protective Sub-Layer Generation 15 (C)

RespiraCore Series V (D)

NephroCore Series X (D)

Overmind Cortical Interface Module (A)

Overmind Neural Response Enhancer (A)

Armor: Type 8-1

Abilities:

Spatial Awareness

Spatial Lock

]

The strain applied by a Level 1 armor was obviously much weaker, allowing Dante to wear them for what felt like an indefinite amount of time, but the trade-off was less energy and fewer abilities, with the ones available to him being much weaker than the versions 8-3 had.

At Level 1, Spatial Awareness lacked both range and speed, which made tracking the movements of people exceedingly difficult. If he hadn’t used 8-3 to create a 3D model of the building beforehand, he probably would have had to stick around the same spot while Volcan gathered the necessary data just to be forced to repeat the process a couple of minutes later.

The security was tight, and navigating around all the guards was proving to be much more difficult than imagined. Despite that, Dante found himself enjoying the challenge, even if only a bit.

A lot of times, he had to use Spatial Lock to stick doors into their position, making it so they appeared stuck. He did it with the elevators more than once, and the same went for most automatic doors that required IDs to open.

In the latter’s case, the problem could have been solved through a quick Dive. If only there were a way to do so. Turns out the place had isolated them from the network, making a small port the only way to access their systems.

Once word got around that the automatic doors were malfunctioning, the traffic got redirected to other parts of each floor, giving Dante a little more freedom. He held back on using any of his other armors until the very last second, when it became clear that he wouldn’t be able to progress without 8-3’s portals. By then, only a single wall separated him from the room where his prize was hidden.

Instead of sneaking into the room a risking being caught by the enemy, Dante put on his favorite armor and opened a portal directly into the safe, connecting it with the pocket dimension replica of his room. Soon after the contents were gone, he opened a second portal and left the building.

His next destination was, surprisingly, a church. Pure Light was still the dominant religion in the Radmir Union, but from the looks of it, its priests had long since abandoned the faith they preached and were now worshipers of money just like everyone else.

Dante went inside along with some of the worshippers, sat down a little, then scanned the QR code at the donation box, offering a small donation of 100 Radmir credits.

No one paid him much mind, except for the occasional curious glance. He did make sure to keep his hood on, after all. Volcan was soon done with his Dive through the network, and according to him, things were much busier than they seemed on the lower floors.

After scanning the place with 8-3’s Spatial Awareness while hiding in the restrooms, it became clear that they wouldn’t be able to sneak their way inside. Unlike the previous building, there seemed to be only one path to their destination, and since it was somehow out of the range of the armor’s sensors, it was safe to assume reaching it was going to take a while.

In the end, Dante decided to leave the church last. Since it looked like one of the few places that was closed at night, he planned to return to it around midnight.

The last place on the list was also different from the one that came before it, but the reason went beyond just the location. New City was one of the wealthier parts of Neo-Vatra, and though it was full of hotels and other businesses, it also contained quite a number of high-end living spaces.

The rent wasn’t cheap, so of course most of the residents were the rich who could afford it. Such people had more money than they could spend, and what better way to make use of that money than spending it on some rather expensive toys?

Well, there were way better ways to spend one’s wealth, but one has to agree that building a car collection was up there. The last location was the garage rented by one of Jaguar’s lieutenants. He was commonly referred to by Kortic, and apparently, he handled the business side of things for the gang.

The bastard had a thing for expensive cars, and his private collection was said to have already passed the hundred. That day, the number dropped by thirty. Next time he visited that garage, the only thing he would see was an empty concrete floor.