Chapter 113 October 13, 2022
Chapter 113 – Ludger’s Eight (1)
[We are starting the plan.]
Outside the auction house, Hans, who was on standby inside the building opposite to the huge roadside, gulped nervously.
It’d finally started.
Their very first attempt on the Kunst auction house’s lot that no intruder had ever been permitted to step foot in for the last 20 years.
‘Pheew. Let’s calm down.’
He had been helping Ludger and had done various works up to that point, so his nerves were fairly steady, and he only very rarely got nervous.
Of course, compared to his other colleagues, who’d gone into the auction house’s building directly, he only needed to do the easy part.
He only needed to stay outside and, on Ludger’s cue, operate the invention that Sheridan had made.
Sraaak.
After he opened the curtain that was covering the window slightly, Hans looked down at the view outside.
The entrance of the Kunst auction house which had entered its second day was still jammed with people.
The wealthy businessmen and aristocrats—the people who sat on top of the society’s pyramid and were looked up to by everyone.
‘They’re fortunate.’
Hans had envied such people for a long time.
When he’d wandered aimlessly without knowing when he would be hunted due to his damned physical type, those people must have been sitting around in luxurious mansions and living without knowing about cold and hunger.
Even so, it wasn’t like he hated them or anything.
On the contrary, he probably admired them.
He also wanted to earn a lot of money and lived a well-off and tremendous life.
He also wanted to enjoy his own freedom in his own remote and peaceful home without being disturbed by anyone.
He had always been thinking so.
‘Then I met him.’
Ludger had presented him the way; he’d stretched his hand toward Hans, who was wounded and covered with dust.
He’d told Hans that he would make him successful.
That had been five years to the day, and Hans had never forgotten that moment even once.
‘The role entrusted to me is simple. I just have to match the signal sent to me and operate the machine.’
There was a unique invention made by Sheridan sitting next to Hans.
It was a tool that could, albeit for a moment, incapacitate the artifact called a surveillance camera that watched over the underground vault of the Kunst auction house.
However, it didn’t last for long—five minutes at most.
Thus, if he was to operate it, there was no room for even a brief moment of error.
‘And I’m not alone, either.’
Hans felt that his burden was lightened a bit as he saw his colleague, Arpa, who’d decided to move with him.
‘Well. Is this going to be okay?’
Arpa very intensely looked out the window with him.
The world reflected in that clear retina was very vivid, but he couldn’t read what kind of feeling Arpa had within his eyes.
It was hard for Hans, who was slow-witted, to estimate.
Arpa always had a smiling face, but whenever he received a beast’s factor and his senses were amplified, Hans had goosebumps from the sense of difference that he felt from Arpa.
Hans gathered his courage and spoke to Arpa.
“Hey, are you okay?”
For the moment, he was Arpa’s senior, and they were colleagues who were working together.
Smile.
Arpa beamed when he looked at Hans and asked back.
“Yes? Why do you ask?”
“Well, it’s just that you’re looking outside so intensely.”
“Oh. That? It’s just amazing.”
“Amazing? What is?”
“There are so many people. Pantos and I have been wandering around the wilderness where people rarely visit.”
“Wilderness?”
His appearance was delicate, without even a single blemish on his skin.
Was it to exaggerate his past, or was there perhaps something else?
“…Anyway, you remember our mission, right?”
“Of course. When they send us the signal, we operate the machine in tune with that.”
“Yeah. It’s not going to be hard. No. In fact, it’s a very simple job.”
“Then everything’s fine!”
It was a cheerful answer along with a bright smile.
Hans scratched his cheek with his forefinger as though he was bashful.
Yeah. The important thing was to proceed with the plan anyway.
Hans recalled the last briefing that Ludger had held the night before.
—The ones who will mainly move in this plan are me, Alex, and Pantos.
Hans agreed with those words. Alex was proficient in acting and could deceive people well. Moreover, Ivan Luke certainly thought that he was a Southern aristocrat.
The big guy Pantos was a specialist in battle. When they inevitably collided with the Black Guards inside, his power was direly needed.
Also, Ludger was obviously the core power which couldn’t be left out.
—Because he was the center of the people gathered in that place and their leader.
—We will directly penetrate the basement of the auction house and steal the goods there.
In order to do so, the other members had to carry out their designated missions.
‘First, snatch the key for the elevator entrance heading toward the basement.’
There was only one way heading toward the basement.
They could change their mind and penetrate from the outside by digging an underground tunnel directly, but unfortunately, they lacked the time to do something like that, so they couldn’t choose that option.
In the end, the fact that they had to go down to the basement through the elevator didn’t change.
In order to do so, there was something they needed to do.
‘Find the ‘Key Master’ who has the key to the elevator and snatch it from them, and quickly overpower the security that protects the elevator.’
That wasn’t easy work for both of them.
If things went awry from there, the plan would literally come to nothing.
It was Violeta and Alex’s job to snatch the key from the ‘Key Master’.
Hans could only wish that the members inside didn’t have any difficulties in their missions.
Room number 3108 in the Kunst hotel, on the top floor where only VIPs stayed.
Alex changed into a comfortable attire and went outside.
He’d already falsified his identity as Gouar the day before and had infiltrated Kunst earlier.
Because it was the time to officially proceed with the plan, he had finished his preparations.
As he was about to go down, he discovered a familiar face at the end of the corridor and stopped his stride.
‘Crazy, why is she here?’
Alex hid himself in the corner of the corridor right away.
When he stuck his head out to see her, he wasn’t mistaken.
Enya Joynus…
After she knocked on the floor using her shoes, she stopped in front of the elevator.
‘Why the hell?’
‘No way, is it because she’s affiliated with the Security Department that they assigned her a good room in the hotel? Damn. What should I do if we meet her?’
He couldn’t get close to the elevator like that.
The plan would be delayed if he waited for Enya to get into the elevator first and for her to go down before he got into the next one.
Alex clicked his tongue and moved his feet to an emergency stairway.
‘If I knew it would turn out like this, I would’ve asked for a room on a lower floor.’
The source of trouble was him, who’d been persuaded by the words that the room at the top was especially good and had accepted it.
Alex went down the stairs and sent a signal to Violeta using the portable communicator right away.
“This is ‘Victor Wego’. Please answer me.”
The one who received the call was Violeta, who was waiting for Alex while sitting still in the lobby.
She was vigilant of the gazes from the people in her surroundings while reciting quietly.
“What’s the matter?”
[My ‘shoelace’ is untied, It will take a bit of time for me to go down.]
“—Understood.”
Just in case someone overheard their conversation, they had decided on their own jargons and ciphers.
An untied shoelace meant that something was holding back their movement.
Thus, it meant that there was an obstacle that’d unintentionally disturbed their progress.
Was it going to be like that from the start?
Violeta had no choice but to sigh.
Just about that moment, she saw their target.
‘Key Master.’
He was a middle-aged man who looked like he was in his middle forties.
He looked like a kind gentleman with long sideburns.
He was a hotelier who had been working in Kunst hotel for the last 20 years, and he was the person in charge of the key to the elevator heading down to the basement since he had gained Ivan Luke’s trust.
‘I found him faster than I thought I would.’
Initially, she should have met Alex there, approached the Key Master, and stolen the key from him naturally.
‘Since there’s a problem up there, I have no choice but to do it alone.’
Violeta slowly stood up from her seat and approached the ‘Key Master’ naturally.
She took one glass of champagne from the top of the silver tray that was brought by a passing waiter in the middle of her way and gulped it fast.
‘Hm?’
The ‘Key Master’, who was giving instructions to his subordinate, sent his subordinate away once he spotted a beautiful woman approaching him.
“Now go.”
“Yes. Understood.”
After he sent his subordinate away, the ‘Key Master’ showed a cheesy smile while clearing his throat.
“Ahem. Lady? How may I help you?”
“Oh, my. Are you an employee here?”
As the burn mark on her face was gone, Violeta was radiating her naturally beautiful appearance.
While showing a fascinating smile, she stroked the ‘Key Master’s’ forearm using her hands, which were within black lace gloves.
“Fufu. You know what? I think I drank too~o much alcohol, so can you escort me to my room? My head is dizzy.”
“Hohoho. Of course, my lady. I will escort you there directly.”
The ‘Key Master’ had a thought that it was his fortune.
Violeta knew the man’s wicked intentions.
‘Just as expected.’
She knew the personal data of Kunst’s ‘Key Master’ since they had investigated him.
He looked like a gentle and well-mannered hotelier from the outside, but in fact, he was a person with a very promiscuous sexual life.
He acted as a socially prestigious person, but he went to shady meetings, committed adultery, and habitually did dirty things behind the scenes.
Because of that, Violeta chose to be a honey trap.
As the ‘Key Master’ was unaware that she was a black viper who’d approached him with some sort of trick behind her sleeves, he only enjoyed the current situation.
Even though he knew that she had some kind of purpose, he must have had a groundless certainty that he would be able to take care of it himself.
“Will you help me?”
“Absolutely.”
The ‘Key Master’ placed his hand on Violeta’s slim waist.
Violeta was annoyed by the explicit placement of his hand, but her smiling face didn’t show it.
She was accustomed to facing that kind of person.
“My lady, which room number are you staying in?”
“Hmm. I think it’s because I drank too much, but I can’t remember it well.”
“Oh, my. Is that so?”
“But I can’t stay still in this kind of noisy place. Do you maybe know a personal, quiet place?”
“Of course, I know exactly the place.”
The ‘Key Master’ gladly escorted Violeta.
* * *
As he was checking the situation through the radio, Ludger decided that it wasn’t necessary for him to step in yet.
Violeta was a competent woman. Since she said that she would take care of the situation on her own, he thought of believing and entrusting it to her.
‘For now, I have to join with the other members to prepare for carrying away the key that’s going to be stolen from the ‘Key Master’.’
He had the skill of teleportation using a Coordinate Spell and Ater Nocturnus, but he couldn’t use them rashly.
First of all, he had to see the coordinates of the location or perceive it with his head in order to teleport, but since he wasn’t the one who’d seen the underground vault in person, it was hard for him to estimate the definite location.
He would probably make a mistake and get his body jammed into a space with nothing in it.
Also, even if he arrived there successfully, he couldn’t carry all of the goods outside.
If he wanted to do so, he needed to make a round trip hundreds of times, but it was practically impossible.
He’d have to do something that would consume a huge amount of mana and make him feel like his body was twisting for only doing it once hundreds of times more? He would rather not do it.
It was for that reason that he had made a plan with the other members.
It was at that moment…
“Ooh? Who is this?”
Someone who knew Ludger approached him. Moreover, it was more than one person.
Ludger stopped in his footsteps with a serene face and looked back at the person who’d called him.
“I can’t believe we’re meeting in this kind of place. There’s such a perfect fate in this world, huh? It’s been a long time since our encounter in the banquet hall, right, Professor Ludger Chelysie?”
“…Ivan Luke.”
“I don’t know what kind of business you have in coming to this place, but it’s really~ nice to meet you.”
Ivan Luke was smiling toward him, but the endless hostility being aimed at Ludger from his eyes was burning hot.
‘I don’t think he will send me away easily.’
Of course, unless he was a moron, Ivan Luke wouldn’t chase after Ludger either.
It was actually the contrary.
“Have you taken a good look at our Kunst auction house?”
“It was worth a look around.”
“Haha! You know how to joke around. Well, it can’t be helped since there’s a saying that one can only see according to his knowledge.”
“You can think of it like that. Farewell, then.”
“Ehei. It’s a coincidence that we met like this, how come you are already thinking of going?”
Ivan Luke blocked Lugder’s path, and robust guards were standing behind him.
They were not the Black Guards who wore black armor, but they were a separate security team in suits.
“Still, now that you’ve come all the way here, I’ll give you some assistance because it reminds me of the past. Hey. Because he’s an important guest, you should escort him very courteously. You know what I mean, right?”
“Yes.”
The two guards replied vigorously and stood on either side of Ludger.
There was no lie in the word “escort” because the two guards were literally standing beside Ludger and didn’t harass him.
However, it was even more troublesome.
‘He’s deliberately sticking his people by my side to watch over me.’
Ivan must have given such a command to disturb him.
Since it was a place of business that he operated, it was blatant that he intended to show how much authority he possessed.
However, since it was his current position, Ludger couldn’t reject the act of sabotage under the guise of goodwill.
‘I can’t help it.’
Ludger accepted the situation in the end.
“Alright then.”
He nodded his head and gave permission to both of the bodyguards to accompany him.
At the same time, he naturally sent a signal to the portable radio attached to his ear using his fingertip.
Tap tap tap.
It was a designated behavior to prepare for possible situations.
Also, the meaning behind it was simple.
[It’s impossible for me to conduct my portion of the plan for a certain reason. Requesting the prepared personnel to enter.]
* * *
“What?”
As he heard the signal from the outside, Hans opened his mouth wide.
Because the leader, Ludger, had already gotten stuck, and the requested prepared personnel was Hans.
‘Oh… I have to go there?’
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