97 The Heist Part 1

24.08.2012

02.53

Albion Empire

Somewhere outside the city of London

"Everyone remembers the plan?" Linri asked after putting his mask.

They all put their masks on and nodded. They were going to break into a government facility and there were no rooms for any errors. Everyone checked their equipment one last time. They each had a gun or a knife with them aside from Linri. If he could he would also like to use weapons but since he was a novice they would be more of a burden than a help. No worries though he still had his ability which was more reliable for him considering he was honing his ice powers with death battles every night.

The ability itself did not get stronger but Linri got more creative with his usage and was more familiar with it. Now as long as he knows the position of his target he doesn't even need to turn around to fire his Icicle strike. A stark improvement from his fight against the cougar in the forest of Rundabar... or was it a cougar? Anyway not important.

Luke, Hayato, Leslie, Selim and Linri got off the van. They were covered in black military gear. The only thing you can see were their eyes. When they were coming here Hayato used his ability jam every camera to play a loop just when they were passing to erase their trace. Still just to be even more sure they had also stolen the van they were using. They were extremely careful with each step of the preparations. To be fair Linri tried to account for every possible scenario but because he was new to this stuff Hayato was the one doing most of the stuff.

To make a quick getaway and be aware of any unforeseen situation, Lance was going to be a lookout. If things go south Lance was going to run away by himself and meet them at a designated location. If they do not show up he was going to deem the mission a failure and leave.

They were in front of an old castle-like manor right now. It was made during the Victorian age, hence the weird architectural design.

The 4 quickly climbed through the wall and made it into the backyard while Selim just phased through the wall. The backyard was unattended so the wild grass was thriving here. At the centre of the garden, there was a broken down statue of a knight. Its head and one of the arms were missing. It was holding a sword that was faced towards the ground. Linri thought that if it was whole it would look dignified.

The group moved through the shadows and made their way into one of the windows. The manor was shaped like a T and according to the floor plans, Linri got this window should open to a supply closet.

Selim once again phased through the wall and opened the window from the inside. The window had a motion sensor so he used one of the gadgets Hayato gave him to neutralise it.

Once the window was open one by one they made their way inside. They were in. Phew, at least the plan worked smoothly till this point but to be honest there was no way that they could mess this part unless they directly barged through the front door shouting that there were here.

Now here was the tricky part. This supply closet was connected to the Library of the house and there was a camera in there. So to hide their break-in they had to disable it. That was where Selim came in.

Selim phased part of his face through the door. Only his eyes were on the outside. Once he confirmed that the location of the camera was the same as the ones in the plans he backed out.

He turned towards Hayato and nodded then he walked towards the right and phased inside the wall. Currently, he was walking with no vision of what's outside through the wall. The only sense of direction he had were his steps. To know where he was inside the wall, Selim was counting his steps. Once he reached underneath the camera he walked out the wall.

Right now Selim was out of breath. Walking through the door without seeing what's outside was taxing for him both mentally and physically. Truth be told it was the first time he had attempted something like this. Usually, he only phased through small stuff like bullets or knives. He had phased through walls before but he had never attempted to stay inside the wall. This was Linri's idea and Selim had trained for it for the last 2 days and today his training had paid off.

After stabilising his breathing Selim threw the little device that Hayato gave him to the camera. If it does not work that was not his fault. So Selim stayed where he was and started to look towards the supply closet door. It seems like the device had worked because the door slowly opened and the other four silently walked outside.

Currently, they were inside the library the walls were covered in bookshelves but almost all of them were empty. This manor used to belong to a noble family but after they lost their fortune the government had seized it for their debts. So it was reasonable that the family must have taken whatever they could before leaving this place in a hurry.

At the middle of the room, there was some furniture covered in white sheets. and next to them was a broken glass display. It was empty.

"Are you okay?" Once they made their way to Selim Linri had asked him this question. If they were to move in undetected they had to do this a couple more times.

Since they did not want to leave this was the safest way. Otherwise, they could have just let Hayato hack the security feed and put it in a loop but then that would leave a mark that could be traced back to them. Every hacker had their own way of breaking into programs and investigating the way they did it was not hard to figure out who was the one that broke in. The devices on the cameras were still a trace but at least Linri knew that it could not be traced back to them. They were a commonly used subterfuge device used by Hanawa government so it would also reinforce the notion that this was a hostile break-in from a foreign government.

"Yeah, I am good to go. I can do this all night!" Selim answered cheekily.