The three members of the superhero team Raven Heart were dead. Once he confirmed that, Dante finally gave Volcan the order to remove his armor. At the same time, he gave the mental command to equip a piece of headgear, summoning a spare helmet he bought a while back.
Though he was in Ghost Mode and had control over the hotel’s systems, he wanted to be sure that no one would see his face. The time after a grueling battle is when one is likely to make the biggest mistakes, after all.
Feeling the strain leave his body, Dante was finally able to relax a little. His knees almost buckled, however, reminding him once again that this wasn’t the time to let himself go. Thinking for a moment, knelt down beside Raven, placed a hand on his back, then watched as neon green lines spread over him.
Would you like to store this item?
The instant he selected yes, the entire corpse vanished, leaving behind a big patch of splattered blood. The fact that the hero had a hood on helped a great deal, since it kept the contents of his squashed brains in one place and allowed the whole thing to be stored along with the main body, unlike what happened with the tracker.
Dante went and grabbed him next, then he went to get the phaser’s corpse as well. Though he would have liked to erase every trace of what he had done, cleaning up all the blood was simply impossible. Not that he cared. He had been wearing Volcan’s armors during the entire fight so there weren’t that many traces linked to him that needed to be erased. As for the corpses, he just thought that they might prove to be useful at some point.
"Y-you!! What are you doing !!?"
As he was in the process of moving the debris, Dante looked up and noticed two men in black suits were pointing guns at him. Only then did he realize that the room he had punched the phaser into was occupied.
"Put your hands up!" One of them yelled, "Twitch and you’re dead!"
’C’mon now...’ hanging his head, Dante let out a long sigh. ’Volcan.’
[Right away!] Volcan replied with a bit of eagerness in his voice. [They’re both Level 2 Advanced Cyborgs. Would you like me to leave their bionics intact?]
’Yeah, burning their NIMs would do.’ Dante replied inwardly. ’No need to waste perfectly good bionics...’
Not a second later, the two bodyguards fell to the floor, screaming as they clutched their heads. Dante went on with his job, retrieving the phaser’s corpse. He then walked into the room and to the bathroom in the back, equipping his gun at the same time.
The existence of bodyguards meant that there was someone for them to guard, and of course, that someone would be somewhere nearby.
He found a young woman hiding in the bathtub, her entire body trembling at his sight. She looked at him with eyes full of terror, and her mouth moved as she attempted to say something. Not giving her the chance, Dante raised the gun and took aim, piercing a hole right between her eyebrows.
There was no need to kill her as she likely didn’t see anything, but Dante wasn’t really in the mood to consider such things.
’... I need a break...’
After collecting the corpses of the bodyguards, he dragged his feet to the nearest elevator, checking with Volcan to decide which floor they should hide on for the time being. He considered having his resident AI fry the brains of more cyborgs, but just the thought of going to each room to pick them up added to his exhaustion, forcing him to discard the idea.
He wouldn’t hesitate to finish any that might appear in his way, though, but that seemed unlikely. Since the news of the police raid spread, the hotel guests had been quite obedient, remaining in their fancy rooms and suits without making a fuss. He had expected the rich filth to cause trouble, thinking their status and wealth would work in the current state of things, but it seems that seeing one of them get blown off the sky got the idea across.
The first thing Dante did after arriving at the twenty-ninth floor was look for an empty room. Sitting on the bed, he opened the storage menu and looked for a certain item, taking it out right away.
What fell into his palm was a simple pill bottle. Knowing he would undoubtedly overuse the armors, he came prepared with some painkillers. Those were a special type, with a formula created by the Alchemist himself.
Popping one of the pills, he took out a bottle of water and drank some then lay down, staring at the ceiling for a moment. The pain lingering all over his body was gone before long, and with it went the irritation slowing his thoughts.
Barely an hour had passed since the start of the raid. With the hotel’s security systems under his control, he had managed to slow down the invasion, preventing the police and BEO coalition from making much progress. Some were able to breach the gates sealing the floors, but they seemed to have been met with quite the resistance.
’More heroes...’ He thought, watching a fight between someone with ice powers and a fencer in a stylish suit. ’Those must be the guys who took down Shark...’
Dante found himself wishing he was up there despite having just killed three of the pretentious bastards. The ice users seemed like the best opportunity for him to try out one of the Type 1 suits, and finishing them off would go a long way in ensuring that the heist was a success.
At that moment, it just came to him that he had forgotten the main reason behind his coming here. Hunting the heroes was never one of his objectives, but the moment he started, he lost himself in it.
’Rose has yet to move...’
Just as he was about to check on his crewmates, something on one of the screens projected on his OAM caught his eye. It was the feed from one of the security cameras on the higher floors, showing the ongoing battle of the Stahlwölfe and Romano forces against the authorities.
There was a shootout happening, with both sides hiding behind corners and door frames while emptying what felt like an endless number of bullets. Just as it began to feel like no one was getting hit, someone jumped out and rushed toward the Stahlwölfe side, weaving through the storm of bullets as if it were nothing.
The guy was too fast to be a normal human. Not that he looked like one to begin with. With broad shoulders and arms the size of a gorilla’s, not to mention his bestial head and the white fur covering his upper half, he looked like a humanoid dog. Dante thought that the beastman looked familiar, but it was only when he saw the flowing white tail that his memory sparked.
"You got to be fucking kidding me..."
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