[Rose: There is a secret room at the back.
Mr. Pike: It might be a hidden passage.
When the message reached him, Dante turned his attention to the white mansion’s 3D model, which he had Volcan isolate from the rest of the hotel. In the collection room was the dot representing Rose, now purple to distinguish it from Kirk and Mr. Pike. About five red dots had just passed beside it, but once they reached the back of the room, they suddenly vanished into the wall.
’They are... gone...?’
Dante tried rotating the model and zooming in and out, but he couldn’t find them. Since he had Type 8-3 equipped, with Volcan using Spatial Awareness to constantly update the location of every individual in the hotel, there was simply no way he would have missed the movements of a few.
’What is going on here?’
As he continued to stare at the model, he finally began to notice something odd about it.
’This room... why is it so empty?’
The collection room was almost on the westernmost side of the white mansion, with two storage rooms flanking it. Behind them was a long empty hallway, but when he studied it some more, Dante realized that there was a wall on one end, and since it had no doors, the entire area appeared to be completely sealed off.
What he thought was a corridor turned out to be a very long room, but that still didn’t explain how the rich scion and his bodyguards had disappeared. In the first place, why would there be a secret door that leads to an empty room? And if that was the case, why would people vanish the moment they enter it?
’Don’t tell me....’ Dante tried to hold his chin only to remember he was wearing a helmet. ’Volcan, the two stalkers from a while back, would Spatial Awareness have worked on them?’
[... That is unlikely.] Volcan said. [I was unable to detect their presence even when they were in close proximity to us.]
Ghost Mode had always been something to use on people, which is why the idea of using it on objects or places never occurred to Dante. The long room at the center of the mansion wasn’t an empty blackness like how the entire thirty-seventh floor had been when it was surrounded by the Shirogane barrier. Instead, it was the neon blue of six walls forming a box much like the other rooms, but without any contents.
It was another thing that made it appear like a corridor was the lack of any furniture or objects to fill the space, but when he considered it again, he realized there were no decorative plants, chandeliers, or doors. It was entirely empty, which should have caused it to stand out, but Dante failed to notice it until now.
’... this is going to be troublesome...’
The messages he exchanged with the others taught him that the range of Aether Disruption was quite vast, which means the room had been covered in it multiple times already. If the room was covered in a different type of barrier, that should have been enough to dispel it, but the fact that it was still up meant things were different.
’A more powerful sorcery? Or... did someone reactivate it...’
As he tried to understand what was happening, Dante noticed four red dots were separating from the rest, likely heading for the stairs to the second floor.
’Volcan, give me a visual on those three.’
The moment Dante laid eyes on the new screen, his face warped in disgust. A large beast covered in white fur, followed by a little girl in a silver tunic, a weirdo in an orange poncho, and another one in a white cloak.
They were the four members of team Silver Wind, led by that one despicable werewolf. Though he already knew they were participating in the raid and that they had already made it to the thirty-eighth floor, Dante wasn’t too happy to see them make their way down.
’Fucking trillionaire and he can’t get some decent security...’ He thought. ’And what’s up with the Romano bastards? Aren’t they supposed to be an ancient sorcerer family or something?’
The development couldn’t be entirely attributed to the heroes, since the rest of the raid coalition was there to support them. Most of them wore military grad power-suits and used weapons meant for war, so it wasn’t too strange that they were able to carve a path through an army of sorcerers and trillionaire-funded cyborgs.
’Still...’ As he watched the three make their way through the second floor, Dante arrived at a conclusion and quickly brought up the cloned messenger app.
Finn: Is the hidden door still open?
Finn: In that case, get the relic and prepare to escape.
Rose: What? Right now?
Mr. Pike: Did something happen?
Kirk: This does not look like the right time.
The main goal of the raid is supposedly to arrest Klaus Stahlwölfe, Giovanni Romano, and other higher-ups of both families. With that being the case, it should be obvious why the heroes were going ahead.
Finn: A hero team is heading for the first floor.
I’m guessing they are coming for Klaus Stahlwölfe.
And since he left the door open, they’re likely to clash right there in the collection room.
It will be your only opening.
The rest of the raid forces will get there soon, and they still have another hero team with them.
Mr. Pike: In that case, we will head for the exit as well.
Dante was worried about the others dismissing the advice of a child -he was contacting them as Finn, after all- but thankfully, they didn’t argue his point. Pulling up the screen with the surveillance feed, Dante watched as Silver Wind clashed with another squad of cyborgs, barely straggling before moving on.
’What should I do...’
Today had been quite exhausting, and so long as the heist is a success, he would have accomplished everything he had set out to do. Not to mention, he already killed three heroes. That should be more than enough this time around. There was no need to push himself and go after the others.
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