The first thing Jake needed to do was deactivate all the surveillance cameras inside the bandit HQ. He was going to snatch the Skeleton Key from the safe and didn’t want the surveillance cameras recording the concealed safe door opening by itself. Once they realized the Skeleton Key was missing, they would surely hurry to check the recorded footage. Since Jake was keeping Cloak up, all they would see was the concealed safe being opened and the Skeleton Key floating out, which would raise some questions in their minds. He had to avoid that.
So he needed to turn off all the surveillance cameras. Additionally, he wanted to erase all previous recordings from every camera and turret to sow confusion. He didn’t want to give them any indication that he was the one who had infiltrated their facility. Los Demonios were already aware of his ability to turn invisible. To keep suspicion away from himself, he had to ensure it looked like one of their own had snatched the Skeleton Key.
Apart from the base leader, only Miller’s three closest subordinates seemed to have access to the security control room and the safe. This meant that Dominic, Minh, and Patrick would quickly become his primary suspects once the disappearance of the Skeleton Key was discovered. All three were terrified of Miller, and from what he had gathered by eavesdropping on their recent conversation, they definitely weren’t friends.
Each of them had their own agenda. Dominic might be Miller’s favorite. It was hard to tell for sure, but he was the one who Miller had given the Skeleton Key to. It was possible that Miller chose him at random, but Jake doubted it. Unlike the other two, Dominic consistently defended their leader’s decisions. He was a bootlicker trying to earn Miller’s favor.
In contrast to Dominic, Patrick was openly critical of their leader. He had voiced his concerns about how poorly Miller handled the attack on their base. Dominic would definitely remember this and would likely report it to Miller once the Skeleton Key’s disappearance was uncovered. As for Minh, he appeared to have been spying on Los Demonios’ leaders, pursuing an agenda of his own that Dominic would most likely report to Miller as well.
The three of them were very different, and once the disappearance of the Skeleton Key came to light, there would be no unity among them. Rather than supporting one another, they would likely turn on each other, exposing all kinds of dirt. Terrified of incurring Miller’s wrath, each would desperately attempt to deflect suspicion away from himself, which would play right into Jake’s hands.
As he continued to browse through various options on the computer, he stumbled upon a few more fascinating details about the base’s operations. He was already aware that repairs to damaged structures were initiated through the computer in the security control room, but he now learned that the construction of new structures and contraptions was also managed from that very room.
To build a new structure, the user simply needed to pick one from the list. If all the necessary requirements were fulfilled and there were enough resources, the structure would be selected. The next step was to pick a location on the map of the compound where the user wanted the new structure to be placed. It was that easy, almost like playing a video game but in reality.
When he was a human survivor, Jake had never reached the stage where he could build his own base. He had never even learned how basic crafting worked in this game-like world through personal experience. This was why he was now so interested in seeing it in action. In fact, his curiosity was so intense that he briefly entertained the idea of attempting to build something himself.
However, he quickly dismissed the idea. If a new structure suddenly popped up somewhere in the base, its occupants would immediately notice, and the three sub-bosses, who were currently outside the HQ, would realize someone was in the security control room. Staying undetected was Jake’s top priority, so trying to build a new structure was out of the question, at least for the time being.
While navigating through the data on the computer, he suddenly stumbled upon the list of all the bases belonging to Los Demonios. The list included the coordinates for each base. Jake checked them on the map, learning and memorizing the locations of all the bases. Beside each base, its status was displayed, and all were currently marked as “Under No Threat”.
So it appeared that when a base came under attack, its status automatically updated across all security control rooms in every other base. Therefore, when this base was under siege by void monsters, the leaders of all the other bases were likely notified of the situation. This system made sure that when one base was under attack, the others were quickly informed, allowing them to quickly come to their allies’ assistance if necessary.
Anyway, Jake now knew the exact location of every other base in the city, except for the main base. Unlike the others, it was located somewhere outside the city. However, when Jake typed in the command to display its coordinates, the computer requested that he input a password.
So this meant that while some general information could be accessed easily through the computer, more sensitive data or important commands necessitated entering a password for added security. Unfortunately, he didn’t know the password, and his Enhanced Intelligence skill didn’t currently allow him to hack electronic devices—at least, not yet. Still, he was undeterred. The original members of Los Demonios, such as Miller, knew the location of the main base. So when the right moment arrived, Jake would easily find it. He would just need to employ his Mind Reader ability on one of the original members of the gang.
As Jake explored the available commands on the computer, he stumbled upon another intriguing option. He could actually modify the behavior of the machine gun turrets. Presently, they were programmed to attack only monsters that neared the base. However, he could adjust them to target specific targets. He was surprised to find that he could set the turrets to eliminate all members of a certain group within the base, such as guards or workers. Additionally, he had the option to disable the turrets altogether or configure them to refrain from attacking anything.
Out of curiosity, he decided to try making the turrets passive for a moment, simply to see if he was allowed to do so. He reasoned that it wouldn’t affect their appearance, so no one in the base would realize that there was a change in their behavior, since none of the turrets were currently firing.
However, when he attempted to do so, a familiar prompt appeared, asking him to enter the password. So deactivating the turrets or altering their settings also required authentication. It made sense. Just like accessing sensitive information, modifying the turrets’ settings was classified as a significant command, necessitating a password for added security. The encrypted system was designed to prevent unauthorized users from tampering with the defense mechanisms—an essential feature, especially for a group like the bandits, whose livelihood depended on maintaining their territory.
However, even if Jake could command the turrets to kill all the bandits within the base, he probably wouldn’t have gone through with it. After all, what would he have achieved by that? Sure, the workers would have their own base, but how long they could hold it was anyone’s guess. As he had just learned, when one base was under attack, all the others were immediately informed about it. So if the workers took control of the base, it was only a matter of time before bandits from the other bases came rushing in. Jake doubted the workers would be able to defend their base against the combined forces of other bases for long. It would likely be just a matter of minutes before Los Demonios reclaimed it, wiping out all the rioters.
The workers would have no chance without his assistance. Yet he was far from ready for a tough fight at the moment. Before launching a full-scale war against Los Demonios, he needed to evolve to the next stage and level up a bit more. Thus, his main priority at the moment was to obtain the Skeleton Key.
Having learned everything there was to know about controlling the base via the computer, it was time to move on to the third and final phase of his plan.
First, he checked the feed from each surveillance camera to locate every guard within the HQ. There were two on the second floor: one positioned just outside the door to the security control room and the other at the end of the corridor, where he could see the entire stretch. The latter was the smoker Jake had met on the roof some time ago. On the first floor, there were a few more guards. Jake committed the positions of all of them to memory.
Next, he deleted all the recorded videos from each surveillance camera within the HQ. After that, he moved to deactivate all of them. For a moment, he feared that a prompt might pop up asking him for a password. If that happened, Jake would have needed to resort to destroying the hard drives entirely. However, it turned out that deleting the recorded data didn’t require a password. Once he erased everything captured by the cameras, he proceeded to deactivate them. Now, nothing of the massacre that would take place in the HQ over the next several minutes would be recorded.
Jake had to act quickly now. He wasn’t sure whether the cameras’ current offline status was visibly apparent, so he needed to hurry in case it was. He had to finish what he started before any guards in the HQ realized the cameras were down.
Moving quickly, he approached the door and jumped up, reaching the ceiling and clinging to it with Adhesive Secretion oozing from the tips of his fingers and toes. Since he didn’t have much mana left in his body, he decided to deactivate Cloak, causing his body to become visible. There wasn’t much reason to keep it active from this point on anyway, and he wanted to conserve as much mana as possible. In its active state, using abilities like bladed tentacles or tendrils caused Cloak to consume additional mana to keep up with his quick, chaotic movements and keep all of his additional appendages concealed. So to save what little mana he had left, it was wiser to keep the ability turned off for the time being.
He then glanced at the touchpad built into the wall next to the door. He had memorized the code Dominic had entered when he and his two companions walked into the security control room. It was a simple four-digit code. However, it turned out that exiting the security control room didn’t require entering the code. To unlock and open the door, he simply needed to press a button on the touchpad.
With a thought, he grew multiple long tendrils from his back. He reached down with one of them and used it to press the button on the touchpad. He immediately retracted the tendril as the door slid into the wall with a faint hiss. Jake went completely still, waiting for his first prey to show up.
He didn’t have to wait long.