Asher went inside the vault, observing numerous artifacts divided into various sections. Each of them was encased in glass structures.
Kai frowned as he saw the glass used to encase the artifacts.
“How many runemasters are working for them?” Kai said aloud.
Each piece of glass had runes on it, distinct from those present at the entrance of the vault.
“Thousands,” Asher replied, continuing to walk around different sections of artifacts.
The vault’s interior was lit with blue lights powered by various mana stones and runes. It was a self-sufficient creation, functioning almost akin to a spatial storage device.
Each section was grouped by the type of artifacts placed there. None of the artifacts here were below S Rank.
Kai remembered their meeting when Dane asked a question while Asher explained the plan.
“What if we take all the artifacts?” Dane proposed.
Listening to Asher’s idea, he thought their chances of succeeding were very high, so he obviously wanted to make the most out of it.
“Not possible,” Asher immediately rejected the idea.
“The moment we break the encasing around the artifacts, an alert would be sent to everyone related to the security of the vault,” Asher explained.
He knew this well, listening to conversations between Arthur and the old man present when Arthur took ownership of the vault from Kamden Whiteheart.
“And the vault will shut down immediately after 20 seconds,” Asher added, quelling any fanciful ideas in Dane’s head.
Currently, Asher was searching for a specific artifact he had taken all this risk for. Last time, it had fallen into Leonard’s hands.
‘Maybe even that artifact will be here,’ Asher wasn’t sure but kept reviewing various information popping up before him.
He passed by numerous artifacts that could fetch millions of AUR at auction, but none of them piqued his interest.
At the moment, he was in front of a special section where various unique artifacts were stored. But, these couldn’t be grouped with other artifacts due to their unique shapes, differing from typical artifact forms.
His wandering eyes soon stopped on a specific artifact.
A metallic-looking card with an eye-shaped jewel in the center could be seen in the transparent glass casing.
‘Found it,’ Asher thought, examining the information about the artifact.
The question was, how would Asher extract this artifact, along with the other item he was after?
Tom, who had been working on cracking the security system of the fourth level, finally managed to succeed. Still, the sight that met his eyes shocked him.
“What?” His eyes widened as he almost sprang from his seat.
He had just gained access to the fourth level and saw a blond man with distinctive blue eyes moving to a specific part of the fourth level.
“L-Louis Rothschild??” He stuttered in shock.
“Why the hell is he here!?” He couldn’t believe what Louis Rothschild was doing there.
But he didn’t know that James Rothschild had sent Louis himself, so he could stay at the underground facility to help Kamden Whitheart. James knew that the S Rank Hunters of the Whiteheart family were working on a recently formed special dungeon.
The other reason was to ensure that Louis stayed in a place away from people. Known as the Mad Dog of the Rothschild Family, he had earned this nickname due to the trouble he caused wherever he went.
“I need to inform the boss about it!!” Tom immediately tried to contact Asher and Kai.
<Access Denied>
“WHAT?” Tom didn’t understand what happened but concluded that Louis Rothschild had somehow taken control of the fifth level.
Unsure of what to do, he immediately began to investigate the matter. But first, he needed to inform Asher and Kai about this.
They were still inside the Fifth Level, unaware that Louis Rothschild had already sensed something wrong.
“No, no, I need to do something,” Tom panicked.
Louis Rothschild was said to have achieved S+ Rank, and Tom was sure that even Dane and Kai together wouldn’t be enough to take on Louis Rothschild.
“I need to get him out of here,” Tom muttered as he kept looking for ways around the problem.
Inside the Fourth Level a minute ago,
“I will activate the Security Protocol,” Louis said with a serious look.
“What?” the team leader asked, confused.
“Try to use your mana, idiot,” Louis retorted, clearly irritated.
The team leader of the guards used his mana, but something felt extremely wrong with his mana control.
“How?” He was confused as he looked toward Louis.
“Activate the Security Protocol,” Louis repeated.
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“Connect me to the other levels and contact the teams positioned there,” Louis instructed as he turned.
“Ah, my access was denied,” the team leader reported slowly.
His face was horrified, and he immediately tried to use his team’s communications.
“Team A1?” he asked, but no reply came.
Louis’s face turned serious as he realized something had gone wrong.
“Check which level the protocol was implemented on!” Louis shouted at the team leader, who was nearly shaken by the amount of pressure Louis was exerting.
He clicked his bracelet, and a holographic 3-D map of the underground facility emerged.
All levels, except the fourth and fifth, were red.
“No way,” the team leader muttered.
He was only here to build connections with the famous Louis Rothschild, but he hadn’t expected this.
“Where is the footage of the Fifth Level?” Louis immediately asked.
“In the Management Room, where we uploaded the system you wanted to implement on this level,” he replied.
Louis knew the direction of the room, so he turned and immediately headed toward it. He held his breath, knowing the air was laced with an unknown drug. Although it wasn’t that effective on an S+ Rank Hunter like him, he didn’t want to take any risks regarding this.
While Louis was going to review the current footage, Asher found the second artifact he hadn’t expected to see here.
‘So this was here as well,’ Asher thought, examining a necklace-type artifact.
He remembered this artifact very well. But, unfortunately, it wasn’t as powerful or useful as the artifact he initially came for. He didn’t need it, but he decided to take it anyway.
It was closely connected to the incident that had completely changed Asher.
“I have planted it,” Kai said to Asher as he returned to the vault.
“So, how are we going to take them out?” Kai asked, still unsure of the method Asher intended to use.
“Let’s go outside first,” Asher replied.
They left the vault, but Kai was still eager to learn how Asher would deal with the runes.
Asher walked around the vault, touching one of the lines of runes on the corner.
‘Second time, huh,’ Asher thought to himself.
Only once in his previous life had this vault been breached, and his organization had done it. But the scale of that heist was much larger than the current one.
At this moment, he didn’t know about Louis Rothschild’s presence, and Louis didn’t know about Asher’s existence on the Fifth Level either.
But both of them were about to meet soon.
And now, Tom was panicking quite a bit, as encountering Louis was a guaranteed death sentence for them.