CHAPTER 407: ANOTHER ROUND.

"And that would make it..."

[twenty-seven million, four hundred and twenty-two thousand Gold.]

It was around 19:30 when Dante was done sorting through the stuff he looted, and after counting everything, he ended up with that number.

"Man, you’re telling me all of this is just..."

Among the one hundred and twenty shards they got from the equity firm’s safe, only thirty were made from Neorosteel. The rest were fifty Feradyne and forty Voltane, both rare alloys, but not even half as valuable. Selling all of them would only bring about 13650000G, even less than their first haul from a while back.

As for the thirty luxury cars they got from Kortic’s garage, those were worth only fourteen million. As he redid the calculations himself, Dante couldn’t help but wonder.

"Am I... am I being ripped off?"

He remembered seeing the prices of Titan Forge implants, and some went for up to fifty million Gold, even if they were second-hand. Still, ninety-two million for a pair of MBIs was far too crazy a price, and now that he was reminded of how difficult it was going to be to gather those funds, he was realizing the insanity of it all for a second time.

"Twenty-seven million..."

As he muttered the number, another realization hit him. The shards were one thing, but when it came to the cars, he was going to struggle a lot to sell them. At the very least, it was going to be really difficult to find buyers when the Daggers were still around. That meant he only gained another thirteen million, barely bringing him to the halfway point.

"... Guess we have to go another round, huh?"

Dante was prepared to call it a day just earlier, but his earnings falling short caused him to reconsider. The church he checked that morning was going to be his last target, but before he headed there, he decided to stop by the Bowl of Fortune and get some dinner.

After transporting the stolen cars to Hollowstreet, the only places he could portal to were the areas bordering it in the original dimension, or other pocket dimensions, which were in the same area.

At first, he considered going back to his apartment, but since he left that morning and had yet to return, it would look strange if he suddenly came out. He didn’t think anyone would notice, but it was for the best if he avoided it altogether.

In the end, he went with the borders around Hollowstreet, opening a portal to one of the abandoned apartments there. He got his dinner, gossiped with Glenn and Jonah about Ross’s date, then took a train back to New City.

~[ ]~

For the church, Dante decided to go with the same strategy he used when infiltrating the office building from before. First, he used 8-3 to portal into one of the empty rooms on the first basement floor.

With it being night, there weren’t a lot of people in the church to begin with, and that went twice for the lower floors. Once he was inside, Dante switched to 8-1 for comfort, though that can be debated, considering he upped the difficulty for himself significantly.

Volcan handled the Diving, disabling security systems along the way. The first basement floor seemed like a standard storage area, so Dante didn’t pay it much attention. On the far end, near a set of stairs that lead to the second basement floor, several rooms seem to have been made into bedrooms for the staff. The same went for the other end of the stairs.

The 3D model showed that a group of three was gathered in one of those rooms. They seemed to be drinking and laughing about something. Just in case, Dante decided to fix their door in place using Spatial lock. He didn’t want them to suddenly come out while he took the stairs down.

Just like with the first, Dante decided to ignore the second basement floor. Things got a lot more difficult right after.

"I already told you, we can’t go through it like that."

"And I’m telling you-"

Just as he was about to descend to the third basement floor, two men came up the stairs, forcing Dante to retreat. With nowhere to hide, he was forced to enter one of the rooms and lie low, but the hiss the door made as it closed seemed awfully loud.

The two men, likely priests working for the church, seemed to notice the sound, which prompted them to go check. The room Dante entered was another bedroom, and with how minimalist its owner was, there weren’t many places where someone could hide. If anyone were to enter, they were bound to notice the armored stranger right away.

’Vocan.’

Just as the two priests were about to reach it, Dante instructed Volcan to trigger the sensors on another door, causing it to open, but only halfway through. Another door opened right after, then another.

Dante asked Volcan to open the door to the room he was in as well and closed right after, and right after, he heard the priest’s confused voices.

"Are the doors... malfunctioning?"

"Maybe there is a bug in the system or something..."

There were only three companies that handled the production and installation of automatic doors in the entirety of the Radmir union. For such businesses, having a product malfunction was a big deal, so people remembered it even if it rarely happened. That made tricking the priests much easier, so after instructing Volcan to lock the doors and keep them that way, they became convinced that it was a system bug.

The two priests made some calls to confirm if anyone was stuck in the locked rooms then left for the upper floors, meeting the three from before. Thankfully, Dante remembered to remove the Spatial Lock on their door.

The little distraction Volcan caused scared the priests into leaving for the ground floor, not wanting to be stuck until whoever handled the maintenance showed up. Once they were gone, Dante was free to advance once more.