A Mad Plan

Rein had received professional theft training at the base. Looting a corpse took no more than two or three seconds.

But aside from a solid gold pocket watch, Rein found nothing else of value in the corpse's pockets.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a pitch-black Storage Ring on the corpse's left ring finger, and his heart leaped with joy.

This guy actually has a spatial Storage Ring!

Such spatial equipment was priceless in this world, reserved exclusively for nobles and High-tier Extraordinary individuals.

And having one meant there were bound to be priceless treasures inside!

Without hesitation, Rein touched the black ring. It was like opening a computer folder in his previous life, and a dazzling assortment of items appeared before his eyes.

The storage space, roughly one cubic meter in size, contained vast quantities of precious metal currency: Gold Kron, Silver Nar, and large-denomination banknotes issued by the Oma Empire Bank.

There were also professional tomes for Doctor-class Extraordinary individuals, all sorts of strange materials, and rows upon rows of potions.

It was an enormous fortune that would make anyone green with envy!

I've struck it rich! This guy actually kept his entire fortune in his Storage Ring!

Seeing so many things inside the Storage Ring, Rein immediately realized that this was his great opportunity.

But in the next instant, his thoughts began racing.

That guy escaped down here, so there must still be people from the Weasel Gang alive upstairs. Once they come down, they'll definitely track the corpse. Even if I run off with the goods, the odds of escaping Quinn's pursuit after he has unlocked three Gene Locks are extremely low! And now that Tiger is dead, the Zombie Potion toxin is still in my body. If I don't get the antidote, I won't survive long even if I escape now.

After a brief moment of thought, Rein realized this was not the best time to flee.

At the same time, an even crazier plan flashed through his mind.

If it succeeded, he would have a very good chance of escaping the Weasel Bandit Group's control—and becoming rich overnight!

Fortune favors the bold. I'm doing it!

The situation was urgent. There was no time for further deliberation.

After weighing his options for an instant, his gaze hardened, and he immediately sprang into action.

Rein did not carefully inventory the contents of the Storage Ring. He did not even take the ring itself. Instead, he swept everything into the folded space carried by the Mind Core, leaving behind only some clothes, coins, and other seemingly worthless items.

Baron Morin's corpse remained exactly as it was.

Filthy water flowed through the sewers, leaving few traces behind.

Tracking and countertracking were part of an assassin's basic training. Rein carefully dealt with the traces he had left behind, then returned the way he had come.

Though there were still a few minor flaws, Rein was certain that even if the Weasel Gang's higher-ups noticed something suspicious, they would not suspect him anytime soon.

A thief had to be caught with the stolen goods. Those people would not care about Baron Morin's death; they would only care about what he had been carrying.

No one would imagine that he possessed a folded space carried by a top-tier twenty-first-century technological Mind Core, capable of hiding things without leaving a trace!

Without the stolen goods, he had far more room to deny everything and give others something to speculate about.

After finishing all this, Rein immediately returned to the sewer intersection from before.

Sure enough, Captain Tiger and the other two newcomers had all been killed by the poison gas.

The concentration of poison gas around them had dropped considerably due to the airflow, but it was still deadly.

In his mind, the Mind Core kept issuing danger warnings.

This poison gas can kill a Transcendent in seconds. It really is vicious.

Rein did not dare let his guard down.

Following the Mind Core's concentration readings, he carefully chose a downwind opening some distance from Tiger's corpse, ensuring that he would not be killed by the poison gas.

Then he took two deep breaths of gas—enough to knock someone unconscious, but not enough to kill him.

In an instant, the ammonia-like stench flooded his respiratory tract. His vision went black, and he completely lost consciousness.

Trying to escape now carried a huge risk of being caught, but the most dangerous place was often the safest!

That was right. He intended to pretend he had been poisoned, muddle through the situation, and return to the base to obtain the antidote for the Zombie Potion!

He did not know how much time had passed before his consciousness gradually returned.

Vaguely, Rein heard people talking nearby.

"Still haven't found those things?"

"No."

"Chief Quinn, Baron Morin's Storage Ring only contained some coins, clothes, and other unimportant items. Either that guy escaped without carrying the items on him, or someone stole them after he died."

"The Storage Ring was still there, so theft is unlikely. Unless the thief also had a Storage Ring, they couldn't hide anything even if they took a few items. It seems most likely that Baron Morin left himself a backup plan and hid the goods before anything happened rather than carrying them with him."

"I never expected that guy to have hidden a Poison Gas Bomb. The operation caused too much of a commotion and drew the City Guard Army from Blazing Steel Fortress. We had no choice but to withdraw in a hurry. If the goods were still in the manor, they most likely ended up in Marquis Barret's hands. If that's the case, we're in trouble."

"Unfortunately, Tiger is already dead. In the sewers, only that newcomer who inhaled the poison gas and fell unconscious survived. No one knows what happened. Besides, I personally searched all of them and checked the surrounding area. There was no sign that anything had been hidden."

"We'll ask 9527 when he wakes up. But we probably won't get anything useful. That poison gas kills on contact, and the fact that he managed to survive was sheer luck."

"This is troublesome. That lord used a hidden agent planted in Blazing Steel Fortress to get us inside. Now that we failed to obtain the goods, how are we supposed to answer for this?"

Rein checked the time displayed by the Mind Core. He had been unconscious for three days.

After looking around at his surroundings, he immediately determined that he had returned to the Weasel Bandit Group's headquarters.

The base's medical laboratory! Just as expected, I'm back here.

This was exactly what Rein had anticipated. Lying on the medical bed and looking at the sealed chamber around him, he breathed a sigh of relief.

Just as he had expected, not long after Rein woke up, Chief Quinn and several of the bandit group's higher-ups personally came to question him.

After all, he was the only survivor in the sewers. Everyone wanted to know what had happened after Baron Morin fled into them.

Unfortunately, Rein's answer was naturally that he knew nothing.

He said that after inhaling a mouthful of choking poison gas, he had passed out.

To everyone else, there was no flaw in his explanation.

Being at a downwind passage and on the edge of the gas explosion was the only reasonable explanation for 9527's survival.

After all, even Tiger, an Awakened who had unlocked a First Tier Gene Chain, had died. If a newcomer had survived, it could only have been because of luck.

Under normal circumstances, without the Mind Core's warning, Rein would have been killed in the sewers by the poison gas before he could react, just like Tiger and the other two newcomers.

And no one would have imagined that after stealing the items from the Storage Ring, he would have the audacity to return to the poisonous fog and deliberately knock himself unconscious.

Next, Rein needed to obtain the antidote for the Zombie Potion in his body here!

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