24 Smart Weapons

Karl entered the apartment building, the entire floor of which had been cleared out. All obstacles except for the weighing wall had been smashed to smithereens, which allowed Karl to see the stairs at a glance.

The RPG had been fired from the fifth floor, but Karl wasn't planning on using the normal staircase to get there.

The stairs and such were definitely rigged with mines and other traps by the attackers, unless they were complete idiots, and Karl didn't have time to disarm them one by one.

He glanced at the height of the ceiling above him, noticed a recessed ceiling light, calculated his jumping ability, and then decisively made his move.

The ejected Monomolecular Wire danced in Karl's hand, cutting a square hole one meter wide directly above his head. After chunks of rock and rebar fell, Karl stepped forward, using the falling ceiling debris as a platform to jump from.

The height difference between the apartment ceiling and the ground was 2.8 meters, plus 20 cm of floor thickness. Each floor was 3 meters apart. Karl was 1.8 meters tall, and his jumping height was 50 cm. Adding his arm length, he could barely reach the second floor.

I remember the height of a basketball hoop is 3.05 meters. Am I dunking right now?

Jumping up, Karl placed his palm on the second floor, but the strength of his fingers alone couldn't support him climbing up. That's where the Monomolecular Wire came in handy again.

The Monomolecular Wire was only a molecule wide at its blade. The rest of it was essentially an energizable wire whip, meaning it could be used as a climbing rope.

He ejected it again, but this time the non-blade end of the Monomolecular Wire flew towards the ceiling light on the third floor. The tip pierced the lampshade, and the rest of the wire wrapped around the metal base inside. Just as Karl expected, this apartment was clearly well-planned. If the first floor had it, the second floor would have the exact same recessed ceiling light.

Karl yanked hard on the Monomolecular Wire, using it as a climbing rope. A crisp click sounded from the structure in his wrist, and Karl's body was pulled upwards. Once his torso reached the second floor, Karl braced his elbows on the ground, used his abdominal muscles, and flipped himself up. At the same time, he tore down the recessed ceiling light, which was teetering from bearing his weight, and pulled down a section of the ceiling as he retracted the Monomolecular Wire.

"Cool, it actually worked."

In Braindance, as long as Karl personally experienced a recording once, he could memorize and learn all the skills displayed by the recording subject. The method he was using now was actually a technique from an adventure Braindance.

When about to fall down a cliff waterfall, the Braindance recording subject threw a rope towards the trees beside the cliff, and successfully used the rope to hang their body in mid-air.

Although he'd heard that many Braindance recording subjects had died while filming that movie, as long as it was successful once and recorded, Karl could memorize the relevant techniques.

Before actually trying it, he wasn't even sure he could succeed. He figured that the worst that could happen was that he would fall back to the first floor, so he gave it a try. He didn't expect it to work so well.

'Shoosh.'

The sound of retracting the Monomolecular Wire seemed a little sluggish. The mechanical structure seemed to have a slight friction problem.

Okay, so there was a bit of a price to pay.

The Monomolecular Wire could be retracted through manipulation, but that was usually done when someone was standing still, reaching up to retract the wire they had thrown out. No one had ever tried to hang from the Monomolecular Wire and use the retraction to pull themselves up.

The Monomolecular Wire was retracting the person. That was upside down.

Karl didn't know that it was only Viktor's good craftsmanship that allowed it to work. A Monomolecular Wire modified by another Ripperdoc might not have been able to withstand Karl's reckless abuse.

"Now I'm envious of Mantis Blades. If I had Mantis Blades, I could just stick them into the wall and climb up."

Amidst the intense gunfire outside, the sounds Karl made cutting through the floors were almost imperceptible. Taking advantage of the constant gunfire, Karl repeated his trick.

"Shoosh, click."

This time the sound was a bit more obvious, as if the Monomolecular Wire was protesting.

But having reached the third floor, Karl wasn't planning on cutting through any more floors.

Cutting any higher, and there might be someone there. Even if there wasn't, the attackers on the fifth floor would easily hear the noise from below.

Now, it was time to take the stairs.

Arriving next to the stairs, Karl observed and found that the attackers hadn't placed any mines or traps on the stairs leading from the third to the fourth floor.

Looks like they thought the traps downstairs were warning enough.

Karl remembered that some types of mines could be connected by data. In other words, the connected party would immediately know which mine had exploded. For the attackers, the traps on the third floor might indeed be enough.

Too bad my hacking skills aren't good enough yet. Otherwise, I would have blocked that connection and converted the mines for my own use.

Crouching down and stepping softly, Karl slowly made his way to the fourth floor. He then saw a person with their back to him, standing at the edge of the floor, constantly firing downwards. The gun in their hand was one that Karl was seeing for the first time in reality.

It was a Smart Weapon.

[Arasaka TKI-20 Shingen]: A Smart submachine gun manufactured by Arasaka, using advanced technology to automatically track targets. Small and exquisite, it is the dream gun of all soldiers and mercenaries. If your marksmanship is poor, this is the one to choose. The only requirement for using this weapon is that you must install a smart-link module.

Arasaka's advanced weapon appeared in the hands of the attackers. Why didn't that surprise me?

Karl was seven meters away from the man with his back to him, and he didn't have the confidence to rely on his stealth ability to sneak up behind the man in this open space and take him down silently.

If the man had even a second to react, he could blow Karl's head off with the Smart Weapon. Karl didn't have any Subdermal Armor; getting hit by a bullet would still hurt a lot.

So, the stealth ended here.

He had approached the enemy as closely as possible. It was much better than triggering an explosion from the first floor and having the enemy chase him with the Smart Weapon.

Karl raised Kenshin.

"Bang."

A spray of blood erupted in front of Karl.

"Nice gun. I'll take it."