Chapter 91
Chapter 91
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 91
Chapter Title: Lubeck (3)
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“Good morning, everyone.”
“Good morning, Vice-President!”
Before the bank doors opened, all the employees stood in formation. Lloyd Giani, the new Vice-President, strode through their midst, inspecting their condition.
Their attire, their demeanor, their posture—even the smallest wrinkles on their clothes.
“Impeccable. Still, double-check everything, just in case.”
“Yes, sir.”
Today was a very important day.
Was there anything out of place? Anything that could be criticized?
The previous bank president had already become a corpse, torn to shreds and fed to monsters.
For incurring the wrath of his superiors.
Thus, the president's position became vacant, and he himself had been promoted from VIP manager to Vice-President.
And today was the day a new person would arrive to fill that vacant seat.
Rumor had it that he was a powerful figure with close ties to the Director of Central Intelligence. There was also talk of him being a rather high-ranking noble.
On the first day of such a person's arrival, they couldn't afford to have even the smallest detail found wanting.
A glance at his watch told him less than two minutes remained until the new president was scheduled to arrive.
“Vice-President—!”
An employee on lookout at the entrance ran over, calling for Lloyd Giani. Sensing the president's arrival, he straightened his clothes and hurried toward the bank's main entrance.
A carriage drawn by six horses was already slowing to a stop in front of the bank.
Just as the clock struck the hour.
The carriage halted, and a butler in pristine white gloves disembarked first, swinging the door wide open.
The new bank president followed, stepping out of the carriage.
An aristocratic bearing that was unmistakable to anyone who saw him.
He knew instantly. This was the new president.
“Welcome, President Meion Decker. I am Lloyd Giani, the Vice-President.”
He offered the greeting with the utmost formality.
“I will escort you inside.”
His very station of birth was different from the previous president's.
As they approached the entrance, employees who had been waiting opened the doors. Lined up in rows, they bowed their heads to the new president.
“Welcome, President.”
The corner of the new president's mouth quirked up slightly.
Lloyd Giani clenched his fists.
*Success.*
.
.
.
.
.
Routine business reports followed. The bank's structure, the number of employees.
Its scale and major VIP clients. And most importantly, the underground vault.
“The size and structure of the underground vault have not changed significantly since the bank was first built. Although, a new section was added.”
He then presented a top-secret document file. How shocked he had been when he first saw it.
To think there was a section of the vault that even he, the VIP manager who frequented it most, knew nothing about.
“This was a fact known only to the previous president, but a new section was added over a decade ago. It was handled with the strictest confidentiality...”
As he continued his report on that vault section, Meion Decker closed the file.
“There's no need to report on this part. I will handle it myself.”
The new president seemed to already know something about this secret vault, and Lloyd Giani simply nodded and took a step back.
He knew all too well that excessive curiosity was a shortcut to the grave.
“In the absence of a president, you have done well to...”
But before he could finish his sentence.
*WEEEEEE—*
An alarm began to blare like mad.
“Wh-What—!”
It was a type of alarm that had never once sounded since the Lubeck Central Bank was built.
*Of all days—!*
“What is going on!”
“A breach at the bank. No, that can't be right.”
Panicked, Lloyd Giani broke into a cold sweat as he tried to locate the source of the alarm.
It was the first time he'd ever experienced such a thing. And on the very day he had become Vice-President and the new president had arrived.
The only thought in his mind was that there could be no mistakes.
What kind of madman would dare break into the Lubeck Central Bank? A central bank under the protection of the Empire and its nobles.
“The basement. It's the underground vault!”
“The underground vault?”
At the mention of the underground vault, Meion Decker's expression twitched. It was a look that said, *Of course it had to be the underground vault.*
A look of clear annoyance.
*Rumble—*
And not long after, the bank shook violently, as if hit by an earthquake.
The faces of everyone inside the bank hardened. A tremor of this magnitude meant this was no simple intrusion.
“Contact the Lord immediately and tell him to send the knight order. Mages, too.”
At his words, the butler who had been standing silently by his side nodded and left the president's office.
“Vice-President, you will assess the situation and report back. Post the internal guards at the vault entrance and ensure no one gets out. That includes the employees. The bank will not open today.”
“Ye-Yes! Understood!”
Lloyd Giani rushed out of the office, breathing heavily. *But where the hell did he get in?*
*He couldn't have dug a tunnel. How on earth...?*
He couldn't fully comprehend the situation that had suddenly unfolded.
***
Inside the underground vault that had never once been breached, alarms flashed wildly as dust and dirt rained down from everywhere.
“Cough—cough—Ugh. This is killing me.”
I stepped into the vault, brushing off the dirt that covered my entire body.
“Still, it's a success.”
This was definitely the Lubeck Bank's underground vault. There was a bit of distance to the entrance after passing the first barrier outside the vault, but in the end, this brute-force method worked out just fine.
Judging by the fact that I'd arrived before any backup.
“My direction was a little off, but this is close enough.”
The vast underground vault was brightly lit with a red glow, and I could feel the commotion from above.
“There he is—! How dare he!”
“After him—!”
It was only natural, but an underground vault wasn't going to be unguarded.
How many of the bastards who stashed their things here had dirty secrets?
“You guys just hang tight—! I'll play with you later.”
Kicking off the wall, I headed for the vault entrance. It would just be a pain if people started swarming in. Wasn't that the whole reason I went through all this trouble to break in from underground?
*CRASH—!*
From the stairs to the elevator, I began to smash every possible entrance into this place.
To make sure no one could get in easily, I destroyed them thoroughly. I shattered the elevator, from its doors to its very structure, and for the stairs, I obliterated the core of the spiral staircase starting from the top.
Then, using an emergency torch, I set fire to the entrance area. Just to make their approach that much more difficult.
Now, unless they clear it or fix it, no one could get in or out.
Even if they did clear it, it would take a significant amount of time, and by the time they solved everything and reached the vault, I'd be long gone.
“Phew. Seriously. It's not like I'm a mole or something.”
No matter how many times I shook my head, dust kept falling and tickling my eyes.
“How dare you—! Do you know where you are—!”
The guards who had finally run down the passage to the entrance shouted, aiming their weapons with looks of utter disbelief.
I guess they never imagined some lunatic would tunnel his way into the bank.
Even I had to admit it was a crazy plan.
There were quite a few of them. Soldiers, knight-class warriors, and even mages.
“Hmm. Let's see. I've got plenty of time.”
Time to wipe these guys out and raid the vaults, that is.
“Let's get this over with quickly. I'm short on time with all the places I have to hit.”
“Have you ever seen such a madman! Kill him—!”
The guards seemed stunned by my brazen declaration of having more places to rob, but their bewilderment quickly turned to rage.
A barrage of attacks rained down.
These were troops skilled enough to be assigned here, after all.
“Gack...”
As I took a step forward, a startled soldier backed away, let out a strange cry, and tumbled into the abyss of the vault below.
*Tsk.* Such a lack of safety awareness. To think there isn't a single safety fence on a cliff like this.
“You go with him.”
“Aaaaaaah—!”
Another man, grabbed by the scruff of his neck, also plummeted toward the bottomless floor.
I took a step, and they took a step back.
Because I wasn't just killing them; I was throwing them alive into the endless depths.
Letting them die feeling the agony of the fall.
“Such a cruel bastard.”
The heist was proceeding smoothly.
.
.
.
.
.
“Let's see...”
As the last guard I'd thrown screamed on his way down.
I dashed toward the nobles' vaults I had memorized.
Robbing a bank is always a race against time.
In the movies, they always say you have to finish within a few minutes, don't they?
All the locks in the underground vault are based on mana patterns. If you enter the wrong pattern a certain number of times, the vault goes into lockdown, and only a bank employee can open it after several verification steps.
“But. That's only for normal cases.”
There's no way I'd know the mana patterns. I'll just have to rip them open with brute force.
No matter how tough the metal of the vault door is, there's nothing that can't be broken.
I jammed a crowbar into the seam of the door and pried it open. *Crowbars are the best.*
*Screeeech—*
The metal of the vault door twisted, letting out a grating shriek.
I heard the *clunk* of the vault's lock engaging, but that was a problem a little more force could solve.
Electricity surged through my fingertips, trying to defend the vault, but that was easily solved by cloaking my hand in Spiritual Power.
A defense system of this level couldn't stop me.
I shoved my hand into the gap and forced the vault door open as if tearing it off, revealing the contents within.
“Yesss—!”
A dazzling hoard of gold, silver, and jewels that made my eyes sparkle. And all sorts of magical tools, too.
This was enough to comfortably feed an entire fief for several months.
To think this many gold coins were just sitting dormant in a vault. It was the main culprit behind a ruined market economy. Money is meant to circulate, after all.
There was no time to inspect the contents. I just quickly stuffed everything inside the vault into my inventory.
Whatever it was, I'd check it all one by one after I escaped.
[You have acquired a Subspace Pouch. Converting to inventory.]
A sudden notification. It seemed one of the items I'd stuffed into my inventory was a Subspace Pouch.
One of those expensive Subspace Pouches.
“As expected of you nobles... Thank you very much. This means I can fit more, right?”
After completely emptying a central noble's vault, I jammed the crowbar into the next one.
“Can't forget to leave a trace.”
I took out Arsène Lupin's card from my inventory and tossed one into each vault I emptied.
The nobles will probably have a fit when they see this, won't they?
“About five minutes per vault?”
The time it took to check the nameplate with the vault's location and number, jam in the crowbar to make a gap, rip it open with my hands, and stuff everything inside into my inventory.
I had more than enough time. Time to clean out this entire underground vault.
***
“What?! At the Lubeck Underground Bank?!”
It would be accurate to say the Empire was thrown into an uproar. News that a robber had broken into the Lubeck Underground Bank spread like wildfire across the entire nation.
“What kind of madman in their right mind—!”
Of course, for those who hadn't deposited anything in the bank, especially in the underground vault, the news was merely surprising. But for those directly involved, it was another matter entirely.
“What? You can't get through?! Send men to Lubeck at once—!”
“Dammit—! What lunatic with a death wish would touch the underground vault?!”
Fury.
“Surely the underground vault hasn't been robbed, right?”
“It'll be a disaster if it is—! I'm going to the bank now—!”
“Not the vault—!”
Anxiety.
All sorts of reactions erupted, driven by their emotions.
And following those emotions, countless stakeholders began to gather in front of the Lubeck Central Bank.