A New Plan

After leaving the backyard, Liluh picked the comm from his room and put it back on.

During the whole exchange, his father wasn't wearing a comm at all.

Unlike in rest of the federation, comms here were seen as links used by officials to track them down.

Back then, the army infiltrated comms of every big power in Orion, one of the cities in Uranus cluster and found crucial data about the Shadow Order and Chaos families.

It was a painful lesson, and the shady powers changed to Alpha Orbs—Abyssal alternative to comms.

But they were limited in ways. They couldn't act as information storages nor could they link to the meta net.

In fact, they weren't even technology per se. But rather some kind of treasure like swords that could spit fire and arrows that could freeze space.

However, due to the one single function of 'communication', all big powers used them.

Just like now, Thomas Grant was standing in a luxurious room filled with breathtaking paintings.

In front of him was a floating orb.

Thomas channeled his mana into the orb. It flashed a dazzling red and a red hologram-like image appeared.

"Barbaroza, you don't seem to be well?" Thomas greeted the stout middle-aged man.

"It cost a lot more than I thought." Barbaroza gruntled.

"It? You're talking about Betty's mission?" Thomas tapped his chin.

"Hm. Kidnapping her is…costly. Cosa brotherhood is burning its pockets for the little bitch." Barbaroza cursed.

"Haha. High returns, high investments." Thomas waved his hand earning a glare from Cosa leader.

"If I didn't ask your assistance, my expenses would be far lower." The man said through gritted teeth.

"Only 15% for the best intelligence of Valos." Thomas said and walked to a shelf full of storage devices.

"15% more for your shitty son's assistance." Barbaroza's voice blasted out of the Alpha orb and almost shook the desk.

"Without him, you wouldn't be able to finish the mission." Thomas grabbed a disc from the pile and tapped on it.

"…." Barbaroza was silenced with his response.

There were two major obstacles to kidnapping Betty.

One. She never went to places without her bodyguards.

Two. The Space Awakener bodyguard.

Without Liluh's help, none of them could be solved. Of course, Liluh himself didn't know his importance in the mission.

"You know Barb," Thomas tapped on the disc and a hologram popped up showing a handsome man in military uniform—Colin—Betty's father and one of the highest ranking officers in Valos.

"I'm fine with you failing the mission." Thomas said slowly. "I'm fine even if my son died due to the failure."

"But!" He raised his voice and pointed to the hologram. "If I make an enemy out of this man and he ends my empire, I'll make you beg for death."

Colin was a formidable enemy. His only weakness, but also his greatest was his daughter.

By touching her, they were taking a big risk. If they succeed, the rewards would be so great that their strength would take a huge leap.

If they failed though…everything would be lost.

Silence descended in the room as Thomas and Barbaroza glared at the hologram.

"You said the same thing last time." Barbaroza rolled his eyes.

Thomas put the disc storage back in its place and shook his head. "Last time, our target was only an architect.

Even if Gwen is Valos city designer, her security is nothing compared to Betty."

"Whatever. I have saved up enough already, I just want to buy it already. But the fucking blackmarket is closed." Barbaroza clenched his fist and slammed his own head. "If I were the Shadow Order, I wouldn't close the black market."

"Thankfully, you're not." Thomas sneered.

"They're just paranoid!"

"They're being careful. If Dreamer can find out their secret realm on Earth, he can also find it here."

"It's in space for god's sake! You think he can tour the whole space?" Barbaroza looked at Thomas like he was an idiot.

"Genius, he can just hack some tiny bot and follow one of us when we go to the black market." Thomas looked at Barbaroza like he was a retard.

"…" The 'genius' had no words.

"They'll open the market after more security measures. And I have to go. I have a charity in the slums." Thomas waved his hand and left the room.

"Hypocritical bastard. You treat humans worse than weeds and you do charity." The gang leader cursed and cut off the contact.

"…" After a few minutes, Varian asked Boo to turn down all the surveillance in the place and had the ghost ship hack into the storage devices.

Everyone avoided comms, but they couldn't avoid the technology entirely. That included surveillance cameras, automatic doors, bots and so on. They were integral to one's life in this day and age.

And it allowed Ghost ship to sneak into this room without hassle.

The storage devices weren't connected to metanet, and were technically safe from remote hacking.

That's why Thomas dared to store sensitive information in these devices. But of course, truly sensitive information wasn't stored in any device.

He could've never imagined that a certain ghost AI would easily break the security of the storage devices and copy the data.

"We're done."

The Ghost ship sneaked out of the Grant estate.

Varian had Boo study the data and present him with important points. Of course, he himself asked a few crucial questions.

By the time they were done, Varian slumped on his bed watching the glittering stars.

His mission was practically over by this point.

Most things made sense.

Liluh's words 'It'll be over by this week' gave away the time of kidnapping.

On the day of inter-academy competition.

The venue was not in the Miracle Academy but in a public stadium.

'Security will still be tight, but Cosa Brotherhood might have discovered a loophole to exploit.'

After knowing that there were still six days, Varian relaxed.

"Master, Master, what do we do now? Inform Edwina? Or record the video and show it to Betty?" Boo asked excitedly as they reached the hotel Varian was staying at.

Varian went silent for a few seconds before shaking his head. "No. Let Betty be kidnapped."

"Master!" Boo turned around and gave Varian a look of fear. "Is this your revenge?"

"…" 'Do I look like someone so petty?'

"…" 'Yes.'

Even thought they didn't speak, the man and the ghost read each other's thoughts.

"Cough. Cough." Varian coughed and said with a serious expression. "We'll follow the kidnappers."

"Huh?"