The early morning rose, and the sun began to rise, it was 4AM but Seth had some early morning preparations to be done before the heist began.

Rising from the mattress, Seth stretched a bit before putting on his disguise. The clothes from earlier were the uniform of the servants who worked in the manor. It was simple black trousers, a white T-shirt, and a tie of any formal sort.

Seth didn’t dress like the butler in training like before as he wanted to blend in more and his hair was back to normal colour, and he didn’t want to harass Jacob again, he had already done that one too many times.

Once he had put those on he started to control the ambient mana to forge a certain symbol onto his clothing. This was the spell, Disguise Enhancement and once the symbol had formed and mana started to flow through it unnatural things started to make his disguise feel better.

His clothes crinkled out and a stain appeared near the buttons of his t-shirt. Even his hair moved into a style more average and once the process was over Seth could do little but wonder at the transformation.

The symbol would now need a constant source of mana until Seth no longer needed his disguise, in other words, it was an endurance test of Seth will see how long he could funnel mana into the symbol.

It was also a good test on his concentration, to be able to do the plan all whilst constantly focusing mana into the emblem was a good practice and to become a God such effort was needed.

Seth wore up the other two and they put on their disguises. The trio then walked out into the cold autumnal morning, and each got on a different carriage. They then moved them to a certain area before leaving them there.

The three then met up at the bakery for the final task of the morning.

Before that, the trio had a nice snack and even updated each other on how their lives were going.

Liam was now a free man and so he walked the path of a salesman, Seth did think that Liam was almost too good at being immoral. He was just a hustler, and he was making good money by selling his morality.

Amelia was far less on the path of evil. She had started her own ballet hall where she taught her stretch routine and the sort to ballet dancers and all sorts of people. She had even called it the weird name yoga.

Seth was absolutely baffled at the coincidence but just called it fate and ended it there. He wanted nothing to do with that sorcery, except invest in it. Knowing the success of yoga on Earth Seth wanted to invest but sadly the rules of the guild that he made up would certainly not agree to that sort of business, so he had to wish her the best and move on.

After catching up and finishing their snack they began their final task.

Seth to a nearby building where he climbed up that frame and crouched down to the frame. He then started a teeny tiny fire. Amelia and Liam were both doing the same but to different houses in the nearby area.

This was just around 4:50 right around the time when the first employees would arrive.

The trio got back together as they entered through the gate.

Seth was at the back whilst Liam to the front, mostly because of his useful skill. They walked up close to the door and Liam knocked before a voice came out.

“Password?”

Liam smiled and said with confidence, “Peace is liberty in tranquillity”.

The door was unlocked, and the trio entered. The guard took a second look at Seth as they brushed past each other but once the guard looked up at his hair he decided to say nothing except “Good morning” to which the trio reciprocated his kind gesture.

Seth noticed his spell had stopped working as the mana ward in the walls was obviously not fake news.

It could work for around a minute before he had to refuel it and so as he regained control he refunneled mana back into the emblem.

Serene mind allowed a calm smile to return to Seth's face as he felt the first obstacle had been passed, now he just needed to do the rest.

The trio made their way across the garden and into the manor. The trio walked with confidence and even put on a mild chat between them to decrease suspicions.

Meanwhile,

“Hello ladies and gentlemen, Knights, and all, today is the day the war is put to an end! Today we end the suffering of those of the deceased and regain the peaceful society we once had. The single fight between The Leader of The Abyss Sect, Knight Johaven Rothschild!” Large applause from some but some booing from others, “And The Head of the Baskerville Family, Knight Luther Hapsburg!”

Another parted crowd, one side clapped furiously and the other booed and even cried out of murder from the parents of the deceased.

The large Colosseum packed with untold tens of thousands used special space magic construction that allowed for bigger buildings in less space. It was clear that the Baron had shown no hesitation in the cost of such a megastructure.

Thousands of different people took the day off and so hundreds of security had to be hired to maintain such a large audience, let alone how many had to be hired to feed them.

Expressions of happiness, hatred, and excitement were all seen through the crowd. Clothes of workers ranged from high to low class and it seemed the entire city was there for the event.

Alexander was very happy to see this. As he stood at the highest part of the Colosseum with a noise enhancer he felt like the king of the world, but he did remember to do the special things that would make this investment worth it.

Colosseum fighting was not a new thing before Darter was renovated to become a city it was owned by a barbarian tribe that absolutely loved fighting and so had many Colosseums built and used regularly but as time passed and moral laws were established it became harder and harder to sanction fights to the death.

Alexander wanted that part of history back, one of glory and honour. He hated the droning of everyday life and grew up listening to stories of his ancestor's epic tales and he wanted to bring the great fighting culture back.

So with a diamond-studded wrist, he lifted the mike and said with as much bravado as possible.

“LET THE FIGHT BEGIN!”

The audience roared in happiness as they watched the two perpetrators fight the war between themselves. They were happy that their leader was fighting, they were happy that they were going to win the war, they were happy the war was going to be over.

Whilst they were happy about that Seth was nearly as happy as them as he casually walked up the stairs. So far the heist had been a breeze, but he was just about to come across the next layer of security. Last time he just walked past but this time he would need to talk his way past.

Liam was key for this point as his trustworthy smile would come in helpful,

He walked up to the guard and before he could ask him to stop Liam said. “Hello there,” He smiled as brightly as he could, “I’m sorry to ask you this but we really need to clean the 3rd floor. We got orders from the butler himself so if you could let us pass that would be lovely.” His smile shone as radiant as the sun and the guard felt himself get lost in those sparkling teeth.

The guard himself wasn’t built against mental attacks so they worked wonders as he was dazed into saying, “Su, sure go ahead.”

Liam smiled one last time and the guard couldn’t help but smile back as the trio wandered further inside.

There was a way of directly accessing the 2nd but it was heavily guarded. It was the way nobles would enter for a party and they were usually there just for show but for now, Seth took the easier approach that had fewer guards and fewer eyes, which meant fewer witnesses’ for when they left the scene.

The trio then walked their way to a second-story balcony. The pipe obviously wouldn’t fit all three people on it at the same time but since Amelia had a flexible body she was the first to go up.

Seth looked at her shimming up and it did make him wonder when he was going to get a girlfriend in this life. Luckily wasn’t a reincarnated virgin, so it wasn’t like he hadn’t already enjoyed the experience...

Anyway, Seth's mind snapped back into focus as Liam was going up next. Amelia had already snaked her way into the bathroom through a small window and had managed to open a bigger one for both Seth and Liam.

That was great as looking at the tiny space he would have had to fit through Seth had zero confidence in getting through.

Once they all managed to climb up and they all washed their hands, the trio then opened the bathroom door to find themselves in a bedroom.

Sadly, Seth had no idea which bedroom The Lord was in, but he could make a pretty good, educated guess. Simply this one wasn’t sparkly enough, so it must be a guest bedroom.

They had to now enter the hallway which although was barren for now Seth did think it of for them to leave it completely empty. To not risk getting caught they ran as quickly as possible into 3 different rooms where they each found a new room.

Seth's room was another bland guest room.

Amelia found a nicer room but when she opened the door she noticed someone in the bed. She took a jump back and closed the door before running into the door that Seth had run into. She explained herself though and the duo split up again into a new room.

The deal was to continue splitting up until they found the room where they would try to get the other's attention in the hallway before the trio could start work on the safe.

Liam's room had the correct amount of spark and by that, there were gemstones nearly everywhere the eye could see so when he noticed the two get out of the same room he hushed them over.

“C’mere. It’s this one.”

His blond hair flowing down and his lone head popping out the door was quite a sight to see but before Seth and Amelia could even think about smiling at the amusing sight they spotted a dark shadow climbing down the stairs.

They sprinted into the correct room and Seth quietly closed the door. The sound of the city and the servants did a lot in terms of muffling out the noise of the run and Seth himself made little to no noise anyway. It was Amelia who had no technique that make the noise that attracted the guard's attention.

Outside the door, the Butler named Victor Rein was climbing down the stairs. He did notice a sound coming from the 3rd floor, but his hearing was getting on the worst side these years. Well, he wasn’t one to be unsure, so he decided to check it out anyway.

Seth and Amelia had their ears up to the door and once they heard the guard coming closer they nearly froze in panic. With their prior experience, it only took Liam tapping one of them before the two ran into a hiding spot in the room.

Liam was quick to catch on and so he found a good spot under the bed, Amelia joined him whilst Seth his behind a set of armour on the stand.

He thought it odd having an armour stand in one's own room and it even had a sword and shield that were, Seth looked closer, they were ranked!

Before Seth could celebrate his new find he heard the dread-inducing sound of the door opening.

Seth stood as straight as a pin and hid behind the armour as it protected him against the Butler's poor eyesight.

Looking around the room the butler was having a hard time making anything but the bed out. His eyesight was really catching up to him, but he dared not ask for a pair of glasses. He already had a pair which meant the next needed to be enchanted and that would cost so much the Lord might interfere.

As a loyal Butler Victor didn’t dare to harm his own master's finances so he just did the best he could.

The Butler looked around the room and decided to activate a skill of his. It was just a helpful one he had picked up to help with his old chores.

Clean and Tidy was a lovely skill that used both mana and mental capacity to clean a room in seconds and as the Butler's sight got worse he found this skill far more useful in his chores.

The room cleaned itself and dust flew out the window like it had its own will. Dirty laundry was put in a hamper and the Butler picked it up once it came to him and took it to the laundry room.

The Butler smiled, going to the laundry room meant he got to have a chat with his wife. What a great peaceful day it was.

As the Butler walked away in smiles Seth got out from behind the armour.

For some unknown reason, the thing had moved an elbow and knocked his rib in with such force Seth was left out of breath. He tried so hard to be quiet and the moving of other furniture helped but it was still one of the hardest things he had done in his life.

He may have gotten angry once the Butler left and took it out on the armour by taking its armaments, but he was going to that anyway.

Lucky Amelia and Liam had to suffer none as the underside of the bed had no movement and certainly no elbowing into the ribs.

Once Seth recovered and the duo got out from under the bed they all took a breath of relief before starting to look for the safe.

Where Baron Blackword hid his treasures, was the question of the day and Seth just couldn’t think where.

He had looked in every single regular spot, behind paintings, under drawers and even looked for a secret compartment but he found absolutely nothing.

The trio were picking up the pace, worried that they might get walked in on so whilst they looked with all their might they only got more and more worried.

They opened drawers and looked under the socks. They looked in the bathroom shower and still, they found nothing. It was only until Seth looked at a particular mirror that he remembered a fun trope.

He got out his dagger and whilst trying to be quiet he broke the mirror.

The light faded from the reflection to a new room.

They thought the bedroom was shiny but this one had to take the cake. This guy must have some addiction of sorts as there was hardly a surface that didn’t reflect light. The room itself was only lit by a single orb of light yet it made the entire room bright.

In the centre of the shrine was a safe of high rank and you could tell that just by the sheer mana it gave off. Like light on an extremely hot day it bended the environment around it and it made for an interesting spectacle of light theatrics.

Seth cared little about this he wanted money and his necklace and then he wanted to leave.

So he activated his Lock Picking spell and once that had started the trio started grabbing the gems.

Sadly Seth's Money Bag spell couldn’t be used in this scenario, but his skill Phantom Hands could and with the speed of a spectre he placed the loot inside a white laundry bag.

Obviously, the trio still needed to escape with the loot so they used one of the only bags they could use inside a mansion. The time aspect was not the limiting factor of this heist, it was instead the amount of loot they could carry outside without drawing suspicion and three bags were just that.

Time passed and quickly the room grew dimmer. Surprisingly Seth found that the room was painted black for some unknown reason, assumably so the gems shimmer stood out more. Seth shrugged at the existence of paint, it was obvious he would find it eventually and black didn’t seem like a hard colour to make.

The lockpicking spell had no indication of being close and whilst Seth was feeding mana into that he was forced to stop his disguise enhancement spell.

The luminescent orange hands were at work, but they were clearly outclassed by the high ranking of the safe which Seth estimated to be around rank 8.

Seth guessed it would take around 4 hours to unlock and that was being generous, but Seth did think if he helped he could perhaps reduce the time. He told this to his associates, and they agreed so Seth handed over his laundry bag and started helping to pick the Lock.

That was even considering that Set had seen the blueprint of the safe therefore reducing the time needed considerably. It is a testament to the difficulty of high-ranking safes.

Magic Locks were an absolute pain and rank 8 meant level 80s sort of strength. Seth's mana control was not near enough to instantly open the thing, so he had to guide his mana through long and complicated paths before he gained any help in opening the safe.

The Orange hands were doing the same things, controlling mana to gain information to unlock the safe. There were 50 pins, 1 was the main one and the other 49 were for opening the safe without the owner's permission. This was usually done by Engineers or Lockpicks who would open the safe using the plentiful time they were given.

This was done say if the only owner died or if the owner lost control of their magic. It was rare but it needed to be installed as losing thousands of gold to a vault they had bought made families rather unhappy with VaultSmith.

Of course, the Baron likely had most of his money stored in a bank, but he would still have his most valuable possessions inside his own personal safe and that is what Seth was banking on.

Time passed and the room grew even dimmer, eventually, The duo of Amelia and Liam had made the once shimmering room as dull as a near-empty room could be.

After they packed all of that they moved back into the bedroom where they packed up all of the expensive stuff they could: all the gems, suits and a couple pieces of armaments were just a few of what they took.

They continued until the bags could fit no more. Once done with that they tried to make the room look as normal as possible, like a guest room before they moved back into the secret room and started to help out Seth.

By help, it was more emotional support and lookout rather than anything of substantial value. It was a shame the two were not near evolving or they could have helped far more.

As Seth was focusing on opening the safe there were a few close calls with people walking down the hall but no one except the trio and the Butler had entered the room since they entered. Until someone did.

A small child, whom Seth had no idea existed entered and started to play on the bed. He did not notice the shiny toys he used to play with were gone and he assumed he must have entered the wrong room.

He didn’t really care, he just liked to bounce on the bed.

The little man was a child named Vern Blackword and he was the bastard child of the Baron. His mother had died during childbirth and although the Baron wasn’t the kindest individual he lived a life of honour so he kept his child and promised the deceased that he would give him the best start to life one could ask for.

Vern was in a bit of a strop today as his father wasn’t playing with him and had gone to do some sort of Coolosuim thing. So as his revenge he decided to bounce on his bed, but when he came he found that he had found the wrong one.

Annoyed at the world he started to jump on that bed anyway as it was super bouncy and fun.

That was when Vern saw something, a mirror was broken and just when he was about to look closer a handsome friend came up and stopped him. His smile was so nice that Vern decided he wanted to play with him.

That man was obviously Liam and luckily his smile tamed the potential threat before things went awry.

The situation ended up with Liam playing bouncy bed with Vern until he got tired and left to go for his nap.

“Bye-bye.” Said Vern as he left.

To the cold-hearted Liam, this nearly melted his heart, but he remembered his situation, so he said bye back and the two parted.

It was Amelia who confronted Liam about this odd endeavour.

“What was that. I thought you were Mr. Cold and then you played with the child.”

Liam put on a cold face and said with complete seriousness, “I did my part as it was the only option, and you cannot argue with my results.”

True, but as the duo went back to help Seth Liam could not help but think about how cute the child was. He decided then and there that he wanted to have kids of his own. He hated his father, but he thought that he had the potential to be the best.

The duo then went back to work with emotional support and corridor watching.

An hour passed and Seth had managed to get through 32, he was ecstatic with the pace and tried to keep it up.

But the last few were harder than the rest and the last one was a maze of corners and dead ends that made controlling mana through them nigh impossible.

The Orange Hand spell only got better as it failed and failed again and once another hour passed the safe made a click and Seth's body gave away.

Exhaustion and happiness went hand in hand as Seth's body slumped to the floor. Never had he been under such mental strain and by god it better be worth it.

He forced himself up and didn’t tell his trio of his opening, partly because he didn’t need to and maybe he could snatch an extra something.

Opening it up, Seth was like a child on Christmas day as he pulled the lever and pulled open the door.

Inside was a gleaming pile of gems and the cherry on top had to be a lovely necklace that had allowed the heist in the first place.

The cherry on top of the previous cherry was a shiny black book that Seth didn’t even look at before he piled it into a secret compartment he had hidden inside his uniform.

After that Seth called in the others and they started pilling in the last bit of the loot. By now the laundry bags were on the heavy side and they were remarkably spikey, but the group had to deal with that for only a few hundred metres until they reached the exits.

Seth wanted to refuel his disguise enchantment, but his mind simply couldn’t, so he focused more on moving than on thinking. The trio exited the bedroom and entered the hallway. It was empty and the time, but it was unlikely to be true for long, so the group started to shuffle over to the stairs.

The trio walked comfortably and confidently as they walked down the stairs with the three laundry bags. Liam was smiling from ear to ear, Seth was next showing off how effective his enchantment was, and Amelia was hidden behind them both.

A set of guards guarded the staircase, and they spotted the trio walking down the stairs.

“Oi, what are doing up there?!”

Liam looked annoyed back, “Cleaning,” he looked at the guard, “What else would we have doing?”

The guard seemed to have cooled a bit, he admitted his first question was rather dumb.

“Still, you why are cleaning the upstairs room. That’s exclusively for Butlers, and butlers in training.”

Seth actually had some contextual knowledge to answer that, so he spoke up, “Jacob wasn’t here today so we got called to do it.”

“Ah, he really doesn’t show the dedication his father does. Sorry about that then, on your way.”

The three thanked the guard and walked past the hardest checkpoint they had to go past. From that point onwards the three easily made it to the first floor where they transferred the goods from laundry bags to corn husk bags.

The process of the transfer was done inside the waste disposal room. They double then triple layer the bags just in case the gems poked a hole through them and once they were happy that you couldn’t see it from the outside, they moved on.

They easily walked into the garden. Then it was a short walk to the gate, and they would be home free. Seth was feeling hints of happiness and relief after succeeding in a heist, but he wasn’t out yet, so he held them in for later.

The grass was well kept, and the flowers were multicoloured, Ignoring the high wall and the sound of a loud city around them Seth would say it was actually a peaceful place.

Walking through Eden, Seth only got happier as he got closer and closer to the exit and in no time he and his friends had reached the final exit.

Liam looked at the guard, who then looked at the rubbish bags before getting up and unlocking the door.

What was the blessing of a highly planned heist was the sheer ease of execution. Seth planned for most and yet still had a close call with the unknown child. Luck no doubt played a role in the heist as no guard had some ability to check if they were committing a crime, but Seth had narrowed those odds to only meeting 4 guards.

Walking out and breathing in the smoky air of Darter Seth felt free and achieved, but that would not last for long. The Baron would eventually get home and then a manhunt would begin, and Seth wanted to be nowhere near Darter for that.

They climbed aboard the parked carriage, which had a ticket for unpaid parking, and made their way back to the warehouse.

 

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For immersion and general reading experience, I decided to make this chapter double the length. However, because of algorithmic reasons, I need to post daily so I'll post a copy of this tomorrow, so just skip the next chapter and thank you.