Beginning the infiltration was simple. All Damien had to do was walk into the dome-like structure as if he belonged there in the first place. Nobody questioned him and nobody stopped him, there wasn't even any sort of identification point inside.
Damien walked in a pompous manner as if he viewed himself as someone above everyone surrounding him, and this air alone made people avoid him. Nobody liked conversing with pretentious people.
The area of the dome-like structure was mostly empty, with some training rooms that seemed to be there solely as cover for everything happening underneath. Scattered around the area were plenty of elevators, one of which Damien took.
The numbers on the elevator were a quick indicator of how status worked. From 4 through 64, anyone could travel, but to go below floor 65, there was some sort of keycard identification necessary.
Damien clicked the number 50 and quickly descended through the bunker. The entire frame of the elevator was made from glass, and only after the first 3 floors did Damien realize why.
The darkness that enshrouded him quickly opened up as the scenery was revealed to him. It was quite a marvelous sight, reminding Damien of a movie he'd watched once.
The bunker was similar to a colosseum in that the central area was hollow and the floors were rings around it. When Damien tried to look to the bottom of the hollow area, all he saw was an abyss. Even if the entire middle section of the floors were cut, each floor wasn't small in the slightest.
Damien could see the countless different people working within the floors, with plenty of them even resembling normal office workers.
'Not everyone in Niflheim is a villain, some of them just needed a way to make a living.'
Being someone who'd gone through many years holding a similar mindset, Damien understood them entirely. He didn't blame these people for their decisions, nor did he have a desire to make them collateral damage. But if things escalated to that point…
'People live and people die. Whether I sympathize or not doesn't change the fact that they work for a so-called villain organization. They must have been prepared to face the consequences.'
At least, this was how Damien tried to convince himself. He was simply trying to justify the actions he might take. He tended to be an overthinker, planning for situations that might never happen in the future. But knowing that didn't stop him from thinking about it.
Damien soon reached the 50th floor. The reason he didn't descend directly to the floors in the 60s was not only to avoid suspicion but also to get a feel for the atmosphere in the bunker. As the elevator doors opened, Damien stepped out into the bustling space.
"Code 15 at Booth A!"
"Code 27 at Booth G!"
Damien was immediately greeted with code words and phrases being thrown about. This floor was for both support and monitoring of outside activity.
While villains tended to do what they want, there were plenty that used other methods to gain money, status, or even power. Trading was one of these ways and contribution points were another.
It was a system set up within Niflheim that most villains followed, and although there were plenty of material rewards to be gained through this system, there was one in particular that most people aimed for.
[Mutation Center]
The words were written on a holographic screen followed by various numbers for the different options one could choose from. The most expensive of these were full-body mutations, but there were less costly options to mutate only a single limb or even just the head.
'They must not have the capital to wantonly mutate everyone who wants it, so they set up this system to funnel out the useless ones.'
It was honestly a good system, and one that was used by plenty of people regardless of the worlds they came from. Damien watched on as the queue for this particular station continued to move.
He was curious about how the mutation center worked, since the 'victims' of such mutation never seemed in pain nor were they unhappy, but he didn't have time to do so immediately.
First, Damien focused on his objective. After wandering aimlessly for a while with the same pompous attitude, Damien entered the bathroom on the floor and cast his light refraction.
He had already tested whether his spatial abilities would work when he was wandering the floor, so he knew light refraction would be easy. Damien had also taken the time to check the security set up on the floor.
There were indeed cameras set up in various places to monitor whether any mishaps were occurring, and Damien knew where they were. Their positioning didn't leave many blind spots, so the rest of Damien's plan would require a good amount of patience.
He couldn't even open the bathroom door on his own to exit, as it would be weird to see the door randomly opening and closing on its own. He had to wait for someone else to open it before he slipped through the cracks.
Since light refraction was anchored to his body rather than being a field-type power, he didn't need to worry about alerting people by accident.
And Damien's opportunity came easily. Once he left the bathroom, he repeated the same process to enter the elevator and once again played the waiting game. This time, it was much harder for him to achieve anything.
At first, he had thought of using the Mutation Center as his method to descend, but since it was an unknown, he chose the longer yet safer method. He waited in the elevator until someone with a keycard entered as well.
This wait took a few hours, and Damien had stopped consistently using his own mana to conceal himself.
Since his physical presence was hidden by his earring artifact and he could hide his aura through his years of practice in the dungeon, all he needed to do was actually hide his body.
And Zara was a perfect help for this. For the first time since they'd met, Damien got to feel what it was like to join Zara in the shadows. She melded him into the long shadows in the elevator and the two of them simply sat together and waited.
Hours went by, but their patience was rewarded. A woman with a badge entered the elevator. Except, instead of going to the 65th floor, she went directly down to floor 90. Considering the fact that there were only 100 floors the elevator could access, she must've been someone with high status.
'I don't know whether it's a good thing or a bad thing that I'm starting on the 90th floor, so let's just hope for the best.'
***
Meanwhile, Rose and Elena didn't have to play such an absurd waiting game to gain access to the lowest floors.
When they entered the bunker, they did it in a similar way as Damien, giving off unapproachable airs as they entered the elevator. They went directly down to the 64th floor from there, not wanting to delay in the slightest.
Exiting the elevator, the two girls calmly walked up to the security gate blocking entry before a card appeared in Rose's hand. Swiping the card gained her instant access to the floor.
The card was completely made of illusions, yet it seemed to exist on the physical plane. Through the knowledge she gained from the legacy tomb rewards, Rose was able to create solid constructs like this card.
Even though the size was still limited to such a small scale, the insinuations of such an ability preached of limitless potential in the future.
As for the design of the card, Elena had taken care of that. She had used her life magic to lock onto the life aura of a man they had entered the elevator with, manipulating his body into pulling out his own identity card.
They had gotten lucky enough to meet a researcher on entry.
As for how Elena was able to do such a thing with life magic, even Rose was curious, but it wasn't the time to ask. She could seek answers once everything was over.
Rose used the information Elena had pulled to replicate the card, allowing them easy access to the lower floors.
Considering how constantly the two girls fought, it was surprising how well they worked as a team when they got serious.
Passing the bolted doors that had once prohibited their entry, the first thing that greeted the girls was rows of researchers in lab coats.
Each of them was hunched over their own workstations, focusing on nothing but the projects in front of them. Even while glancing at what they were doing, Rose and Elena kept their indifferent facades.
But on the inside, they were genuinely disgusted. After all, it wasn't hard to figure out what the material these researchers were using was.
Even if it was in small amounts, the aura of a human couldn't be mistaken.
Even if it came from deformed lumps or pieces of skin on metal trays.
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