Chapter 228 – Time to Act
Time to get the show on the road.
Parked at the entrance of an alley, Katja, Carol, Hecate, Narumi, Ririna, and Sarasa eyed their target. Katja drove everyone there in an inconspicuous civilian SUV that they used to approach the PSF building without suspicion.
“It goes so high… Places in your world go crazy… I can’t even tell if assaulting that is easier or harder than a castle…” Sarasa poked her head from a window and twisted it. She had a simple baseball cap on her head to hide her ears, and it almost fell out.
“Heh… Much harder… Soldiers in your world are not carrying machine guns yet.” Carol said.
Their target was a tall black building with black stained glass. For a place that hosted so many confidential things, it didn’t make a lot of sense for it to be located in the middle of Three Records. But that’s exactly why it worked. Its looks were not so different from the offices around, and the first floor had some desks open to the public, as if they were nothing but a normal institution. On the side was an entrance to an underground parking lot guarded by two men.
Everyone piled near the windows to take a look.
“We’re really doing this, huh?” Narumi asked.
“Of course… We can’t back out at this point.” Hecate assured with a confident nod.
“I already drove you all the way here. Too late to go back now.” Katja said.
“Hahaha… She could still technically walk away, right? But not me…” Ririna tapped her pouch. Proof of her readiness. And proof of her bond with Iroha. “I have to return the favor. I owe her that much…”
“If that was the logic, then we’re all in the same boat, right?” Carol said.
The pressure was enough to make anyone’s stomach churn. What they were about to do was crazy. No one who knew anything about the PSF would be crazy enough to pick a fight so directly with them. Yet everyone nodded. It was scary, but if their sense of unity was that strong, maybe they could do it. Maybe they could do anything.
“You have ten minutes until the optimal infiltration time. What do you wanna do?” Miyuki asked.
The last two involved with the plan were waiting at the girls’ hideout. Miyuki and Bea were sitting at a table in a normal apartment on the other half of the city with the plants of the building in front of them. Flanne was there too to keep the princess company.
“If any of you still have any questions, we have time to go over them.” Bea spoke to the phone, which was connected to an earpiece worn by each of the girls.
“Me me!” Sarasa raised her hand. “I still don’t understand why you didn’t just come to our world to hide. Wouldn’t it much safer?”
“No way!” Miyuki said. “For the last time, I’m not stepping place in your crazy world. Who in their right mind would go to a world where there are monsters? Vetoed! Again!”
“Not sure you’re important enough to have the power of veto…” Carol rolled her eyes.
“Oh really? Oops… New vision… Change of plans. Carol, you’re infiltrating through the underground parking lot. Don’t ask me to explain or saving Iroha will be impossible.”
“Again? Veto whatever you want, just forget I said anything.” Carol sighed.
“Seriously… Now’s not the time to be making changes to the plan…” Katja said. “Since we have time, how about we go over it one more time?”
“Sure… With some of the people here, it won’t hurt to make sure it sticks.” Hecate glanced over at Sarasa and Narumi.
Narumi didn’t react, but Sarasa… “Huh?! What’s that? You picking a fight?”
“She’s just looking out for us…” Ririna grabbed Sarasa’s shoulders. “There’s a lot we don’t know, so we need to hear it more.”
“Let’s quickly go over it then.” Ahem… Katja grabbed everyone’s attention. “Our entry point is the vent on the side of the building on the third floor. The wall is a flat surface, so it’d normally be impossible to reach, but Sarasa can climb up the wall. She’ll toss a rope down for us.”
“Yep! It’s all thanks to me this plan is even possible, so I’m expecting some VIP treatment later.”
“The problem is that there’s a camera near the vent that will spot us on the approach. So first, Carol will use her illusions to create a plastic bag and blind the camera temporarily… Can you really do that?” Katja asked.
“How many times do I have to show you for you to believe it? Yes, I can use magic now too… Get over it.”
Katja gave a wry smile. It was still hard to believe. Carol had even materialized some of them, but apparently that hurt her? She didn’t fully understand it, so the plan didn’t include those materializations.
“If you say so... Once we’re in the vent, it should safely take us to the bathroom on the fourth floor. The first floor where they have labs. There shouldn’t be anyone around once we get there, so Ririna will plant an explosive artifact to serve as a distraction later. Most of the doors between sections require keycards to open, so we’ll head to a security room that holds the keycards first. That room should also be locked, but Ririna can melt the handle. That’s when the bombs detonate, which will lure the guards away from us. Do you have everything? I’d expect you to need more than a few pouches for all that stuff.”
“Hmm? Everything’s pretty light, you know? Most of the stuff alchemists use has to be usable in battle and throwable, so it’s never that big or heavy.” Ririna said.
How convenient for them.
“Well… Once we have keycards, the only thing left is finding Iroha. She should be in one of the observation rooms according to Miyuki, but we’re not sure which one. We’ll have to separate and look through all of them ourselves. This is the riskiest part of our plan. If we’re lucky, we could find her right away and escape before security gets to the bathrooms. If we’re unlucky, we’ll have to fight our way out.”
“Do you best out there! It’s all you can do really.” Miyuki cheerfully said it like it didn’t involve her.
“We’ll keep track of the rooms checked and give you directions if anything happens. Just focus on the task and staying safe and leave the thinking to us.” Bea said.
“Thanks.” Katja said. “Either way, after we find Iroha, we’ll head to the underground and break out through there. Then it’s back to the car and to our hideout. I’ll drop you all off of you expect for Ririna, then the two of us will head to the industrial district to dispose of the car and come back on foot.”
“Right… As long as they don’t find the car within two hours, it should be completely melted and untraceable.”
Melting locks, melting cars… Carol looked at her sideways. Is there anything this girl can’t melt? “You’re kinda scary sometimes…”
“Hmm?” Ririna tilted her head.
“Ahh… Enough talking… Time’s running out.” Miyuki said. “Good luck out there.”
…
The girls grabbed their bags and got out of the car. They looked like a bunch of girls going home from school after club practice. If they entered a bank like that, all the cameras would lock onto them immediately, and the police would get called. They didn’t even go near the PSF’s main entrance, so they were safe.
They circled around the building without saying a word. There was a camera on the outside that could have sent them down the bank robbery route, but a plastic bag suddenly flew in just the right arc to wrap around it.
“Okay… Go.” Carol whispered, and everyone ran under the vent.
“So? My turn?” Sarasa asked.
Katja handed her a cord that she wrapped around her arm. She took a small step back, then ran straight at the wall. There was nothing to grab onto, and the vent was three stories high. It should have been impossible, but just by scratching at the wall with her hands and feet, Sarasa kept going up.
But even Sarasa had her limits. Her momentum slowed down before she reached the vent. “There!” With one last burst, she reached up and managed to grab it.
“She did it!” Ririna said.
Sarasa brought her other hand, then pulled herself up, swinging before kicking cover and tumbling inside.
There was a moment of silence. Then a pair of hands tossed the rope down. “Alright. You can come up now. One at a time.” Said the head poking out. Ears already out in the open.
Carol tugged on the rope after Sarasa went back inside. There was nothing holding it but Sarasa, so they had to be gentle. “I’ll go first. Let’s do this.”
“Mhmm!”
…
They reached their destination after a good few minutes of crawling. The bathroom they chose as their point of entry.
Two sets of eyes peeked out through the vents, into the slick, black bathroom. There was a mirror on the wall across from them and a stall directly under the vent. Gives them some cover if someone comes in before they leave.
“We’re going in…” Kicking this one could be a problem, so Sarasa carefully opened the vent before dropping down. Carol followed right after, then Katja, then Narumi until everyone was down.
“This is straight out of a spy movie!” Narumi said. “And now’s the best part!”
“You mean planting the bombs?” Carol asked.
“Yeah!”
“They’re explosive artifacts, not bombs.” Ririna reached for her pouch and pulled out what looked like a vial connected to a wooden cube. “Leave it to me. One in each stall, right?”
A bit pedantic to worry about the distinction, but they didn’t look like any bombs they knew… “Yeah. Go ahead.” Carol said.
They got to rig the bathroom without interruption. It was pretty rudimentary. Just hiding the explosives behind each of the toilets. Once they were done, they stacked near the door.
“Oh… We may have found our first obstacle…” Hecate said.
There was a security guard making the rounds. No doubt just one of many.
“It’s okay. We knew there’d be some guards.” Katja said. “This is where our mission truly begins.”