"I've met many, many beings. But you are the most evil of all."
"Oh shut up, will you? It's just a dress."
"Just a dress?" Baldur looked at his attire in the mirror.
His clothes were old, tattered, and riddled with finger-wide holes all around. They smelled of mud and blood. Holding a meter-long multipurpose utility bar for mining over his shoulder, he looked like one of those slave laborers.
Varian, in leather armor and pants, wiped his whip with the back of his hand and nodded. "Infiltrating and checking out the treasury without arousing much suspicion is the best way."
"Do you even know where the treasuries are? Or which one of the many treasuries contains the space gem?" Baldur gave him a weird gaze.
"Not quite, but almost. Space Gem is very useful for charging the space crystals and the space system of any spaceship in general. Simply for the matter of convenience, it'd be near the planets where Havocs maintain the bulk of their ships." Varian shrugged.
"Space dock?"
"Yeah." Varian flicked his fingers and a screen appeared in front of them.
It showed a bunch of star systems as well as well as a few blinking red dots.
"Three big docks and the three have a couple of asteroids nearby. They've kept the treasury inside the Inner Space. But it's too big to search and verify. Luckily, if the treasury is in the Inner space of that region, the entrance to that treasury is also on the asteroid. All we have to do is check the asteroids." Varian nodded at his reflection in the mirror and boarded Baldur's spaceship.
"A simple scan suffices. Why go all the way to infiltrate?" Baldur asked but still sat down and scanned his aura to kick up the ship.
But rather than asking the question because of doubt, he seemed to want to test Varian's plan and check if he knew the right answer.
"Really now," Varian shook his head. "They aren't dumb. The entrance to the treasury would be hidden properly and a simple scan would never reveal it. Need to search it up close."
And why didn't they just kill the miners and start searching?
For starters, Havocs were a notorious bunch of pirates. But even more important was that they were a race of space awakeners. Even though they only reached peak level 9 in space path, they long integrated space technology in their civilization.
Any attack on any of their territory would end up alarming Havoc powerhouses who would be there in seconds.
And even if Varian successfully killed everyone on the asteroid and went through the entrance to the treasury, he still had to break through the security of the treasury in Inner space which would take time.
Still, it's fine if they got the asteroid right on the first try. Varian could ask Baldur to just kill everyone and loot the treasury.
But if the treasury he looted wasn't the right one, then…
The Havocs would be alarmed and shift the space gem along with other treasures to one of their many treasuries. Varian didn't want to gamble.
"Just act your part and make it seem like a revolt. I'll do the searching."
— — — —
An asteroid belt near a space dock close to a star system.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The minor miner boy wiped the sweat off his forehead and smiled at the rock in his hand. It was a shining green stone coated in black dirt. One of the core components of today's drug trade.
With this, his quota for today would be done and he could get a full mea—
Whip!
"Arghhh!"
Blood sprayed in the air as a barbed whip tore through his skin and ripped his flesh.
"Stop those disgusting smiles, yeah?" The supervisor spat on the shivering boy who collapsed in a pool of blood and walked away.
The sky turned red for a second and everyone looked up in confusion. Two dots seemed to twinkle in the sky and then disappeared.
A few minutes later, the boy slowly got up. The boy's race had an innate talent for healing, so no one doubted his condition. That's also the reason Baldur chose to disguise as him.
In the only well-built structure on the asteroid, a golden office, the second-in-charge of the asteroid bowed to the first-in-charge after a report and walked into his own quarters to rest for a bit.
After a good meal and torturing a bunch of 'toys', he was back to his peak state. Throwing away the corpses of the three young girls into the trash room for cleaning later, he stretched his arms and was about to return to work.
But an invisible force struck his mind and his eyes went dull. A moment later, a white barrier enveloped the room and a space crack devoured him.
Varian frowned at the stench of corpses and started patrols in his new disguise.
The reason he picked the role of a supervisor rather than giving it to Baldur was simple. He had the space power. Even if he's just a rank 1, his sensitivity to the entrance of the treasury in inner space was far higher.
Thinking in reverse, who should the Havocs really guard against in Centaurus? Mystics, who comprise more than 99% of the celestial rankers! So, whatever shielding methods applied to the entrance, they'd be specialized against Mystics.
His guess was proven to be true and after six hours of careful patrol, he found a cave on the asteroid.
He couldn't sense anything with his Mystic powers but as a Space Awakener, he could sense the space fluctuations even from a mile.
Varian looked around.
The miners were working hard across the barren lands and the supervisors were patrolling, beating them from time to time and relishing the experience.
But some of them also glanced at him from time to time.
For the last six hours, he didn't speak a single word to them. Some tried to talk to him but he just ignored them and continued the patrols. Even more shockingly, he didn't try to snatch up any young girls to his quarters.
It was weird. He's acting strange.
