"I'm in."
Through the skylight at the back of the basement.
Relying on a physique more than double that of an average man, Hunter entered Steve's villa.
The basement was pitch-black.
Hooking his feet over the sill, he hung head-down and groped below.
His fingertips met only air, unsettling him.
Only after his eyes adjusted to the darkness did he realize the basement was nearly three meters high.
It had to be a garage; a long rectangular silhouette stood not far ahead.
Even in the gloom it was unmistakably a car.
"Ceiling's about two-point-eight to three meters."
"With my body, I can drop it."
After a quick mental calculation he was satisfied.
He relaxed his legs and let go.
His hands hit first; just before impact he tensed.
Arms exploding with twice normal power, he rolled and landed upright.
"Huff—"
Without pausing he ducked behind the vehicle.
He'd already heard the faint swivel of a camera but hadn't spotted it.
A careful look soon confirmed.
The lens covered only the entrance; from its angle it couldn't see him.
Reassured, he drew a glow-stick from his private space.
A quick snap filled the garage with pale green light.
The underground space was large—fifty or sixty square meters.
Easily room for three or four full-size Chevy Suburbans.
Yet only two cars stood inside.
Up close, one was a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon, a big, capable off-roader.
Base models start around fifty or sixty thousand us dollars, and the wealthy often spring for legal armoring and power upgrades.
The second car was a Bentley sedan.
Hunter had picked up plenty about cars lately.
After only a few extra glances he recognized it as a second-generation Bentley Continental.
It was the luxury coupé built after Bentley had been taken over by Volkswagen.
In the States its base model ran about one-hundred-seventy- to one-hundred-eighty-thousand us dollars.
Far pricier than many entry-level supercars—a true rich man's toy.
He silently admired that Steve really knew how to enjoy life.
Using the glow from a light-stick, Hunter quickly confirmed that, apart from the vehicle ramp, the underground garage had…
…one more door, apparently leading straight into the villa.
Once sure he hadn't mis-seen, he pocketed the light-stick and groped his way toward the door.
At the door he reached out and tried the handle.
His face soon froze—the door was locked.
He frowned toward the garage entrance, then decided to give it a shot anyway.
From his private space he produced a lock-picking kit.
Lockpicking had been one of the first skills Hunter unlocked after transmigrating.
Still, the skill demanded high expertise.
At first he could grind experience by opening common door locks with keys.
Once the skill hit Lv2, using keys no longer yielded experience.
Losses and gains came together, though.
With Lockpicking Skill Lv2 he could now open most locks sold on the market.
Whether he could handle the door to Steve's villa garage, however, he wasn't sure.
He selected a few tools.
Inserting them into the lock, he pressed his ear to the mechanism and listened carefully.
A physique more than twice the norm had likewise sharpened his five senses.
Lately he had profited from that, learning how to exploit those heightened senses.
Click.
The door inside Steve's garage wasn't especially sophisticated.
Hunter probed with his picks, teasing the tumblers while gently twisting the knob.
After several minutes of trial and error…
…a soft click sounded; the door opened.
A grin flashed across Hunter's face.
He quickly stowed the tools and slapped a strip of tape over the latch to keep it from re-locking.
With that done he slipped inside.
A short corridor greeted him.
His eyes had already adapted to the dark.
Though no lights were on, he could still make things out.
On the same side as the garage—only a wall away—stood what looked like a storage room.
Its door was ajar; to be safe he checked it and found racks of foreign liquor.
Indifferent to alcohol, he left at once.
He continued along the corridor in the opposite direction.
Five or six metres ahead a spiral staircase curved upward.
He crept up the stairs.
Another door waited above, but it wasn't locked.
A gentle turn of the handle and it swung open.
The moment it did, Hunter's heart leapt—he had entered Steve's villa.
The villa sat on a huge plot, but its built-up area wasn't large.
It had one basement and two above-ground floors.
—Please vote with flowers—Though recently built, it radiated character.
Inside were many vintage pieces; even the flooring and tiles had been salvaged by Steve from old European buildings.
Many American tycoons love that style.
So U.S. mansions are often decorated with dismantled antiques from Europe…
…and the world, to give an air of cultured heritage.
Perhaps Steve felt unsafe at night, or for some other reason; though the main lights were off, a few fixtures on the ground floor remained lit.
Hunter's nerves tightened again.
He prowled the ground floor cautiously.
He remembered Steve had originally kept the safe—holding nearly a ton of gold bricks—on this level; moving that weight upstairs would be a nightmare.
He searched while keeping an eye out for guards…
…and noticed the villa had no surveillance cameras.
Steve clearly disliked having his life watched.
So, after ten-odd minutes of careful searching…
Hunter finally returned to the corridor beside the living-room on the ground floor.
By now he had almost searched the entire ground floor.
Downstairs were a living room, kitchen, laundry, gym, and study, but no guest bedrooms or maid's quarters where anyone could sleep.
There didn't seem to be any guards in the villa either, which let Hunter breathe a huge sigh of relief.
After checking every one of those places, he had found nowhere a safe could be hidden.
On the ground floor, there was only one spot Hunter hadn't inspected.
It was a locked door in the corridor next to the living room.
From the villa's layout he had already guessed the space behind that door couldn't be more than three or four square metres.
So just now he hadn't paid it much attention.
Besides, the locked door was really too close to the villa's main entrance.
At first Hunter had assumed it was just a storage closet.
But after touring the whole floor, he couldn't help growing suspicious.
'The safe couldn't be hidden in there, could it?'
He walked up to the door and studied the otherwise ordinary-looking wooden panel for a moment.
Then, once again, he took a lock-pick set from his private space.
He worked on the lock for a while.
Soon, with a crisp metallic click,
the simple lock yielded to Hunter's tools.
He pulled the wooden door open at once—and his breathing turned heavy.
Behind the door, two massive, thick-walled safes stood side by side.
Hunter knew he had found Steve's gold bars…
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