At dawn Hunter slowly opened his eyes.
As consciousness returned, his keen senses revived just as quickly.
His still-foggy brain soon recalled last night's indulgence.
He remembered it was nine p.m. when he returned to Dominic and Mia's place with the four approved bail papers.
That sexy, alluring mixed-race girl, overcome with excitement…
Had unleashed astonishing passion on her long-lost lover.
The result: she still hadn't woken up—looked like she was truly worn out.
Hunter's body clock was now set; he slept five or six hours at most.
Seeing daylight outside, he glanced at the time—already past six.
Though it felt early, he decided to get up.
Without disturbing the sleeping Mia, he rose and headed for the bathroom.
Last night he'd been too tired to bother showering.
Waking up this morning, he felt a bit grimy.
June in Los Angeles was already heating up.
Fortunately it was a harbor city, never short of sea breezes and moisture—more bearable than inland cities at the same latitude.
But the feel of summer was already in the air.
Hunter took a nice cold shower and felt refreshed all over.
Since his previous life he'd only enjoyed hot baths in winter.
The rest of the time, whenever the weather turned even slightly warm, Hunter preferred a cold shower.
He let the cool water stream over and down his body.
As he rinsed, Hunter replayed the gains of the past few days.
'With Dominic, saving his life this time should ease things between us.'
'Apart from Vince and the rest, the others probably won't be hostile anymore.'
'But I personally stepped in to contact a lawyer for bail.'
'The FBI will likely notice me soon; I'll have to lie low for a while.'
'Once I pick Dominic up this afternoon, I'll remind them to start thinking seriously about leaving.'
'At the very least, we can't make any moves for the time being.'
After finishing the shower, he took a clean towel from his private space and dried off.
He then pulled out a fresh set of clothes from the same space.
Ever since his private space had grown larger, Hunter enjoyed stuffing more things into it.
By now, inside his private space
were spare clothes and toiletries,
tools, firearms, canned food, ingredients, and seasonings.
All manner of daily necessities were stocked.
However, Hunter hadn't had much money on hand.
So he hadn't gone on a big buying spree.
Blame it on the three-year pandemic of his previous life.
After that, like many Blue nationals, Hunter had turned into a hoarding hamster, stockpiling essentials and medicine.
Besides, nothing stored in the private space would ever spoil.
That only encouraged his instinct to stock up.
The only thing still reining him in was a lack of cash.
After the shower, Hunter went to the kitchen.
He took out some ingredients and seasonings from his private space
and cooked himself a simple rice bowl, calling it breakfast.
While waiting for Mia to wake, he fished out a programming book from his private space and began to read.
It killed three birds with one stone: it earned experience for Reading,
and also boosted Computer and Foreign Language skills.
It was almost miraculous!
In his past life Hunter couldn't be called stupid—he had his clever moments.
Once, when a supervisor targeted him, he retaliated by slashing all four tires of the man's car.
By the time Hunter left that company, the boss still hadn't found the culprit.
Pulling that off under ubiquitous cameras took some ingenuity.
Yet he hated studying, scraped through a vocational college, and after graduation earned little and suffered plenty.
Even after transmigrating, he still disliked learning.
But whenever he thought of his golden finger—
the proficiency system—whose skills, once leveled high enough, could strengthen his body
and even enlarge his private space,
the study-hating Hunter
surprised himself by patiently grinding experience points.
Many of the skills he triggered were highly specialized
and leveling them was tedious, demanding serious research and lots of time.
Yet he enjoyed every minute.
Absorbed in the book, he soon lost himself in study.
What Hunter didn't know
was that by moving against Steve ahead of Charlie,
he had set off a butterfly effect that was beginning to show.
While Hunter was Reading at Mia and Dominic's place,
a hundred kilometers away, Slater finished her usual routine—
washed up, ate breakfast,
changed clothes, grabbed her bag, and headed out to meet Charlie.
Charlie had been investigating Steve for some time.
They planned soon to infiltrate Steve's villa.
To that end, Rob, one of Charlie's drivers and resident playboy,
had easily charmed a female employee of the TV company.
Rob slept with her and swiped her ID badge.
They intended to disguise Slater as that TV-company woman,
stage a minor malfunction, and slip Slater into Steve's home to scope him out.
Today was the day of the operation.
But as Slater left the apartment and pulled out her keys to the car, she didn't realize…
Several burly men in suits had already set their sights on her.
Seeing her walk towards her car, the burly men exchanged glances.
In an instant, their vehicle started up rapidly, accelerating to cut off Slater.
"...You... what is this?"
Slater was startled, watching several burly men rush out as the car doors swung open.
Just as she was about to shout a warning, she saw one of them pull a gun from his jacket and aim it at her.
"Miss Brief, our boss would like a word."
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