Chapter 46: Smart Weapons

The apartment building Karl entered had been completely cleared out. Everything except the load-bearing walls had been smashed to pieces, making it easy for him to spot the staircase at a glance.

The RPG had been fired from the fifth floor, but Karl had no intention of using the normal route to get there.

If the attackers weren't complete idiots, they would have already set up landmines and other traps along the stairwell. Karl didn't have time to disarm them one by one.

His gaze flicked to the ceiling above him, noticing an embedded ceiling light. After quickly calculating his jumping ability in his head, he made his move without hesitation.

The monomolecular wire shot out from Karl's hand, slicing open a square hole in the ceiling, exactly one meter on each side. As the mix of concrete and steel reinforcement crumbled and fell, Karl took a step forward and used the debris as a platform to launch himself upward.

The apartment's ceiling height was 2.8 meters, plus a 20 cm thick floor, meaning the distance between one floor and the next was exactly 3 meters. Karl himself was 1.8 meters tall, with a jumping height of about 50 cm. Factoring in his arm reach, he could just barely make it to the second floor.

If a standard basketball hoop was 3.05 meters tall, did this count as a dunk?

As Karl jumped, he planted one hand firmly on the floor of the second level. However, relying solely on the strength of his fingers wasn't enough to pull himself up. That's where the monomolecular wire came into play once again.

The wire was only monomolecular sharp at the blade portion; the rest of it functioned more like a powered whip—meaning it could also serve as a climbing rope.

Shooting out again, this time without using the bladed edge, the wire pierced through the ceiling light on the third floor. The tip embedded itself in the light's metal casing, wrapping around the fixture. Just as Karl suspected, the apartment's design was uniform—every floor had identical recessed lighting.

Karl pulled hard, causing the mechanisms in his wrist to emit a crisp clicking sound as his body was hoisted upward. By the time half his body had cleared the second floor, he braced his elbow against the ground, tensed his core, and flipped himself up.

At the same time, the ceiling light—strained beyond its limits—gave way, bringing down a chunk of the ceiling with it. Karl reeled in the monomolecular wire just as debris rained down.

"Cool. I can't believe that actually worked."

In a braindance, Karl only needed to experience something once to commit every movement to memory and replicate it himself. The technique he just used was actually something he'd seen in an action-packed braindance.

In that braindance, when the protagonist was about to fall off a cliff waterfall, they had thrown a rope toward a tree at the last second, successfully saving themselves from the drop.

He'd heard that a lot of braindance recorders had died filming that scene. But as long as it had been recorded once, Karl could learn the technique.

Of course, before actually trying it himself, he wasn't completely sure it would work. He figured the worst-case scenario was falling back to the first floor, so he gave it a shot. The fact that it actually worked was just a bonus.

Swoosh.

The sound of the monomolecular wire retracting was slightly off—there was a subtle delay, as if some of the mechanical components were grinding against each other.

"Alright... so it did come at a cost."

The monomolecular wire was designed to be reeled in while stationary, not while suspending a person's full weight mid-air.

Karl had just performed an improvised "wire-retraction lift."

This was some reverse gravity-defying nonsense.

Karl didn't know it, but it was only thanks to Viktor's skill that his monomolecular wire was holding up. If any other ripperdoc had installed it, his reckless abuse of the implant might have already rendered it useless.

"Times like this make me envy the Mantis Blades. If I had those, I could just stab them into the wall and climb straight up."

With the intense gunfight raging outside, the sound of Karl slicing through the floors was barely noticeable. Taking advantage of the constant gunfire, he repeated the same maneuver.

"Swoosh—clank."

This time, the noise was a bit more pronounced—almost like the monomolecular wire was protesting his treatment.

But once he reached the third floor, Karl decided to stop cutting through the ceilings.

If he kept going higher, he might run straight into someone. Even if there was nobody above, the attackers on the fifth floor would definitely hear the noise coming from below.

It was time to take the stairs.

Karl approached the stairwell and examined it closely. There were no mines or traps placed on the steps leading from the third to the fourth floor.

Looks like they figured the traps set on the lower floors were enough of a warning.

Karl knew that some types of mines could be linked via data connections. In other words, once triggered, they would immediately notify the attackers exactly which mine had gone off. Given that, it made sense for them to have only rigged the third floor.

Too bad he hadn't gotten good enough at hacking yet—otherwise, he could've jammed the signals and turned those traps against their owners.

Crouching low and keeping his steps light, Karl carefully made his way up to the fourth floor.

That's when he spotted a man, standing with his back to him at the edge of the floor, firing nonstop at the chaos below.

And the weapon he was using? It was something Karl had never seen in person before.

A smart weapon.

[Arasaka TKI-20 Shingen]: A high-tech smart submachine gun manufactured by Arasaka. Featuring advanced targeting technology, it automatically tracks targets. Compact and precise, it's the dream gun for any soldier or mercenary. If your aim sucks, this weapon's got your back. The only requirement? You need to have a smart link module installed.

An Arasaka-manufactured high-tech weapon... in the hands of an attacker.

Why am I not even surprised?

Karl was about seven meters away from the man. He wasn't confident enough in his stealth skills to close that distance undetected, especially in an open space with no cover.

If his approach was even slightly off and the guy turned around for just a second, Karl would be dead. The smart gun wouldn't miss. And Karl didn't have any subdermal armor—if he got shot, it would hurt.

So, this was as far as his stealth would take him.

At least he had gotten this close. It was much better than setting off explosions back on the first floor and having to deal with a smart weapon-wielding gunman chasing him down.

Karl raised his Kenshin.

"Bang."

A spray of blood burst into the air in front of him.

"Nice gun. I'm taking it."