Casper was facing those two warriors apprehensively. He was so surprised that he forgot to keep himself composed and ended up stepping back.
It was another huge mistake. He was playing the scientist there. If he could not act as if it was a common thing to him, to be stopped by those two right in the entrance, it would be very suspicious.
He lowered a bit his head, to prevent them to look at his eyes. He needed to avoid any characteristic that could make them recognize him.
"Hey, what's your name?" The man interrogating him gave a step further, looking intently at Casper.
At times like that, Casper always thought that those masks looked two times as creepy, even though he had seen them a lot of times before.
"My name is Sigfried." Casper hastily picked up his fake credential from the coat's pocket and lend it to the warrior.
The two men looked at it, then exchanged glances. They were giving a vibe as if they were suspecting something.
"What the actual problem, man? It was made by a reliable person, I am sure! Did I messed up with my act?" He complained, thinking about what to do next if everything went bad.
"Sigfried, can you say to me in which group you are working with?"
"The group AC-058, sir." He said as calmly and naturally as he could.
"And could you show to us your GB…"
"What?" He yelled, suddenly, which caught the guards by surprise. "Are you implying that I need to show a GBI to you, suckers, let me do my work!?
"I don't have time to lose with a scan! I have things to do, goals to accomplish! That's the freaking third time you stop me like this, c'mon!"
The White warrior gave it his best try. He was pretending a truly fed up and exasperated worker: his voice was loud, hoarse, and tired. He gesticulated exaggeratedly and walked left to right viciously.
"I know that the scientists here have a rivalry against the Ridire. If I make this much of a fuss, then they would…"
"Hey, are you going to waste our resources, money, and time, just strolling around without the need to, and even get on the way of a comrade? Let the man pass already! He gave the credential, right?"
"The science cannot stop because of unwise people like you!"
"I will report it to Freygar! Let's see if you will order the GBI of an Aesir!"
The scientists passing started to protest just like Casper imagined they would.
The warriors seemed to be furious about that, and almost snapping, but they needed to restrain themselves.
"Don't worry, man. There are a lot of new scientists entering the Lab. No wonder that we don't recognize some of them."
"But…" The man seemed to struggle while deciding whether he should step on his pride or not.
In the end, thanks to all information Casper had, they let him pass without the need for a GBI scanning.
Casper had acquired that much knowledge through the different connections he had made in that last month.
Of course, the White warrior would not be stuck at a Laboratory, doing nothing, but giving ideas, strolling around, and studying.
The fact that he did an effort to get along well with everyone there was to make a web of contacts that would rocket his influence.
It was difficult to have the type of influence that the Princess had since one needs to be powerful to do such thing as having subordinates and people fearing or respecting you.
However, for an ordinary person like Casper, speaking of prestige, it was not impossible to achieve such a feat when you go in another way: got to know lower people, that knows average people, that knows powerful people.
It was a domino effect, and soon you would realize that your connections expanded in a blink of an eye.
Working on it for a whole month made Casper have contacts with people from each laboratory, even if indirectly.
The other scientists waited there until Casper got among the crowd and then started to walk again.
Because of the building plans that Katarina gave to him, he had all the complex's routes and rooms engraved in his mind.
Those last ones she gave him were of the most lower parts of the structure, which was something more difficult to find. However, the upper parts were given to him a week ago, so he had time enough to memorize them.
"That's very important, so I need to be careful. I must reach my goals one by one in the most straightforward route I can. I need to save enough time to spend all of it in the lower parts of the complex!"
Now that his plan was taking shape and slowly unfolding, Casper was getting excited and optimistic about the outcome.
One of the two worst parts, he had already done. Now, obviously, just the last remained: get out of there. But it was something to think of later.
Casper walked hastily through the corridors, briefly greeting some scientists as if they were acquaintances. Others he would just ignore as though they never saw each other once.
Sometimes he would help someone out with something and pretend to have conversed with them the previous day.
Scientists were busy people, so they always interpreted as though they were tired enough to forget someone.
It was the best way he found to look like an everyday worker. Although it took some of his time, he tried to be as quick as possible in the interactions.
In a matter of minutes, he arrived at the first place he wanted to visit: the firearms development group.
It was a huge squared room, divided into four blocks, in which the groups split to do the researching of different weapons. There was also an attachment there, at the end of the room, that Casper knew that was used to archive data, prototypes, and documents.
He would surely be looking forward to seeing what they were working on in those blocks, but his main goal was to reach the attachment.
He could try to sneak until there, but it would not be practical. He had a better idea.
Casper entered that room casually, strolling around and looking for someone that he could talk to.
Casper reached a scientist that seemed to be guiding the others. From what he had in mind, he would need someone that had some authority there.
"Good night, sir. May I ask your help with something?" He said, putting his hand on the guy's shoulder.
The guy shivered, nearly jumping, then looked to Casper hastily.
"W-who are you!?"
"I am Sigfried, a scientist that works around here. Our group needs something that could contribute to our researching."
The man seemed to freeze for a while, thinking, then let his defensive behavior aside. That man was a real weirdo.
"S-sorry for this, Siegfried." He apologized, bowing slightly.
"No worries. I am asking for a favor, after all, I don't have the right to complain."
The man seemed to sympathize with Casper because of his politeness. He smiled with his tired eyes and asked him:
"What can I do for you and your group?"
"We are researching about some systems for some weapons we are trying to do. I can't be much specific right now, since I am in a rush. However, they said that there are some blueprints of previous weapons you did three months ago, and it could be used as a reference for our studies."
Casper tried to be brief and straightforward. He talked while walking hastily, already towards the attachment.
The man did not seem to realize it, since he just kept trying to reach Casper and walk next to him.
"Ooh, I see now… Well, I can help you with it… It will just take a while since I need to take a look at the attachment and search for this specific data… B-but don't worry I will be here in a minute!" He ran towards the attachment, letting Casper behind.
Casper took advantage of that time to take a look at what those people were doing.
The four blocks were working each in a different thing: the first was trying to improve the firing system of the guns, and also decrease the recoil.
The second block was trying to produce new bullets for an specific type of assault rifle.
The third and four were working together in a huge firing gun. It had the same structure as a sniper, but it was much, much bigger, just like a war tank. No need to be a genius to know that that gun was powerful.
After analyzing everything, Casper saw that there was nothing out of the ordinary for that world. That sniper-like huge gun was surely something to watch out for, but he expected something even worst than that.
After this, he looked around, making sure that nobody was looking at him, and then sneaked inside the attachment.
There, he faced lots of metal cabinets lined up like the supermarket shelves.
"It will be a bother for sure to look to everything… The important things must be kept by some specific shelve or cabinets, I am sure." He thought.
He was hearing the sounds of someone opening the cabinets, moving some papers, then closing it again.
That guy probably was still trying to look up to the blueprints Casper had asked for.
That was a good scenario since he would be able to search for a long time.
The White warrior hastily started to walk around the cabinets and lookup for something that could serve as any hint to him.
He noticed that some of the cabinets were locked just like combination safes. It was good news since Casper knew how to open one of these.
He put his ear near to it and started rotate that thing. Find the right combination was not a difficult task for him anymore, so he could pull through very quickly.
He started to grab all the papers there.
"Why do they just don't archive it all on a pendrive or in the cloud? That's such a bother… Well I stopped to try to comprehend how this world's technological development works a while ago anyway…"
Casper had got lucky with those papers. They were from that month.
He passed his eyes to one that was there since the start of the month, and a chill was sent down to his spine when he realized what it was.
"What the…"