You can read ahead up to 20 chapters on my patreon and I've also activated (date to date) subscription model on my patreon https://www.patreon.com/GGS6395
Standing on the steel beam, Arthur watched for a while before he chose an entrance.
It was a doorway, guarded by only one soldier and the surrounding view was narrow, with plenty of cover, so there was little chance of being spotted.
He cautiously approached above the enemy, and the next moment, Arthur descended from above!
In the blink of an eye, his arm wrapped around the soldier's neck, while his legs stepped on the soldier's knees. With a light shove, he spread his legs and stood on the ground. Before the soldier could kneel, there was a crisp 'snap' with a forceful twist.
After scanning the area and seeing that no one had noticed, Arthur opened the nearby door and peered out. It was a corridor!
Except for a few trash cans, there was nothing else in the hallway.
Arthur dragged the body out of the door and began to undress it with practiced ease...
"Why am I so good at this?" Arthur wondered aloud. Back when he was an Otaku, he didn't have this skill, of course. Then again, he probably didn't need it back then.
Lost in thought, he undressed the body from head to toe.
"Looks like I went a little overboard..."
After a moment of contemplation, Arthur shrugged and threw the body into the trash can.
Picking up the high-tech weapon from the soldier, the Disassembler immediately made its presence known.
[Do you wish to disassemble the 'Spatial Energy Weapon'?]
"Yes!"
Seeing the prompt, Arthur felt a surge of excitement.
The sound of the gears grinding inside the disassembler was strangely comforting.
However, the disassembly process took longer than Arthur had expected. It wasn't until about thirty seconds later that the prompt finally appeared.
[Announcement!]
[Disassembling Equipment Succeeded!]
[Beginner Rifle Shooting Experience*7]
[Beginner Rifle Melee Experience*7]
[Fragmented Battle Soul]
[Colorless Crystal Shard]
[Disassembling Experience +1].
[Disassembled equipment. Do you want to take it out now?]
"Colorless Crystal Shard!"
Arthur immediately decided to disassemble. It was still the same one-centimeter cube, but it looked much brighter than the previous dull crystal shard.
It emitted a warm and radiant glow!
With a tap of his hand, he could still feel that electric sensation coursing through his body.
And the energy contained in this crystal shard was much greater than before.
Not to exaggerate, the energy contained in one colorless crystal shard, combined with the total amount of the fragmented energy residue from before and the dull colorless crystal shards, even had a certain surplus!
But what really surprised Arthur was that after the energy of the colorless crystal shard merged with the energy already in his body, he felt a hint of vitality.
"It seems... manageable!"
Arthur suddenly had an idea and snapped his fingers.
With a soft click, a tiny flame appeared at his fingertip, flickering gently with the breeze.
"My goodness..."
Arthur stared at the small flame in amazement and was almost moved to tears.
Though the flame was weak - too small even to light a cigarette - it was the first flame born under Arthur's control!
Moreover, the energy within him wasn't drained by this small flame. In fact, Arthur suspected that it wasn't the energy that was the problem; it was his inability to communicate with it effectively.
Now, however, he could manipulate it, possibly because his internal energy had reached a critical threshold, allowing it to respond to his intentions and create this small miracle.
Arthur recalled various Western fantasy novels he'd read where novice mages had to chant spells to cast magic, but advanced mages could cast basic spells instantly. His current state seemed similar.
Still, it was just a hypothesis, and this wasn't the place for in-depth studies.
Arthur threw the soldier's armor into the Disassembler, his eyes gleaming with excitement. The flame was small now, but what about the future?
If one day he could summon a sun with a snap of his fingers, who could stand against him?
Okay, maybe a literal sun was too much.
But what if he could summon a sun the size of a parallel universe with a snap of his fingers?
"Hehehe..."
Lost in his boundless daydreams, Arthur let out a slightly sinister laugh.
The laugh jolted him back to reality. Why was he daydreaming all of a sudden?
"I have to calm down. Even if I can summon a universe-sized sun one day, I have to stay cool now."
Arthur took a deep breath and shook off the euphoria. "Steve's rescue mission won't be slow. He'll free the prisoners as quickly as possible. So I don't have much time. And before he succeeds, I can't make too much noise and alert Schmidt. That would ruin everything. So, stealth it is!"
Arthur decided to quietly eliminate the soldiers in the military factory and confiscate their weapons.
Once all the soldiers were dealt with, he could take all the weapons produced... though he lamented that the disassembly room couldn't hold them all.
With a sigh, he stopped procrastinating and prepared to execute his stealth plan. But then he had an idea. He took the futuristic soldier's armor from the disassembly room and put it on.
Wearing the Hydra uniform and helmet, Arthur decided to go undercover.
The only drawback was the lack of a weapon, which felt strange.
But there was no time to worry about that. Confidently opening the door and entering the factory floor, Arthur started to move towards a corner, based on the distribution of soldiers he had observed from the beam.
Then he changed his mind.
"Plans made on the fly are never reliable.
There were always unforeseen details...
For example, Arthur hadn't considered that in disguise, with a helmet covering his face, it would be hard for anyone to recognize him.
Why not just walk over and take the newly assembled weapons?
"Yeah, this is definitely not my fault, someone other than me must be guilty for this!" Arthur patted his head, conveniently shifting the blame for his incomplete plan.
(End of Chapter)