388 Careful Planning

Eva smiled when the idea came to her. The thought of a mere Rank 1 player stealing from the Merchant Guild was amusing indeed, especially when she would have considered such an endeavor impossible back when she was Rank 6. 

However, things had changed. Her skills, standing, and methods were nothing compared to the previous timeline. Her regard for the top powers, which had formerly been the cause of trepidation for the leader of Darkrow, had been replaced by parity. 

In fact, aside from the War Maniac Pavilion and Church of Light that neither she nor Draco could see through, the rest would serve as mere stepping stones in Umbra's path. 

Now that she had chosen the target, next came the most important part: forming a plan. Anyone who had watched a good heist movie knew that there were four stages to a successful heist. 

The first stage was breaking in. This could be the hardest part or the simplest depending on the potency of the target's defenses. In movies, it was usually just some guards and a few safes, giving the thieves the opportunity to use some fancy moves and high-tech equipment to bypass all that. 

As for Eva, she would have to face the richest organization on the main plane, which possessed defensive items and methods that should be impossible to break through with brute force unless one was a True God. 

It was unlikely that even Rank 7's would be able to get in easily, as the Merchant Guild's upper echelon was full of members like that. She would have to make an assessment of the defenses and draw a countermeasure in due time. 

The second stage was the distraction. Whether it was an explosion out at the front, or a gang of misfits breaking up the place, one needed a solid distraction to lure away the mobile defenses and remove attention from one's position. 

Otherwise, it was only a matter of time before one was found out either before, during, or after the third stage. Distractions were hard to pull off, because a successful needed to seem like it had nothing to with the item you were planning to steal, yet be big enough to warrant the full attention from your victims. 

A poor distraction would achieve the opposite effect and just alert the victims that someone was making a play on their goods. No one was stupid and if you could think up the stages for a heist, they could too. 

The third stage was the collection of loot. This was usually simple, stuff the money, jewelry, or gold into bags, depending on the type of heist. Some targets required special means of collection, necessitating stage 2 even more. 

Since Eva was going for raw platinum coins, she didn't need to do anything but carry a single Bag of Holding into the treasury to collect all the stuff. However, she refused to believe that there wouldn't be some extra protection. 

Such a thing would prove useful to locate not only thieves but also greedy members who arbitrarily withdrew guild funds for their lavish expenses. Whatever the case, Eva would plan as if there was some tracking attached and work along that angle. 

If there were none? She could laugh at her own paranoia. 

If there were some? She would have proven wise. 

The fourth and final stage was probably the most hectic, always full of action. The getaway. This stage always had the protagonists jumping through walls, fighting through hallways to reach their getaway ride, at which point it would evolve into a street chase. 

Cars would be knocked over; shots would be fired and red traffic lights would be crossed. All for the sake of blood-boiling action. 

However, Eva was a Shadow Assassin, one who had controlled a powerful espionage organization in the real world during her past life. She knew that flashy getaways were for the movies, deliberately set up to give some sort of thrilling climax to the whole heist. 

However, this stage was the most stringent of them all, for one main reason; the only good getaway was one where the victims wouldn't even be aware of the theft at all, allowing one to exit the place as they came in. 

However, this was easier said than done. Putting aside success, just going for an explosive ending was a tough job. Any mistakes in the first three stages would likely lead to capture or death, rather than an exciting escape. 

It all depended on the fluidity of the heist as well as the quality of the planning beforehand. 

Of course, there were some stages in between that were skipped or omitted, like gathering the team, acquiring the tools for the heist, creating a solid alibi, scouting out the location to find any weaknesses, etc. 

However, this heist was different. Firstly, Eva planned to do it alone, in order to lower the risk of getting captured. Not to toot her own horn, but there was no player alive yet who possessed the skills to survive this, and any NPC that could would just complicate things. 

They'd want a cut, which would require extra planning and create more problems in the long run, as well as unforeseen situations. Not only that, but Eva would have to live with the risk of them becoming a liability, one of the few to know about the heist. 

If they were good enough for Eva to bring them on board, then they would either be strong enough that they would be hard to silence afterward, or they would be clever enough to leave some sort of failsafe in case Eva dared or succeeded in assassinating them. 

Therefore, she was going solo. 

She also couldn't use high-tech stuff, because well… this was Boundless, not the real world. There were no laser cutters, EMP disablers, high-tech bodysuits to resist laser scanners, camera jammers, or whatever else. 

She would have to sneak her way in and use as little as she could in order to leave as few leads as possible that would link back to her. After all, cleaning up after oneself was almost impossible in a world full of magic. 

Not to mention that there were few items geared for such a large-scale heist. She wouldn't just be breaking into some common vault, where she could just look for a vent and crawl through or cut a hole through the door. 

She would have to break into a pocket space most likely, or seize a Bag of Holding from a powerful treasurer with more than enough strength to protect it. These two activities were almost impossible, but Eva knew of a loophole, one recently discovered too. 

When they had entered the Plains of the Colossus dungeon, they were told that the natives had formerly closed off their natural small world, yet still, it was broken into by the Colossi race before they laid waste to them. 

The question here was, how did the Colossi do it? Well, the only way to find out was to pay the dungeon another visit and investigate carefully. Once she divined the method, it would be simpler for her to copy it. 

After all, breaking into a super mini small world - which was the best they would have for the treasury - as one person was far easier than breaking into a naturally formed small world at a scale large enough to support an invasion. 

Sort of like a bomb. A country wanting to take out an enemy state would need a super bomb that could leave mushroom clouds, and such a thing cost a lot to make and research. 

But an individual wanting to destroy a single building would use a far smaller bomb that was cheaper to make and deploy. It was a similar thing here. 

After entering the treasury, Eva would have to locate the money and break whatever extra defenses had been put into place. Here, she had various means to do so, brute force, delayed cracking, immediate cracking, or circumvention. 

Brute force was self-explanatory. Delayed cracking was basically taking the money first - with the protection still in place - escaping and then finding a way to break it when the heat had cooled. Immediate cracking was the norm, breaking the defense on the spot and taking the prize away. 

Circumvention was using something to buffer the stolen item without breaking the protection, only bending it. The typical Indiana Jones fare of swapping the rare item with a bag of rocks so fast that the pressure plate did not trigger. 

Whatever the choice, it would depend on the type of defense used to protect the money. For that, Eva could only find out when she had broken in, so it was best to gear up with items that could accomplish all four methods, though brute force was extremely unlikely for her at a mere Rank 1. 

Once she acquired the money, she would have to exit the treasury from the same way she entered before using Luxia to escape. There was no getaway car that could beat a Light Phoenix that moved at the speed to light. 

And all of this had to be done without the Merchant Guild being aware until hours after she left, so that any trail could have gone cold as frost. 

Eva had confidence in breaking in, collecting the loot, and escaping. She had pulled off many heists as a rogue in and out of game and even killed high-profile targets with much heavier protection than mere money. 

However, it was the distraction that made her frown. There were far too few options for her, too many uncertainties in this regard. Right now, her main idea was to have Zaine pay the guild a visit with one of the Advanced Spatial Creation Devices Draco left behind to sell to them under wraps. 

This would serve as the best form of distraction, nothing loud or hostile, and it would never cross their mind that someone would be breaking in. After all, it was Umbra and Vita City-State, arguably an entity just as rich as - or even richer than - the Merchant Guild. 

At least, on the surface. 

However, if Eva triggered the alarm, Zaine would be detained by them as a suspect for sure. Even if Eva could escape, Zaine would likely have take the fall for being part of it, Umbra or Vita City-State be damned. 

Just because they tolerated Draco didn't mean that they feared him… far from that. 

Even if Eva raised no alarm, if they discovered the theft before Zaine closed the deal and left, she could still be detained. As such, the moment she closed the deal was the moment Eva had to leave, so that by the time the guild noticed, there was nothing to be done. 

Even if they suspected Umbra, they could only shut up. After all, if Zaine had paid them a visit, what had she come to do? None of the other powers were fools, the First Player Auction was still too fresh on their minds. 

All of them hungered for more Advanced Spatial Creation Devices, and if the Merchant Guild was found colluding with Vita City-State, both parties would get in trouble, with Vita taking on more of the burden. 

But since the City-State had the protection of the War Maniac Pavilion and the Church of Light, it meant only the Demons would have the balls to attack it, none else would ever dare, even if they were given 10,000 guts. 

As for their guild though, it would take heavy hits from all sides. Once the NPCs put the pressure on them, the players would be happy to join in. What Umbra? They were the first guild, but so what? 

If they had the big guns firing on them, they would happily join in and reap what spoils they could. Whichever guild could deal the most damage might possibly become the next number 1! 

That was what would be running through their pea-sized brains, and it would add oil to a raging bonfire. This was not something Eva wanted to see, because she would have to use some dastardly means to end the conflict that would hurt the guild, and most importantly, Draco. 

That was something she could not accept!