Reincarnated as an Apocalyptic Catalyst
Chapter 69: Caidan’s Guide to Semi-Professional Theft

Chapter 69: Caidan’s Guide to Semi-Professional Theft

The plan, if you could call it that, was simple. Mara would sneak into the secret meeting like a normal, functioning student, while Ronan and I would break into a highly secured vault to steal–er, relocate– an artifact for a professor who was probably plotting his own villain arc. You know, just a standard school night.

Mara, being the responsible one, had obviously raised concerns about how absolutely insane this idea was. But after much debate (which mostly involved me insisting we’d be fine and Ronan staring blankly in agreement), she finally caved.

"Will this really work?" she asked, her tone laced with concern while she adjusted her cloak as we neared the east wing. "You’re doing a vault heist, Caidan. A vault heist."

I grinned. "Hey, you’re the one willingly walking into a cult meeting. Don’t act like you’ve got the morally superior job here."

She shot me a glare. "At least I won’t get expelled if I’m caught."

I snorted. "That’s a bold assumption. Did you miss the part about the CULT meeting?"

We reached the hallway where we’d have to split. The torches flickered dimly, casting long shadows over the stone walls. Ronan stood beside me like a particularly ominous gargoyle, waiting for his next command.

Mara exhaled sharply, running a hand through her hair. "Okay. Just—don’t get caught. I am not bailing you out."

"You say that, but deep down, I know you’d miss me if I got locked up."

She scoffed. "Deep down, I know I’d finally get some peace and quiet. Life was so much easier B.C."

That stunned me, it was one of the first references people of this world had to my previous life. Mara must have seen my shock and explained.

"You know, Before Caidan?" She allowed herself a brief giggle.

"Oh, yeah, okay that makes sense." There wasn’t a lot of playfulness in my voice as my excited confusion faded away.

Ronan, ever the conversationalist, added, "Caidan will not get caught. He is sufficiently skilled."

I blinked. "Wow. Thanks for the glowing review, buddy."

Mara sighed, clearly regretting every decision that led her here. "I’ll meet you back at your room once this is over. Try not to die."

"Same goes to you," I called as she slipped into the dim corridor, vanishing into the meeting.

That left me and Ronan. Alone. Together. Breaking into a vault.

I turned to him, rubbing my hands together. "Alright, big guy. You ready?"

Ronan stared at me, completely expressionless. Then, after a long pause, he said, "I do not require readiness."

I let out a long sigh. "Yeah, okay, sure. Anyway, let’s go commit some minor academic treason."

And with that, we headed for the vault.

The path to the underground vaults was... inconveniently well-guarded. Which, you know, made sense, but still felt like a personal attack against my whole "getting away with things I shouldn’t be doing" lifestyle.

Ronan and I moved through the quieter halls, sticking to the less populated areas as we made our way toward the restricted levels. It was late enough that most students had cleared out, but the Academy never truly slept—there were always a few stragglers, professors working late, and, of course, security.

Thankfully, being around Ronan meant that I could do what I wanted. I could be myself. I was Caidan and I was Lucian. I was a self-trained assassin, and I was an amateur wizard. After eliminating several of the campus security guards with the aid of my shadow abilities, and dumping them off in dark corners, or whatever locations I could find that would take a moment to discover their whereabouts, I returned to Ronan and we pressed on forward.

We stopped just before an archway leading to a long descending corridor. A single lantern flickered on the far wall, casting eerie shadows over the stairwell. The entrance to the vaults was down there. The problem? A very bored-looking guard was stationed right in front of it.

I turned to Ronan. "Alright, this is where we start getting creative."

He stared. "I do not understand."

I resisted the urge to groan. "Okay, new mission: work on context clues." I peeked back toward the guard, thinking. "We can’t just waltz up to the vault entrance. We need a distraction."

Ronan considered that for a moment, then nodded. "I will incapacitate him."

I immediately grabbed his arm. "Nope. Nope, let’s not make ’incapacitate’ your first answer to everything."

He blinked. "But it is effective."

"Okay, but consider this a training exercise, we need to be able to get rid of our enemies without knocking them out or killing them."

Ronan tilted his head. "Fire?"

I squinted at him. "God dammit Ronan, fire does not fall under these parameters. How many problems have you solved with arson?"

"None," he said, after a pause. "Yet."

I closed my eyes briefly. "Alright, we’re putting a pin in ’arson’ as Plan C." I scanned the hall, looking for anything we could use. The lantern flickered overhead, casting just enough shadow to play with.

Then, an idea hit me.

I turned back to Ronan, grinning. "How do you feel about ghosts?"

He stared, unblinking. "I do not feel."

Right. Should’ve seen that coming.

"Well, tonight you do," I muttered, already weaving the spell in my head.

Shadow magic was a tricky thing—too little, and you looked like a bad stage performer; too much, and you risked summoning actual eldritch horrors. But I wasn’t going for anything fancy. Just enough to spook our unfortunate guard. I could likely do this without any mana, simply tapping into the void and driving this man to absolute madness... However, that wouldn’t help me with my own training. I needed to infuse mana into my abilities to make me less reliant on the shadows and more capable as a mage.

I whispered the incantation, letting my mana weave into the dim light. The shadows along the hallway stretched unnaturally, twisting just at the edges of vision. The lantern flickered once, then snuffed out completely.

The guard jolted upright. "Huh?"

The shadows rippled.

A low, unnatural whisper echoed through the corridor, just soft enough to be indistinct but unsettling. It was the kind of sound that made your instincts scream that you were very much not alone.

The guard immediately stiffened. "Nope. Nope, absolutely not." He grabbed his staff, stepping away from the vault entrance. "Not dealing with ghosts tonight." And with that, he turned and speed-walked out of sight, muttering something about "not being paid enough for this."

I dropped the spell, grinning. "See? No one got hurt."

Ronan nodded slowly. "Your deception is effective."

"I’ll take that as a compliment."

We moved quickly before the guard decided to grow a spine and come back or worse, to bring back any conscious colleagues. The heavy iron vault doors stood before us, covered in layers of intricate enchantments.

I turned to Ronan. "Alright, time to break in."

He nodded, stepping forward. "I will remove the door."

I yanked him back immediately. "NO. We are not removing the door."

Ronan frowned slightly. "The problem would be solved."

"The problem would also involve alarms and multiple professors throwing us into a very dark cell." I sighed. "We do this the smart way."

I examined the door, my fingers tracing the faint hum of magical wards layered over it. The enchantments were strong, but enchantments always had flaws.

I grinned. "Alright, Ronan. Ever heard of lockpicking?"

He shook his head. "No."

"Fantastic. Time for a lesson."

I pulled out a small enchanted toolset—a little something I may or may not spent an absolute fortune on. "Magic locks are like puzzles. The Academy uses layered wards, which means each piece of the enchantment has to work together." I gestured at the glowing sigils. "If you disrupt the flow just right, the magic confuses itself, and the lock thinks it’s supposed to open." The tools I had were more than enough to take out rudimentary locks I had many occasions to disable. Now, I had a significantly greater sense of magic, and combined with these incredible tools, I could bypass anything.

Ronan observed silently before speaking, "Magic is flawed."

I laughed. "You have no idea."

With careful precision, I worked the enchantments, guiding the mana pathways until they untangled just enough. The lock gave a soft click, and the vault doors shifted slightly open.

I stepped back, grinning. "And that is how you break into places like a professional."

Ronan nodded. "Efficient."

I patted his shoulder. "Glad you approve. Now, let’s get what we came for."

The vault stretched before us, shelves lined with relics, old tomes, and artifacts that probably should not be left sitting in a school basement. Somewhere in here was the fragment Veldrin wanted.

We had to move fast.

But as we stepped inside, the torches flared to life, illuminating a space much larger than I expected.

I turned to Ronan. "So, slight problem."

He tilted his head. "Elaborate."

I exhaled. "I have no idea where to start looking."

Ronan didn’t hesitate. He stepped forward, his expression still eerily blank, and then—his eyes lit up. Like, they were glowing blue, they had literally lit up.

A sharp glow surged through his pupils, like someone had taken pure mana and shoved it straight into his skull. It wasn’t just a flicker, either—his entire gaze shifted, with an electric-blue intensity that cast faint, flickering light onto his face.

I took a cautious step back. "Uh. Ronan? Buddy? Are you about to explode?"

He didn’t answer. His gaze swept across the room, slow and methodical, like he was peeling back the layers of reality itself. The torches around us dimmed as if the air had thickened with whatever magic he was channeling.

Then, after about three terrifying seconds, he pointed to a shelf across the room. "There."

I blinked. "There what?"

He turned his head slightly toward me, his voice as calm as ever. "The artifact. It is located precisely three meters from our position. Fourth shelf from the top. Encased in a protective field."

I squinted at him. Then at the shelf. Then back at him.

"...I’m sorry, what?"

Ronan just stared at me, eyes still glowing like some kind of possessed oracle. "It is there."

I followed his gaze, and sure enough, nestled between two dusty old tomes was a small, black stone fragment, barely the size of my palm. It looked completely unremarkable—except for the faint shimmer of a containment ward surrounding it.

I pointed at the relic, then back at Ronan. "You just... saw that? Through all the other magic in this vault?"

"Yes."

"No hesitation. No effort. You just turned on your weird magic headlights and found it?"

"Yes."

I dragged a hand down my face. "Of course you did. Because why wouldn’t you have built-in treasure detection?"

Ronan, still eerily backlit by his own glowing eyeballs, blinked. The glow faded instantly, snuffing out like someone had flipped a switch. "It is efficient."

I groaned. "You have to stop saying that."

Ignoring my existential crisis over how many more weird abilities he probably had, I stepped toward the shelf, eyeing the containment field warily.

"Alright, let’s grab this thing and leave before someone notices we—"

"The protective field." Ronan stated into the air with no particular urgency, not trying to stop me in any way, just stating the facts.

The moment I reached for it, the entire vault hummed. The air grew heavier, the runes carved into the walls pulsing just a bit too bright.

Ronan’s head tilted slightly. "Ah."

I froze. "Ah? Why ah? I don’t like ’ah.’ Clarify the ’ah,’ Ronan."

He pointed upward.

I followed his gaze.

Above us descended a flashing red light from the ceiling, and shortly after it had begun to light up, the alarms went off.

Oh.

Shit.

That was bad.