The Guide is Actually a Body-Switching Esper [BL]
Chapter 161: An Idea, Not a Plan

Chapter 161: An Idea, Not a Plan

Lane parked the car in the underground parking garage of a luxurious hotel on the outskirts of the capital of country K, where the summit was held. While it would be more convenient for his purposes to stay in the Perellel Hotel, where the rest of the summit participants, including his target, were... He couldn’t risk getting spotted by Damien, or the Allens.

ESPECIALLY not the Allens.

Still sitting in the car, he tapped his fingers on the wheel, staring blankly straight ahead, lost in his thoughts. He arrived in the country K, but...

Now what?

He had an idea, but not a plan. There was no way he could just barge into the site of the summit and grab his target, no matter how much he wanted to reunite with Damien and reassure him that everything was okay...

"Sigh..." he leaned back in his seat, pulling out his phone.

There were multiple messages waiting for him. From his ’beloved’ father, mother, and aunt - such an unusual sight, but not unexpected after what happened at the gala. That... could be dealt with later on. Besides, Damien already told Gracie that it wasn’t Lane’s fault! That he had learned about it from his file! So why the fuck are even bothering him about it?!

Well, that’s how they always were. Finding anything and everything he had ever done wrong.

Ignoring the eyesores, he scrolled down to his chat with Ava. There was a new message waiting for him there as well.

[My condolences.]

Lane let out a dry chuckle. There was something morbidly funny about being consoled about - kind of - your own death. While the topic was in no way pleasant... Anything felt nice after seeing his family’s names in his inbox.

[Well, I messed up again, I guess. I’m on my way to fix it now!] he texted back, and finally got out of the car, his mood lifted up a bit.

He might not have had a plan yet, but improvisation was something he was good at! (Or at least, that’s what he believed.)

For the time being, he checked into the hotel, and turned on his laptop, and contacted his team, asking for the information on the current situation at the summit, and the movements of all the attending members of several Guilds. He only needed the information on one, actually... But, as it was for his personal matters, he didn’t want his intentions known.

An hour later, he got a response. After briefly scanning through it, looking for the information he needed, he messaged back, asking to be constantly updated, and switched to his mobile device.

Perhaps it was convenient for him that the dungeon expansion happened. Because of this disaster, many Awakened, both local as well as from other countries, had joined in the action despite not being the summit participants, making it all much more chaotic, and therefore easier for Lane to mix in the crowd to hunt his target.

Although, then again, if the dungeon disaster hadn’t happened, there wouldn’t be any need for him to go through all that trouble in the first place. Maybe he should get back at Molzen for it all somehow?

But for now, he had more pressing matters to think about. He got back in his car and drove out of the city, to a nearby town, located only a few miles away from the S-rank dungeon. From there on, he traveled the rest of the way by foot. He found himself a hiding spot near the parking lot...

And waited.

There were plenty of teams coming to enter the dungeon, but most of them wouldn’t do for his purposes. He needed a team that he could blend in with, that would allow him to hide his identity, and he also needed to be able to sneakily capture one of them... And they also needed to speak a language Lane could understand! Otherwise, he’d have to ask Ava for help, but she still hadn’t responded to him, and Lane didn’t want to wait!

Crouching in hiding some distance away, he activated his enhanced hearing, trying to filter through all the chatter. Most of it was completely useless, there was nothing-

"...I’m going to the toilet," a man standing next to a bus muttered to his teammate, causing Lane to look up.

And there he was, a perfect target!

Not wanting to waste this chance, Lane quickly moved, rushing toward the toilets on the side of the parking lot, hood pulled over his head to hide his pink hair. As he sneaked inside, there was one person already inside... But just a B-ranker, so Lane quickly hypnotized him to ignore anything he might see, and hid in one of the stalls.

His temporary target walked in, and went over to one of the bidets. Lane waited quietly until he was done with his business and went to wash his hands...

And then he jumped out, grabbing the unsuspecting man by the shoulders, and meeting his eyes as he activated his hypnosis ability. The man resisted a bit - he seemed to be an A-ranker - but taken by surprise, he soon fell under Lane’s spell.

"Take off your uniform," Lane commanded, speaking in the man’s language. "Hide in the stall, and stay there until I’m back."

The man obliged, took off his clothes - black trousers, jacket, heavy boots, gloves, and his headgear, which was the reason why Lane chose him in the first place - and handed them all to Lane, who quickly put them on. The two of them had similar height and built, so they fit well, allowing Lane to disguise himself as the man. Lane then asked a few more quick questions, about the man’s name, ability, and his team, before he rushed out of the toilets, ’rejoining’ the group.

Was it a risky plan?

Yes.

Was there a lot that could go wrong?

But of course!

Still, Damien was surely waiting for Lane, so Lane wanted to return soon! He just needed to pass through the Gate somehow, and from there on, he would split up from the team and act on his own. Leaving the dungeon alone would be easy, after all. Only the entrance was restricted.

And luckily, the hardest part went well. ’His’ team was in a rush to get inside the dungeon, so once Lane was ’back’, they instantly moved on, without asking any questions, allowing him to successfully reenter the dino world.