The door to the small apartment in Sector 4 creaked before Lohan locked it from the outside with a quick motion.
Lohan pulled the hood of his black hoodie over his head and adjusted his breathing mask.
In the real world, the mask was a symbol of submission, a collar imposed by the Federation on the inhabitants of the Lower Zone so they wouldn’t die of asphyxiation from the soup of gases and unhealthy pollution that the industries of the Upper Zone spewed down upon them.
But for Lohan, the mask was now merely a disguise, since even without the digestive filter he was already able to survive in that polluted air with ease.
He began to move.
Despite his camouflage, Lohan did not walk like a frail, sickly college student. His steps were quick, silent, and steady. Thanks to the Viscous Flow and the Sharpened Instinct synchronized with his physical body, he moved across the cracked, potholed sidewalks as if walking on a freshly paved road.
Rain began to fall as he walked, but it wasn’t the clear rain of Elysium; it was an acidic, grayish drizzle that sizzled upon touching the rusted metal of the streetlights.
Lohan ignored this rain and wrapped his body even tighter in the black overcoat he wore, which was already resistant to this acid rain; but beneath it, his skin, now reinforced by a dense, invisible membrane, repelled the chemical corrosion with ease, even digesting the most invasive drops.
Sector 4 was almost like a maze; at three in the morning, the streets were practically deserted, and what stood out most were the pitch-black shadows and a few flickering neon lights.
As Lohan moved forward, he noticed a few people practically dragging themselves through the streets, overcome by the rain and exhaustion. They were slow, their shoulders heavy with the burden of a life without prospects, and to someone who was awake at this hour, their exhaustion made perfect sense.
At a time when people in the Upper Zone were enjoying the most restful sleep possible, some poor souls in the Lower Zone were either heading home for a brief nap before their next shift, or leaving home right then to arrive on time at their distant workplace.
Watching this, Lohan felt sorry for these people.
He didn’t have hero syndrome; he didn’t want to be a new saint who would save everyone, but witnessing so much suffering from people who, in theory, had done nothing to deserve it was sad, leaving a bad taste in his mouth.
But for now, despite having formed influential contacts and developed power in Elysium, he was still just a poor kid from Level 12.
Although he was more powerful than ordinary people, he didn’t even know how he would fare in a lethal group fight in the real world.
Walking down the dark street, Lohan felt the heat of Mana circulating through his internal channels as he mapped the heat signatures in the alleys, the heartbeats of chemical stimulant addicts, and the electrical hum of security cameras disabled by vandalism or neglect.
Although he appeared to be wandering aimlessly, Lohan knew exactly where he was going.
Since he had transmigrated into this world, he hadn’t gone to Oscar’s house even once, but from this body’s memories, he recalled having gone to pay rent at the man’s house, and considering what the place was like, he was unlikely to move out anytime soon.Oscar didn’t live in the ordinary apartment blocks.
The landlord, who had spent years extorting students and workers, had built his own "kingdom" atop an old converted office building.
It was a building that desperately tried not to belong to the Lower Zone, but which only emphasized the decay around it.
Lohan reached the base of the building in a few minutes.
The sound of heavy electronic music, loaded with bass that made the windows on the lower floors vibrate, echoed through the deserted street. It was 3:14 AM on a Monday, but to Oscar, it didn’t matter what day of the week it was, or what time he was making noise, since no one around dared to complain. Everyone there was his tenant, and a noise complaint meant immediate eviction.
And as much as Oscar is a total son of a bitch, the rent he charged wasn’t that high, so it would be hard to find a better place to live.
Instead of going in through the main door, where cheap security guards would likely be stationed, Lohan walked to a dark side alley.
He looked up and counted twelve floors to Oscar’s penthouse, fully illuminated by artificial golden lights that made the contrast with the gray sky even greater.
’Well, I always wanted to be Spidey when I was a kid...’ Lohan muttered to himself, activating Selective Viscosity in his hands and feet, saturating his skin with a thin film of Mana that altered the surface tension at the point of contact.
With an explosive burst, he leaped the first three meters and stuck himself to the dirty concrete wall.
Then the climb began.
Lohan moved vertically with the ease of a spider.
Honestly, he was perfectly mimicking what he’d seen his childhood hero do when scaling buildings, without even knowing if that stance was useful, but surprisingly, it really was the smoothest way to make a vertical climb like that!
Through Structural Stability, he was able to coordinate every muscle to distribute his weight so that the old concrete wouldn’t crumble beneath his fingers, and as he climbed, the view of the Lower Zone spread out below him.
He saw a sea of toxic fog punctuated by bonfires in trash cans scattered by cold, homeless people, and waste processing towers that looked like rotten pipes rising from the ground.
Far, far away, the crystalline domes of the Upper Zone shone like unreachable stars, isolated by miles of atmospheric filters.
Lohan paused for a moment to take in the view, and looked up at the sky, unable to see a single star.