Reincarnated As The Heroes Guide

Chapter 9: Ladies Never Go Alone

"Gentlemen, do your thing. We just need to step to the powder room for a moment," Yara informed the others.

That excuse worked flawlessly, and nobody questioned the two of them leaving together.

It was almost too easy.

Yara led them to the basement, then through a door whose lock she picked with the ease of long practice. It was marked as "Maintenance Access 13A", a perfectly nondescript metal door in a hallway full of similarly marked metal doors.

The back of the room had a floor grate that swung up silently, clearly freshly greased.

Yara slid down the ladder, and Kalli followed her, then closed the grate behind them, leaving everything as they had found it.

"There are no lights in the tunnel, you’ll need to use your phone light to see. But once you’re used to it, you can move through here pretty easily," Yara whispered.

"Is there a chance someone hears us?"

Yara shrugged. "Maybe those things. The vents here lead to the main service tunnels under the campus, and then to a network of tunnels under the city. It will let us out by the drugstore. Let’s just get there and get back before anyone realizes we’re missing."

The healer turned on a light and began to jog silently through the tunnel.

The tunnels under the academy were clearly designed for utilities access, plain grey concrete, with pipes along the walls and irregularly spaced lightbulbs that were currently off.

A bit of industrial normalcy that always seemed to smell like dust, no matter where you were.

The trip wasn’t far. Apparently, the store was only a couple of blocks from the Academy if you were moving in a straight line. Still, when they got close to the exit, they turned the light off and began moving slowly, not wanting to attract attention from others or any monsters that might remain.

Yara led them through a grate in the back parking lot of a grocery store, and Kalli made a mental note to stop there on the way back.

Then, she heard the sound of shattering glass and people shouting.

The looting had started.

"Let’s get to the drugstore fast. Anything that we can get is a bonus," she whispered.

The grocery store was out. The crowds would clear out most of the contents before they got back.

To Kalli, the neighbourhood looked rather quaint and rustic. She was used to the densely packed urban centres of her old home world, where nothing less than a hundred stories was allowed to exist, and most of the buildings were connected at multiple levels by walkways.

This city, with its large parking lots, the single story grocery store and rows of shops designed to be accessed by personal vehicle, not by maglev train and elevator, were like stepping back into another century.

If it wasn’t for the rioting, it would almost be like visiting one of the tourist villages she never had enough time off work to go to in her past life.

Yara led them to the back of a strip mall, and quickly picked the lock on the grey metal security door, then paused before entering.

"I think we’re good. Lock that behind you." freēwēbηovel.c૦m

The interior of the drugstore was dark, and the front roll shutter was down. The store hadn’t been open when the attack happened, so they had a few minutes to clear the place before anyone forced the shutters up and the doors open.

The power was out, but in the dim emergency lighting she could see where there should have been displays on monitors showing off goods, as well as what she suspected was a holographic projector for advertising.

Kalli opened her System Interface and examined her second skill, [Storage Realm].

What she found was an empty warehouse space with shelving, smaller than the drugstore that they were standing in, but fully ten metres tall.

That would do.

Yara vaulted the counter and began grabbing pills from behind the counter.

"The silent alarms will be going off by now, but if we open the narcotic cases, the internal alarms will go off, and they’ll attract attention," she whispered.

"Got it. Grab as many antibiotics and pain pills as we can get. Even fever reducers are going to be incredibly valuable soon."

Kalli started grabbing random items, hygiene products, all the good cold and fever medicine, and burn creams from the front section.

"Alright, my bag is full, did you get the stuff?" Yara asked.

"I’ve got enough to last us a year anyhow. After that, we’ll figure something out."

Yara nodded and moved to the back door, listening silently before unlocking and opening it.

She stepped through, and Kalli activated her [Storage Realm], emptying all the shelving that she passed by, and then the contents of the bulk drug cases Yara hadn’t opened.

She even grabbed the case of cheap store branded pens from the counter.

The interior of the store was completely empty as she locked the door and followed Yara out into the parking lot.

"Shit, there are people by the grate. We can’t let them know about the secret access to the Academy. If people know, they can attack us."

The people were fighting over the food from the grocery store, and a plan began to form in Kalli’s mind.

"Fuck it, we’ll never get in there. Just go to the drugstore, they have snacks and stuff," she announced in an insistent tone, deliberately loud enough to be overheard.

A group of three desperate looking businessmen charged at them and began throwing punches.

"Don’t you think of taking the food, bitch. Stay there, and we won’t hurt you, much." The middle-aged man shouted.

Kalli kept her head covered as the group kicked her, then slowly got to her feet as the group ran away, not wanting to waste time on them when there was food to loot.

"Fuck, your plans suck. I think they broke my ribs."

"You can heal, remember? Heal yourself and see how much it can do. But we’ve got the supplies, and now the lot is empty. Let’s get gone while we still can."

Yara wheezed as she healed herself, then checked her backpack. Most of the packages inside were going to be damaged, but not badly enough that the medicine wouldn’t be usable.

"At least I didn’t grab anything liquid. Alright, I think I’m good enough to move, but it didn’t heal everything. I’ll heal you too, we need to hurry, we’ve been gone too long for a simple bathroom trip."

A wave of magic washed over Kalli’s body, fading her injuries to nothing more than sore spots.

It was incredible. Even the large cut on the top of her hand where someone had stomped her hand had closed and faded to nothing.

The girls dropped through the grate, then Yara grabbed a bolt from the floor and loosely tightened it through the latch. That would make anyone else think that this was a sealed hatch, and they would never suspect that it could be opened from the inside.

The girls rushed through the tunnel, then out of the maintenance room and into the main floor restroom.

"We look like hell. Straighten your uniform before we go out or everyone will know."

"We should have brought one of the boys with us," Kalli realized.

"What, why?"

"Well, who would question the messy clothes if we both came out of a bathroom with him?"

"And ruin both our reputations for one supply run? Hard pass. Besides, none of these guys would play along without trying to use it against us. That’s how most of these third generation scions are.

Everything is an opportunity."