Cyberpunk: Ultimate Cyborg System-Chapter 616: Picked a Few Things.

"And that's how we got the amulet. The temple soon fell apart, and we barely made it out in time."

Mr. Pike raised his glass and took a small sip. He was telling them the story of how he explored an ancient temple that had been uncovered only recently after the sea level fell for the first time in centuries. Apparently, the whole place had been preserved with sorcery.

"Sounds like the script of a really good movie," Rose said.

She had gotten pretty comfortable, clinging to Dante's arm while resting her head on his shoulder.

"I would watch it," Dante said. "If you wrote a novel, maybe you could get it adapted."

"Though I enjoy the occasional novel, I'm no writer." Mr. Pike said.

"You sure about that?" Viktor let out a chuckle. "I have read some of your travel guides. Pretty sure you can write whatever comes to your mind."

"Writing travel guides and writing novels are two different things."

Mr. Pike was a truly resourceful person. As he sipped his brandy -the third glass after two Shandys- Dante thought about how the smartly dressed older man resembled the spies one would see in movies. Listening to him speak makes it feel like he knows all the right people, the right places, and the right ways to do something. His experience with ancient relics was what carried them through the Blue Ember heist, and if not for him, they couldn't have gotten that close to Klaus Stahlwölfe.

"Oh, right," Suddenly remembering something important, Dante perked up. "I've been meaning to give you something, but forgot when you took too long to drop by."

When he thought about it, Dante had no reason to wait for the archeology enthusiast to visit. After unlocking his Level 6 armors, he could have easily met him at the location of his choosing at any time. Sadly, he forgot the reason he wanted to meet the man at some point, mostly because things kept happening.

"You have something for me?" Mr. Pike raised an eyebrow.

As he looked through his Storage, Dante realized that another thing he forgot to do was to get proper boxes for some of the valuable items he had just stored and never took out again. He also remembered that he had quite a few corpses in there, too. If it weren't for the stasis that applies to all items that enter his Storage, he probably would have smelled the rot whenever he took something out.

Dante cleared the coffee table in front of them, then placed one of the sofa cushions on it. Selecting the item he was looking for, he considered for a moment whether it was appropriate for him to show his abilities, even if it was just Storage. In the end, he concluded that it wasn't such a big deal.

Holding his hand over the cushion, he gave the command to take the item out. A red blade with a golden hilt manifested, falling on the soft surface. A satisfied smile played on his lips as he backed away, but it disappeared as soon as he turned to check the reactions of the others.

Both Vik and Rose looked shocked, but their expressions paled compared to Mr. Pike's, whose eyes almost popped out of his head.

"I… I have been keeping hold of it until we met again." Dante said. "Getting it back was one of our win conditions, right?"

The red jian was a relic that once belonged to the Tianhua Dynasty's second emperor, Xiaozu. It was a valuable piece Mr. Pike had used as a ticket to get an audience with Klaus Stahlwölfe, which then led to them being invited to his wedding. In addition to the Moon Dagger, retrieving the jian was a top priority, but the circumstances at the time prevented them from doing so.

"I… can't believe it…"

Slowly and carefully, Mr. Pike reached out and took hold of the jian. He examined the blade for a few seconds, checking it from multiple angles before turning to Dante with his eyes still open.

"So it was with you all along?"

"Yeah…" Dante felt a little awkward for some reason.

"I see… so that's why…" Mr. Pike went back to examining the blade. "I tried tracking its location in case the opportunity to retrieve it showed itself, but… I was told everything in Klaus Stahlwölfe's vault went missing…"

Once again, all eyes turned to Dante, and he found himself shrinking under their gazes.

"I… might have picked a few things during the chaos…"

The lingering silence gained weight, causing his nervousness to rise. "H-hey, I always intended to give everyone their cut, okay? We just never got to discussing it after all that mess."

"Um… Dante, I think we're more concerned with how you pulled it off…" Rose said, smiling wryly.

When he thought back on it, Dante realized that there hadn't been anything easy about what he had done. Putting the relics into his Storage one after the other, all while a war was taking place outside, was no easy feat.

"So that's why you asked me to tell you whenever Mr. Pike returns…" Vik let out a sigh.

"Well, we needed someone who could handle selling all the relics," Dante said. "Mr. Pike seemed like the right person, so…"

"Well, you made the right choice."

Though he was approaching his goal of becoming a full cyborg, Dante's need for money didn't seem to have decreased at all. His sources of income had multiplied as of late, with the Daggers paying him tributes along with Los Aros, since the two gangs were getting to split Red Hill among themselves. There were payments from selling the hero corpses, too. Volcan would soon be ready to start trading on the stock market, too, and they had other businesses underway. Even then, it still felt like what he had wasn't enough.

"Dante…" After maintaining his silence for a while, Mr. Pike put down the red jian and turned to Dante, his expression more serious than ever. "Would you be interested in joining the Winter House?"