Conrad stood on the edge of a tall building overlooking Balza Street.
From this height, he could see the Strepo Apartment with ease.
"Yeah,"
"Many people."
With Gyo active, the picture sharpened immediately.
Men in suits lingered at street corners; some of them smoked, others leaned against walls as if bored.
A few carried nothing at all, hands casually in pockets.
Others didn't bother hiding it.
AK-47s were slung beneath coats, compact automatic rifles rested against their legs, and fingers were on the trigger.
Their emotional status showed that they expect some sort of attack. It is not a casual waiting game for them.
Around the apartment building alone, he counted roughly fifty to seventy armed men.
That was only what he could see from the outside. Inside, the number would be much higher.
His gaze shifted to the building itself.
No lights.
Not a single apartment window was illuminated.
That alone was unnatural.
Conrad narrowed his eyes and focused Gyo on the windows.
"Bulletproof," he confirmed. "Reinforced glass."
That was a theory, but Conrad just felt it was like it. It would not make sense if the glasses on the building were normal.
It would be an invitation for a sniper to wait for Maxwell to shoot himself.
A strong, Nen-enhanced punch could shatter them, but the sound would alert every armed man in a three-block radius.
"Not ideal."
He leaned back slightly, resting his weight on the balls of his feet.
"I'm confident I could block automatic rifle fire for a short time," he reasoned. "But nowhere near Uvogin's level."
Uvogin could laugh while bullets flattened themselves against his skin.
Conrad couldn't.
He could deflect, redirect, or maybe tank a few seconds of sustained fire, but if he was caught in a full mag dump, especially from multiple angles, he would be gravely injured.
He inhaled slowly.
"Armed men aren't a real threat to Nen users like Adarte and Anisa,"
Conrad assessed,
"As long as they keep moving and dodge the bullets, it would not be too hard for them to not get injured."
Nen users with some training in the basics of nen, not to mention advanced nen techniques, could outpace, close distance, and disable shooters before bullets mattered.
The problem was coordination.
"And traps," he added mentally.
His eyes swept rooftops, side streets, fire escapes, and sewer access points.
In his mind, the area began to assemble itself into a living map.
Then it clicked.
"We're three," Conrad thought. "Three Nen users."
And three was enough.
The enemy wasn't stupid.
Anyone running an operation like this, openly, in Heavens Arena City, knew what Nen was.
They might not fully understand it, but they would be aware of it.
Which meant if something happened, they wouldn't panic randomly.
They would respond according to expectation.
"That's the weakness," Conrad realized. "Expectation."
He tapped his fingers against his chin.
"If we attack directly, they'll fall back into the building," he thought.
A distraction but not a simple one.
"One distraction draws attention," he reasoned. "Two distractions split the response and will force the Nen user that protects Maxwell to show himself."
And then
"The real strike."
Adarte was aggressive and powerful.
He could create chaos openly, drawing fire and attention without immediately committing.
Anisa was fast and adaptable, perfect for harassment, hit-and-run tactics, and drawing enemies out of position.
Conrad thought for a moment.
"If Adarte creates chaos, the armed gunmen will focus on him, and he will be clearing them out."
"If the enemy is smart, they will understand that this was a weird type of strike if the enemy wants to assassinate them."
"They will know that it is a new user trying to distract them and cut down numbers."
"Most likely, wanting to leave the building without protection."
Conrad then smiled.
"When Anisa shows herself, this time they will not think it is a distraction, but she will be the one who will try to force herself inside and perform the assassination."
"Which will show the new user that hides in the building close to Maxwell."
"When the enemy Nen user and Maxwell enter a duel, my time will arrive."
"I need only one minute to close the distance and sweep the building with my EN and Pulse Orb to find the target."
"From there, I only need to kill and go back to take care of the Nen user."
"As long as I help Anisa, the battle would be easy to take care of."
"I'll be the knife," he thought calmly. "Not the hammer."
A double distraction from opposite sides of the building would force the mafia to reveal their command structure.
"If they respond defensively," Conrad thought, "they're scared."
"If they counterattack," he continued, "they're confident."
Either way, they expose themselves.
His eyes returned to the fifth floor, the place where he had felt that presence earlier.
"That's where the core is," he decided.
Conrad straightened, taking one last look at the Strepo Apartment.
From the outside, it still looked like a sleeping building.
Inside, he knew, people were waiting.
"Good," he thought. "Let them wait for their deaths; I don't know why, but killing child traffickers does not feel bad in the slightest at all."