Stealing

Overview

Stealing is a side activity in Hethereau that lets players take stealable items off the shelf at city shops without paying for them. The mechanic is the most reliable way for budget players to accumulate Comfort-stat Furniture for an owned apartment without spending Fons, which makes it especially useful for new arrivals who have not yet built a steady income through the City Tycoon loop. Stealable goods refresh on a weekly cadence, so a single shopping route can be re-run across each weekly reset.

Players have noted that the respawn timer for stealable items is currently weekly. The cadence has shifted from earlier internal builds, so do not assume daily refreshes when planning a route.

Where to Find Stealable Items

Stealable items are most concentrated at DSD shops, which appear on the city map as a red shop marker. Convenience stores and pharmacies also carry a smaller selection of stealable goods, but DSD locations stock the highest-value targets, so they are the priority destination for any Comfort-focused run. Inside any shop, stealable items are visually marked with a yellow box and a red outline. If a display does not have that outline, it cannot be lifted, no matter how many dialog options you cycle through.

The Theft Sequence

The in-shop interaction is a short dialog minigame against the shopkeeper's attention. Each shop offers slightly different dialog options, so the safe and risky choices vary by location, but the underlying flow is the same:

1. Approach a marked yellow box with a red outline and interact with it.

2. Read the dialog options carefully. The shopkeeper begins idle and barely glances at you. Safe options keep her attention low, while risky options snap her gaze in your direction and increase the frequency of her checks.

3. Stick with calm or routine choices, such as handling the item without making a scene. After enough safe options accumulate, a Take the Item choice appears.

4. Once the item is in your inventory, leave the shop area. The interaction is treated as resolved as soon as you exit without being caught mid-take.

If You Are Caught

If the shopkeeper catches you in the act, a payment prompt appears asking for the item's full retail price. For example, an Asahi Inori dramatic-tier figure carries a 45,000 Fon price tag at the register. At the payment prompt, scroll to the bottom of the item description menu and use the in-game teleport button to leave the dialog without confirming payment. Players have reported that this leaves the looted item in your inventory while skipping the price, and that the shopkeeper does not pursue further once the conversation closes.

Because the teleport exit is performed inside the in-game dialog, this approach does not require any out-of-game action and stays within the standard movement controls available everywhere else in the world.

Comfort-Stat Use Case

Comfort is one of four Anomaly Property stats tracked on an owned apartment, and it directly gates how powerful the apartment's anomaly furniture pieces become. The headline target for most players is the Compressed Boom Boom Cloud, an anomaly furniture piece that produces a daily Fluffy Cotton collectible when fed enough Comfort. Maxing out this anomaly piece requires reaching 2,000 Comfort across the apartment's furniture loadout.

Each Comfort point on a piece of furniture costs roughly 500 Fons at retail, so reaching 2,000 Comfort by buying everything legitimately costs roughly 1,000,000 Fons. By contrast, an Asahi Inori dramatic-tier figure contributes 90 Comfort each. Stealing 23 of these figures is enough to clear the 2,000 Comfort target for free, which frees up that 1,000,000 Fons for cars, mansions, or other big-ticket spending. Because stealable items respawn weekly, the route is sustainable: a fresh batch of figures is available at each reset, and the same DSD route can be re-run across multiple weeks while you continue to grind out other content.

Players have reported that stuffing 22 to 23 dramatic-tier figures into a single starter apartment can be tight on placement, especially around stairs and ceiling lights, so expect the room to look more like a storage unit than a curated showroom by the end of the run. The mechanical payoff is the same: a maxed Compressed Boom Boom Cloud generates one Fluffy Cotton per day (storing up to seven), which is then spent for large bond gains on companion characters.

What Else Is Worth Stealing

DSD shops carry the most expensive Comfort items, including the dramatic-tier figures referenced above, and should be treated as the primary destination for any serious Comfort grind. Pharmacies stock healing consumables that can be lifted off the shelf in the same way. Convenience stores tend to carry small pastries and snacks, which are less valuable per pull but can still be useful for cheap inventory padding while running between bigger targets. When in doubt, prioritize a DSD route first and only branch into pharmacies or convenience stores once the high-value items at each DSD location have been cleared for the week.

Crime and Wanted Level Interaction

A clean theft does not register against the player's Wanted Level. As long as the shopkeeper does not catch you mid-take, the offense never escalates, and the standard rules tracked under the Crime and Wanted System do not apply. Triggering the payment dialog and then exiting via the in-game teleport option likewise keeps the offense off the record. If the situation does escalate and the police do get involved, the standard Wanted Level loop and the Prison System take over, which can interrupt the run and force a longer detour before resuming the route.

Because the activity sits inside the broader Wanted framework rather than outside it, treat stealing the same way as any other gray-area activity: keep the dialog options safe, exit cleanly, and avoid escalating shopkeeper attention right before a contested encounter elsewhere in the city.

Use Cases by Apartment

The Comfort grind is most relevant for the early-tier owned apartments, where the anomaly furniture is in place but the Comfort budget is tight. Wiener Apartments is the typical first stop, since the Compressed Boom Boom Cloud is bundled with the unit and benefits directly from a steady supply of stolen Comfort figures. Higher-tier units such as Eden Apartments unlock further options, but the basic Comfort math stays the same: stealable figures contribute 90 Comfort each, and a weekly route across several DSD shops makes the 2,000 Comfort cap reachable without dipping into the Fons budget needed for other Properties upgrades. The exact figure used in most route guides is the Asahi Inori - Argentum Persona figure, which sits in the dramatic tier referenced above.

Tips

• Pick safe dialog options early. Risky options spike the shopkeeper's attention and shorten the window before the Take the Item choice appears.

• Keep the in-game teleport hotkey ready before you commit to grabbing the item, so the bail-out exit at the payment prompt is one click away.

• Stealable items respawn weekly. Plan a multi-shop DSD route once and re-run it after each weekly reset rather than camping a single shop.

• Save the apartment placement step for after the run. Fitting 22 to 23 dramatic-tier figures into a starter unit takes some camera adjustment and creative use of corners and stairwells.

• If a placement error blocks an item, rotate the camera and try a different angle or surface before discarding the figure.