Bang!
A gunshot rang out from inside the room.
The rifleman who had raised his head staggered, but quickly recovered.
He immediately took cover beside the door and reached for his waist.
He pulled out an offensive grenade.
"Wait."
Seeing that, Adrian hurriedly stopped him.
If that offensive grenade went in there, Frost and the others would be blown to pieces.
"People inside, don’t shoot. We’re friendlies."
The basement fell silent.
After a moment, the four people in the room finally spoke.
"Are you real people or NPCs?"
They were unsure, because NPCs had used that exact trick to deceive mercenaries before.
"We’re mercenaries. We respawned at another spawn point. We’re not NPCs, so don’t shoot."
Adrian gave one of the riflemen a meaningful look.
The rifleman understood. He lowered his weapon and slowly approached the doorway.
"Don’t shoot. We’re friendlies."
Sure enough, when the rifleman reached the doorway, no one fired at him.
Only then did Adrian relax and walk toward the door.
But the moment he looked inside, he did not know whether to laugh or cry.
The four of them were holding their guns trained on the doorway.
When they saw the fully equipped soldiers, Adrian could clearly see the fine sheen of cold sweat on their foreheads.
"Don’t be afraid. We’re friendlies. We mean you no harm."
With that, Adrian and his men entered the room.
The people inside could now see that Adrian’s group was a standard twelve-man squad, armed to the teeth.
Frost, in particular, saw the bullet she had accidentally fired into the rifleman who had appeared at the door.
The round had struck him squarely in the chest.
But it had done nothing more than punch a small hole in his body armor.
"That’s heavy body armor."
Everyone was stunned.
"You don’t need to worry. We’ve cleared the NPCs upstairs. I’ll get you out of here."
Adrian crouched beside the mercenary who had been shot dead.
He was the man who had thrown himself at the NPC after spotting it, taking the bullets meant for Rem.
"Thank you, Adrian."
"He rushed the NPC to cover us. Every round hit him in the chest. There was nothing we could do for him."
Adrian was stunned.
Not because of the dead mercenary, but because Frost knew who he was.
To hide his identity, Adrian had deliberately pulled up his face covering when he entered the second basement level.
Only his eyes were visible now. There was no way she should have recognized him.
As though she had read his confusion, Frost said, "Next time you want to hide your identity, change out of that school uniform first."
"Damn. I completely overlooked that."
Only then did Adrian remember that he was still wearing his blue-and-white school uniform.
"Ahem. Things happened too fast on your end. I didn’t have time to change."
Adrian cleared his throat, trying to cover his embarrassment.
"We all underestimated you, Red Ram. I never expected you to have such an elite squad."
Rem studied the VDV squad behind Adrian.
They wore Russian Level VI heavy body armor. Frost’s pistol had no chance of penetrating it, and neither would the 7.62×39 rounds from the AK in Rem’s hands.
"Yeah. I’d appreciate it if you kept this quiet."
Since they had mistaken his summoned squad for a mercenary squad, Adrian saw no reason to correct them.
"Right, we should get out of here quickly."
Suddenly, as though he had remembered something, Rem shot to his feet.
"The NPCs upstairs will respawn soon. If we don’t leave now, we won’t get out."
"He’s right. We need to move," Frost agreed.
"All right. Let’s get out of here."
Adrian’s squad moved out again, except this time there were four more people with them.
"This Adrian is definitely not a student."
To prevent an NPC ambush, they maintained their search formation.
But Rem and the others were shocked by how flawless Adrian’s tactical movements and teamwork were.
Compared to them, Rem and his squad had been patrolling like bears clutching corn cobs.
The difference was especially clear as they climbed the stairs.
Frost stepped onto the stairwell first, but Adrian yanked her back.
"Don’t go up the middle of the stairs. Stay close to the wall as you climb."
Adrian gave her a quick reminder.
"Why?"
Even Frost, usually so cold-faced, now looked like a curious little girl.
"No particular reason. Watch us demonstrate."
Then, under the baffled gazes of Frost and Rem, the thirteen-man group demonstrated a flawless stairwell search formation.
At every position where an enemy might launch an ambush, someone was left to check it.
"That kid definitely isn’t a mercenary. Nobody knows a search formation that well unless they’re official special forces."
Before long, they reached the ground floor, where the other nine members of Rem’s squad still lay.
"At least this is a better ending than most."
Rem sighed, glanced at the men who had died protecting him, and turned away.
When they reached the ammunition depot entrance, the sunlight outside was so harsh that it took them a while to adjust.
"I thought I’d never see the sun again."
Rem exhaled heavily and reached for his waist, intending to light a cigarette.
But Adrian and his squad still had not relaxed. They immediately began scanning their surroundings.
"Save the breather for later. Until we’ve extracted, this place isn’t safe," Adrian said without turning around.
"What else could be dangerous? Didn’t you wipe out all the NPCs?"
Just as Rem was about to light up, a bustling clamor suddenly rose from the corridor behind them.
"Damn it."
They had spent too long on the second basement level. The NPCs on the first floor had already respawned.
"Down!"
Adrian threw himself over Frost, who was closest to him, while a machine gunner tackled Rem to the ground.
Rat-a-tat-tat!
The instant they hit the ground, countless bullets tore over their heads and struck the distant wall.
"Suppress them. We’re pulling back."
Fortunately, they were close to the main entrance. The two machine gunners returned fire, covering the group’s withdrawal.
At the same time, the two riflemen had already taken positions at the corner.
Under the cover of the light machine guns, everyone reached the corner as well.
The two riflemen then began firing into the depot while the two light machine gunners withdrew under their cover.
"Red Ram, give me a way to contact you. Next time I get a chance to enter an instance, take me with you."
Frost still wore the same expressionless face, but the faint sparkle in her eyes told Adrian that the girl had developed a deep admiration for him.
"Yeah, Red Ram. I’ve got a lot of resources in mercenary circles too. If I find a resource-rich map, we can explore it together."
Adrian did not refuse. He exchanged contact information with both of them.
Just when everyone thought they could head for the extraction point, dense footsteps sounded behind them again.
"Warning. The ammunition depot is under threat. Level One security protocol activated. All guards, proceed to the main entrance and eliminate the intruders."
A piercing alarm began to blare.
"This is bad. We killed too many NPCs and triggered the ammunition depot’s defense mechanism."
Rem had entered Ammunition Depot No. 4 more than once.
After all his attempts, he had learned that the best method was to have teammates draw the guards away.
But this time, with someone as formidable as Adrian, they had actually triggered Ammunition Depot No. 4’s defense mechanism.
Orderly footsteps echoed from behind them, and the ground began to tremble.
"We’re done for. None of us are getting out."
Rem clutched his head in both hands, his face filled with despair.
Frost’s expression was equally grim.
"What’s going on?"
Adrian asked in confusion.
"You don’t know? Once the ammunition depot’s defense mechanism activates, those NPCs will hunt us down without stopping."
Frost and Rem had already lost the will to run. Rem’s two remaining squad members slumped onto the ground as though their souls had been ripped away.
"They’re just hunting us. Why not eliminate them all?"
Their reactions only made Adrian more confused.
"Red Ram, I know your squad is strong, but being hunted by dozens of them isn’t the worst part."
As Rem finished speaking, Adrian heard the sound of metal grinding against concrete behind him.
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