Blake and Ivy crept into the Administration Building, weapons raised, footsteps careful on the debris-strewn floor.
The moment they entered the main hall, Blake's eyebrows lifted.
Seven boxes scattered across the concrete. Seven glowing loot caches, each one representing a dead player.
"Seven boxes?" he murmured, scanning the carnage. "Players shouldn't be capable of this kind of body count yet, right? Everyone's running starter gear and zero game sense."
His eyes narrowed as the implications clicked.
"Looks more like something ran them over."
He tossed a D-Wolf smoke grenade, the canister clattering across the floor before erupting into a thick white cloud. Then he advanced under cover, moving quickly from box to box to investigate.
"Three boxes have been looted. Supplies gone — someone survived and grabbed what they could."
"Four still untouched." Quick assessment, tactical calculation running in the background. "Probably three full squads clashed here. Nine players. Two, maybe three survivors walked away."
He ran the numbers mentally.
System allocated 17 players per match. Seven corpses here, plus him and Ivy — nine accounted for.
Theoretically, eight players remained somewhere on the map.
He didn't know three unlucky souls had already been deleted by bots at the Visitor Center. The math was actually even worse than he thought.
"Eight people left," he said to Ivy, his voice low. "The dam's not small, but the Admin Building has the best loot. Besides us, there's probably at least one more team — or a solo — still in here. Stay sharp."
"Mm." Ivy acknowledged softly, her voice tight behind her mask.
She kept Vyron close behind Blake's D-Wolf like a shadow, practically stepping in his footprints. The mechanics were still foreign to her, her fingers clumsy on the keyboard, but instinct said sticking to the producer was the safest play.
He knows what he's doing. I don't. Simple math.
Blake grabbed some unwanted blue-tier supplies from the ground. Basic consumables, nothing exciting.
"Two small purples here. You take them."
He dropped a [Solid-State Drive (Purple)] and [Polyethylene Fiber (Purple)] onto the floor in front of her character.
Essential pickups in Standard mode. Both single-slot items — the SSD worth 32,000 HAF, the fiber worth 31,000. Only small golds beat them in value-per-slot efficiency. Every veteran player knew these by heart.
Ivy scooped them up, her inventory starting to fill with actual loot. Once she finished, Blake said:
"Let's check the East Wing Manager's Office. Should still be untouched."
They reached the office area. Two doors side by side.
One displayed a prompt on approach: [Requires East Wing Manager's Office Keycard].
This was one of Zero Dam's two red-card rooms. Tons of containers and spawn points inside, high-tier potential. But in the previous world, veteran players had nicknamed it the "East Wing Septic Tank" — meaning the loot was usually garbage despite the fancy lock. A trap for newbies who didn't know better.
Didn't matter anyway. Beginner match. Nobody had keycards. The door might as well have been a wall.
Blake's actual target was the adjacent lounge — unlocked, directly accessible.
"This room sometimes spawns large safes," he explained, guiding his character inside. "Those show up on the map. Not this match, though."
"But even without a large safe, there's always one small safe and one briefcase. Sometimes gold bars on the table." He assigned roles efficiently. "Ivy, you take the safe. I'll check the briefcase."
Ivy moved her character to the small safe and started the interaction animation, watching the progress bar fill.
Blake opened the briefcase on the nearby sofa. One item inside.
"Tsk. Two slots..."
"Probably a Horn or worse." He muttered as the loot revealed itself, his face falling.
[Dancing Lady (Blue)] — 11,000 HAF.
Blake's mouth twitched with disappointment. "...It's not even as good as Horn."
Two slots for 11k total. Garbage cost-efficiency. Per-slot value barely broke five thousand, and the Special Services fence would cut that even further on sale. Basically vendor trash pretending to be loot.
"Blake." Ivy's voice carried a note of confusion. "Is it true that bigger items are always better in this game?"
She'd apparently finished inspecting her find.
"Not absolutely." Blake turned to look at her screen, curious what she'd pulled. "The most valuable red-tier item in the game only takes one slot. Exception to every rule."
"But normally, reds run two to nine slots. Two-slot reds are worth anywhere from 180,000 to 700,000 HAF — but there's a high chance of getting scammed on value. You might pull 180k when you were hoping for 600k."
"Nine-slot reds are almost always worth over two million. Very low scam chance. If it's big, it's good."
"Six-slot reds usually break a million, but the scam rate is higher than nine-slots."
"During internal testing, we called items worth over a million 'big reds.' Under a million? 'Small reds.'"
"Oh." Ivy processed this flood of information.
Then Blake saw Vyron perform a special inspection animation on her screen — the distinctive flourish that triggered when acquiring high-value loot. Her character held the item up, turning it in the light.
"A red?!" He leaned closer, genuinely surprised. "Your first run?"
Vyron held a pale yellow stone with strange, ancient patterns etched into its surface.
[Fossil (Red)]
Two-slot small red. Worth roughly 300,000 to 400,000 HAF depending on market fluctuations.
In the previous world, veteran players would've shrugged. Just another small red, nothing to write home about. But in a first-test match where everyone was rocking starter gear and empty pockets? This was a fortune. This was life-changing money in Zero Dam terms.
Ivy's eyes — the only part of her face visible above the mask — showed a flicker of genuine excitement. The cool CEO facade cracked, just for a moment.
Her first red.
Blake's mind raced, already calculating risk.
This was just a demo. No dog tags. No insurance system. Not even basic 2×1 coverage for high-value items.
If someone killed her, that two-slot Fossil was hitting the floor. Guaranteed. No protection. No recovery.
Maybe we should just extract now—
Before he could voice the thought, Ivy controlled her character to drop the [Fossil (Red)] onto the ground in front of Blake.
"You take it." Her tone was calm, businesslike. "I don't think I can protect it. And I'd rather not lose it to some random."
Blake paused. His cursor hovered over the item. Didn't pick it up.
It was just a virtual item. Pixels and code. But a player's first red often held special meaning. Commemorative value. The kind of thing you remembered years later.
He shook D-Wolf's head slightly, a small gesture of refusal. Then walked out of the office area without another word.
Keep it. It's yours.
Around the corner — another box.
Vinny's box. Though Blake didn't know whose it was.
"Where did this come from?" Blake frowned, staring at the eighth body. "Eight minutes in, and there are already eight corpses in the Admin Building alone?"
Before he could finish the thought—
RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT—!
Intense gunfire erupted from downstairs, the sound echoing up through the stairwell. The unmistakable roar of a light machine gun on full auto — heavy, sustained, angry.
BRRRT! BRRRT! BRRRT! Return fire answered — UZI or Bizon, hard to tell at this distance. Lighter. More desperate.
"Starter kits don't include LMGs," Blake said instantly, his whole body going alert. "And regular Ahsarah Guard don't drop them."
His eyes narrowed with recognition.
"That's Saeed. Engaging someone downstairs."
The mystery of the seven boxes clicked into place like puzzle pieces. Those players had probably been fighting each other when Saeed heard the commotion and came to harvest. Walked right into the middle of their battle and deleted everyone.
And this new box — Vinny's — was likely someone who tried to third-party the aftermath and ran face-first into the headshot king.
Professor Saeed was holding office hours. Class was in session.
"Let's go break up the fight," Blake said immediately, already moving toward the stairwell.
"Break up the fight?" Ivy's tone was clearly confused. But her fingers followed her instincts, guiding Vyron after D-Wolf without hesitation.
They moved silently, tracking the gunfire down the stairs, footsteps masked by the ongoing battle below. The shooting was getting more desperate. Someone was losing.
Blake peeked out carefully from the stairwell entrance.
First floor. Near a corridor intersection. Two players holding an angle on a doorway, occasionally leaning out to fire bursts of panicked SMG rounds.
Inside the room beyond — Saeed, unleashing absolute hell. The M249 roared every few seconds, chunks of wall exploding wherever its rounds hit.
"They're pinned. Dying slowly. We flank." Blake gave quick, quiet instructions. "You cover. I engage."
He raised his UZI. Crept forward. Lined up the sights on the two players' exposed backs.
They had no idea he was there. All their attention was on the monster in front of them.
BRRRT!
One dropped instantly, the burst catching him mid-lean.
[Operator: Moon — DOWNED]
The second player reacted fast — spun around the instant his teammate fell, gun already rising.
No FPS experience, sure. Didn't understand proper aim mechanics or crosshair placement. But the reflexes were there. Raw talent, untrained.
Except the moment he turned, Blake executed a slide, his character gliding across the floor in a smooth, practiced motion, slipping completely out of the enemy's firing line.
"???"
The player was visibly confused. His crosshair tracked where Blake had been, not where he was going.
This game has sliding?!
His predictive shots whiffed completely, bullets punching into empty air.
Every operator had four abilities: one passive, one tactical, one special, one ultimate. Passives weren't displayed prominently — you had to check the details menu to even know they existed.
D-Wolf's passive? Slide during sprint. Costs extra stamina. Changes everything.
The enemy's gun clicked — magazine empty. The universal sound of opportunity.
"Reloading!" Blake called out to Ivy. "He's reloading! Now!"
During that critical window, Ivy popped out from cover. Vyron opened fire, her character spraying wildly.
Her recoil control was still terrible. Most bullets sailed into the ceiling, sparking off pipes and fixtures. But the sudden appearance of a second enemy dumped massive psychological pressure onto the target. He flinched, tried to track two threats at once, failed at both.
Blake was already rising from his slide. UZI locked onto the enemy's head with practiced precision.
BRRRT!
Headshot knockdown. Clean.
[Operator: IWannaPlayDelta — DOWNED]
[TEAM WIPED]
The instant the prompt appeared, Blake was already moving, rushing toward the door those two players had been desperately holding.
Peeked inside, quick and careful.
Saeed. Executing a tactical roll deeper into the room, repositioning like the combat AI he was.
Retreat. Close door. Smoke.
Three words flashed through his mind in rapid succession. He acted while backing up, fingers dancing across the keyboard, switching to his tactical dagger — basic starter knife, nothing fancy.
Smoke billowed out from his grenade, filling the doorway with concealing fog. Blake held his breath, listening.
Creeeeak—
The door pushed open from inside. Saeed wasn't content to wait.
Saeed's massive silhouette emerged at the smoke's edge, M249 sweeping for targets.
NOW.
Blake charged into the cloud, instinct and muscle memory guiding his blade toward the approximate location of Saeed's skull. Couldn't see clearly. Didn't need to.
SHUNK!
The unique audio cue of a hit connecting. The satisfying thunk of blade meeting flesh.
[DEFEATED — Guard Captain: SAEED]
"Done!" Blake exhaled, tension draining from his shoulders. "The other players must've chunked him down pretty good. One knife shouldn't have been enough otherwise."
Full-health Saeed in Standard mode required three or four knife hits minimum. The previous fight had done most of the work.
"So Saeed killed eight people... and was holding back the last duo when we showed up..."
"We flanked those two while they were pinned down fighting him. Then one-tapped Saeed because he was already low."
Blake grinned, a fierce expression of satisfaction. "Tsk. Dramatic."
He checked Saeed's loot box eagerly. The guaranteed M249 sat inside, beautiful and deadly, plus a few dozen rounds of Tier 4 ammunition. Nothing else special — but nothing else needed.
Saeed's Tier 4 vest and Tier 3 helmet were already shredded, durability in the red. No point swapping for broken gear.
The armor was definitely destroyed by previous players' sustained fire. The helmet? Probably finished off by Blake's knife.
"M249 with Tier 4 ammo..." Blake equipped the beast, watching his character's loadout transform. "In Standard mode, this is basically god-tier."
Everyone else on the map was averaging Tier 1 armor. Tier 4 rounds meant true damage. No mitigation. No resistance. Just pure, unfiltered hurt.
Even if someone had scavenged Tier 2 or Tier 3 gear from Ahsarah Guard or faction shield troops — didn't matter. Still melted.
"Looks like we've cleared the Admin Building," Blake said cheerfully, surveying the battlefield littered with loot boxes. "Let's go enjoy the spoils."
"Once we've swept the whole place, we pull the lever and extract."
Ivy stared at her screen in silence.
[TEAM WIPED]
[DEFEATED — SAEED]
Boxes everywhere. Bodies everywhere. Victory everywhere.
She processed Blake's earlier words, turning them over in her mind.
"Let's go break up the fight."
A long silence stretched between them.
She thought she finally understood what "breaking up the fight" meant in Blake Weiss's vocabulary.
If other people are fighting... and I kill all of them... then they stop fighting, right?
The fight is broken up. Technically.
In a sense, that was breaking up the fight. Just not the way most people would interpret the phrase.
She glanced at Blake's profile, his face illuminated by the glow of his monitor, completely at ease in this digital warzone.
What kind of person thinks like this?
She wasn't sure if she should be impressed or concerned.
Probably both.