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Marcus smiled when he heard Jake's slightly excited voice:
"It's probably a random spawn, right?"
"Otherwise, if the Wall Breaker Operation always gave out a gold bar every time, wouldn't it be broken?"
"Then everyone on the map would come to snatch this mission. No one would even enter the Admin Building — especially since besides the gold bar, you can also open safes."
Jake heard this, calmed his excitement, and said, "You're right."
"Only two minutes left, Marcus. Let's open the safes first."
With that, the two walked to the dozen or so safes and began to unlock them.
"Click."
"Click."
The gunshots of the Ahsarah Soldiers rang out. They hadn't paid attention at first, but once these soldiers hit someone, it would directly interrupt their safe-opening progress — which was truly annoying.
"Jake, you open the safes. I'll clear the bots," Marcus said, somewhat fed up with the enemies. "Anyway, I already got a gold bar, so you can open these safes."
Jake didn't decline, saying, "Got it, Marcus."
With one person clearing bots and the other opening safes, progress was much faster. At least they didn't have to worry about their progress being interrupted by the damage from these bots.
Most of the safes contained either Pirate Silver Coin (Blue) or Dancing Lady (Blue). Some yielded Golden Ornament (Purple) and Horn Ornament (Purple).
There weren't many small gold items. Excluding the Pirate Gold Coin he picked up, only one Faction Goblet (Gold) appeared, valued at 62,000 — which was still pretty good.
"Not bad," Jake muttered to himself as he opened the last safe. "It would be even better if another goblet or gold coin appeared."
"Teng~"
The safe opened. Jake hadn't held much hope, but when he saw what was inside, he immediately became excited.
Golden Gazelle (Red).
[Mission Accomplished. Evacuate quickly now!]
"Holy— what gazelle? That's a treasure!" Jake immediately picked up the Golden Gazelle and stuffed it into his four-slot pants. "Marcus, quick — check my inspect!"
Marcus had just finished off the last bot at this moment. Hearing Jake's voice, he was a bit confused:
"What's a gazelle?"
Before this, the two had only found gold bars and valuable mechanical watches. They hadn't even heard of other red items, let alone seen them.
This kind of problem wouldn't occur during open beta, but in the current closed beta phase, you couldn't buy or view red items. You could only buy room cards and equipment.
Blake's reason for this design was simple: at the end of the second test, players could choose four items to keep. If red items could be bought, people would definitely hoard a bunch of HAF to buy and keep a Heart of Africa.
At a time when there was no premium currency, the East Building Manager's Office key was just over three million, and the Substation Technical Room, Longbow Valley's Hotel King Room, and the Drone Platform were even cheaper. Buying four red cards would be equivalent to one Heart of Africa.
"A red item, four slots," Jake explained. "It shows 430,000!"
"Although there might be a few tens of thousands in market fees, it's definitely over 370,000."
Marcus also became interested upon hearing this. "Come on, let me see."
Jake first inspected it in front of Marcus, then directly threw the Golden Gazelle down.
"Marcus, try the first-person inspect."
He wasn't worried about Marcus snatching the Golden Gazelle. After all, after the last offline test, both had exchanged contact info and trusted each other's character.
Marcus picked up the gazelle. Picking up red items with inspect animations automatically triggers the inspect, so he immediately inspected it.
"This little deer looks pretty good — all golden."
The Golden Gazelle's inspect animation was roughly picking it up and holding it in his hand, looking left and right, which was quite nice.
Of course, if you include its golden color, it's a fantastic inspect animation — who doesn't like gold?
However, both of them still believed that the gold bar's inspect animation was the best, as it was currently the most impactful animation.
Even though it was cheaper than the gazelle, gold bars naturally had extra points.
"Oh, by the way, Jake — did you record just now?" Marcus suddenly seemed to remember something and said, "I asked Horizon Interactive's official account this morning, and they said that videos could be uploaded after the NDA ended."
"I remember I even told you about it."
Jake nodded, although it couldn't be seen through the screen:
"I did. I have several hours of footage on my hard drive now."
"And this round was perfect: a Golden Gazelle plus a gold bar, plus the Wall Breaker music is full of passion."
"When I was opening the safe, the music just reached its climax, and then the gazelle appeared. The satisfaction was truly maximized."
"I feel like we really have a chance to become big content creators in the Delta scene."
Marcus smiled. "We'll work hard then."
"Here — I'll give the gazelle back to you."
He threw the gazelle on the ground. The two were in a fixed party plus friend relationship, so they definitely wouldn't covet a game item.
After all, a game item was, at its core, just a game item. Even in a random match, Marcus wouldn't covet someone else's belongings.
In his opinion, it would be too scummy to covet a teammate's items for a few HAF.
"Alright, dude." Jake picked up the gazelle and glanced at his loot. "I have 700,000 in loot, and still a lot of space in my backpack. If I fill it up, I should be able to extract with a million."
"How much do you have, Marcus?"
Marcus glanced and said, "I have 670,000. I got more loot on the West Building side."
"Do you want to check the East Building to see if anyone's still there?"
"I didn't hear anyone pull the lever, so someone might still be searching there."
Jake nodded again:
"We definitely have to go. Stuff the gold bar and the gazelle into the safe. If we die, it's not a loss."
"Our gear is only two or three hundred thousand. If we win, we profit big; if we lose, we don't lose much."
With agreement reached, the mission began — a lightning strike on the Admin Building East Wing!
The two had already cleared the bots on their way to the Wall Breaker, so when they returned to the Admin Building, no bots fired to expose their position.
"Shh... wait a moment." Marcus suddenly stopped, and Jake also held his breath.
"Thump..."
A very subtle footstep — hard to hear if not listened to carefully.
"It's unclear exactly how far footstep propagation is in Delta, but it should be in the 40-50 meter range."
"We're wearing Tier 3 hearing helmets, so we can hear at least 60 meters."
"They should be on their way to the West Building. Let's crouch-walk upstairs."
"Our footsteps shouldn't have been heard."
"Many people still don't realize the importance of hearing and mostly choose that Tier 3 helmet with 40 durability."
After Marcus whispered these few sentences, he began to crouch-walk silently, while Jake followed right behind him.
Although it was most likely a two-on-three situation, the opponents didn't have information while they did — making them the advantageous side.