Badge of the Death Game

Chapter 003

“Everyone should have noticed by now that this isn’t a standard operation…”

“Ugh… that chick last night was something else…”

“Are you okay, Brian?”

“Ha, rookie, stop messing with him. He was out partying last night too, same as me…”

Just like last time, everyone’s conversation was basically unchanged.

This time, Xander Carter did not join the small talk. He kept his eyes tightly shut while the previous battle flashed repeatedly through his mind.

Although it had only lasted a few short seconds, he had already memorized almost every position and angle inside the hotel lobby.

If he had to do it again, he could at least make sure he would not die so quickly in the first exchange of fire.

“All right. Everyone out. Establish perimeter security!”

As D-1 gave the order, Xander once again stood in the same familiar position as last time, carefully watching the hotel’s main entrance in the distance.

This time, he observed even more closely.

“In a moment, we’ll enter with Team B through the smaller doors on both sides of the main entrance. We take the left door, they take the right. That means my right side should at least have a relatively high level of security. The guy who killed me last time was on the left. So during the entry, I only need to focus on the left corner to avoid the first kill zone.”

Thinking this, Xander tilted his head slightly and noticed two snipers positioned on the rooftops of several buildings across from the hotel.

Judging from their shooting angles, however, they were probably responsible for perimeter control.

The frontal entry into the lobby still had to be handled by the assault teams.

After all, the building covered a large area. Under the current circumstances, this was probably the only available option.

“These people are lunatics! Savages!”

The furious shouting of that government official made Xander frown.

Annoying.

Soon, as the order to storm the building was issued, the team formed up into an assault formation and moved toward the left-side door.

This time, Xander did not foolishly wait to rush in. Instead, he removed a flashbang from his tactical vest, pulled the pin, held down the safety lever, and signaled toward D-3, who was preparing to breach the door, and D-2, the point man.

D-2 nodded.

Across from them, the assaulter from Team B also removed a flashbang and prepared to throw.

Very quickly, the breaching strike sounded.

The instant the door was smashed open—

Gunfire erupted.

Xander immediately threw the flashbang in his hand toward the direction of the elevator entrance inside.

Bang!

The flashbang detonated.

Immediately afterward, D-2 took the lead and charged in decisively.

Xander followed right behind him, his muzzle instantly locking onto the large decorative vase in the left corner.

Rat-tat-tat!

Gunfire rang out.

The vase shattered on impact.

The criminal hiding behind it was also directly dropped.

Xander had no time to enjoy the satisfaction of revenge. He abruptly swung his muzzle toward the elevator entrance and unleashed a burst of fire.

It was still the same criminal who had failed to make it into the stairwell last time.

In the span of a single instant, Xander had taken down two men in succession.

He followed the point man forward.

The SWAT officers behind him also rushed in. Using the riot shield and other cover for protection, they quickly began making precise shots against the remaining criminals in the lobby.

Within a few seconds, all the criminals had been put down.

“Clear!”

“Clear!”

After that, the other team members began putting follow-up shots into the heads of every fallen criminal to confirm there would be no survivors.

Only then did Xander suddenly notice that several hostages had already been killed by the criminals.

But he clearly remembered that last time, these people had not died.

At least, before he died, they had still been alive.

In other words, their deaths had most likely happened the moment he threw the flashbang into the room. Under extreme stress, the criminals had panicked and opened fire in rage.

“Damn it…”

Xander’s expression turned heavy.

Innocent people had died because of him.

On top of that, the failure of the Hostage Savior achievement was difficult for him to accept.

If he had followed the original assault strategy, avoided using thrown tactical devices, and possessed high enough combat capability, perhaps these people would not have needed to die at all.

“Carter, your decision wasn’t wrong.”

“We didn’t have detailed intel. There was a door between us and them. No one could have known there would be that many gunmen and hostages behind it. The ambulances will be here soon. Let the medics handle them.”

D-1 seemed to have noticed the shift in Xander’s mood. He stepped forward, patted Xander on the shoulder, and comforted him.

“Yeah. Thanks… boss,” Xander said with a frown and a nod.

“All right. Everyone continue forward. Prepare to move upstairs!”

The order was given.

The two teams regrouped and advanced, entering the corridor outside the stairwell.

By now, the building’s power had already been cut. They had to move upward through the stairwell and search floor by floor.

Judging from the mission objective and the actual situation, there were still surviving hostages and criminals located in other rooms on other floors of the hotel.

As for which floors and which rooms, they could only rely on luck and search them one by one.

When they reached the stairwell entrance, reports came through the radio that Teams A and C had completed the rear-side clearing.

This building had two elevator shafts and two stairwells, one at the front and one at the rear. Teams A and C would search upward from the rear stairwell.

Behind Xander, D-5 muttered a few curses under his breath.

“Ugh. I hate stairs. Especially stairs where we have to move upward from below.”

Xander, who was changing to a full magazine, nodded in deep agreement.

Looking up at the spiral-shaped staircase above his head, it was truly difficult to guess whether someone might be hiding up there, waiting to fire a burst of bullets at them from a blind angle, or whether a grenade might suddenly drop from somewhere.

Because of the angle, they could only react passively.

That was both unsettling and infuriating.

“Shut up, D-5,” D-1 said in a low voice.

Then he gave the order to advance.

In the two teams, the point men carrying riot shields moved in front. The assaulters followed closely behind, staying against the wall, muzzles aimed upward as they advanced quickly.

Soon, the team arrived outside the fire door leading to the second floor.

Because they needed to confirm that no criminals or hostages had been missed in any room or corner, Team B voluntarily took responsibility for clearing the second-floor rooms.

Xander watched as one member of Team B pulled open the fire door. The assaulter on the other side immediately entered with his weapon raised, his muzzle sweeping quickly across both corners.

The second assaulter behind him immediately filled the gap in fire coverage.

Xander silently memorized this method of entering a room.

And at that moment, a new notification suddenly popped up in the lower left corner of his vision.

[You have mastered “Police CQB Tactics.” Current level: LV1.]

The next second, a large number of memories surged into his mind.

They felt familiar, yet also somewhat foreign.

Most of them were details from the breaching actions of the previous attempt and this current attempt.

From a third-person perspective, he could clearly “see” every footstep, movement, and weapon-control detail of every SWAT officer he had unintentionally glanced at from the moment of the breach until now.

Not only that, he also discovered from these details that he had made quite a few mistakes in the battle just now.

For example, after knocking down an enemy, he had not immediately fired a follow-up shot. Nor had he promptly kicked away the weapon in the enemy’s hand.

When entering an unfamiliar corridor, he had failed to slice the corner properly.

Before taking the next action, he had not given corresponding signals to his teammates.

It was only because his squadmates were professional enough, capable enough, and coordinated well enough that those mistakes had been minimized almost to nothing.