Thug and Idol: 10X Rewards Second Identity System

The morning of the raid.

Tristan and four of his subordinates for today were sitting inside a stuffy, dusty truck, sweating in their heavy gear even though the September sun wasn't up yet.

His team comprised Tomas, with whom Tristan had good rapport, and his three best subordinates: Trey, Owen, and Cutout. At least, those were their working pseudonyms.

Tomas didn't have time to fully recover from his arm wound, but he stoically bore the pain, and his experience compensated for any problems it might cause.

To make sure they succeeded, both teams were fit with the best gear available, including earpieces for communication, bulletproof vests, teargas grenades, protective goggles, and respirator masks.

The last two were the main reasons everybody was sweltering. However, they couldn't take them off now.

Twelve minutes earlier, the Strike Team One, also known as Pierce's team, went into the target building.

Since then, Tristan was tracking their progress in his head from the reports of Pierce in his earpiece. At any moment, he could be called to interfere—or decide to interfere himself.

"Smooth progress so far," Pierce said, then there was a gunshot. "Resistance is minimal. The apartment with the stash should be the next one."

Tristan frowned.

He expected Cuatro Angulos to be better. If Pierce just returned with a success, Tristan will have to work much harder to take his position.

There was a loud bang in Tristan's earpiece, which made him flinch. The bang echoed weakly in Tristan's other ear, and it took him a moment to realize that it came from the target building.

"What was that, Team One?"

There was no sound except for static. Tristan sat straighter.

"Team One? Answer!"

"This sounded like a flashbang," Tomas said, tilting his head. "Often the last thing you ever hear."

Tristan's eyes widened.

"A flashbang? Huh, what else did they smuggle from their homeland while they were at it? A rocket launcher? A tank?"

There were a few tense chuckles at his remark. Tristan chuckled, too, although he didn't feel humorous. He was just doing that to keep everybody's morale high.

Then Tristan stood up.

"Prepare to move out. This is clearly a situation where Team One needs support."

Everybody followed him when Tristan opened the truck's doors and stepped out. The backstreet the truck was facing was empty so far, and the target building was just behind a corner.

They were half-way there when Pierce's voice sounded in Tristan's earpiece again.

"We were ambushed by the elite team. There are five of them, military-grade equipment, weapons, flashbangs. They pinned us down in a western corner of the fourth floor—Team Two, you better come here quickly. Not the same way we did."

"Already on our way, Team One. What's your status?"

"Three dead, one wounded. But there were seven of them before now." Pierce huffed. "I had to do most of the work."

Tristan nodded, more to himself than anyone, and calculated the routes in his head.

Team One went through the fire entrance, but now that was definitely protected by alerted enemies. Same was with the main entrance.

Good thing that Tristan's team came prepared for something like this.

They ran up to the narrow side of a rectangular four-floors apartment building. The first-floor windows were all covered by iron grates, but the second-floor windows were unprotected.

Near them ran a drainpipe someone strong enough could climb.

Tristan flexed his fingers while his mind ran through a mental calculus. If they entered through this window, they should enter an apartment that was already cleared by Pierce's team earlier.

"Team, we will go through here. I will climb first."

Without a pause, he dashed up the wall, running a meter up and grabbing the drainpipe.

Although all his equipment pulled Tristan down, he was still strong enough to hold himself with little difficulty.

He climbed up with smooth, trained movements, and quickly reached the window. One strong blow with a butt of his handgun broke the window, and let Tristan reach the handle.

After this, he just opened the window and got inside.

The small, dingy room really was "clean", but not from dirt. Whoever lived here left plenty of empty wrappers and dirty clothing lying on the floor and furniture.

However, there was no one alive—only a couple of corpses.

After making sure there was no one around, Tristan got a rope from his tactical backpack, tying the other end to a bed, and waved them to follow.

People in his team weren't all as athletic as Tristan, but they were all strong enough to walk two floors up a wall with the help of a rope and a person pulling them up from the other side.

Tomas went last—since his arm was wounded, he just sat in a rope cradle while the rest of the team swiftly pulled him up.

After that, Tristan's team hurried to enter deeper into the building.

On the doorstep of the first apartment, Tristan saw the first unusual corpse. The first two corpses he met were usual, since they were killed by usual means—bullets.

This one was cut with something sharp—definitely a knife—and in a manner Tristan had never seen before.

There were two precise strikes to nerve centers. Each was debilitating and excruciatingly painful, but not enough to kill someone immediately.

From the way the dead man was lying, and the way his face was frozen in a grimace of torment, he died unable to even scream—but wanting to very much.

There were more corpses like these amongst the other ones Tristan saw on his way to Pierce.

It was really foreboding, although not a single muscle on Tristan's face showed his emotions. For his team, he projected only determination, calm, and confidence.

"Team Two, we lost the elite team for a moment, now moving toward the fire stairs."

Tristan responded almost immediately—his combat analysis let him understand the situation in a matter of moments. Your story source m_v lem|p-yr

"Someone will be waiting for you there, Team One. Enemies."

"I know," Pierce spat back like it was acid. "But this is all we have, so you better be there, too!"

His team heard that, so Tristan only needed to glance at them for a wordless command to run even faster.

Soon, they could hear voices of the enemies—and Tristan's team met them with guns blazing.