Chapter 856: Beautiful Ideas, Cruel Reality

Even though there was a corpse in the trash can less than two meters behind them, perhaps still warm, not yet cold.

But what did that matter?

For now, it was still a perfect infiltration.

“It’ll be installed soon, but watch the time!”

On this side, Wang Han continued to install the jammer.

ECM. This was considered a unique special item in the Payday game.

From its appearance, this thing looked like an old-school mobile phone, but once attached to a wall or floor, it could jam all electronic signals within a certain time and range, including not just surveillance cameras, but also walkie-talkies and alarm calls.

It could be said that strategically, it was a very important artifact. Aside from med-bags and ammo-bags, although they had always been a brute-force team, Wang Han, as a Ghost, would also carry one with her.

Furthermore, this item had another very powerful aspect: it could directly open things like combination locks if the corresponding ECM skill tree was learned.

For example, they now needed to find the manager to get a keycard in order to open the manager’s office door, find the luxury car keys, and drive the car away.

But if they had invested in this skill branch, they could skip the step of finding the manager and directly use ECM to disable the password door, thus opening this specific door.

After all, in every trade, there is a master. And although they were all hardened criminals, they were divided into combat criminals and intellectual criminals, each with their own uses.

However, the game had not been released for long, so Wang Han hadn’t accumulated enough rewards to unlock this skill. Furthermore, she didn’t know yet that the ECM could also be used as a door opener.

“Done! Let’s go, but where’s the manager?” Wang Han quickly said, having installed the ECM and seeing the prompt.

“I know that, follow me, I think I saw him when I was scouting earlier. Let me tell you, that manager is no good! He was still playing workplace harassment over there!” Song Ren quickly said.

Earlier, when the insider in his earpiece gave him hints about the manager's appearance – a bald man in a suit – he immediately remembered.

Mainly because when he was scouting earlier, that NPC had left a very deep impression on him.

A bald uncle in his forties or fifties, with a lecherous look, was standing by the water cooler, chatting with a sales girl in her twenties. With his rich workplace experience, he could tell at a glance that this guy was definitely engaging in workplace harassment. If he hadn’t been afraid of alarming the enemy, he would have shot that bald manager right then and there.

Hearing Song Ren, Zhang Yi and Wang Han didn’t doubt him and carefully followed behind Song Ren, heading towards the target location.

But when they arrived, the scene before them stunned Song Ren.

By the water cooler, there was no one!

“Ah! Where’s that bald guy?!” Song Ren looked bewildered: “I clearly saw him when I was scouting earlier!”

“He’s probably a random NPC, the game has its own planned patrol routes, so he’s not here right now.” Zhang Yi explained.

“So what do we do now?” Song Ren was in a dilemma.

“What else can we do? Keep looking…” Before Zhang Yi could finish, footsteps approached, and a company car dealership salesperson, holding a cup of coffee, appeared behind them.

Once shy, twice bold. Just like before by the security door, the moment they saw this NPC, one bullet hit his neck, and another hit his chest.

Zhang Yi, who had chosen the advantageous condition of having two body bags, skillfully pulled out a black bag, put the body in, and tossed it into a corner.

“Hurry, there’s no trash can nearby, this body will probably be discovered soon, let’s go find the manager first.” Zhang Yi said hastily, looking at the body bag tossed into the corner.

Killing enemies and hiding their bodies could delay the time of discovery, but it wasn't permanent.

And if the bodies were left outside a trash can, this time would be even shorter, so they didn't have much time left.

Hearing Zhang Yi, the three immediately decided to hurry and find the bald manager. To be more efficient, they decided to split up; after all, the second floor wasn't that big, with only a few areas.

The company's employees and security personnel were indeed a bit annoying. If they accidentally bumped into someone, then all they could do was apologize.

“Old Song, do you still have any body bags? I’ve got a corpse here, can you pick it up?”

“No, Old Zhang, we’re infiltrating to find the manager, ease up on the killing intent! You just killed an employee and got a money penalty!”

“Stop talking nonsense, come quickly and bag this body, buy us some time before it’s discovered.”

“Out of stock.”

“Damn it!”

Listening to the two clowns arguing in the voice channel, Wang Han quickly spoke up in the voice channel: “Stop arguing, I’ve found the manager and gotten the keycard, meet at the password door!”

“Awesome! By the way, can you deal with this corpse for me, so the patrolling security guard doesn’t see it and call the police later.” Zhang Yi praised.

“No time for that, just grab the car keys and let’s go!” Looking at the bald manager and the security guard on the ground, plus the employee’s body who witnessed her crime, Wang Han quietly changed the subject.

The three gathered in front of the password door, all looking excited.

Because soon they would get the car keys and then drive off in a luxury car.

But ideas were beautiful, reality was cruel.

After opening the password door, all three were stunned.

‘Nice job, they recently hired a new technician. If we can hack into his computer, I can open the door with the keys. Find out who that guy is and hack into his computer.’

【Objective Activated: Hack into staff member’s computer】

Car keys not in the manager’s office!?

Matryoshka doll!?

Need to hack into the new staff member’s computer!?

How were they supposed to know who the new staff member was!

Zhang Yi and the others looked bewildered.

And a more crucial point was that, having committed to old-school assassin-style stealth, they had almost cleared out the second floor.

Although bodies were bagged when they should be, and tossed into corners when they should be, it was merely delaying the time of discovery.

So, while they were still bewildered.

‘Ding-a-ling, ding-a-ling…’

The harsh alarm bell rang out.

The remaining security personnel in the car dealership charged towards the second floor, and at the same time, police reinforcements were about to arrive at the dealership.

In an instant, both floors of the car dealership turned into utter chaos.

………………

Five minutes later, Zhang Yi, Song Ren, and Wang Han, wearing their masks, watched the screen showing their arrest after the failed mission, their faces silent.

Undoubtedly, despite the difficulty not being high.

They had failed!

From the perspective of the infiltration plan, the first half was executed perfectly, with no living soul discovering their whereabouts.

But in the end, a single oversight amidst a hundred precautions occurred; they thought their great undertaking was complete and lowered their guard.

The strongest castles are always broken from within.

And if that were all, it would have been fine; after all, transitioning from stealth to Musou (hack-and-slash) was something they were very familiar with.

The key was that this car dealership heist mission was completely different from anything they had encountered before.

This mission was quite complex.

It could be described as one link after another, and precisely because of this, their first heist met with a crushing defeat.

(End of Chapter) <>