Chapter 450: Chapter 350: Obtaining the Target and the Team Member with Ulterior Motives_2

When Zayne’s left foot stepped onto the floor inside the house, the boxes piled up under the stairs suddenly opened, startling him so much that he immediately withdrew the foot he had stepped into the room with and thought about turning around to run toward the courtyard entrance.

However, as soon as he turned, Third Brother beside him noticed his intention and directly grabbed his arm, then spoke to Zayne, "Being cautious is a good thing, but you need to have more courage. Don’t panic when you encounter a problem."

Reassured by Third Brother’s words, Zayne then turned around to check the situation in the room.

Had he not turned around, he would not have known, but somehow, the moment Zayne turned, he noticed the contents of the boxes that had been spread open, and he was momentarily dumbfounded by what the boxes contained.

Apart from the unopened boxes, the items in the opened ones were extremely tempting to both Zayne and Third Brother.

One box was filled with glittering gold, another contained sealed packs of military-grade reserve food, and yet another box surprisingly held firearms wrapped in oil paper.

Having seen the contents of these three boxes, Zayne and Third Brother became even more curious about what was inside the remaining boxes.

"Brother Three, what do you say?"

Seeing that Zayne was attracted by the items in the boxes, but still able to resist greed and ask for his opinion first, admiration shone in Third Brother’s eyes.

After struggling for a long time, Third Brother clenched his teeth and said to Zayne, "Do you remember the first thing the boss told us before we left? Don’t be curious, don’t be greedy. Our mission is to retrieve the item on the altar. We’ll ignore everything else for now; let’s get the objective in hand before anything else."

Hearing Third Brother’s admonition, Zayne looked reluctantly at the items in the boxes, and then, biting down hard on his resolve, he dashed into the room, grabbed the small tripod on the altar, and fled swiftly out of the room.

When Zayne charged into the room, Third Brother kept sweeping his gaze around, watching for any changes until Zayne had secured the mission item. Only after seeing Zayne run out of the room did Third Brother reluctantly give the boxes one last look and, with great reluctance, began pulling Zayne out to the yard.

Watching Zayne successfully retrieve the mission target from the room and both men safely return to the team, everyone let out a sigh of relief.

After Zayne carefully packed the small tripod into the pre-prepared box, the leader began to ask what else was inside the room.

Zayne hesitated, glancing at Third Brother. Guessing what Zayne was thinking, Third Brother shook his head and said directly, "Tell the truth."

After Third Brother’s prompt, Zayne relayed the scene he had encountered upon entering the room, and the contents revealed when the boxes had automatically opened.

When they heard that the unfolded boxes contained so many tempting items, everyone’s faces showed a greedy look.

"Third Brother, is what Zayne said true? Among the three opened boxes, is there really military rations?"

Hearing about the different contents of the three boxes, everyone ignored the gold and the firearms, but were most concerned about the seemingly least valuable military rations.

Everyone knew that if they were to rank the military rations of Blue Star, and if China’s military districts were dispersed, several of those districts would rank in the top positions.

Compared with China’s military rations, the rations of other countries’ militaries were nothing but dregs.

This ranking was not based on the highest-end military rations of each country, but on the commonly used ones by the entire army.

As for why the others were disregarding firearms and gold now, and instead prized military rations the most.

Isn’t it said in the apocalypse, ’If neighbors hoard food, I hoard guns, then the neighbors become my Granary’?"

But even so, everyone actually knew that in the apocalypse, the most important thing wasn’t firearms, but rather food.

Their current team’s combat strength isn’t low, and given they all have some connections instead of being unaffiliated wanderers, in this situation, firearms are far less important to them than military rations.

As for gold, there’s even less need to mention it. Once its currency attribute was removed, its material value, although not insignificant, had no efficient use in most small and medium-sized camps.

So in the majority of those camps, gold merely held a reserve value, with little practical use. Therefore, to them, while gold had some value, it was not of high worth since acquiring it required its conversion into cash before one could buy food. That’s why, even though it maintained some value, it wasn’t very high for them.

But military-grade rations were different. While most camps were gradually restoring basic living standards in terms of clothing, food, shelter, and transportation, returning with such rations—even if they couldn’t be exchanged for something satisfactory—eating them wasn’t a bad option.

In the majority of the camps, condiments had once again become scarce, and even though salt was expensive under the control of the Imperial Court, its price was kept within reach for ordinary people.

Yet aside from salt, whether it be sugar or soy sauce and vinegar, the prices of these seasonings deterred ordinary people.

Military rations now were not just simple compressed fried noodles, but rather bags with staple foods and a balanced mix of meat and vegetables, along with instant beverages, and even came with sugar, dried fruit, and chewing gum in the premade meal kits.

Although many novels exaggerate that just by taking out instant noodles, one can conquer anyone’s taste buds.

For the royal relatives, high officials in armor, instant noodles were at most a novelty. After all, there has always been a saying about not tiring of delicately prepared food.

The delicacies enjoyed by the wealthy in ancient times are unimaginable to the modern common person. Not to mention each one of the one hundred and eight dishes from the full Manchu-Han banquet was tastier than instant noodles.

So even if instant noodles were introduced to ancient times, they would at most strongly appeal to the lower and middle classes.

Military-grade rations were similar; they held an overwhelming attraction for ordinary people like them.

So when after hearing Zayne confirm that he had seen a box filled with military-grade rations in the room, several teammates looked towards the leader.

Noticing his team members’ gaze, the leader didn’t respond but had his own younger brother shoulder the tripod that was their mission objective, before saying to everyone, "We’ve got what we came for, it’s time to retreat."

Upon hearing the leader say this, a teammate with an anxious temperament immediately spoke up, "Boss, didn’t you hear what Zayne said about a big box of military rations in the room?"

The leader didn’t seem too bothered by the questioning tone of the teammate and simply responded, "I heard."

Hearing the leader’s casual response, the teammate’s tone rose another pitch, "You heard, so why don’t you..."

Before he could finish, the leader gave him an icy glance and interrupted without waiting for him to finish, "I am the captain. Unless you’re willing to bear all the consequences of mission failure and leave the mission, every action of the team during the mission needs to follow my orders."

The member wasn’t intimidated by the leader’s sudden assertiveness; instead, he directly spoke, "We’ve felt for a while now that you aren’t a competent captain. You choose missions without regard for the reward, and when it comes to scooping up some convenient spoils to supplement our mission, you disapprove.

We’ve already ascertained that this place is very safe, and those boxes in the room are within easy reach. ’Heaven presents the unwary with good fortune, but they fail to grasp it.’

Since we’ve already secured the mission target, all that’s left is to safely deliver the item back. Whether we’re there or not, the return journey will be the same.

If you don’t want us to take those goods, then we might as well leave the team. I’ve had enough of you already."

Hearing this, the leader wasn’t angry but rather interestedly asked, "Us? Tell me, who else is with you!"