Falsely Accused, I Started Plundering Monster Traits

Lin Yan’s voice came through the radio as fourteen goblins closed around him on the surveillance screen.

Marcus picked up his chipped axe.

"I’m going out there," he said. "Who’s coming with me?"

No one answered.

His gaze moved across the control room. Some people stared at the floor. Others kept their eyes fixed on the monitors, pretending not to have heard him.

Marcus gave a short, contemptuous scoff.

He turned toward the cabinet blocking the door.

"No need," Jason said.

Marcus looked back, a mocking reply already forming on his lips.

A heavy impact rolled through the station, sending a tremor through the floor. Then another followed.

Jason pointed at the monitor.

Marcus followed his finger—and stopped.

There had been fourteen goblins surrounding Lin Yan.

Now only seven remained.

They stood scattered across the platform. Between them lay severed limbs, broken bones and dark piles of flesh spread across the blood-soaked tiles.

Lin Yan stood at the center of the wreckage, the iron hammer lowered beside him.

Marcus’s expression went blank.

A goblin rushed forward with a stone axe raised over its head.

Lin Yan swung.

The hammer struck it squarely in the torso.

For an instant, the goblin vanished behind a dark burst. Its head spun away in one direction while the rest of its body broke apart in midair, scattering across the platform like debris thrown from a collision.

Something struck the wall beneath the camera.

The image shook, and a dark smear blurred one corner of the feed.

Marcus’s mouth fell open.

When he glanced around, he found the others staring at the screen with the same vacant expressions. One man still held a bottle halfway to his lips. A woman had both hands pressed against the console, leaning forward without seeming to realize it.

Another goblin disappeared beneath the hammer.

"I get it," someone murmured.

A young man near the back suddenly pushed through the crowd.

"I get it!"

Several people turned toward him.

"This is like a game," he said, his voice rising with excitement. "You kill the monsters, you get experience. You level up."

He pointed at Lin Yan.

"That’s what happened to him."

The idea took hold almost instantly. Anyone who had spent time online knew what experience and leveling meant.

The changes in Lin Yan were there for everyone to see.

"Then why didn’t he tell us?" someone asked.

"He came back half a head taller," another said. "He looks like a bullfrog pumped full of growth hormones."

"He ate half the food in here, slept until he recovered, then went out alone."

A bitter voice came from beside the wall.

"So he knew. He’s been keeping every kill for himself."

"That’s fucking selfish."

On the monitors, another goblin fell.

The remaining goblins finally broke. They threw away their weapons and scattered across the platform.

The young man who had proposed the theory stared at them.

"There are still some left."

Before Marcus could react, the young man tore the axe from his hand. Marcus’s fingers closed on empty air.

Another grabbed the fire extinguisher beside the wall. The third went straight for the cabinet, and the other two helped him force it away from the entrance. Then they pulled the door open.

The three young men rushed into the corridor. Everyone else remained inside.

Marcus watched them disappear through the doorway.

Have these guys lost their minds?

---

The last goblin fled down the platform.

Lin Yan closed the distance and swung.

Hearing the hammer tear through the air behind it, the goblin threw itself sideways. The iron head swept past its body by inches.

Lin Yan raised an eyebrow.

"Huh. You dodged that."

He raised the hammer again.

"You’re the first."

The goblin scrambled to its feet and fled.

Lin Yan caught up and swung a second time.

The goblin hurled itself forward again. This time, it was not fast enough.

The edge of the hammer caught it across the back of the hips.

Bone cracked wetly as its pelvis shattered. The goblin was thrown across the tiles and landed facedown, both legs twisted uselessly behind it.

Blood spread beneath its ruined lower body. A foul stench reached Lin Yan as urine and filth leaked across the floor.

The goblin did not scream.

It planted both hands against the tiles and continued dragging itself forward, leaving a dark, filthy trail behind it.

Lin Yan stared for a moment.

Holy shit, it can still crawl?

Lin Yan had seen something move like that before.

Years ago, he had hit a cockroach with a slipper and caught only its rear half. The abdomen burst under the blow. When he lifted the slipper, the crushed rear half rose with the sole for a moment before falling back onto the tile. Small pieces of pale tissue remained pressed into the grooves underneath. The tissue exposed inside the split shell was pale white.

The cockroach’s front legs kept moving. Their hooked ends scraped against the tile and pulled the crushed half of the body after them. Each pull carried it forward a few millimeters. Its antennae moved from side to side. When nothing came near, the legs slowed and the antennae continued moving on their own. When Lin Yan stepped closer and his shadow crossed the floor, the legs started pulling again.

He left it there overnight.

The next morning, it was several centimeters from where he had struck it. The exposed tissue had begun to dry, but the front half still responded. Its legs remained still until he approached. Then the antennae jerked, the legs caught against the floor, and the body began moving again.

By morning, the crushed abdomen gave off the sharp, fishy smell of decomposing protein, similar to rotten fish and spoiled meat. It was mixed with the odor of old grease and a faint smell of damp soil and mold. At close range, it caught at the back of his throat.

The goblin was moving the same way. Its lower body dragged uselessly behind it while its arms pulled it forward across the tiles.

He walked after it and raised the hammer for the final blow.

Rapid footsteps sounded behind him.

More?

Lin Yan turned toward the sound, the hammer still raised.

Three young men burst around the corner and stopped so abruptly that they nearly collided with one another. The man in front held Marcus’s chipped axe. Another carried a fire extinguisher. The third was empty-handed.

"Wait! Don’t attack!" the man with the axe shouted.

Lin Yan stopped, the hammer still raised.

"Why are you out here?"

None of them answered. Their eyes went past him to the goblin still dragging itself across the platform.

Lin Yan waited a moment. When none of them spoke, he turned back toward the goblin and began to bring the hammer down.

"Don’t kill it!" all three shouted at once.

The man with the axe stepped forward.

"Leave it to us."

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