Falsely Accused, I Started Plundering Monster Traits

A massive head slowly lifted from the grass.

Lin Yan finally understood what he had been walking toward.

"That’s a bear?"

[Yes.]

The animal turned its head toward him. One dark eye fixed on Lin Yan while the other remained buried beneath a thick mass of scar tissue, and half of its left ear was simply gone.

Then it began to rise.

Its forelegs pushed beneath its body first, lifting a broad chest out of the grass. More of the gray-black fur came into view with every movement, along with old scars crossing its shoulders and ribs. Several broken arrow shafts protruded from its back, buried so deeply that the flesh had long since healed around them.

Lin Yan’s head gradually tilted upward.

The bear passed three meters.

Then four.

It was still rising.

By the time it finally stood fully upright, nearly four and a half meters of scarred muscle and filthy fur towered over him.

Lin Yan remained where he was, staring up at it.

[Only a somewhat oversized brown bear.]

A translucent panel appeared beside the animal.

[Target Identified.]

[The Man-Eater of Blackridge.]

[Species: Brown Bear.]

[Confirmed Human Kills: 437.]

Lin Yan looked from the last line to the bear towering above him.

"...Somewhat?"

"RRRRAAAAGH!"

Saliva and scraps of bloody meat sprayed from the bear’s jaws with the roar, the sound rolling across the pasture so deep that Lin Yan felt it vibrate through his chest.

The ground seemed to shake beneath its first stride.

"Fuck." Lin Yan snapped the rifle up just as the animal charged.

BANG!

The recoil kicked the muzzle high, throwing the first round into the dirt beside the charging bear. Lin Yan forced it back down almost immediately, Brawn overpowering the recoil while Agility brought the weapon back onto target—but the bear had already torn through nearly half the distance between them.

The second round punched into its chest without slowing it.

Lin Yan immediately held the trigger down.

Gunfire tore across the pasture.

The XM8 thundered in his hands as the remaining rounds poured out, brass spinning through the air beside him while bullets hammered into the bear’s chest, shoulders and forelegs. Blood spread rapidly through the filthy gray-black fur, but the animal kept charging through it until several impacts struck almost together across one shoulder.

Its front leg collapsed.

The bear crashed shoulder-first into the ground and rolled through the grass, throwing dirt and torn vegetation into the air before its massive body finally came to a stop.

Silence returned almost as suddenly as the shooting had started.

For several seconds, the bear didn’t move.

The last echoes of gunfire faded across the pasture. Lin Yan slowly lowered the rifle.

"...That’s it?"

[No.]

His eyes flicked toward the corner of his vision.

No reward.

"Right."

Lin Yan dropped the empty magazine, shoved in another and chambered a round the way Claire had shown him. Twenty-five shots had put the thing down, but apparently that wasn’t the same as killing it.

He aimed at the body and fired once.

The bear exploded off the ground.

"FUCK!"

Lin Yan’s hands jerked so hard the muzzle swung off target. The animal lunged forward on three working legs, blood pouring from its chest as it hurled itself toward him with a burst of speed that shouldn’t have been possible anymore.

He forced the rifle back onto target and fired again.

The second round struck the bear squarely in the skull.

Its head snapped sideways and the entire body collapsed with it, momentum carrying the carcass several meters through the grass before it finally stopped.

A chime sounded.

[Target eliminated.]

[Hunt Task complete.]

[3,000 Points awarded.]

Lin Yan kept the rifle trained on the corpse for another few seconds before finally lowering it.

"...It was playing dead?"

His heart was still hammering from that last charge as he stared at the enormous body in the grass.

That size, that strength, and it was smarter than a Gorak on top of it.

Ten Goraks might not have been enough.

His gaze dropped to the XM8 in his hands.

Fuck, guns were awesome.

[Trait Plunder triggered.]

The notification pulled his attention back to the System.

[Trait obtained: Willpower II.]

[Quality: Green.]

"...Willpower?"

[Effect: Greatly strengthens the user’s ability to maintain conscious control over both mind and body. Fear, pain, exhaustion, emotional impulses, and other influences that would normally distort judgment or force the user to stop can be suppressed through sheer will. At its limits, the user can continue acting even after the body has been pushed beyond its normal physiological limits.]

Lin Yan read it once, then glanced at the deep furrows the bear had torn through the ground during its final charge.

"...That’s its strongest Trait?"

[Yes.]

That answer made his gaze drift back over the corpse, this time settling on the broken arrows buried beneath layers of old scar tissue. Some of them were so old that the flesh had completely healed around the shafts.

That made sense.

"System, could Willpower keep Trollblood from fucking with my head?"

[Possibly.]

"Possibly?"

[The interaction cannot be confirmed without equipping both Traits.]

Lin Yan thought about it.

"System, if I equip Trollblood and Willpower doesn’t keep my head straight, can you take Trollblood off for me?"

[Yes.]

"Even if I tell you not to?"

[If you authorize it in advance.]

Thinking back, Lin Yan hadn’t once considered taking Trollblood off after equipping it. At the time, that had seemed perfectly reasonable. It was his strongest Trait. Why would he take it off?

Only now did he see the problem.

Trollblood made him obsessed with getting stronger.

Trollblood also made him stronger.

That’s a fucking feedback loop.

"Fine. If Willpower doesn’t work, take it off."

[Authorization recorded.]

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