Falsely Accused, I Started Plundering Monster Traits

The military Humvee made its way down the street, bouncing whenever it rolled over a crack or pothole. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it was still a hell of a lot faster than running the whole way on foot like they had before.

Lin Yan sat in the passenger seat, the M2 wedged diagonally between the seat and the door, taking up a good chunk of the already cramped space.

The back was basically packed solid.

One response unit member was driving, Lin Yan had the passenger seat, and the other nine were all crammed into the rear compartment. It would’ve been close to full with normal passengers alone, never mind the five Church members, each of them wearing a full suit of metal armor.

The two heavy machine guns they’d brought from the Garage had been mounted on the roof, while the grenade launcher, anti-armor rounds, and several boxes of linked ammo were stuffed wherever they could fit—at their feet, between the seats, and into every other bit of space they could find.

Eleven people and all that gear were crammed into a single Humvee. The back was basically a sardine can. Anyone who wanted to move had to get the person next to them to make room first.

Lin Yan glanced back and couldn’t help cursing inwardly.

So damn stingy.

All these people, all this gear, and that old fox was only willing to lend them one vehicle.

It wasn’t until they left the Garage that Lin Yan realized just how young the volunteers were. The oldest looked barely in his twenties, and the other two were even younger. They looked like they hadn’t been out of training for very long.

Lin Yan couldn’t help getting curious.

"Hey, guys. We left in a hurry earlier, so I never got the chance to ask."

No one had been talking to begin with. A bunch of people who barely knew each other were crammed into one vehicle, so the atmosphere was a little awkward. Lin Yan’s voice finally broke the silence.

He glanced back at the two of them and asked with a straight face,

"You guys really volunteered?"

The two young men exchanged a look. The one closest to him quickly sat up a little straighter, his expression turning serious too.

"Yeah. We signed up ourselves. Why? Is there a problem?"

"No. Just checking."

Lin Yan leaned back in his seat.

"We’re going after a Dragon, after all. I was worried your boss might’ve run some secret lottery behind my back and picked a few unlucky bastards to shove into the Humvee."

"No. The boss made it very clear. Volunteers only."

"Mm." Lin Yan glanced back at the two of them again.

"So why’d you sign up?"

The one closest to him seemed caught off guard by the question. After a brief pause, he answered seriously,

"I heard you were going to kill the Dragon. Figured I couldn’t just hide in the Garage doing nothing while all of you went."

The younger guy beside him clearly hadn’t thought that much about it.

"And if we actually kill the Dragon, that’s something you can brag about for the rest of your life, right?"

Lin Yan looked around at them and suddenly understood why all the volunteers were so young.

If you swapped them out for old hands who’d been at this for over a decade, with wives and kids waiting for them outside, they’d probably clam up the second they heard the word volunteer, afraid even looking at the person in charge for too long might somehow count as signing up.

These guys, though.

One figured things had already gotten this bad, so he couldn’t just keep hiding in the Garage doing nothing. The other was already wondering how long he’d be able to brag about it afterward.

So they really were just a bunch of hot-blooded kids.

Apparently they weren’t extinct yet.

Lin Yan thought about that for a moment, then said casually,

"All right. If we really run into it later, stay in the back and keep dealing damage. You’ve played MOBAs before, right? Just think of yourselves as ADCs. Stay as far back as you can."

Someone in the back answered almost immediately.

"Yes, sir."

The other nodded too.

"Understood, sir."

Lin Yan paused and looked back at them.

"Don’t call me sir. I’m not your superior."

The two of them hesitated, clearly unsure what they were supposed to call him instead.

Lin Yan waved a hand. "Forget it. Call me whatever comes naturally. Just remember one thing—if we run into the Dragon, stay in the back and keep shooting. Don’t let the adrenaline go to your head."

The driver beside him spoke up.

"Which way?"

Only then did Lin Yan turn his attention back to the map.

After the Convergence, the roads around here no longer matched the old Fairmont layout. Some streets had sprouted intersections out of nowhere, while other buildings had been jammed together with the black-stone houses from the other side. The map was only useful for getting a general sense of direction now.

He pulled out the compass and checked their heading.

"Left at the next intersection."

The driver looked at the street ahead, almost half-blocked by rubble.

"You sure?"

"Probably."

"..."

"What’s with that look? The roads are like this now. How am I supposed to be sure?"

The driver turned the wheel anyway.

The Humvee turned onto another street. Every now and then, a rotter wandered out of the thick fog, and the driver didn’t even touch the brakes. He just kept going.

A rotter was standing right in the middle of the road. The Humvee hit it head-on, sending it rolling up onto the hood before it tumbled off one side. A second later, the rear wheel rolled right over it.

The vehicle gave a small bump.

Lin Yan leaned back in the passenger seat and glanced through the side mirror at the lump of mangled flesh disappearing behind them. This ride was getting better and better.

Before, whenever he ran into one of these things, he had to deal with it himself. Now they could just run them over and keep going.

Nice.

Another intersection soon appeared ahead. Lin Yan glanced down at the compass in his hand and was about to give the driver another direction when a burst of rapid gunfire suddenly came from somewhere in the distance.

A burst of rifle fire carried through the thick fog. It stopped for only a few seconds before another, even heavier burst followed, mixed with the deep boom of a shotgun.

The driver eased off the gas, brought the vehicle to a stop, and turned to Lin Yan.

"Keep going."

They still had something important to do. Even if someone up ahead really was pinned down by rotters, there was no reason to go out of their way to get involved.

Marcus spoke from the back. "Boss, we still don’t know whether Reeves and the others are alive or dead. Could that be them?"

Lin Yan opened his mouth, ready to say there was no fucking way anyone could’ve survived that dragon breath coming down right on top of them. But he stopped before the words came out.

Thinking about it, maybe he really couldn’t be that sure.

Hell, there’d even been a guy who survived both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Reeves and the others had been caught in the dragon breath, but Lin Yan had run faster than anyone at the time, and afterward he hadn’t had the guts to go back and check for survivors. So technically, nobody really knew whether they were alive or dead. Who knew? Maybe a few of them really were that hard to kill.

Besides, they had a vehicle now. Going over to check wouldn’t take much time, and if things looked bad, they could just floor it and leave.

Lin Yan clicked his tongue and looked toward the gunfire.

"Fine. Let’s go take a look."

Only then did the driver turn the wheel, and the Humvee followed the sound of gunfire through the streets. The closer they got, the clearer the shots became through the fog. When they finally rounded the next corner, the scene ahead came into view.

A dozen or so rotters were crowding around several cars that had crashed together, with more closing in from both sides of the street. Only three people were trapped in the middle. A large Black man stood at the front with a shotgun, and every time it boomed, a rotter that got too close was blasted off its feet; on the other side, a woman leaned against a car door, firing controlled shots as her muzzle tracked from one approaching target to the next; the last man, a white man, had fallen back to the rear of the vehicle and was quickly swapping in a fresh magazine while the other two held off the rotters in front.

Lin Yan froze as he stared at the three faces.

Marcus had actually been right. Someone really had survived that dragon breath.

And three of them had.

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