Falsely Accused, I Started Plundering Monster Traits

Marcus kept his eyes on the Church’s tightly shut doors through the windshield and nodded.

"Just trust the boss."

He sounded completely certain. By this point, Lin Yan had proven more than once that if he said he could handle something, then he could handle it. All they had to do was make sure they didn’t add to his problems.

Just then, the windshield wiper swept across the glass, briefly clearing his view.

Marcus suddenly froze.

Above the Church, a single line of rain that should have fallen straight down abruptly bent to one side in midair.

He narrowed his eyes.

The wiper swept past again, and this time Marcus saw it clearly. Countless raindrops falling toward the Church were changing direction in midair, as if striking some enormous invisible curve and sliding away along its surface.

"Wait..."

Before he could finish, a faint layer of light appeared around the Church and rapidly spread upward along the curve outlined by the rain, finally meeting high above and enclosing the entire Church.

Every sound inside the Humvee stopped.

For a moment, no one said anything. They just stared through the windshield. The rain was still falling, but every drop headed toward the Church was now being blocked by the barrier, sliding down the massive curved surface. From a distance, it looked as though the entire Church had been cut off behind the curtain of rain.

Nick was the first to get a word out. "What the fuck..."

Marcus snapped out of it, grabbed the radio, and pressed the transmit button. "Lin, can you hear me?"

Only silence answered.

"Lin?"

Marcus released the button and stared at the radio for a moment, waiting, but there was still no response. He frowned and pressed it again. "Lin, if you can hear me, answer."

Still nothing.

Marcus couldn’t sit still any longer. He shoved the door open, jumped out, and hurried through the rain toward the barrier.

Rain hit him full in the face. He reached the barrier and pressed a hand against it, only to find that the seemingly insubstantial light was as solid as a wall.

He pushed against it twice. It didn’t budge. He stepped back, raised his rifle, and slammed the stock into it.

A faint ripple spread across the barrier, then vanished without a trace.

Marcus refused to give up and struck it several more times, but the result was always the same.

He stood there in front of the barrier, slowly lowering his rifle. A crushing sense of unease suddenly surged through him, so strong it made his chest tighten.

Rain streamed down his face. The faint barrier in front of him hadn’t changed in the slightest. The Church was only a few yards away, its doors still right there, yet somehow it now looked as though it existed somewhere else entirely.

Marcus drew a deep breath and forced himself to look away from the barrier.

Marcus, calm down. You need to calm down...

The last time a barrier like this had appeared, the heretics had been nearby.

He turned and carefully scanned the rain and fog around the Church, checking every place someone might be hiding.

Where are the heretics?

Marcus tightened his grip on his rifle and searched everything he could see again and again, but there was no sign of them. Then he heard a car door open behind him.

"Marcus."

Marcus turned at the sound. Rochelle had gotten out of the Humvee, but she wasn’t looking at him. She was standing beside the vehicle, staring in another direction. Marcus followed her gaze and only then noticed the mass of blurry figures that had appeared in the fog.

The nearest ones were just clear enough to make out as individual figures stumbling forward, while farther back they had almost merged into one continuous mass. More and more shapes emerged from the fog, until the road and the open ground on both sides of the Church were filled with slowly approaching rotters as far as he could see—and still more silhouettes kept appearing deeper in the mist.

"They’re here," Rochelle said quietly.

No one answered. For a moment, the only sound around the Humvee was the rain, while more and more figures continued to emerge from the fog.

Then Nick pushed open the door and climbed out, raising his gun and clicking off the safety.

"Good news. At least we don’t have to worry about getting bored out here."

"You’re still joking?" Rochelle gave him an exasperated look.

"What else am I supposed to do?" Nick gestured toward the horde with his gun. "Cry a little? It’s not like they’ll spare us."

Coach ignored Nick’s joke and gave their surroundings a quick look. "We can still get out. The road isn’t blocked yet. Give it much longer, though, and that might change."

The two response unit members who had been standing guard quickly climbed back into the Humvee, then emerged through the roof firing positions and each took hold of one of the heavy machine guns. Their teammate in the driver’s seat had already started the vehicle. The two heavy machine guns slowly swung toward the rotters closing in around the Church, but neither opened fire.

Coach took it all in, then turned to Marcus.

"Marcus, we need to make a decision. Now."

Marcus swallowed, but for a long moment, he couldn’t speak.

The others fell silent. Nick, Coach, Rochelle, and the response unit members in the Humvee were all looking at him now. No one rushed him, but that somehow made it worse.

Marcus had never been in this position before. A day ago, he had still been just a student. The hardest decisions he’d ever faced were ordinary student problems—what classes to take, whether to stay up another night studying, what he was going to do after graduation. Those choices had felt hard enough at the time. Some had even kept him awake at night.

None of them had ever involved someone else’s life.

Before this, all Marcus had ever needed to do was listen to the boss. If Lin said fight, they fought. If Lin said go, they went. Only now, with everyone waiting for him to speak, did Marcus finally understand what those simple orders had really carried.

If the boss were here, what would he do?

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