Surprise, Departure

"Then let them take down that monster first. After that, use your summon to snatch the rewards it drops. But before that, figure out the newcomers' location and numbers."

After getting a general grasp of the situation, Wang Zhifan gave this suggestion to the Short-Haired Girl in front of him.

His reasoning was that since the rewards dropped by Gray Domain Monsters belonged to no one, it was not necessarily a bad thing that the others were willing to shoot the monster. They could simply wait until the monster was dead and the rewards had dropped before taking them.

Of course, facing a Gunner player who seemingly possessed high-powered firearms, Wang Zhifan, who was only Lv1, was not arrogant enough to rush out and challenge them directly. As a miserable melee fighter, picking a fight with someone capable of long-range burst damage was far too dangerous. It was better to leave treasure-snatching to the girl, whose summon possessed natural physical immunity.

"I'll give it a try."

The Short-Haired Girl did not object to Wang Zhifan's suggestion. She, too, could sense some threat coming from outside the Bus and wanted to obtain as many rewards as possible.

Thus, for the time that followed, neither of them left the Bus. Instead, they hid completely inside it to avoid being noticed by the Gunner outside.

Wang Zhifan crouched between the seats, carefully peering through the corner of a window at the situation outside. Meanwhile, the Short-Haired Girl remotely controlled her summon to continue attacking the huge monster that had been struck by the sniper round, seemingly intending to create the illusion that two Gray Domain Monsters were fighting each other outside.

A few seconds later, another deafening gunshot rang out. The powerful bullet instantly blasted through one of the huge monster's lower limbs. At the same time, Wang Zhifan saw a large hole appear in the body of the Short-Haired Girl's Long-Haired Female Ghost summon! It seemed that the bullet had pierced through both targets in one shot!

"Oh no! That person has Spirit Body Bullets!"

The Short-Haired Girl cried out in alarm nearby. She immediately controlled her badly injured summon to flicker and return directly to her side.

"Hide quickly. We've probably been exposed."

Seeing this, Wang Zhifan stopped even trying to peek outside. He immediately crawled beneath the Bus seat beside him, lest the skilled Gunner outside realize something was wrong and pick him off from afar.

This perfectly demonstrated just how advantageous ranged classes were. As a Blade Warrior, Wang Zhifan could only hide at a time like this. He did not dare show his head for even half a second, or he might lose his life at any moment.

The inside of the Bus soon fell silent, but the deafening gunfire outside the windows did not stop.

Had Wang Zhifan continued looking through the window, he would have discovered that the Gunner player who had come to disrupt things was not paying much attention to their Bus at all. While hiding somewhere and continuously firing at the thick-skinned huge monster, the Gunner had released a Goshawk-like creature to circle above the monster's head, seemingly waiting for an opportunity.

Throughout this process, the two inside the Bus, who had originally wanted to protect their rewards, did not even dare breathe loudly, much less take a glance outside.

Finally, more than ten seconds later, accompanied by the thunderous sound of a massive monster collapsing, the gunfire outside stopped completely. Only several shrill Goshawk cries remained. The cries first sounded near the Bus, then from above it, before quickly fading into the distance.

Wang Zhifan had already prepared himself for the Gunner outside to come looking for them. Even the pounding in his chest had grown more intense. But then he suddenly noticed some familiar things appear before his eyes, and surprise crept onto his face.

A few seconds later, the roar of car engines and the screech of brakes suddenly sounded outside the Bus. This was followed by a series of uniform door-opening sounds. Then, amid a disorderly yet somewhat coordinated rhythm of footsteps, a man's booming voice rang out:

"First team, surround the scene!"

"Second team, prepare to move out!"

"Third team, prepare to evacuate the trapped civilians!"

After the man's booming commands came several loud responses from both men and women:

"First team, received!"

"Second team, received!"

"Third team, received!"

Such an extraordinary display immediately made Wang Zhifan, who was hiding beneath a Bus seat and pondering something, realize that the Official Special Administration Bureau of the Xia Kingdom had arrived.

His tense state of mind immediately eased somewhat, though he still had no idea what kind of treatment awaited him. He hesitated over whether he should crawl out from beneath the seat.

But he did not have to hesitate for long. Several people soon jumped in through the Bus windows at once, and within seconds, a gleaming black gun barrel was thrust beneath the seat where he was hiding, pointed directly at him.

"You. Extend both hands and crawl out slowly."

Although the newcomer pointed a gun directly at his head, Wang Zhifan saw the official uniform they wore and quickly complied, crawling out from beneath the seat.

At the same time, he saw that the Short-Haired Girl had also been found by the officials near the seats in the rear corner of the Bus.

These official players from the Special Administration Bureau worked with remarkable efficiency. After finding the two of them, they opened the Bus doors and began swiftly transferring all the passengers who had fallen into a wooden, motionless state.

When Wang Zhifan and the Short-Haired Girl were escorted off the Bus by one of the officials, Wang Zhifan also saw several people who looked like Researchers using syringes to collect something from the huge monster's corpse outside.

However, he had no chance to investigate these matters closely, because he and the Short-Haired Girl were soon taken into a car and driven out of the Gray Domain.

Other than the driver, there was only one young female official in their car. The woman appeared quite friendly, and as the car moved, she took the initiative to speak with them.

"Don't worry, you two. Once you've completed the incident report, you'll be free to go."

"First, let me introduce myself. My name is He Qianqian. I'm an investigator with the Special Administration Bureau, and also a Lv12 player."

"Could you tell me in detail what happened to you just now?"

Under the young woman's gentle gaze, Wang Zhifan and the Short-Haired Girl took turns recounting what had happened. They described the entire process of the Bus encountering the Gray Domain, including entering the Gray Domain, being attacked by monsters, killing the monsters, and the Gunner's interference.

What they did not know was that near the block where the Gray Domain invasion had originally occurred, a tall, thin man wearing Glasses was quietly moving away from the area while frowning in confusion and thinking, Why didn't I get any rewards after killing a Gray Domain Monster? Has my luck really become this terrible?