A Common Man

Link moved quickly. Everyone's attention was on the yacht, and by the time he had finished, none of them had noticed him.

Carefully lowering the man, Link climbed down from the rear bed and went to the open car door, standing beside the driver.

Sensing someone beside him, the man instinctively turned his head and said, "George, you..."

Link swung a fist into his face, knocking him back into the driver's seat. Then he grabbed his neck and slammed the back of his head against the car before shoving him into the seat.

At this point, there were still two cars and seven people ahead of Link. He switched off the safety on his pistol. Given his accuracy, he could not possibly take out all seven with one shot, so he did not fire immediately.

Link had some guesses about these people's identities. Anyone who could keep doing something like this without being discovered was most likely someone with status and influence. Link could not let them live.

Even if they were sent to prison, he and his family would still face thunderous retaliation. It would be better if they all died and no one knew he had done it, rather than trying to escape and call the police.

This place was in the middle of nowhere. There were no phones, no cell phone tracking, and no dense surveillance coverage. As long as he cleaned things up properly, no one might even know he had passed through this road. It would be difficult to trace him.

If these people died, their families might investigate like mad, or they might not bother spending too much effort and eventually let the matter fade away. Even if they did investigate, the chances of it leading back to him were extremely low.

But if he let them live, retaliation was certain. The choice was simple, wasn't it?

Carefully approaching the back of the group, Link holstered his pistol and grabbed two men by the heads, slamming them together. With a dull thud, both men crumpled to the ground, leaving only five.

After thinking it over, Link suddenly charged forward.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

All five men were instantly knocked to the ground.

Afterward, Link searched them and found more pistols, bows and arrows, machetes, night vision goggles, and Walkie-Talkies. He kept what he needed on him.

Then Link snapped the necks of the men he had knocked unconscious earlier, one by one. He dragged them aside and found spare gasoline in the cars.

Since the surrounding area was all wilderness, the cars naturally carried spare gasoline. Link gathered it, opened the fuel tanks, and was about to pour gasoline over the corpses and cars, leaving only one vehicle for himself.

Just as Link took out the spare gasoline, he heard gunshots from afar. Clearly, that family was not faring well.

Sighing inwardly, Link was about to continue when he noticed headlights. A car was coming this way. An idea came to him, and he put down the gasoline, driving the vehicle he had kept toward it.

Seeing Link's car approach, the other vehicle slowed down. The man in the rear bed waved and called out, "Hey, how's it going over there?"

Link held the steering wheel with his left hand and drew his pistol from its holster with his right. As he came side by side with the other driver, he shot him in the head. Then, before the man in the rear bed could do more than stare in shock, Link raised the muzzle slightly and shot him in the head as well.

The distance between them was close enough, and Link's moderately accomplished marksmanship ensured his accuracy.

Moderately accomplished might not have sounded impressive, but it was already an extremely high level. According to Robert's assessment, with some professional training, Link could be considered a sharpshooter.

After dealing with these enemies, Link suddenly abandoned the idea of setting the fire right away.

It was his first time dealing with something like this, so it was inevitable that he had not considered everything thoroughly. Link had suddenly realized that setting a fire now might draw the attention of the others and bring them all over here. That would be a terrible thing. It would be better to eliminate everyone first, then dispose of everything at once.

Driving closer to the lake, Link came across another group chasing the family. They had two cars and four people. The one being pursued was Bobby, the teenage boy around Link's age.

Several arrows were embedded in his body, though none had struck vital areas. He screamed as he struggled to run away.

This group was clearly made up of twisted people. They had aimed at places that would not kill quickly, such as the arms and abdomen, just so they could enjoy the killing. But with Bobby's injuries, he would likely bleed to death before long.

Seeing this, Link turned the wheel and approached one of the cars from the side.

The man in its rear bed held a bow and shouted unhappily, "Hey, if you want to join in, you need our permission first... Huh?"

Just as he sensed that something was wrong, Link pulled even with the vehicle. He raised his right hand and shot the driver in the head, then slammed on the brakes and shot the man in the rear bed in the head as well.

At that moment, a Walkie-Talkie crackled. "Hey, who's shooting? Didn't we agree that guns weren't allowed during the hunt?"

Link sneered inwardly and quickly closed in on the other car, dispatching those two men in the same manner. He did not bother with Bobby, who was still struggling on the edge of death, and instead headed in another direction.

Since setting the fire immediately was not a good idea and could easily put these people on alert, Link intended to eliminate them all first, then dispose of the bodies and evidence together. He needed to move quickly, lest the delay make the others realize something was wrong.

After searching for a while, Link found another group near the woods.

These people were gathered in a circle. At the center was Ethel, the police officer's wife. She begged and cried, but several people held her down.

Link stopped the car some distance away, circled around, and approached the group from farther off.

The woods were not especially dense, and Link's movements were far from professional. Yet when he appeared beside the group, no one paid him any attention.

Clearly, all their attention was focused on the detective's wife, who was struggling desperately. They also regarded this place as their playground, so they naturally let down their guard.

From their voices, Link recognized several familiar accents. They should have been the people responsible for transporting the victims earlier. There were six people in three cars.

Perhaps to vent their desires, most of them had taken off their clothes. When men were doing certain things, their attention became highly focused, making their reactions to the outside world slow and dull. To Link, they posed no threat at all.

Without hesitation, Link pulled out his pistol and picked them off one by one. Before long, all six were dead.

Next, Link looked at the detective's wife, who had not yet recovered and was still crying out. He stood there, hesitating for quite some time.

If he let her live, she could easily tell the outside world that he had done this. Bobby would probably die on his own if left alone, but the woman before him was different. She had no serious external injuries.

Link considered it for a long while. In the end, he raised his pistol, aimed at her head, gritted his teeth, and pulled the trigger.

Afterward, looking at the lifeless bodies, Link felt as though he had lost something. At the same time, he mocked himself inwardly:

I only wanted to survive. If you didn't die, you might bring unimaginably brutal retaliation upon me in the future. Perhaps someday, when I possess enough power that I no longer need to fear retaliation, I will choose to save people.

But right now, I have not grown strong enough to ignore these people's revenge, nor can I bear the consequences of it. So I can only say I'm sorry. In the end, I'm just an ordinary man.

Getting back into the car, Link did the math. So far, he had taken out twenty-four people and eleven cars. He had probably dealt with more than half of them already. He had no idea whether the remaining people had noticed that something was wrong.