Chapter 403 - 186: Drone

Chapter 403: Chapter 186: Drone

Xu Mo slowed down and drove into the small town.

The town looked as if it had been abandoned for a long time. There were no lights, no human voices, and no signs of life.

However, Xu Mo didn’t let his guard down. He drove around, making a rough sweep of the town.

The streets were narrow, blocked in places by abandoned vehicles. After driving through the entire town, Xu Mo confirmed one thing: there were no survivors.

At least, there were no obvious signs of survivor activity.

Xu Mo recalled the signs of creature activity he’d seen on the road. The chaotic footprints and shredded animal remains weren’t far from this town—a dozen kilometers at most.

With creatures active nearby, the town wasn’t exactly safe. The survivors had either evacuated, were hiding somewhere more concealed, or...

Xu Mo shook his head, refusing to dwell on it.

Xu Mo chose a two-story building for his temporary camp. Its location was relatively concealed, shielded by other structures, and the building itself was still mostly intact.

Most importantly, it had a rooftop platform that would let him survey the area.

Xu Mo carried his gear bag to the second floor. A few of the rooms up there had once been living quarters, but now they contained nothing but some dilapidated furniture and a thick layer of dust.

After resting for the night, Xu Mo decided to search the town during the day and continue his journey the next morning.

However, his search during the day yielded little. The town had clearly been picked over by many others; anything of value had been almost completely stripped away.

Xu Mo searched over a dozen shops and homes, only finding a few expired cans of food and some damp crackers. He took what was still edible and left the rest.

That evening, Xu Mo grabbed a small pot and some ingredients from his car and went up to the rooftop.

The roof was a flat concrete platform encircled by a low wall. Xu Mo found a spot to set up his pot. As the fire flickered to life, its orange glow illuminated a small patch of the darkness.

Flames licked the bottom of the pot, and steam slowly began to rise from the water. Xu Mo sat by the fire, staring into the dancing flames, lost in thought. A flood of memories came back to him.

Just as the water in the pot began to boil, Xu Mo’s ears twitched. A faint sound had reached him.

The sound was soft and distant—a low hum, like some kind of machinery in operation.

Xu Mo’s gaze sharpened instantly. He looked up at the night sky.

Over two hundred meters above him, a small, dark shape hung in the air. It was perfectly still, almost blending into the night. If not for the faint hum, and if Xu Mo’s hearing weren’t far beyond that of a normal person, he never would have spotted it.

It was a drone!

The drone was medium-sized, with what looked like a camera mounted beneath its fuselage. It simply hovered in the night sky, a silent observer watching Xu Mo on the rooftop as if it had every right to be there.

Xu Mo’s gaze met the drone’s camera lens. He knew he was being watched.

’Looks like there are survivors in this town after all,’ Xu Mo thought.

The drone didn’t move, continuing to hover overhead as if waiting to see what he would do next.

The silence lasted for ten-odd seconds before Xu Mo spoke. "Friend, this is awfully impolite."

In the apocalypse, being watched from a distance by someone who wouldn’t identify themselves never sat well with anyone.

Xu Mo expected his words would get some kind of reaction—either the drone would leave, or someone would speak through its speaker. But it remained defiant, continuing to hover in place with its camera trained on him, showing no sign of leaving.

Xu Mo frowned. He stood up from the fire, picked up the AK-47 leaning against the low wall, and gestured with it at the drone overhead. It was an unmistakable warning: leave, or I’ll shoot.

Most people, seeing that, would have recalled their drone. After all, drones were valuable. It wasn’t worth risking one getting shot down just to spy on a stranger, especially not in the apocalypse.

But not only did the drone not leave, it actually descended about ten meters. Then, it began to wobble erratically.

It was an incredibly provocative maneuver, as if to say, "Go on, try and hit me. You can’t."

Watching the wobbling drone, Xu Mo’s eyes grew cold.

He hadn’t wanted to cause trouble, but this attitude was no longer simple observation. It was a blatant provocation.

BANG!

The gunshot shattered the night’s silence. Xu Mo hadn’t hesitated for a second. The moment the drone started wobbling, he had raised his rifle and fired a short burst.

The bullets struck the drone with perfect accuracy. Its body lurched, the rotors stopped spinning, and it spiraled out of the night sky, crashing to the ground not far from the building with a muffled THUD.

Xu Mo lowered his rifle, glanced at the wreckage of the drone, and shook his head.

"What’s with these weirdo survivors? They just had to make me shoot."

With the drone dealt with, Xu Mo sat back down by the fire and went back to watching his soup. It had come to a boil, and its aroma drifted through the air.

Meanwhile, in a secluded, custom-built villa on the other side of town, a young man was staring at a monitor, his brow deeply furrowed.

The instant Xu Mo had opened fire, the image on the screen had dissolved into static.