Arcane Sniper [Matan’s Shooter]

“It was the sound that ostrich has been waving earlier! Over there!”

The ice ostrich were running in close range.

They were somewhat higher distances than where Leeha and Blaugrunn were.

Leenha silently loaded his musket-pistol.

Blaugrunn also silently began casting a teleportation spell.

‘I won’t let them escape this time.’

Leenha looked at Blaugrunn.

As soon as he nodded, Blaugrunn cast the teleportation.

Swoooosh-!

“Wha–?!”

“Whaa!”

“Just shout out loud, you annoying ostrichs!”

This time, they were immediately on the front two!

Leeha’s left hand and right hand aimed at each ostrich, and she pulled the trigger.

The grapeshot launched from both guns accurately hit the point where the neck and body of the ice ostrich were connected.

Crack!

With the sound alone, both ostrichs were shattered into pieces.

With a satisfying smile, Leenha vigorously blew the gunpowder smoke from the musket-pistol.

“Hoooo- Stay out of my way.”

“Don’t be too harsh on creatures that don’t even participate in monster waves.”

“Who is being harsh?! Finishing these quickly moving brats with one shot, one kill is a massive score.”

“Y-Yes, yes. I understand.”

Leeha wanted to scold Blaugrunn, but now wasn’t the time.

What if the corpse of the ice ostrich turned into ice, disappeared within 30 seconds or 1 minute after becoming a corpse?

‘There is a high possibility that this can occur.’ But they needed to loot their corpses right now. Leenha put his pistol on his hips and immediately searched for their corpses.

“…it’s gone.”

“What? Again?”

“What is this? What on earth is going on?” It’s been a mere 15 seconds since they had a chat with Blaugrunn. Can there be monsters that don’t even allow 20 seconds to obtain items?

‘It’s not impossible since it’s Middle Earth…

But the situation was beyond understanding.

All that was on the ground were countless small pieces of ice. Leenha kicked the ice pieces away.

After looking at the ice shards that glowed like mirrors under the sunlight, Leenha had another thought.

“Wait…..

Was it really that the body disappeared because I didn’t loot it within 30 seconds?

She wanted to verify this. Fortunately, there was one way she could confirm this.

“[Character Window]”

Name: Leeha / Race: Human

Job: Musketeer / Level: 219 (74.1%)

Title: Shadow Assassin / Achievement: 135

HP: 7,910(5,537)

MP: 2,295

Stats:
Strength 609(+524)
Agility 3,579(+1,292)
Intelligence 326(+275)
Constitution 291(+198)
Mind 125(+115)

Remaining Stat Points: 40

“I knew it…!”

“What exactly did you know?”

“I know my stats weren’t that high- ! But still!”The experience points didn’t increase! Despite only killing three monsters, these were beasts from the New Continent.

Moreover, this place, the Frozen Lands, is one of the most vicious terrains within the New Continent.

I could not determine the exact level of the Ice Ostriches, but given the difficulty of the hunt, it should have awarded a decent amount of experience points among the monsters of the New Continent.

‘Ramwhajeong said that the camp here was efficient enough to use his Mana Infusion.’

But not even a decimal point of experience points has moved?

There was only one fact I could predict from this result.

“They’re not dead.”

“What?”

“These ostriches… I’m not sure, but they weren’t killed by us.”

“What do you mean? If we didn’t kill them, then why are they dead?”

“I don’t know. But it’s clear. These weren’t hunted by us.”

Leeha looked around. If they didn’t kill these ostriches, then who did?

Chills ran down his spine, and she thought of Mr. and Mrs. Brown.

‘Did one of them snipe us? Or their kid?’

But she soon changed his thought. That wasn’t a logical conjecture.

Why would they have come all this way to interfere with Leeha’s hunt? Moreover, if they wanted to sabotage the hunt, they would have directly shot and killed Leeha or Blaugrunn.

“Then something must be with the ostriches…what a variety of creatures.”

“Now what will you do?”

“What can we do? We have to go. Ah, wait, I almost forgot to allocate my stats.”

Having greatly enjoyed the effect of leveling up, she entirely forgot about allocating stats.

Was she not being too careless, even for a person who just resolved to increase his intelligence slightly earlier?

Regretfully, Leeha invested all his stats into intelligence.

‘My intelligence is now 366. It feels like it significantly increased by 40 points.’

Leeha’s vision hadn’t drastically expanded, but she felt a bit clearer, as if she had rinsed his eyes with soothing eye drops, Leeha took a step yet again.

“That, you know.”

“Hmm? What is it, Blaugrunn-ssi?”

About an hour had passed since they resumed walking. As the snowstorm thickened and the cold winds blew over the land, just as Leeha was beginning to feel dull, Blaugrunn spoke.

“When we return to the Lair… I have to treat them better.”

“You mean who?”

“The Silver Dragon Tribe.”

“Silver?”

“They all live in frozen lands. They said how wonderful it would be if there was a Lair somewhere in the glacier… I would probably die of boredom if I had to live in a place like this.”

“Haha, Blaugrunn-ssi, you do have a sense of humor.”

A desolate place where even a dragon would experience profound boredom.

A land where grass barely managed to survive and the terrain was so flat that it seemed to lose focus.

‘She camped in such a place because the experience points are good?’

Leeha had a rough estimate of his ardent desire for leveling up.

What could have driven his to such an extent?

She couldn’t even dream that her ‘anger’ for not properly assisting Leeha’s sneak attack on Toon provoked his to this extent.

As the frozen snow adhered to the coat, and Jellypong blew the chilly air, breaking the ice, and advancing, Blaugrunn opened his mouth again.

This time, there was a seriousness in his voice.

“Leeha-ssi.”

“Yes?”

“Jump when I count three.”

“Suddenly? You don’t seem like you’re in a mood for-“

“One, two-“

“Ahhh!”

“- three! Lift-off!”

Whoosh!

Casting a spell on Leeha, Blaugrunn soared into the air.
“Wha?!”

Pop, pop, popping-!

Suddenly, jagged ice sprouting from the ground made Leeha’s eyes twitch. The place where Leeha had been was now filled with slightly short humans clutching icy spears.

Their surprise was brief. Their response was swift.

“That’s no ordinary human!”

“Everyone, transform! Ice Walrus!”

Ice——

Walrus——

“What the heck is this!”

Squinting against the radiant white snow reflecting sunlight, the gleaming shards of ice and the mint-colored light emanating from these creatures, Leeha closed his eyes.

However, even with his eyes shut tight, his hands were deftly reloading his musket and pistol.

“What are you doing! Freeze, or I’ll shoot!”

“[Great Barrier]. Setting up a defense first.”

With the sharpened senses of Leeha and his sidekick Blaugrunn, thanks to fine-tune adjustments, they were near invincible.

[Myong myong!]

This holds up even excluding Jellapung, who hasn’t been able to show off his prowess yet, and the upgraded ‘little one’.

However, Leeha, aiming his musket-pistol at them from about 10 meters above the ground, didn’t look happy.

“Hmm, Blaugrunn.”

“Yes?”

“Will our barrier also work on them?”

“Well, they are considerably larger than the Red Goats and other paleos we’ve encountered before?”

“Exactly. When have we last seen an animal like that? What was it?”

Looking down at the inhabitants of the snow-covered ground, Leeha realized these creatures were unfamiliar.

Compared to the boar paleos we’ve seen, was their skin tougher? Their thick skin seemed to ooze oil, probably strong enough to resist even the sharpest blade of most users.

“Ice, ice… cold places… not a polar bear- those tusks though…”

Each of them, larger than a giant user, had huge tusks pointed downward.

Leeha, scrutinizing their tusks, finally remembered the corresponding animal.

“Oh, oh! Walrus!”

This place is virtually the farthest north of the New Continent.

Naturally, it’s possible that it’s connected to the sea somewhere.

As Leeha clapped joyously, Blaugrunn gave him a look of disgust.

“You’re happy about that? Now, look at them closely-”

“Ice Walrus! Deactivate tusk mode.

The sight of them holding one tusk in each hand was the epitome of the giant warrior itself.

“And they’re behaving like this…”

Maybe the correct word for them would be giants in walrus skin?

The coarse, straight mustaches extending from beneath their noses, and the similarity of all of them being bald made them look like true warriors.

“From this little human, we sense a weird energy.”

“Understood. We will prepare carefully.” But as soon as he heard this, Leeha had to regain his composure.

That’s because even with Blaugrunn, if a battle ensued, the intimacy work would be washed away.

“Wait! Wait! We didn’t come here to fight!”

Leeha quickly threw up his arms in surrender.

He had to prove his peaceful intentions before anything else, not knowing what could happen if he pointed his gun at them.

“Preparing [Ice Age], plan to freeze all simultaneously.”

“Ay, Ay, Sir.”

They didn’t listen to a word Leeha said.

Bright blue mana grains were already accumulating in their bodies. Of course, turquoise mana grains were also gathering around Blaugrunn.

“What should we do, Leeha-ssi? Shall we respond first?”

Assuming no matter how formidable they are, they would not be able to cast magic faster than a dragon, Leeha had more than enough power to wipe out the five walrus paleos on the ground.

“No, no! Let’s wait. Ah, right! Ice Age! Ram Hwajung! You people, you know Ram Hwajung, right?”

Leeha hastily spat out the words. If they didn’t react to that, all he could do was run away.

Without proper adjustment of the coordinates due to the sudden gust of wind, it would take forever to come back if they ever turned back now!

“We are friends of Ram Hwajung! We came to kill the Ice Ostrich! We have already killed three of them!”

A flinch!

Despite ignoring the mention of Ram Hwajung, their reaction was triggered by the words “Ice Ostrich.”

“Did you really kill the Ice Ostrich?”

“Well, we killed… not sure if we killed them, but we succeeded in attacking them on our way here!”

In a desperate attempt to explain himself, Leeha pointed and gestured wildly.

There was a brief commotion among the walrus paleos, but their expressions turned resolute quickly.

“That’s impossible. Humans simply can’t catch up to the speed of the Ice Ostrich. To have killed them without even being able to restrain their main bodies? An utter lie.”

“The main body? No, anyway! Like I said! Whether they died or not, I don’t know, but we caught them from behind-”

Brrraaaaam——-

“Ugh?!”

“What, what is that!”

While Leeha was still gesticulating, he ended up pulling the trigger. The sudden blast twitched the thighs of the Walrus paleos.

But they didn’t charge.

“We took them by surprise like this.”

Leeha was quick to appraise the situation. They had changed their stance already.

Having extended the olive branch once already, he needed to demonstrate his strength next. It was a lesson he learnt from multiple encounters with paleos, about the complications of being underestimated.

“I’ll show you how we caught them. Blaugrunn.”

“Yes.”

Blaugrunn instantly cast Mass Teleport.

Upon seeing this, the Walrus paleos flinched once again, but their alpha remained stoic.

“The very notion of humans being able to catch up with the Ice Ostrich is fundamentally impossible. Their speed is-”