Arcane Sniper [Matan’s Shooter]

“Damn it, this sounds like an old TV show….”

A grinding noise came from Ha Leeha’s teeth.

As a Demon King’s Fragment, adept at controlling and manipulating people, it was indeed of a high level.

Ha Leeha calmly yet quickly assessed his situation. Surprisingly, the answer came easily.

What was the current quest he received, and what were the clear conditions for that quest?

‘……I need to reveal the location and identity of this place to Gerda, the highest-ranking Ice Spirit.’

There was also a possibility of the King of Ice and Snow appearing.

If that happened?

The main body of Pyrot Cocri would awaken anyway, wouldn’t it?

While Ha Leeha was lost in thought, Kidd and Luger were staring at a bright red crystal.

They were thinking in a different direction.

“Luger, when you woke up Bluebeard… you shot at him while he was still in the crystal ball, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. Damn thing wouldn’t break, but after a few more shots, it woke up.”

“In that case… how about this.”

Kidd motioned with his eyes.

Luger’s expression changed briefly.

“Ke-ke-ke… Isn’t that good? It’s avoiding a fight. The Demon King’s Fragment is avoiding a fight, it smells fishy.”

Luger’s laughter brought Ha Leeha back to his senses.

“Smell?”

“The smell of a liar who wants to control everything his way.”

Kidd through his mind, Ha Leeha through the situation, and Luger through instinct.

Although their directions differed, the three shared similar thoughts.

Ha Leeha spoke.

“The initial act of provoking an attack was a psychological tactic. Mentioning the dragon on purpose to restrict our actions.”

Kidd added.

“Luger called you a liar, but I don’t think you lied. You just didn’t tell the truth. The abundant number of undead around us is solid proof of that.”

Luger said.

“Ke-ke-ke… Hey, little witch. You can’t touch the crystal ball on your own, so you’re forcing us to choose to run away. Because!”

The three spoke in unison.

If we attack you without touching the crystal ball, we don’t know how the situation will unfold!

“〈Acht―Acht〉! Protect me first!”

“You crazy guy! In such a confined space, what are you going to do with an anti-aircraft gun―”

“I’ll go first.”

The moment Luger’s Cobalt Blue Python emitted a brilliant blue light, Kidd’s figure vanished.

Pyrot Cocri’s duplicate was glaring at the three with a twisted face.

“Zero points, zero points! All you oppas are―”

By then, Kidd was already behind Pyrot Cocri. Both his hands burst into flames simultaneously.

───, ───, ───!

The external appearance of the monster did not matter.

Even if it looked like a little girl half his size, Kidd could fire bullets without hesitation.

As a result, the head, chest, and stomach of Pyrot Cocri, in the form of a little girl, were pierced by Kidd’s attack.

“What the hell, is it dead?”

Luger asked, looking bewildered.

Pyrot Cocri’s duplicate was collapsing into bone dust. However, Ha Leeha and Kidd opposed that notion.

“No, it can’t be this easy. 〈Eighteen Panning〉.”

“To the left! In front of the crystal ball!”

Through the ‘Distorted Vision’, Ha Leeha watched something stirring and moving through the air.

At Ha Leeha’s cry, Kidd immediately turned around.

──, ─, ─, ─, ─, ─, ─……

Kidd began firing straight away.

The shorter and faster intervals between gunshots echoed throughout the fortress.

“Waaak! Kidd! We’re over here in this direction! And be careful of the crystal, the crystal!”

Ha Leeha shouted, pointing at the crystal.

Though it was impressive that Kidd could create a web of fire on his own, there were conditions that had to be adhered to.

The primary condition when fighting Pyrot Cocri’s duplicate: do not provoke the bright red crystal.

“Ha ha, are you trying to tickle her, Kidd? When you attack, make it fiery!”

“Didn’t I tell you not to hit the crystal!?”

“Do you think I’d actually hit it, Ha Leeha! Hrrrrmph!”

Despite the name “anti-aircraft gun”, he didn’t raise the angle at all.

Keeping the barrel almost horizontal, it seemed more like an anti-tank gun than an anti-aircraft gun.

What surprised Leeha was the thick layer of mana surrounding the 〈Cobalt Blue Python〉.

‘Acht-Acht… It looks almost exactly like the photos from the World War II books!’

He had seen it once through a video recorded by Kijung.

Even though he thought he understood it through zoom-in, the impact was completely different in person.

Click, ssssssshhhh─!

‘But—will that kind of weapon work without a stand?’

Among the anti-aircraft guns, only the barrel appeared to cover the Cobalt Blue Python.

Luger was holding and supporting the enormous weight and gigantic barrel with just his two arms.

The protruding veins and tendons on his forehead, and the expanding muscles of his calves and thighs, were the only evidence of the extreme effort Luger was putting in to maintain this posture.

“Khhhhh… I just want to quickly show the power of the 〈Cannoneer〉 to Bluebeard!”

───────────────!

“Aaaargh!”

The vibration and blast were so intense that it shook not just their ears but their skulls inside the fortress.

『Myoing!』

It was so loud that Jellypong had to cover Leeha’s ears.

“Kidd, K-Kidd—”

“…If you do that again without warning, Luger, I will aim for your head next.”

Kidd, who had been using the 〈Eighteen Panning〉 skill from behind the Pyrot Cocri, walked around Luger with a dumbfounded expression.

‘Fast. 『Rapid Fire』 should be done with the feet. This is faster than Colonel Browless when we hunted the troll.’

Of course, at that time, browylis was not using his full power.

But Leeha could tell that Kidd had definitely surpassed that level now.

“Heh, if I had given a warning, would that thing have been hit? Think, Kidd.”

Luger panted and laughed.

Even Leeha could instantly tell how powerful that single shot was.

Luger had aimed not at the ‘black wall’ behind the crystal ball, but at an oblique direction.

In other words, he had aimed at a place that used to have a regular wall, not the abyss.

Kidd wasn’t the only one who had grown with a secondary job change.

Swoooosh…

A wind blew through.

‘It’s not an explosion. One side of the wall is… 『Penetrated』. It pierced through!’

More than half of the wall got destroyed and vanished.

It wasn’t just about making a hole; it literally blew the whole thing away.

Given such enormous destructive power, it seemed like rapid fire would be difficult.

Leeha felt that not much had changed from what he had seen in Kijung’s video to what Luger was doing now.

‘The interval after each shot is extremely long. That must be the difference.’

Leeha pulled the bolt and loaded another bullet.

Kidd and Luger scanned their surroundings.

Where did Pyrot Cocri go?

The two, sharing the same thought, were on guard.

Ka-boom────!

Leeha had fired another shot.

“What are you doing, not shooting? Aren’t you going to catch Pyrot Cocri?”

Kidd and Luger looked in the direction Leeha fired, visibly shocked.

“Wh-what? Where did he shoot?”

They couldn’t see anything.

“It wasn’t a coincidence that it revealed Pyrot Cocri’s position… No, it had to be that way. His 『Accuracy』 must have improved too, so it had to be that way.”

However, Kidd understood what Leeha was seeing.

Leeha’s eyes perfectly captured the mana flow of Pyrot Cocri’s movements, appearing clearly in his vision.

“〈Soul Link〉, Jellypong! Merge with Koma and protect the crystal! Prepare for unexpected situations!”

“Grrooww-myoing!”

With a somewhat feeble reply, the merged kid and Jellypong rushed out.

It seemed correct that Pyrot Cocri couldn’t awaken its main body by touching the crystal on its own.

‘Just judging by its movements. It’s circling around the crystal or loitering in front of it—’

Leeha moved sideways, changing the angle of his shot.

He aimed to ensure that the bullet he fired would pierce through Pyrot Cocri without hitting the crystal.

Baaang────────…!

‘―Never touch the gem on your own.’

The chest of the forming Pyrot Cocri crumbled into powder with a crackling sound.

“Oppa, seriously! Are you going to do it this way!?”

The issue was how to kill it.

Even when it was hit by Kidd’s rapid-fire, or startled by the surprise attack and hastily dodging only to be blown away by Luger, or even when caught by Leeha’s ‘eye’ and unable to restore its body, turning into powder…

“Keke, is it immortal?”

“It shouldn’t be a spirit, and is it another ‘Vitality Jar’?”

“No, that can’t be. We must realize that the other side is a ‘clone’.”

It should be killable.

At the very least, there must be a sure way to annihilate the clone. Kidd spoke with a certain degree of confidence.

Leeha and Luger trusted the words of the ‘head’ of the Three Musketeers completely.

“Alright, forward―3, 2, 1, the cooldown of 〈Bayonet Charge〉 is over!”

“Indeed. Understood.”

“What― what?”

With Luger’s unintelligible shout, Kidd’s figure vanished once again.

If it’s immortal, they decided to beat it until it died, and Luger and Kidd unleashed attacks full of determination.

“Wait a minute! What cooldown for 〈Bayonet Charge〉?”

Only Leeha admired their firepower, looking around. How could they possibly capture that thing?

* * *

“How dare you treat me like that~? 〈Puppet―”

Bang──────…!

“―You should let me finish talking! Playing together makes it fun!”

Bang──────…!

“Ridiculous.”

Kidd once again caught Pyrot Cocri from behind.

Even though it’s a clone, to catch the back of Demon King’s Fragment so easily!

‘In terms of speed alone, as fast as Nara-ssi? No, now I can’t even predict its movements!’

Pyrot Cocri turned in a small semi-circle.

Kidd turned in a larger semi-circle behind her.

Nevertheless, Leeha felt that Kidd seemed ‘a bit faster’.

‘Turning outside but faster than inside? Pfft, this guy isn’t an Outsider for nothing!’

How could one possibly win when the enemy’s movements were predicted and Kidd seized their back effortlessly?

Leeha watched Kidd’s movements with a helpless laugh.

With every shot from Crimson Geckos, Pyrot Cocri’s body was destroyed piece by piece.

It seemed that Pyrot Cocri couldn’t shake off Kidd, who clung like a fly, no matter the evasive movements tried.

Even with a slightly violent movement, or just moving a bit away from the range of the gem…

Baaang──────────

Luger’s bombardment poured in.

“Kahahah! Is it fun, kid!? Will you still say it’s fun!?”

The Queen of the Undead, half of her left side completely obliterated, frowned deeply. She immediately started charging at Luger.

“That’s not fun. I find controlling fun, not being controlled―”

Baaang────────…!

“Where do you think you’re going? And we’re having fun here.”

Of course, at that close range, Leeha could block it sufficiently.

He couldn’t seize Pyrot Cocri’s ‘back’, but a sniper doesn’t need to.

Just aim for the middle of the enemy’s forehead.

Pyrot Cocri’s nose and bridge disintegrated into bone dust.

Kidd appeared through that dust again, stuffing bullets into Pyrot Cocri’s body.

Bang, bang, bang!

Kidd kicked the body of Pyrot Cocri, turning into powder, and stood next to Luger and Leeha.

Watching Luger fire another shot into that powder, Leeha pondered, ‘As expected, he’s a hunter.’

and reflected, ‘I should play more ruthlessly like him.’

The battle didn’t last long.

“Oppas…… Leave me―”

The Three Musketeers’ assault suppressed, controlled, and finally defeated Pyrot Cocri’s attacks and movements.

“Phew… That was manageable.”

“Since the body is small, it’s easy to blow away.”

“Never let your guard down.”