Arcane Sniper [Matan’s Shooter]

Description: You are not flustered by unfamiliar lands, creatures, or climates. Veteran experience allows you to perceive new situations as repeated scenarios through your personal experience. Your veteran nature will be revealed in lands teeming with real threats.

Effects: 20% reduction in physical penalties in rough terrains. 30% increased chance of automatically breaking the chain reaction when attacking grouped monsters. A buff earned from the achievement of surpassing 1,000 reputation in the New Continent!

‘If I had this in the perpetual snow mountains, I could’ve moved faster.’

Although it’s not resistance to the anomalies of the ice attribute, it does enhance actual physical actions. Literally, it’s a buff that enables smoother physical activities, such as walking through deep snow or desert sand.

The partial movement restrictions that existed despite the agility stat were now largely mitigated thanks to this new buff.

‘And the bonus of breaking the chain reaction of group monsters, that’s killer. Hehe.’

Group monsters, when one is attacked, typically cause a chain reaction involving nearby creatures. This was something Leeha experienced multiple times, whether fighting against Rhynodillos or in Kobold and Goblin villages.

While it didn’t completely eliminate the chain reaction, having a 30% chance to break it would be tremendously helpful when adventuring in “unfamiliar lands”, as the buff description suggested. The fact that Rhynodillos hadn’t appeared yet was proof of this.

“How’s the recharging going? Ha Leeha-nim, how’s the recharging?”

Blaugrunn asked Leeha with a thoughtful smile.

Leeha’s face suddenly turned gloomy.

“Yes, it’s now certain. It’s not related to levels, situations, or even the continent. Whether it’s Brass Golems or Basilisks being field bosses, it doesn’t matter if they’re regular monsters or field bosses…”

They had set up various conditions and hypotheses, performing every test to boost the recharge rate. In the end, the answer was clear.

The hypothesis that had flashed in Leeha’s mind at first sight turned out to be correct.

“Whether Black Bass had awakened or not… the premise we need to accept is that *the recharge rate does not increase with monsters I’ve already defeated*.”

“Haa… How many monsters would Ha Leeha be hunting for the first time?”

“With the Gigantic Mimic incident, it’s clear that the monster level must also be significant… It’s not feasible to hunt every petty monster in the Old Continent. This is madness.”

There must still be monsters Leeha hadn’t hunted in the Lope Continent. Places like hidden hunting grounds in Minis, or dungeon caves near the coastline of Kraven, which Leeha hadn’t visited.

However, considering the user levels in those areas, the monster levels would be too low.

If the values were inadequate, recharging through ‘labor’ was unthinkable from the beginning. The fact that 4% of recharge vanished overnight suggested considering the possibility of a 5%-10% daily decrease.

“The answer was determined from the beginning. At least we’ve verified it. Let’s go.”

“To the East… you mean?”

“Yes. With the clues left by Luger and Kidd. We must hurry down that path… and I have someone I want to meet.”

Aside from the tests on the recharge rate, there was also a question surfaced during the conversation with Bottleneck.

‘How far did Elizabeth decipher it? At least assuming she reached this level…’

There was an NPC who used 『Black Bass』 before. Before learning the curve shot and before Toon regained its full power, elizabeth had mentioned 『Black Bass』 in her brief duel with Leeha.

‘That’s as far as you’ve managed to decipher, she said. Back then, she even used multi-warhead bullets.’

Since then, Leeha had learned only one skill related to 『Black Bass』.

『Ghost in the Shell』, used as a mobility technique.

If Leeha had mastered it, he could have quickly escaped Elizabeth’s threat, which was why she had gently reproved him.

‘If you had learned it, you would have escaped, but have you not even learned that yet? I thought.’

If Elizabeth had awakened 『Black Bass』 and there was something else afterward…

What was the elusive nuance she occasionally showed?

“The coordinates for the Corrupted World Tree’s Forest have been set.”

“Oh? Ah, yes, then let’s go.”

They had to wake the Black Bass. To do this, finding it was crucial.

“To meet Elizabeth.”

A pale purple light flashed from the bodies of Leeha and Blaugrunn.

* * *

“Uh, um, so… you’re saying that Petyr-nim doesn’t wish to join us?”

“Buhihit, it’s not surprising, is it? A game without surprises isn’t fun.”

Petyr spoke without even descending from the tree.

Kijung felt frustrated that the person they had finally found was being uncooperative.

‘I spent hours searching for this damned guy…’

He had heard stories about Petyr from Leeha, and Leeha had even mentioned these stories to him.

However, Petyr didn’t respond to Kijung’s whispers, and Kijung, along with Raphaela and Rubini, spent hours around the previous location of the Midnight Circus’s mobile tent searching for him.

Kijung took a deep breath to calm his excitement and reconfirmed his intention.

“From what I heard from Leeha hyung, you were going to search for Pyrot-Cocri from the Midnight Circus. He also mentioned that you were considering the proposal positively―”

“When~? Neither I nor the leader of 『Midnight Circus』 ever answered YES, buhuit!”

“… I told you, Master Kay. If Petyr had been a cooperative ranker, Minis would have won the national war against Fibiel from the start.”

Raphaela sighed.

Standing next to her, Rubini also nodded.

Unlike Kijung, who was initially part of Minis, they had more information about Petyr and had opposed Kijung’s idea of persuading him.

“Alright, so we can take it that Petyr, as well as the Midnight Circus officially, have rejected Leeha hyung’s proposal?”

Kijung asked in a serious tone, but Petyr did not respond.

He didn’t even nod; he merely sat on the branch cleaning his ears.

“In—fo—ma—tion?”

Petyr’s voice, drawling out the word one syllable at a time, was anything but gentle.

Kijung instinctively reached for his shield and turned to look at him.

“Hmm?”

Petyr had already landed. Kijung hadn’t even heard a sound of his descent.

Raphaela and Rubini felt the shift in atmosphere and began to distance themselves from Kijung.

Petyr’s ambush abilities were well-known, and if they had to assist in the fight, they knew they’d only be a hindrance in close combat.

But Petyr, seeing the now battle-ready group, merely whistled.

Kijung raised his sword at the eerie melody, but Petyr didn’t seem to have any intention of attacking.

Instead, he stopped whistling and began to sing.

“‘Hush-a-bye, hush-a-bye, naughty baby, hush now, you noisy thing.’”

“… What are you talking about?”

“‘Be quiet now. Or else Bonaparte’s passing through that path.’”

Though Kijung couldn’t understand Petyr, who was now both singing and dancing strangely in front of him, the women behind Kijung recognized the tune.

“Mother Goose’s lullaby…?”

“Mother― what did you say, Raphaela-nim?”

“It’s a lullaby from Mother Goose. The one called ‘Baby, baby, naughty baby’―”

“But the content is too horrible to be called a lullaby.”

Rubini added.

Petyr, having realized the two recognized his song, stopped singing immediately.

As soon as the song, which was embarrassing to even call a lullaby, stopped, the atmosphere became even bleaker.

Petyr, after glancing at Kijung, suddenly spread his arms wide.

Kijung almost used “Dinosaurization”, but Petyr wasn’t trying to attack.

“A surprise~? Buhihi!”

With those words, he climbed back up the tree.

The three found it difficult to catch Petyr’s swift movements as he darted from tree to tree.

By the time the sound of rustling leaves reached them, Petyr was already gone.

“… I’ve seen many concept users in Middle Earth, but he’s the ‘real deal’.”

“People in Minis also say the same. They say Alexander is nothing compared to him…”

Kijung sighed heavily, releasing the tension. Raphaela, too, responded with noticeable discomfort.

Only Rubini remained wary.

“Something’s wrong.”

“Huh? What is?”

“I’ve heard that Petyr sings nursery rhymes while assassinating people… Raphaela, you know about this, right?”

“Of course, nuna. It was so absurd I thought it was a joke, but after seeing his behavior now, I think it might be true―”

“What about the rumor that the content of the nursery rhyme and the assassination are similar?”

“Huh?”

As Raphaela tilted her head in confusion, Kijung suddenly recalled an incident.

“Oh! Come to think of it, it was the same during the assassination attempt on the King of Fibiel. What was it― some song about London Bridge…”

To stop Petyr, Shin Nara, Tale, and Biyemi infiltrated the Fibiel Royal Palace. Especially Shin Nara, who first spotted Petyr, and Biyemi, who chased after him, reported that Petyr was singing “London Bridge is falling down.”

“Yes. And that is one of the rumors. Petyr never gets the lyrics wrong.”

“The lyrics? Were the lyrics wrong? I’ve never heard that song before…”

When Kijung asked, Rubini nodded.

“Singing in front of someone other than his assassination target is strange. If singing nursery rhymes was a hobby of his, the rumor Raphaela heard would’ve been known as a fact. But no one has ever heard his songs. All NPCs targeted for assassination were killed. And in the nursery rhyme earlier, bonaparte should have ‘passed by this road.’ In other words, we should have been killed.”

Raphaela was amazed by Rubini’s relentless deductions, as was Kijung.

“Uh, earlier, he definitely said ‘that road’, right?”

“Yes. His nursery rhyme is associated with a specific assassination. So, based on the assumption he sang in front of us as a hint of a particular incident―”

Rubini’s words were absurd but couldn’t be dismissed entirely, it was a sort of ‘prophecy.’

“―Petyr will try to kill Pyrot-Cocri. Personally.”

“Then we―”

“It’s a warning. The ‘naughty baby’ disturbing ‘that road’, I.e., us… Petyr will try to kill us. Like the nursery rhyme’s last lyrics, ‘tear the limbs apart, beat until mush, and devour’. Petyr is like Bonaparte, the figure mentioned in the nursery rhyme, a metaphor for France.”

A seer of the future.

Rubini wasn’t called 〈Dr. Doom〉 for nothing.

Going beyond the simple use of Middle Earth skills, Rubini was someone who conducted a perfect analysis to find the target!

While Raphaela looked at Rubini with admiration, Kijung crossed his arms and tilted his head, puzzled.

“… But what kind of nursery rhyme is that? Who would let a child listen to that?”

“No way! Master Kay? Are you―”

“I’m just curious! It’s fascinating, that’s all.”

Raphaela felt a different kind of amazement towards Kijung than she did towards Rubini.