I Got A Legendary Sniper Rifle - Chapter 161

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 161
Ep. 161
“The Leader.”
Ihyeon nodded, having roughly anticipated this.
Its massive frame and visibly aged appearance compared to the other specimens were unmistakable.
It was natural to associate it with the leader that typically appeared among primate groups.
‘I’ve never heard of a Highland Gorilla Leader appearing on the 70th floors until now… Why did it suddenly show up?’
But questions remained.
To Ihyeon’s knowledge, a Highland Gorilla Leader had never appeared on the 70th floors before.
Well, one probably existed somewhere, but no insane Hunters would come this far just to disturb the gorillas’ habitat.
If there was one hypothesis.
‘The guards disappeared without a fight, so the Leader came out directly?’
That seemed like a plausible line of thinking.
Then, the Leader scanned its surroundings before finally fixing its gaze on where Ihyeon and the Spirits were.
The Spirits had no particular concealment measures, so they would naturally stand out.
‘Our eyes met directly.’
Ihyeon instinctively sensed that his own presence had been detected.
Despite the considerable distance, their eyes had locked.
It reminded me of my past encounter with the Goblin Warrior Captain.
But the Ihyeon from back then and the Ihyeon now were completely different.
Whether it was an ordinary Highland Gorilla or its Leader, my sniper rifle could bring either down in a single shot.
“If I take down that beast, the rest should be the same, right?”
“I believe so. However—”
“?”
Ihyeon raised his sniper rifle and calmly aimed at the Leader while asking.
But Jia’s response somehow felt unsatisfying.
Meanwhile, the Leader glared at Ihyeon for a moment.
“UUUOOOOOOOOOO————!!!!”
Thump, thump, thump, thump——!!
It rose to its feet and began pounding its chest frantically with both fists while letting out a terrible roar.
And Jia’s answer was completed.
“When a Leader detects an enemy that has significantly affected its territory, it has the habit of triggering an avalanche like this.”
“?!”
Ihyeon was so startled that he pulled his eye away from the scope and glanced at Jia.
Jia’s expression was calm, but the content of her words was anything but.
‘Damn it!’
An avalanche.
Looking around, all I could see were snow and boulders the size of houses.
If an avalanche were to occur in a place like this as Jia described…
Ihyeon’s judgment was quick enough.
Clang—clang—!
Taaaaang——!!
A proper strike without any restraint or modulation.
The Highland Gorilla Leader’s eyes widened in shock as he was pounding his chest, but that was his final expression.
Boom—!
The next moment, he plummeted down the steep ravine, his head severed from his body.
“Hmm….”
Yet even after confirming the Leader’s death, I felt an ominous sense of foreboding.
“Hm….”
Elsie, standing right beside me, made a similar sound.
Those who had climbed this far naturally developed something akin to a sixth sense.
In other words, their premonitions rarely turned out to be mere groundless worries.
Rumble rumble rumble———
“Uhhh….”
A deepening sense of unease and dread.
And from far away, a faint but ominous vibration and sound reaching us.
I didn’t need to see it with my own eyes to understand what it meant.
“Run, you two!”
I immediately began sprinting forward with Jia and Elsie.
Not long after.
Boom——!!!
From the ravine where the Leader had just been, a massive avalanche of snow surged upward, threatening to blot out the sky.
It was far larger in scale than I had anticipated.
Though I wielded superhuman physical abilities thanks to the System’s stats, whether I could even escape this avalanche and climb out of the ravine was questionable.
The raging snow and rocks mixed within it appeared to me in slow motion.
“Argh! All this trouble because of Master!”
“You! You said you’ve been to the 85th Floor before—if you had such an ability, you should have told me beforehand!”
“How was I supposed to know it would happen on this floor! And if I told you something like that beforehand, it’d violate the Tower’s restrictions! Ugh, it’s all Master’s fault!”
While fleeing the avalanche, Elsie and I beautifully demonstrated how to shift blame onto each other.
Even using Snipe Point conversion and Shadow Movement at full capacity, it would be a close call to escape.
But then Jia and Elsie exchanged a suspicious glance.
Seeing that, I sensed something ominous.
As I said before, at this level of advancement, premonitions were almost always accurate.
Pop—pop—!
“What the—!”
Almost simultaneously, Jia and Elsie vanished from both my sides.
They had returned to the Inventory on their own.
Abandoning me in this critical moment and saving only themselves!
I was deeply disappointed in both Spirits.
Yet their voices continued to reach me from the Inventory.
– I beg your pardon, Master, but our presence seems only to hinder you further.
“Hinder? What do you mean hinder!”
– Furthermore, thanks to the Dark Robe’s effects, you should be able to navigate through an avalanche of that magnitude without difficulty.
In essence, the Dark Robe’s effect maintains the user’s body in optimal condition at all times.
When buried in the frigid snow, it radiates intense heat in return, allowing you to melt through the snow and escape even if you were to be buried—which, of course, is merely a precaution.
– Right, Master. If things go wrong, I’ll have the armored fox knights rescue you. Don’t worry.
“Is that really something to say right now…?”
– Or would you prefer a child like me to be swept away by the avalanche and become stranded? I didn’t think you were that cruel, Master…
‘Enough of this!’
I decided to tune out the two spirits and focus solely on running.
Jia’s claim that their presence would only be a hindrance wasn’t entirely wrong—in fact, my speed seemed to increase.
…Though it might have been the effect of running fueled by anger.
In any case, I—
Whoosh——!!!
“Phew, I nearly died there.”
Fortunately, I managed to reach the summit just before the avalanche swept through the valley.
It was incredibly close.
My combat boots nearly grazed the avalanche in that final moment.
Had I been even a second slower, my lower body would have been caught in it.
Poof— Poof—!
At the same time, the two spirits who had returned to my inventory reappeared on either side of me.
“Your health and safety bring us such joy, Master.”
“Indeed.”
The spirits, aware of their own fault, knelt on one knee each, desperately trying to avoid my anger.
I looked down at them both and spoke.
“I am deeply disappointed in you both.”
“…!”
Unlike Jia, Elsie flinched noticeably.
“?”
As Jia looked at her in confusion, Elsie trembled and spoke.
“I-I’ve heard that line before on the internet.”
For Elsie, who was always absorbed in exploring the internet whenever she had a moment, that phrase was far too familiar.
“It’s what incredibly powerful characters called Company Commanders say right before they get angry at their subordinates.”
“…!”
Jia was also startled by Elsie’s accurate interpretation.
And then—
Rumble rumble rumble———
“Huh? But the avalanche just ended?”
Despite the avalanche summoned by the Highland Gorilla Leader having clearly ended, a similar—
No, an even more violent and intense tremor began to be felt by the two spirits.
And from none other than their master, Ihyeon himself.
What transpired afterward was so horrific and brutal that I shall spare the details.
In any case, from an outside perspective, Ilgyeok’s conquest of the 76th Floor appeared remarkably straightforward.
「76th Floor Clear Record Updated.
Location: Tower of South Korea
ID: Ilgyeok
Grade: S+」
Once again, he succeeded in clearing the floor with overwhelming speed compared to others, and an overwhelming grade to match.
“Wow, S+ again. I expected as much.”
“How on earth did he manage that?”
The Hunters gathered at the 76th Floor forward base marveled at the announcement while simultaneously puzzling over it.
Highland Gorillas were manageable enough, but they were extraordinarily troublesome creatures.
While Ilgyeok supposedly traveled with two Spirits, it would be far more difficult without a full party.
Moreover, having to defeat the Gorillas summoned by the guards one by one while traversing such treacherous terrain wouldn’t be easy.
Then again, Ilgyeok had already demonstrated so much that there was little point in dwelling on such questions.
But as the Hunters were chatting away about it, astounding news reached them.
“No way! Someone down below told me!”
“Huh? What is it?”
“Ilgyeok apparently triggered an avalanche!”
“?????”
The Hunters tilted their heads at the sudden mention of an avalanche.
While the Highland Gorilla Leader could trigger avalanches, there had been no information of one appearing on the 76th Floor.
The avalanche that the creature had triggered was mistakenly attributed to Ihyeon and spread as rumor.
And the Hunters had more than enough plausible reason to believe it.
“Think about it! Ilgyeok drilled a hole through a mountain in the 30s because he was annoyed, didn’t he?”
“W-well… those Highland Gorillas were being incredibly bothersome…”
“So he triggered an avalanche out of sheer annoyance and sank an entire valley?”
“Good grief, so the rumors about him being a vicious criminal were true. What a rotten personality.”
Though it wasn’t my intention, my various exploits had created the impression that “Ilgyeok might actually do something like that.”
And in fact, the Hunters hadn’t entirely fabricated the story.
“But that’s not all. Apparently there were two avalanches.”
“????”
“The first avalanche should have secured the clear, but then he triggered another one after that!”
“For heaven’s sake, why on earth?!”
“How should we know? He’s the type to drill holes in mountains on a whim.”
“This is… I’m afraid to even make eye contact. Terrifying.”
What exactly had I done to the Spirits that there were two avalanches instead of one?
The second one was genuinely my doing, so while I had my grievances, I couldn’t exactly deny it.
Meanwhile.
“Ugh… it hurts so much…”
“You reap what you sow. Who else is there to blame?”
I lightly scolded Elsie, who was whimpering while clutching the bump on her head.
Jia had acknowledged her mistake, accepted responsibility quietly, and the matter was easily resolved.
But Elsie couldn’t shed that bad habit of hers, and she dared to talk back to her master repeatedly, so I gave her a flick on the forehead.
So how exactly did that second avalanche happen?
Well…
‘I just fired the gun once, and who could have known the weakened ground would collapse further?’
It was the result of coincidence piling upon coincidence.
While I was disciplining the Spirits, a herd of Gorillas came charging in without warning, and in my frustration, I fired the gun—but I failed to control the firepower and struck the mountainside directly.
The remaining snow, already on the verge of collapse from the Highland Gorilla Leader’s avalanche, came tumbling down in a roar, triggering the second avalanche.
The Gorillas caught in the snow were unfortunately wiped out in the accident.
Since the S+ clear was already confirmed by summoning and capturing the Leader, even I had to admit it was a bit excessive.
‘The black robes would keep me safe even if buried in snow? Yet those massive creatures couldn’t move and just died?’
Still, I felt a sharp sting of betrayal at the cowardly behavior of the Spirits I had trusted.
Of course, Jia and Elsie claimed they would have rushed out to block the snow if it really looked like I was about to be swept away, but I wasn’t so sure.
“You really would have come out if I was in real danger, right?”
“Of course, Master. I am the shield that protects you from the closest distance. If I didn’t, my existence would be meaningless.”
“W-well then…”
Jia’s reassuring answer and that one’s answer, which somehow didn’t inspire confidence.
But thinking back on what I’ve seen so far, it’s probably true.
Whether it’s genuine heartfelt action, I couldn’t say.
Of course, by now I was half-joking anyway.
…Really.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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