I Got A Legendary Sniper Rifle - Chapter 229
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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 229
Ep. 229
The entrance leading into the 86th Floor.
Suyeon briefed me on the mission within in broad strokes.
“The biggest difference on the 86th Floor is that there’s a failure condition.”
“A failure condition?”
“Right. The danger level is lower than other floors, but if you let your guard down even once, you’ll fail without question.”
An unusual term—failure condition.
Now that I thought about it, in all my previous clears, I’d rarely encountered anything like a failure condition.
If I had to mention something, it would be holding back waves in the 40s range.
But even then, there was always the reliable stronghold of Fortress, so it was more accurate to call it a retreat like any other floor.
On the other hand, according to Suyeon, the 86th Floor was unambiguously a failure if you failed.
If the failure condition was met, you’d be sent straight back here.
And that failure condition was…
“By your account, it does sound like it’ll be tricky.”
“Still, we won’t know until we see it ourselves, Master.”
“Elsie speaks truly, Master. Besides, there is no possibility of you failing.”
I smiled at the Spirits, who always encouraged me so reliably.
After clearing the 85th Floor, the Spirits had completely shed their trauma.
Just like I had when I first awakened as a Hunter and began entering the Tower.
We’d even slain a Dokkaebi—what couldn’t we conquer? That kind of confidence.
I nodded and spoke.
“Right, and we have the information Suyeon gave us too. There shouldn’t be any major problems. Let’s go in.”
Whoosh—
With that, I extended my hand forward to them.
The Spirits, already familiar with this ritual, placed their hands on mine without hesitation.
Meanwhile, Suyeon simply watched their actions in silence.
“It’s the fighting spirit we always do before starting a clear. You too, Suyeon—put your hand in.”
“Oh! Right!”
Only then did Suyeon laugh brightly and place her hand on top as well.
Hunters always advance upward.
So the direction our hands pointed was also upward.
“Fighting!”
After steeling our resolve like that.
Thud—
I stepped without hesitation onto the final staircase leading up to the 86th Floor.
Whoosh—!
The first thing I felt was a scorching wind that suddenly swept over me, even through my black outfit.
The landscape was distinctly different from the lava terrain I’d seen on previous floors.
The interior of a volcano, just as Pulisto had been submerged in a lava pond on the 80th Floor.
But what stood out most was the incomparably vast space itself.
Squelch— squelch—
“So those are the Lava Slimes.”
“Yeah.”
The bizarre, gelatinous monsters known as Lava Slimes, already occupying half of the massive cavern, were impossible to miss.
They weren’t scattered across the ground like I usually saw them.
Their numbers had grown so beyond control that they’d piled up inside the volcano like another mountain entirely.
According to Suyeon, these slimes were currently dividing in real-time.
“If the slimes fill the entire interior of the volcano, the clear fails.”
And this was precisely the failure condition she’d mentioned earlier.
In other words, success meant annihilating all of them at a speed faster than their frenzied division.
“M-Master… something about this doesn’t feel right?”
But naturally, achieving that success was far from simple.
Squelch-thud— squelch-thud—!
The mountain of Lava Slimes, already numbering in the thousands, was visibly growing taller by the second.
Considering they collapsed into each other repeatedly as they piled higher, their division speed was absolutely insane.
As a result, Suyeon had initially tried to clear it alone, but eventually realized it was physically impossible and gave up.
“I was planning to cooperate with whoever came up, but I never expected it’d be you.”
Having grasped the situation, I—
“Understood. Let’s begin.”
—was now staring intently at the endlessly growing mountain of Lava Slimes, my expression completely serious.
Suyeon was taken aback by my sudden change in demeanor.
Until now, the Ihyeon she’d known always carried an air of ease with a hint of playfulness.
Even when they’d met by chance on the 8th Floor, he hadn’t shown such a grave expression.
‘Could this be… the real Ilgyeok?’
Suyeon regarded me with newfound interest.
Meanwhile, I immediately activated my Hideout skill.
A concave impression of the hideout appeared directly behind me.
“What’s that?”
“A temporary hideout. If you enter it, you can precisely identify nearby enemies.”
“Ah…!”
“I’m going to enter and check how rapidly they’re multiplying. So at first—”
My plan was this:
It was difficult to judge based solely on what the eye could see.
And given the sheer volume of slimes, this structure clearly wasn’t designed to be cleared in one strike.
‘If I use Ricochet, clearing itself won’t be a problem. But I need to analyze first.’
Considering the Tower up to now, similar structures would likely continue on the 87th and 88th Floors and beyond.
Pre-analysis was essential.
“Use your strongest area-of-effect attack to sweep through them once. And don’t forget to observe carefully with your keen eyes.”
“Y-Yes! Understood!”
Suyeon immediately sprang into action upon receiving Ihyeon’s instructions, which flowed from him as though he’d already thought everything through.
Ihyeon entered the hideout without delay.
The Spirits remained outside as a precaution against any unforeseen complications.
Suyeon’s eyes shimmered with golden light.
‘What kind of skill is it that even I can’t properly detect it?’
Before attacking the slime, Suyeon traced Ihyeon’s movements.
It was no easy task.
Archer Hunters typically possessed sharper perception than other classes.
Suyeon herself possessed considerable skills and stats in detection, yet the hideout where Ihyeon had vanished remained utterly imperceptible.
Had she not seen him beforehand, she would never have suspected it in actual combat.
Come to think of it, Ihyeon himself had always possessed a faint presence.
It was the same when they first met at the Shopping Mall, and even afterward, she found herself wondering, ‘Is this person really Ilgyeok?’ because no overwhelming aura radiated from him.
‘Brother must have undergone grueling training all this time. Considering how quickly he’s climbing the Tower, there’s no doubt about it. I need to work harder too!’
With such thoughts, Suyeon clenched her fists with determination.
Of course, if she knew that Ihyeon conquered exactly one Floor per day and devoted himself to rest and preparation for the next Floor at home, she might feel slightly disappointed.
But dampening someone’s spirit who was working hard wasn’t ideal, so even if Ihyeon knew, he wouldn’t bother correcting the facts.
In any case, Suyeon drew the bowstring of the Hero’s bow—reborn anew in Deokhuun’s hands—taut and prepared for her attack.
‘Storm Arrow, Reinforced String, Piercing Arrowhead, Massive Echo, Triple Shot….’
Though no physical arrow was nocked on Suyeon’s bow, three arrows conjured by her skills took their place.
With each skill layered upon the last, an extraordinary aura began to frost the Hero’s bow and the pristine white arrows suspended upon it.
Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t expend this much power on an opening strike, but Ihyeon had given his instructions, and besides—
‘I want to show that I’m working hard too!’
With Ihyeon and the Spirits watching, her confidence surged even higher.
“An Archer Hunter without arrows wielding that much combat power…?!”
Elsie, who had been observing Suyeon, stepped back half a pace, her expression one of shock.
“It’s not really that unusual, is it, Elsie?”
Jia asked calmly.
While arrows were indeed essential equipment for Archer Hunters, many who reached a certain level replaced physical arrows with skills instead.
Elsie nodded in agreement.
“Right, I saw an interesting photo on the internet.”
“?”
Unlike Elsie, Jia didn’t spend much time on the internet, so she seemed not to understand.
Meanwhile, Suyeon methodically stacked every skill she could cast simultaneously to their maximum capacity.
The power filling the bow’s interior was incomparable to what she’d achieved at the Makeshift Shooting Range before.
From the start, this power wasn’t built for precision.
After all, no matter how carelessly she fired, there was no way to miss the slime that filled the entire space.
And not long after—
BOOM——!!!
“?!!”
The sound that erupted was not that of an arrow being fired, but a cannon.
Judging purely by the trajectory and force of the arrows, they were comparable to my Anti-Materiel Sniper Rifle.
Three arrows tore through the surrounding air, churned up the ground beneath them, and surged toward the mountain of slimes.
BOOM——!!!
The arrows struck the center, left, and right of the mountain simultaneously, bursting every slime within their blast radius as if wringing them out, then continued forward, ever forward.
At this rate, she could dispose of a considerable number of Lava Slimes.
‘This is the first time I’ve seen Suyeon shoot arrows like this… The reputation of the Rank 1 Hunter truly lives up to its name.’
I, watching the outside situation most objectively through the monitors in the secret hideout, understood this better than anyone.
The monitor, which had been stained crimson, now had three clean paths carved through it along the trajectories of Suyeon’s blue arrows.
The Lava Slimes continued to proliferate, but at least while the arrows’ effects persisted, Suyeon’s destructive power clearly outpaced their reproduction rate.
I tore my eyes from the monitor and surveyed the outside directly.
I could see gaping holes punched through the massive mountain of slimes.
The actual destructive power was indeed comparable to my Anti-Materiel Sniper Rifle.
But did that mean Suyeon possessed equal skill to me?
Even though she had now become my teammate, I could shake my head with certainty.
‘That attack was built from multiple overlapping skills in the first place. There are clear differences in mana consumption, preparation time, and instantaneity.’
I had never failed to finish an enemy with a single shot from my Anti-Materiel Sniper Rifle.
Yet the Anti-Materiel Sniper Rifle was by no means my ultimate technique.
If anything, it was merely one mode’s standard attack.
Considering my rapid-fire skill and mana reserves, I could unleash hundreds of shots in a short span of time.
Even three simultaneous shots were sufficient with multi-target utilization.
It was simply unnecessary.
While the destructive power might be similar, the process behind it was worlds apart.
Regardless, Suyeon’s single shot was sufficiently meaningful.
CRACK——!!
It pierced clean through the seemingly endless mountain of slimes and left a massive scar on the opposite wall.
“Phew….”
After confirming the results, Suyeon lowered her bow and took a deep breath.
“That was amazing! It looks like about half of it got blown away?”
“Truly excellent marksmanship, Suyeon.”
“Hehe… Thank you, everyone.”
The Spirits applauded, and Suyeon bashfully waved them off.
This single shot had allowed Suyeon to demonstrate her absolute best, and she was satisfied with the result.
However, after unleashing such an attack, the cooldown that followed was far too long.
To properly distribute her mana and strength, she needed sufficient rest, but during that time the slimes multiplied further.
Now my intervention was necessary.
With that thought, Suyeon glanced back toward the hideout where I had disappeared.
I had not yet emerged.
“The reproduction rate is certainly fast. Now that it’s been cleared, it’s easier to see… Huh?”
Just as I was about to come out, I noticed something suspicious on the monitor.
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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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