I Got A Legendary Sniper Rifle - Chapter 26

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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 26
Episode 26
And the next day.
Minjeong changed into a plain white robe and challenged the 22nd Floor again.
‘Today… nothing like that will happen, right?’
By now, Minjeong had grown weary of Ilgyeok.
Others might long to see him, but for her, it was a meeting she’d rather avoid.
If she had actually seen him properly in the first place, she wouldn’t feel so wronged.
When she entered the 22nd Floor like that.
“Nice to meet you all.”
“There’s no chance Ilgyeok is here, right? Of course not. Haha!”
One ordinary Local Inspector and one Goblin Warrior.
And one Assassin.
Flinch—
Minjeong’s body trembled upon seeing the Assassin, but fortunately, their appearance was completely different from yesterday’s.
Though their rigid impression and posture were similar, their face was different, so it had to be a different person.
And the remaining one was.
“Oh…!”
Shake shake shake shake—!
By an odd coincidence, Heeuwon was there.
Heeuwon recognized Minjeong and widened his eyes, but Minjeong vigorously shook her head, silencing him.
And Heeuwon nodded as if he understood her intention completely.
He already believed he owed a great debt to Ilgyeok.
Keeping secrets was something he could easily do!
“Ah, so you’re Carry Machine…”
“Bad luck, bad luck…”
The other Hunters who recognized Heeuwon grumbled in disappointment.
But Heeuwon, unlike other times, was remarkably confident.
“Don’t worry! Everything will work out!”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re all worried because of Carry Machine.”
“Really, don’t worry! It’ll all be resolved on its own anyway?”
“Huh?”
“D-Don’t push me! What’s wrong with you? Are you insane?!”
“A-At least share the difficulty rating!”
Heeuwon led his party members outside the starting point with a beaming smile on his face.
In his own way, it was an act of faith in Ilgyeok.
‘What… what… what is he doing, that crazy bastard?!?!?!!’
Watching this unfold, Minjeong felt like she was losing her mind.
Logically speaking, there was no way Ilgyeok would be in this party!
I excluded myself first, and Heeuwon was also a famous F-rank, so she was excluded too.
The remaining three were people I was seeing for the first time.
Yet despite this, Heeuwon was acting on nothing but the belief that Minjeong was Ilgyeok.
But then.
「Dungeon difficulty setting complete.
S+」
“??!?!?!?!”
Why?
How on earth did this happen? The dungeon difficulty was set to S+ once again.
‘W-w-who on earth is this person?!’
Minjeong’s eyes darted rapidly around the group.
Who exactly was Ilgyeok?
In truth, there were only two candidates.
Either Heeuwon or…
‘C-could it really be me?’
Minjeong stared down at her own body in a daze.
Just recently, she’d watched a drama featuring a protagonist with a split personality.
Living as A during the day, as B at night…
‘T-that can’t be possible…’
Minjeong shook her head vigorously and shifted her gaze elsewhere.
If she wasn’t the one with a split personality, then only one candidate remained.
“H-how is this even possible?!”
“S+? Then you really are… I-I-Ilgyeok?!”
“Haha, what did I tell you? Everything will work out fine, right?”
Heeuwon was laughing triumphantly beside the other party members who were making a fuss.
Seeing that smile, chills ran down Minjeong’s spine.
‘A famous F-rank, they said? Could it be…?!’
How could there be such a dramatic reversal?
Perhaps being an F-rank was the perfect disguise to hide her true identity.
Who would ever imagine that a Hunter who couldn’t even properly catch a single Kobold was Ilgyeok?
Of course, if she thought about it carefully, she’d realize that the timing of when Heeuwon was active as a Hunter didn’t match up with when Ilgyeok was climbing the floors, but Minjeong had no time for such thoughts right now.
And even as everyone except Heeuwon fell into confusion.
Pew— Pew—
‘If I play this right, I might be able to breeze through the 20s like this.’
Ihyeon was steadily pulling the trigger from the sniper point he’d scouted beforehand.
It was even easier because the two people he’d seen yesterday happened to be here.
One shot, one kill.
The Kobolds’ heads flew off without fail.
Not long after.
「5 Royal Kobolds defeated.
You have cleared the 22nd Floor.
Rank: S+
The objective for this floor was achieved in an absurdly short time.
Minjeong spoke in a dazed voice.
“Ilgyeok…”
“Pardon? The Mage is Ilgyeok?”
“Wow, that’s incredible! Now that I think about it, Ilgyeok did say he was a Mage!”
“Ah, no, that’s not me.”
“Sigh…”
“Ugh! I’m telling you, I’m not Ilgyeok!”
Minjeong, who absolutely did not want to repeat yesterday’s situation, immediately left the floor the moment she sensed suspicious gazes directed at her.
The other two Hunters rushed out hastily as well.
Once again, only Heeuwon and my Dummy remained on the 22nd Floor.
Heeuwon, completely unsuspecting of the Dummy’s different appearance compared to yesterday, smiled brightly and spoke.
“Well then, shall we go collect some byproducts?”
“Yes.”
“Haha, don’t be shy! Ilgyeok is so merciful—he always leaves the byproducts behind!”
‘That’s not true. I collect everything.’
Heeuwon’s confidence was such that anyone would think he had been partying with Ilgyeok all along.
At Heeuwon’s markedly different demeanor from yesterday, the real Ilgyeok—Ihyeon—let out a quiet chuckle.
‘Well, he’s a good person anyway, so it’s nice when luck favors him like this occasionally.’
Given Heeuwon’s personality, if Ilgyeok didn’t exist, he would fade into obscurity as usual.
“Then goodbye. Always stay safe out there!”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Haha, are all Assassins like this?”
Just as yesterday, Heeuwon collected exactly fifteen byproducts and departed with a warm farewell.
Since the common floors in the 20s were surely in chaos by now, Ihyeon leisurely organized the mana stones and notifications before heading out.
* * *
I swept through the 21st, 22nd, and even the 23rd Floor with unstoppable momentum.
All enemies defeated.
You have cleared the 23rd Floor.
Rank: S+
“Waaah! Thank you, Ilgyeok!”
“I’m not Ilgyeok, I’m telling you!!! Argh! Why does this keep happening to me!!!”
What was surprising was that the 23rd Floor also had the carry machine—Heeuwon and Minjeong were in the party.
‘…Is this some kind of balance patch?’
Heeuwon could be explained as a systematic balance patch, but Minjeong—it was hard to say whether she was unlucky or lucky.
Minjeong, continuously mistaken for Ilgyeok, made efforts to avoid being associated with him by changing her schedule around, but ironically, I was doing the same to avoid being exposed.
Moreover, Heeuwon and Minjeong were suspiciously eyeing each other, wondering if the other was Ilgyeok!
The other three people kept changing, but only these two remained constant, so it was inevitable.
Of course, one of those three was a Dummy I had created.
I decided to become even more meticulous, changing the Dummy’s class for this floor.
To appear as an Archer Hunter on this floor, I sent it out carrying a cheap, flimsy bow that looked convincing enough on the surface.
‘This seems like the right approach.’
If an Assassin was always mixed into the party, I might have been caught red-handed there.
In any case, after completing three party clears up to the 23rd Floor like that.
Reviews naturally began appearing on the internet.
[ Author: Yeojaegeneun Ddatteuthajiman Monseuteregeeneun
Title: Yo, spilling the tea on clearing with Ilgyeok.
Content: Seriously insane;; How insane? Like…
└ Ugh, I’m getting dizzy. Someone explain;;
Haha, that’s hilarious. He didn’t even realize he was conquering her, but he completed the conquest? With an S+ rating too.
It’s a lie.
Hey, why are you lying about something like this? And by the way, that one-hit thing is cuter than I thought lol
└ Huh? Ilgyeok is female?
I’m not sure
└ Living up to the username;; ]
Of course, most people already knew that Ilgyeok had entered the 20s floors, so posts trying to bait attention by targeting that fact flooded in.
Because of this, these review posts didn’t attract much attention.
That Ilgyeok was actually a Goblin Warrior class.
That she actually wielded a Gun and swept through monsters (?).
That she fired anti-tank missiles…
Even posts like these were regularly popping up.
[ Author: Hyosudong Caesar
Title: (Breaking news, official) Management announced that the Carry Machine is Ilgyeok!! Real!!!
Can you recommend a lunch menu for me?
Roughly a frog grinning widely meme image
└ Beef bulgogi
└ Pork cutlet
└ Ah, I clicked even though I knew what this was. Feeling;; ]
It was the ‘Carry Machine = Ilgyeok’ meme that had emerged when rumors spread that the Carry Machine had cleared parties with Ilgyeok twice.
“Hmm, well, there’s nothing wrong with having this.”
I was quite positive about this meme gaining traction.
For instance, all these attention-baiting posts were like smoke screens to me.
Even if someone tried to uncover my identity and there happened to be a post on Hunter Now that correctly guessed my true identity, it would be difficult to distinguish fact from fiction.
The sniper isn’t even thinking about it, yet they’re throwing smoke screens for me—I couldn’t be more grateful.
I soon closed the bulletin board where idle chatter was being posted and began preparing for the next clear.
Now the 24th Floor.
So I needed to start thinking about the mid-boss of the 25th Floor as well.
‘Perhaps… that creature on the 25th Floor might be a perfect counter to me.’
Ihyeon’s expression stiffened slightly.
Meanwhile, those attempting to uncover Ilgyeok’s true identity were engaged in desperate efforts akin to storming a strategic position in the midst of war.
The world doesn’t operate on naivety alone, after all.
Among them were many who had entered Korea with far from pure intentions.
On the surface, it appeared to be an ordinary Chinese restaurant.
In the dim basement space within, several people conversed under the light of a single lamp.
The aura they emanated was unmistakably that of Hunters, yet the energy surrounding them was deeply unpleasant.
It was the kind of scent one would have from dealing with people far more than with monsters.
This was precisely the mission of China’s “National Tower Management Bureau,” Recruitment Division 14.
To secretly infiltrate various nations and bring promising Hunters to China through every means at their disposal.
They conversed in fluent Korean.
“Is this really how we’re supposed to find him?”
“Well… up until now, once we entered the 20th floors, we could generally get a sense of things.”
The site they were searching through was Korea’s largest Hunter community, Hunter Now.
Yet no matter how hard they searched for information about Ilgyeok, there was virtually nothing of substance to be found.
They understood that Ilgyeok maintained secrecy and disclosed no information, but they hadn’t expected it to be this extreme.
Moreover, the internet users seemed almost deliberately protective of Ilgyeok, producing nothing but absurd falsehoods.
How could anyone claim he fired guns or anti-tank missiles inside the Tower?
“Hey, any luck on your end yet?”
Jang Hwayun, the highest-ranking member of Recruitment Division 14’s Korean operations, asked with sharp eyes.
The one being questioned was a Korean Hunter Infiltrator who had naturalized to extract information within Korea.
“Yes! All chat functions are blocked, and even observing the public floors has yielded little.”
“Have you conveyed the recruitment offer?”
“We’re proposing the maximum amount once a day!”
This was something not only China but other guilds and nations were doing as well, so he harbored no great expectations.
The sum of money might be the largest, but if he were the type to be swayed by such things, he would have already revealed his identity.
Hwayun’s gaze shifted elsewhere.
This time to Lee Hongju, a spy who had infiltrated the management bureau as a contract employee.
The management bureau’s security was notoriously strict, making it difficult, but he remained the most valuable intelligence source capable of providing the most substantive information in the current situation.
Indeed, whether the lobbying and efforts thus far had borne fruit, Hongju spoke with significant meaning.
“There is the latest information obtained by the management bureau.”
“What? Then you should have reported it immediately!”
“But it’s not yet confirmed information…”
“Who cares! It’s better than this damn internet, isn’t it?”
Hongju hesitated before confessing the information he had obtained.
“Actually, the information suggests that someone called Tarakdwaeji Minjoo is a strong candidate for Ilgyeok’s true identity.”
“…?”
The expressions of Hwayun and the other intelligence operatives stiffened slightly.
Tarakdwaeji… what?

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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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