I Got A Legendary Sniper Rifle - Chapter 336

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

Episode 336
Ep. 336
The moment Ihyeon heard those words, his demeanor shifted. He watched Elsie accept the Sea King’s Ginseng without hesitation, his gaze tinged with slight disappointment.
I would have preferred if she’d at least declined once more.
Something along the lines of—if my master is a con artist, then how much of a con artist must he be to pull this off?
In any case, Elsie didn’t deliberate any further and consumed the Sea King’s Ginseng immediately.
It dissolved smoothly like water, requiring no chewing whatsoever.
“…Ugh.”
The taste was remarkably bitter, causing Elsie to grimace and shake her head vigorously.
Given that even the swordsman Elsie reacted this way, I could vividly imagine how the original Elsie would have responded.
Without question, she would have whined incessantly: “Ugh! What kind of thing are you making me eat?!” or “Master, have you lost your mind? You want me to eat this?!”
…It was a somewhat unfair prejudice that Elsie would find objectionable if she heard it, but that’s how I perceived it.
Yet the efficacy was undeniable.
Whoooosh——!!
The Dokkaebi fire that had been consuming the land spider flared considerably stronger.
Since the elixir enhanced the quality of her abilities, the effects manifested instantaneously.
Witnessing this, I nodded in satisfaction, as expected.
“How is it?”
“My body feels remarkably refreshed.”
Elsie, while not particularly fond of the taste, immediately acknowledged the effectiveness.
The fierce battle had entered a temporary lull, and the Bishop, who had been observing the banter-like exchange between Ihyeon and Elsie, chuckled and spoke.
“Kekeke, have I ever seen such foolish wretches? I clearly told you that the longer this drags on, the more disadvantageous it becomes for you.”
Normally, I would have urged Erkastrula to attack immediately.
The reason the Bishop was granting them time was quite simple.
At this very moment, a fierce war was undoubtedly unfolding on the surface as well.
“By now… those subordinates you cherish so dearly must be on the brink of annihilation. I shall graciously allow some of them to become our comrades. Their abilities are worthy of recognition—far more useful than the trash gathered here.”
The Bishop spoke thus while clapping his hands together in satisfaction.
The phrase “become our comrades” was naturally far from being a romantic notion.
It meant they desired Ihyeon and Elsie, infested with land spiders.
Upon hearing this, Ihyeon and Elsie’s response was.
“?”
Remarkably simple.
The expedition force on the surface has been annihilated?
“That’s impossible.”
“You should speak sense if you expect us to listen.”
I shrugged my shoulders while looking down at Elsie, and she appeared equally bewildered.
The Bishop bristled upon witnessing this.
“No amount of feigned composure will change reality!”
“That’s precisely what I wanted to say.”
Ihyeon didn’t yield an inch.
At that moment, a Sado came rushing in from somewhere with rapid footsteps.
“Ugh! Th-this, what is—no, Bishop, Your Excellency!”
Judging by the way he recoiled in terror at the gruesome sight within, he had only just entered from outside.
The Bishop turned his head slightly as if asking what the matter was, and the Sado who had slid to his knees nearby cried out in an urgent voice.
“Th-the Duogsinis outside are nearly annihilated! Please, we need reinforcements—!”
“????”
The Bishop tilted his head as if the words made no sense whatsoever.
Doubt naturally gave way to fury.
“What nonsense is this! You’re telling me we’ve lost all those Duogsinis!”
The Bishop’s strategy had been simple and efficient.
First, separate Ilgyeok and the Goddess from the main force, then defeat them individually.
He would personally eliminate Ilgyeok and the Goddess—the ones with the greatest combat power—using Erkastrula, while the main force outside would crush the enemy through overwhelming numbers.
It was a simple plan with minimal variables.
Considering the enemy’s strength, there would be significant losses, but those could be recovered in a short time. And if he could subjugate Ilgyeok’s mysterious black warriors through Erkastrula, it would actually be a profitable venture.
But then.
‘Losing all those Duogsinis…?’
It was a clear miscalculation.
If he couldn’t resolve the situation outside by now, he himself would be cornered instead.
The Sado’s report continued.
“The wall of black warriors won’t break no matter what! And the Captain—the woman called Captain—we cannot overcome her! The Saedos have charged in aggressively, but…”
The Captain.
It was naturally Jia.
Ihyeon let out a soft laugh.
“Well, who’s in a hurry now?”
If the Bishop had remained confident without doubting his own strategy,
then Ihyeon too had his reasons for remaining composed all this while.
The greatest reason was naturally his faith that Jia and the Knights outside would not be defeated.
Even if they faced a crisis, they would find a way out or contact him.
And the other reason was.
‘No matter how well you set a trap, it’s meaningless if you can’t catch what comes in.’
It was his confidence that he could even break through the combination of the Bishop and Erkastrula—their main offensive force.
“Th-this—!”
The Bishop’s face, flushed red, twisted grotesquely with rage.
That fury’s sparks scattered onto the unfortunate Sado.
Had he spoken quietly, it might have been different, but because he shouted loudly without reading the mood, the sword hilt was drawn in an instant.
“How dare you ruin my plan, you worm!”
“I-I’m sorry… Gack—!”
Before the Sado could even finish speaking, he collapsed, blood and Erkastrula pouring from every opening in his face.
Just as Ihyeon had said, it was now the Bishop who had become desperate.
The Bishop let out a terrible shriek and shouted.
“Erkastrula! Rampage! Grind those two wretches before me into dust and tear them to shreds!”
Roooaaarrr——!!
With things having come to this, the Bishop’s only tactical choice was swift and decisive action.
And that was.
“I thought a Bishop would be somewhat intelligent, but you’re quite similar.”
“I concur.”
In fact, this was precisely what Ihyeon and Elsie had been hoping for.
Ihyeon spoke simply.
“Just buy me some time. That creature won’t stay idle either, so I’ll handle it first.”
“No problem.”
The current situation was two against two.
Just as before when Ihyeon had faced the Sado and Elsie had faced the Duobuxini, they would engage in battle the same way.
Erkastrula charged at them both with a ferocious roar.
Whoosh——!
Just like the Sado I had killed first, tentacles sprouted from behind its back, whipping about like whips.
As I had initially thought, it was no easy opponent, but with Elsie as she is now.
Slip—
I concealed my body within the shadows and vanished somewhere.
The Bishop, completely consumed by rage, unleashed attacks of an entirely different caliber from the Saedos before.
In truth, most Saedos were little more than savage humans, aside from some abnormal ones.
Boom boom boom——! Crash and roar——!
At the Bishop’s level, he was practically indistinguishable from a combat-oriented Dark Mage.
Black earth spiders swept across all directions, and massive spears pierced through various spots just as they had initially blocked Ihyeon and Elsie.
Eyes that had seemed almost human until moments ago were now stained black.
“Even if that worm hides in a rat hole!!! I’ll overturn this entire plaza!!”
It was an explosive display of force.
The combination of Erkastrula and the Bishop swept through every visible part of the plaza as if they might collapse it entirely.
“Come out! Come out now!!!”
The Bishop’s voice, metallic and piercing, rang out desperately.
Gooooo——
The chaotic air of the plaza transformed once again.
For me, hiding behind a suitable piece of rubble, this too was something I had experienced before.
‘Is he summoning a solar eclipse?’
The partial solar eclipse the Bishop had shown when summoning Eodukshin.
The energy felt very similar to that time.
Of course, this time it was far more powerful, so even if it were the same partial eclipse, the degree to which it blocked the sun would be greater.
Even I couldn’t find the sun in this underground and destroy the eclipse as I had before.
Certainly, it was a situation that would seem hopeless to ordinary Hunters.
Without the Knights’ assistance, I would have lost all the Nomads long ago and been left alone.
Not to mention an S+ clear, I couldn’t even guarantee a proper completion.
‘How in the world was this designed to be broken? …Well, that’s probably why Erubein threw in the towel and flew all the way to Korea.’
It was a moment that made me understand why Erubein had abandoned his conquest of the 90s and come to Korea.
The 90s were a place that inflicted a terrible sense of helplessness upon individuals.
It wasn’t about breaking through with one’s own strength alone—one had to nurture a group that supported them somehow, but even then, maintaining and protecting such a group was nearly impossible.
Though my circumstances differed from Erubein’s, having risen to S+ from the 91st floor, the conclusion remained the same even accounting for that difference.
Yet I was not merely a critic observing and evaluating this situation from the outside.
I was a climber who had to break through this place no matter what.
No matter how fierce the storm raging through the plaza might be.
It could never be a reason for me to stop climbing.
‘Let’s begin.’
My gaze fixed sharply on the Bishop, who was pouring out attack magic like a madman.
Tap-tap-tap—!
I burst out from behind the sculpture I’d been hiding in and began moving to a position ideal for sniping the Bishop.
Naturally, that movement couldn’t escape the notice of the glowing Bishop.
“There you are!!!”
Boom—!
An earth spider attack immediately flew in and struck.
The explosive roar and scattering traces.
As I rolled and leaped, the Bishop’s attacks began following me with increasingly narrow margins.
The Bishop, unable to bear even that, unleashed a wide-area attack.
“Fool! If you’d just kept hiding, you might have clung to that wretched life a bit longer!”
Beneath my rapidly moving feet.
A single ominous black circle was drawn.
The black circle, which seemed to writhe for a moment, then.
Whoosh—!
Rose up in the shape of a hemisphere like a gaping maw and swallowed my body whole.
Having been completely devoured by the earth spider, my body should have already been torn to shreds and decomposed.
The Bishop watching this scene burst into loud laughter.
“Kahahaha! How fitting! How fitting! That arrogant fool who didn’t know his place has finally met his end!”
“Who has?”
“That would be…?”
But the Bishop’s laughter didn’t last long.
Surely my body should have been torn to a gruesome state by his attack.
At that moment, the Bishop’s magic lost its effect and vanished.
From where it disappeared, instead of blood and flesh that a human body should possess.
Scatter—
Particles of light were scattering.
The Bishop turned his head sharply toward where that voice had just come from.
There, floating in midair with a slight smile, I aimed a long staff at him.
Breath stopped.
Trigger pull.
Click—
A light sound rang out once.
Compared to the thunderous roar that had swept across the plaza just moments before, it was absurdly quiet and modest—so much so that one might question whether this was even a sound at all.
Among all my attack skills, the quietest yet most certain: a sniper shot.
Soul Destruction.
A skill that destroys the target’s soul simply by pulling the trigger.
I had hidden my body in one location, created a Perfect Target to draw the Bishop’s attention, then used Shadow Movement to completely change direction before deploying the high-ground skill.
My Dummy had bought me enough time to maintain the precise aim necessary for Soul Destruction.
‘I would have preferred to blow his head clean off, but he said that during a partial eclipse, he can’t be killed by ordinary means.’
I lowered the sniper rifle and observed the Bishop’s reaction.
“Wh-what… ugh?”
What had Ilgyeok done?
Or had he even managed to attack at all?
It had been far too quiet and nothing was visible, so for a moment the Bishop even considered the possibility of a trick, but.
That very ‘thought’ couldn’t last long.
The Bishop’s eyes, blackened by the rampage of the twilight demon, rapidly contracted.
Not only did the whites of his eyes become visible again, but his pupils seemed to shrink even smaller than those of a normal person.
It was the last reaction the Bishop showed as a living being.
“Ugh….”
For one who had made the vast grasslands tremble, the Bishop’s end was far too pathetic.
Unable to take any meaningful action, the Bishop slowly fell backward and collapsed like a corpse.
‘Well, he is a corpse now.’
No matter how skilled one was at creating a makeshift Life Vessel through a partial eclipse, there was no way to withstand the destruction of the soul itself.
I gazed down at the plaza below and muttered.
“Once I clean up that thing… huh?”
That was when.
An ominous aura emanated from the Bishop’s fallen corpse.
I turned around with eyes that questioned what could possibly remain.
Crack— crack—
Cracks spread across the red lacquer covering the Bishop’s face.
And then.
KWAAAAAAAHHHHH———!!!

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