I Got A Legendary Sniper Rifle - Chapter 353

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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 353
Ep. 353
When I thought about it, there was nothing particularly strange about it.
“Yunjung is, after all, quite the master schemer in this world, so I sought her instruction as a matter of course.”
“I see.”
The atmosphere died a bit at the mention of “schemer,” but from what I heard, she’d taught makeup techniques, the fundamentals of acting, inconspicuous mannerisms, and more.
The Knights had made quite extensive preparations to help Ihyeon blend naturally among the Saedos.
Since Yunjung, who was practically a living legend in that field, had instructed him quite diligently, Ihyeon seemed to be managing well enough.
“In that regard, how would it be to appoint Han Yunjeong as commander of a special reconnaissance detachment?”
“…Do as you see fit.”
“Thank you, my Lord!”
Yunjung certainly had a knack for ingratiating herself.
Is this why everyone says spies are so terrifying?
The truth was, taking on any position in the Knights didn’t come with a salary or any special status.
Yet seeing how much everyone liked her despite having joined only recently suggested she possessed some special talent.
‘Even Suyeon seems to be getting along with her like a friend now.’
Suyeon, who had been wary of Yunjung at first, now followed her around calling her “sister” affectionately.
If that was the case with Suyeon, Minjeong and Donghoo needed no mention.
Honestly, it would be strange not to like someone who came by whenever she had a moment and took care of all sorts of chores around the house.
In any case, since she didn’t seem to cause any real problems, I decided to keep watching her.
And so the operational briefing before entering the tower concluded.
Now all that remained was.
「Will you enter Floor 98 of the Main Tower of the Republic of Korea?」
“Yes.”
To go in myself and face it directly.
* * *
Floor 98.
Ihyeon, disguised as Kaez, already stood at the head of the northward expedition.
Though I’d held my coming-of-age ceremony long ago, Kaez was now a proper adult.
My real-world age had reached the mid-twenties.
My forces—the nation was even named after me, “Ihyeon”—had expanded tremendously.
Managing such vast territory on the great plains naturally required proportional manpower.
Despite the torment from the Duogsinis and Saedos, I’d somehow endured and absorbed the countless nomads of the plains as they were.
With my abundant B-grade mana stones, I’d trained the Nomadic Warriors extensively without hesitation.
Now, with time passing, the One-Strike Knight Order hardly needed to concern themselves—the warriors trained themselves.
…Watching hundreds or thousands of warriors doing calisthenics across the vast plains was quite a spectacle, I had to admit.
In any case, the northward expedition mobilized a staggering 100,000 Nomadic Warriors!
Since we were marching to subjugate the last remaining region of the great plains, I poured all my strength into it.
My main force had 40,000 troops, but for operational efficiency, 30,000 soldiers marched on each flank as well.
The Vice Captain chuckled and spoke.
“It’s been quite a long time since I’ve commanded forces of this magnitude.”
“Oh? You’ve commanded troops before?”
Ihyeon showed interest at the Vice Captain’s words.
Given the nature of the tower, large-scale battles like this don’t occur easily.
At best, the ruined fortresses around the 40th floors see battles numbering in the dozens, or if lucky, hundreds.
The Vice Captain answered in a hearty voice.
“Of course! In my younger days, I served as supreme commander in several wars.”
“…I’m asking just to be sure, but what kind of soldiers were they?”
“What kind, you ask? Ah, of course they were Undead and monsters. Though I did command humans during my lifetime as well.”
That was certainly a remarkable history, if anything could be called remarkable.
Well, with such diverse experience, it made sense that he possessed his current abilities.
In any case, watching the endless procession of cavalry trailing behind him, Ihyeon felt his emotions renewed.
‘One hundred thousand… A hundred thousand actually exceeds legion-scale forces. If Sergeant Choi Ihyeon commanded this many troops, wouldn’t the world be ending?’
Four-star Choi Ihyeon!
If this were back when I was a sergeant in the special forces, I wouldn’t just be leading a hundred thousand—merely standing before a hundred thousand would have made my legs tremble.
Truth be told, even now, hearing the scale of the forces didn’t leave me without tension.
Beyond simply becoming the commander of so many people, ultimately these soldiers were—
‘People I must protect.’
People I had to return to their families with all the strength I could muster.
It felt deeply ironic—not a sign of the world’s end, but rather leading these people to save the world itself.
“…Let’s move faster.”
“Yes, Lord! Increase speed!”
How long did we ride like that?
Krrraaaack——!!!
“That must be the Stormlands.”
Even though it was daytime, dark clouds and endless lightning began to appear exactly as the Vice Captain had reported.
When Ihyeon said this, the Vice Captain immediately responded.
“No, that’s just a storm passing through at the moment.”
“…”
“Puhahahaha! Master, you got it completely wrong?!”
Elsie, riding beside him, laughed so hard holding her stomach that she looked like she might fall from her horse.
The Vice Captain chuckled and corrected himself.
“Actually, that place is indeed the Stormlands. I noticed you seemed tense from earlier, so I was trying to lighten the mood.”
“Elsie.”
“I-I’m sorry. Vice Captain! A false report in such grave times!”
“I-I apologize…”
As Ihyeon’s gaze turned sharp, Elsie quickly began to scold the Vice Captain.
Well, that wouldn’t shake the Vice Captain’s position as the most beleaguered figure in the 90th floors anyway.
Regardless, Ihyeon gazed at the Stormlands with a somewhat worried expression.
In fact, people in South Korea rarely think about the possibility of being struck by lightning.
Countless high-rise buildings and apartments had countermeasures in place for such situations.
‘But here… this place could actually get hit.’
The Stormlands were different, though.
There was hardly anything taller than a person mounted on horseback.
Just a few scattered boulders of considerable size.
The trees that looked reasonably tall had all been struck by lightning long ago, leaving them withered and charred.
The squad members laughed heartily at Ihyeon’s words.
“My lord, your consideration runs so deep!”
“We won’t take any damage from lightning, so please don’t worry!”
“…Who said I was worried about you?”
???
The squad members exchanged blank stares with one another, tilting their heads in confusion at what Ihyeon meant.
Of course, Ihyeon, Jia, Elsie, and all the Knights would suffer no serious harm even if struck by lightning.
They had long since transcended the realm of ordinary humans and entered the ranks of the superhuman, and the Knights were no exception.
At that moment, Elsie, who had been seething with irritation over what happened earlier, suddenly erupted in fury.
“You idiots! The master isn’t worried about the nomads getting struck by lightning!”
“Oh, ah!”
“I see, that would be possible for those fellows.”
Ihyeon nodded and was about to praise Elsie.
Certainly, while she could be snippy at times, she generally understood his true intentions well and explained things with satisfying clarity.
“If those bastards all die from lightning strikes, what happens to the master’s clear rating!”
I hadn’t expected her to be quite so bluntly helpful!
Ihyeon gave Elsie a slight glare as she shouted excitedly.
Of course, the clear rating was important, but surely human lives came first, didn’t they?
He wasn’t about to treat anyone as a ghost who died because they failed to achieve an S+ rating.
“How about it, Master? Did I do well?”
“…Yes.”
Still, once the Knights heard Elsie’s words, they began moving quickly, leaving me with little to complain about.
The countermeasure that Jia and the Vice Captain devised together was simple yet effective.
“Everyone, raise your spears high from the sides of the column!”
“Warriors, keep your bodies low!”
The Knights broke formation and stood at intervals, raising their spears high.
Conversely, the warriors pressed themselves against their horses’ backs and advanced.
Crack-crack-crack——!!
“Hahahaha! Lightning won’t stop me, Erholten of the Knight Academy’s 439th class!”
The squad members could easily withstand lightning, making them living lightning rods of sorts.
Lightning poured down on the spear-wielding members scattered throughout, but the nomadic warriors were able to continue their march safely.
Crack-crack-crack-crack——!!
“More! Come on, strike again!”
Crack-crack-crack-crack-crack———
“There’s more lightning striking than I expected?”
Rumble—— Roooaaarrr—— CRACK-BOOM——!!
“Uh… uh…?”
The nomadic warriors were safe.
The undead knights, on the other hand, were struck by lightning so frequently that they seemed to be turning into batteries.
But whenever the damage accumulated to a concerning degree, Ihyeon unfailingly healed them with the healing gun, so there was no real problem.
Roooaaarrr—— CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK———!!!!
“P-please… just kill me…”
There truly was no problem.
Fortunately, as we ventured deeper into the Storm Lands, the lightning strikes began to diminish accordingly.
It seemed the phenomenon served a dual purpose—both as a protective barrier against outside intruders.
By that point, the squad members had divided into several groups and took turns serving as lightning rods, allowing the march to proceed swiftly and without incident overall.
“Ugh… Master, why couldn’t I bring my phone into the tower?”
“Elsie, say something that makes sense.”
“Withdrawal symptoms, withdrawal symptoms!”
When she worked as a swordsman, she had managed alone for over a decade just fine—the only notable thing now was how her entire body writhed from withdrawal symptoms.
‘Since we’re already in here, might as well do a digital detox.’
Elsie soon fell silent, apparently resigned to her fate.
The march was long, but it certainly had an end.
Rumble——
“Master, the thunder is subsiding.”
“Yes, it does seem that way.”
The lightning bolts that had struck the procession at regular intervals were no longer visible.
Only distant thunder rumbled faintly from far away.
We had clearly entered some kind of turning point on the 98th floor.
Moreover, the rocky mountain stretching across the distant horizon only confirmed my suspicions further.
“Once we reach that place, we should find something to do. Let’s go a bit further.”
“Yes, Lord!”
Riding on horseback, we reached the rocky mountain in no time.
Dark clouds still hung thick overhead, but with the thunder and rain now gone, our pace accelerated even more.
However, such progress did not last long.
SCREEEEEECH——!!
“Tch, now that the thunder’s gone, these annoying Duogsinis are crawling out.”
As we approached the rocky mountain, Duogsinis that had been burrowed and hiding in various spots began to emerge.
Our ears had been numbed by the thunder, so the Duogsinis’ shrieks almost sounded welcome.
And as for the Duogsinis that sporadically cut in front of the expedition,
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom———
They were simply buried under the sheer force of 40,000 rounds, reduced to dust on the plains.
By now, the nomadic warriors had grown even stronger, so occasionally a single squad would go out and eliminate them.
Though it did cost us some time, it was really only a brief delay.
Ihyeon and the expedition reached the rocky mountain without much delay.
“The left and right flanks have been positioned with the rocky mountain as the center.”
“Well done.”
At last, even the forces that had been moving defensively on both sides of Ihyeon’s main contingent finally joined up.
However, Ihyeon did not rashly approach the rocky mountain.
Kiiiii—— Kyeeeee——
The rocky mountain was already nearly overrun with countless Duogsinis.
Judging by how they did not charge forward like beasts, the Saedos controlling such numbers must be hiding in various places.
Yet they did not appear to be crowded onto the rocky mountain to block Ihyeon and the expedition.
“What are they doing?”
“I’m not certain, Lord.”
“Hmm… What could be on the rocky mountain?”
Rather, they had turned their backs to it, and only when the expedition appeared did they belatedly take a stance to check them.
After some time passed, the Duogsinis and Saedos began pouring down from the rocky mountain in a sluggish mass.
A revolting sight, as if the viscous substance coating the rocky mountain were dripping down.
Their numbers were so vast that before long they covered an area comparable to Ihyeon’s entire expedition.
And from among them.
Kwoom—!
A single Duogsini emerged, fashioned from a Great Tiger judging by the patches of orange and white fur and markings visible throughout its form.

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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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