Arcane Sniper

Chapter 988

“How long do you intend to stand there for? Black Bass sent us here, which means this place is already familiar to him. If we don’t move quickly—.”

“I know! I know, but damn, it’s been so long since I used a musket, I need to readjust…”

Leeha poured black powder wrapped in a small paper, inserted the lead ball, and carefully secured it in place to prevent it from wobbling.

Leeha’s body began to move as he intended.

Just as one never forgets how to ride a bike or swim after learning.

The issue was the degree of proficiency. His hands didn’t load as quickly as they used to.

“A musketeer who can’t even use his loading rod? You might as well delete your character and reclass as a mage or something. Then again, with that brain, you’d screw up mana manipulation too. Just be a tank. If you’re ignorant, use your body. Hahaha.”

“Shut up, Luger. Ugh, damn it! 〈Delicate Handling〉!”

In the end, Leeha had to use one of his skills.

Even though he couldn’t use all of Black Bass’s skills, the musketeer still had some intrinsic skills.

A skill that automatically reloaded for 30 seconds. Leeha felt his body being moved by the system.

‘Right. I have to proceed like this. Without any awkward movements in my path— good, this is it.’

As soon as he performed an automatic reload with 〈Delicate Handling〉, Leeha unloaded everything that had been preloaded.

He slung his bag at an angle, prepared to quickly draw out reloading items, and took a deep breath.

Once his body was fully attuned to that flow, what remained was to master reloading without relying on skills or combat assistance systems.

“You fool— you didn’t forget what Kidd said about needing to hurry, did you!? You—.”

“Huuu…”

Leeha took a deep breath.

Luger was more agitated than Kidd, who was watching Leeha while leaning against an unfamiliar tree.

As soon as Kidd sensed Luger’s ‘unease’, he began scanning the surroundings.

He wondered if Luger’s instincts had detected danger.

While Leeha hid himself, he did not rush.

Now was the time for pure concentration.

If he didn’t master reloading in complete harmony with the musket and the flow of his body, he knew he could not succeed in this quest.

In that aspect, there was one advantage compared to when he first handled the musket.

After inserting the powder and the lead ball, he slammed the musket’s butt onto the ground without even using the loading rod.

Thwack—!

Before the crisp sound of wood and ground meeting could fade, Leeha swiftly adopted a kneeling shooting position and aimed at a target.

He pulled back the hammer and squeezed the trigger.

BANG──────!

“—Kraah! What, what was that? Already…?”

Luger, who had been restless beside Leeha, closed his mouth.

Compared to modern firearms he was used to, the sound was much louder and longer, and there was a billowing puff of pale white smoke not only from the muzzle but even from the hammer area.

Without even looking at Leeha, Kidd, who had been surveying the surroundings, spoke.

“Reloading time utilizing tap loading: 1.7 seconds… How is this possible—?”

“Whew, well, I’m certainly better than before. What are you doing, Luger? Let’s go.”

Typical tap loading, no matter how quickly executed, is limited to about four shots per minute.

Even with quick preparation, one has to take around 15 seconds to load a single shot.

Yet 1.7 seconds!?

The concept of tap loading itself was impossible with Kidd’s ‘pistol musket,’ so he had never attempted it. However, as Kidd was aware of the concept, he couldn’t help but be surprised by the shortened time.

“Tap… loading? What do you mean by that?”

Luger alternated glances between Leeha and Kidd, with an expression that indicated he was hearing this for the first time.

Quick reloading wasn’t necessary for the testing of 『Pierce』.

It’s a method unknown to ‘rookie’ Luger from his early days when he doubled or even tripled the powder, praying the barrel would remain intact.

“When were you so eager to get moving? Hurry up!”

Of course, no matter how skilled one was, loading a shot within three seconds was nearly impossible.

Two reasons made it possible.

One was the 100% synchronization rate.

Unlike the past, the far more detailed sensations allowed Leeha to adjust the powder amount with the kind of precision one would in reality.

And if it was the second time, it was certainly this.

‘Character Window.’

Name: Ha Leeha / Race: Human

Class: White Reaper / Level: 269 (0.7%)

Title: Shadow Hitman / Achievements: 187

HP: 11,870(8,309)

MP: 6,595

Stats:

Strength 912(+827)

Agility 5,500(+1,666)

Intelligence 690(+474)

Stamina 464(+338)

Mind 530(+206)

Remaining Stat Points: 63

The agility stat had reached a staggering 5,500.

The total stat points Ha Leeha gained in the battle against Tiamat, combined with level-up points, amounted to a massive 475. Since he had invested all the bonus stat points from various achievements into agility with no reservations, it was only natural that his hand movements would become swift.

‘Hmm, come to think of it, I still have those 63 points saved for an emergency. Maybe I should leave them for now. I might need to put them into stamina…’

Compared to ordinary users who would fret over squeezing the highest efficiency out of every single point, Ha Leeha’s thoughts seemed like a luxury in and of themselves.

“Let’s go. First, we need to understand the terrain of this place.”

“That’s right. There’s no deadline. If we can’t catch the Black Bass, we might waste several days here. We need to hurry.”

Kidd and Luger began walking, pushing through the grass that had grown up to their heights. Their target was the peak towering nearby.

“Hey, wait! You guys left me behind—”

Luger, who had been absentmindedly pondering the principles of tap loading, scrambled hastily to catch up with them.

The first day of hunting the ‘Anthropomorphized Black Bass’ had begun.

* * *

Ha Leeha carefully pushed aside the leaves.

The plant was so dense that he had to use the musket’s barrel to part it; it was a giant leaf of a plant growing from the ground.

It was so large it obstructed the view and even brushing against it with bare hands would inflict a status condition: Poisoned.

“Phew, it’s a relief that we haven’t encountered monsters for the last three hours. The remaining distance is roughly—”

“It’ll take over two more hours before we can see anything around.”

“—That’s right. Once we become more familiar with these plants, it should get much better.”

Ha Leeha acknowledged Kidd’s words with a nod. The peak they had seen from below was indeed as high and rough as they had anticipated. Fortunately, there weren’t many monsters around.

Ha Leeha took the lead, with Kidd following behind him, while Luger trailed even further back, panting heavily at least twenty steps removed.

“Damn it! Mountain climbing, what a pain! Is there even an end? To this world, the end— there were no stipulations about movement range in the quest description.”

“You, with your rugged appearance, complaining like that.”

“What, man!? To handle something like the ‘Acht-Acht’ cannon, you have to be so delicate— Hoo, you know how—”

Luger was too exhausted to even be annoyed by Ha Leeha’s teasing. He had been one of the most tired during their sudden forced march in the eastern part of the New Continent, so it was nothing unusual.

Even while trying to outdo Ha Leeha in vocal volume, his pace failed to quicken.

“But you do have a point about the movement range. It wasn’t just the lack of time; there wasn’t a specified area either.”

“Hm…”

The Black Bass did not impose any special conditions.

The sole determinant of the quest’s success or failure was survival.

What, then, did that imply about the other factors?

As the Three Musketeers, each of them mulled over their thoughts, continuing to climb. It was not until the peak of the mountain range came into view that Kidd spoke up quietly.

“We have to remember that this isn’t a real place.”

“Huh? What sudden nonsense?”

“It means there must be a boundary. This is an illusory space conjured by Black Bass based on his own memories… Naturally, we can’t go beyond what his memories include or what he can actualize in specific terrain.”

“That’s reasonable. Otherwise, it’d imply we could head to Laputa from here.”

Luger, following Kidd with dogged perseverance, lent his voice in agreement.

Leeha had only vaguely guessed this fact.

“I don’t know if Laputa still exists now. Everyone has seen it, right? We’ve all heard about the Black Bass’s memory, and we heard stories from the Dark Elf village.”

“Hmm, if God and demons still remain, there’s a high possibility that Laputa doesn’t exist,” someone agreed.

“I think so too. If the Devil left behind the Demon King’s Fragments, isn’t it possible that what God left behind is Laputa?”

As for the timeline, they couldn’t know for sure.

Even after looking at records from Saur Land and paintings left in Laputa, they couldn’t make it clear.

However, they could guess that God wouldn’t just sit back and take it.

“The battle between God and the Devil was sacred, so to speak. Lies or deception were not allowed to interfere, as a basic premise. It would be impossible to deceive an entity that is a god, after all.”

Despite this, the Devil left behind his avatars known as the “Demon King’s Fragments.”

Could this be considered a trickery or not?

The gods might have let themselves be deceived knowingly. However, it might also be that God deceived the Devil in turn.

“An empty island called Laputa… Isn’t that the evidence that they made a pathway to where they dwell?”

If ever the Demon King’s Fragments were to become active, if they were to attempt to destroy all order in Middle Earth, could it be that they meant to ask to come and speak with them?

“If you think about it that way—no, there’s no way God wouldn’t know about it, right? The activation of the Demon King’s Fragments is obvious, but why—hmm?!”

Leeha’s mind became a tangled mess with various thoughts. It was a maze of thoughts that couldn’t be unraveled without knowing the circumstances before and after.

He shook his head to dispel the extraneous thoughts.

They would eventually learn the truth. For now, they needed to focus on the task at hand.

“Alright! Let’s check the terrain with ‘Eagle’s Eye’!”

“First, we need to confirm the terrain. Since we don’t know the enemy’s location or appearance yet—.”

“I know, I know. Wow, over there—it’s so impossible to gauge the tree’s size that the distance feels distorted. It feels like Southeast Asia, or some jungle, Amazon…”

The old continent reconstructed from Black Bass’s memory was laying bare for Leeha and Kidd. Leeha somehow felt in high spirits.

Was it because there was confidence and relief in the belief that as long as the three of them were together, they would not fail Black Bass’s quest?

He exclaimed in excitement.

“Oh, a river! We’ve confirmed a river! Even though it’s quite dark with all those clouds in the sky—judging by the sun’s movement, it seems approximately to the west, with the river stretching roughly straight for about 6km—hmm?”

Something caught Leeha’s eye while observing a world full of familiar yet strange plants.

Something sparkled.

Leeha could ascertain it.

It clearly wasn’t sunlight reflecting off the water. After all, wasn’t it slightly away from the river?

Was there something along the riverbank?

Was it sparkling sand?

There was no way the reflection from sand could be visible from over 5km away. Even though ‘Eagle’s Eye’ had good performance, it wasn’t that good.

“Wait, that can’t be…”

Leeha immediately lowered his posture.

Still not satisfied, he lay flat on the ground before slowly lifting his head.

What that artificial glittering might mean.

Alternating, the reflective light hit Leeha’s left and right eyes. It was wavering.

To be precise, it was trying to find something.

“It’s quite interesting. Some living things over there look almost like… Toon. Compared to the dinosaurs that enjoyed advanced civilization in Saur Land, they are entirely barren—well, it’s actually before they discovered Laputa’s technology, so I suppose it’s natural for them to be.”

“Kidd!”

Leeha suddenly stood up and ran towards Kidd.

Kidd, who had discovered the ‘dinosaurs’ in the lowlands and was completely focused on them, turned to look at Leeha.

Leeha was already tackling Kidd as if they were wrestling. As Leeha hugged Kidd’s waist and pushed him to the ground.

“Ugh—.”

Whizz—

Ha! Something brushed past Kidd’s shoulder.

Leeha and Kidd tumbled over each other and rolled on the ground. As Kidd rolled, he grimaced in pain and groaned.

“Ugh?!”