Arcane Sniper [Matan’s Shooter]

“What’s crucial isn’t that, but rather how we can inflict damage. To suddenly find it—wait, Jellypong! Over there! Just lift me up high once!”

[Myong!]

Leeha pulled on the lever. Clink!

With a sound, a bullet was loaded. At the same moment, he felt his body being lifted.

This wasn’t a Blaugrunn-induced levitation. It was literally just Jellypong tossing him up forcefully. Yet, Leeha kept his composure.

Because he’d spotted Kaztor without even needing to use the scope.

‘Huuuuuh… Guess I should start with a proper greeting?’

Leeha steadied his breath. The stability his body regained in mid-air would last less than half a second.

That moment, just before peaking and beginning the free fall.

“Haaa…”

Leeha didn’t miss that brief moment.

The moment he pulled the trigger, a massive gunshot echoed over the skies of Ezwen.

“Piercing through—!!!”

Kaztor staggered. Yet, that was all.

Black smoke seeped from the hole in his chest.

“Damn it! Let’s chase after him! And-”

[Myong-!]

“[Soul Link] and [Summon: Partner]!”

Leeha simultaneously summoned Koma and Blaugrunn.

Shocked by the sudden gunshot, Ezwen’s skies had players and 148 NPCs shielding their eyes from the sudden burst of turquoise and red lights.

“Crazy, its speed hasn’t decreased. No, rather than slowing down…”

Stumbling, Kaztor tried to flee, but the Ezwen guards couldn’t handle even one injured person. He didn’t wave a staff but merely fluttered their hands in the air, yet the dark arrows shot pierced the guards’ hearts with precision.

“Leeha?”

“Kuoong?”

“Everyone, stop whining and chase after him! Out of the city walls!”

Blaugrunn, along with Koma, no longer hesitated, used levitation magic on everyone to pursue Kaztor.

“Blaugrunn! With magic! We must catch him!”

“Understood!”

“Koma, you too! Seize any chance to strike at his limbs!”

“Kuooong-!”

In the center of Ezwen’s Cathedral, Kaztor, who had started his escape, had already reached near the city walls.

“Before he escapes further—we must catch him before he uses teleportation!”

Although Leeha was fast, the gap between Kaztor and Leeha’s group wasn’t closing. The moment Kaztor stood before the walls, ready to leap, Leeha noticed cloaks fluttering oddly.

There were three of them; Leeha recognized them immediately.

“Those, those are- the ones from back then! Were they not suspicious individuals but Kaztor’s aides!?”

The suspicious ones they had lost while trailing with Kidd! To appear at this moment of all times!

Leeha clenched his teeth.

“The Papacy might handle the firing at Kaztor but—those guys… Ah, forget it! Fire anyways!”

Rules prohibited gunfire within the town, but Leeha couldn’t hesitate. The moment he pulled the trigger, a familiar voice reached his ears.

“So it’s the young marksman from that time. Have you forgotten the coin I gave you?”

Eh? Wha- What??

Flutter…

They threw off their cloaks in one smooth motion.

Two men stood revealed: one with white hair and scar, a shortsword wielder, and the other a middle-aged man wielding two wands, as Leeha had seen before.

Yet, the identity of another, whose cloak fluttered awkwardly—?

“Le- Lepanto! Sir Lepanto!”

The reason the cloak had fluttered awkwardly. It was because he was missing a left arm.

“From now on, we’ll take over! We have been waiting for today, just today, rohtzan! Forward, comrades!”

The one-armed fencer, Lepanto, leaped forward with a sword in his right hand. Simultaneously, the white-haired scarred man raised a pile of daggers in both hands, and the middle-aged man with streaks of white in his hair lifted two wands.

“Kuhahaha, I shall reclaim the lost 20 years with your life!”

“[Physical Link: Dagger, [Damage Chain]]”

The thrown daggers connected into a single chain.

From the start, the attacks of the two seemed coordinated, as dozens of daggers danced in the air before flying towards Kaztor.

“… You would have been happier living forever without your memories, you trash!”

Kaztor frowned as he gestured towards them.

“Comrades… And what that white-haired man just shouted! People who lost their memories during the Second Human-Demon War – they were the work of Lotzak!”

It was a sudden confrontation with the ‘Lost Heroes’ of the Second Human-Demon War and the Dark Elves, but Leeha was not one to stay idle.

Leeha quickly adjusted their aim.

“Cough, shall I aim for the remaining arm?”

“Still alive with that appearance. I’ll stitch up that filthy mouth first, Lotzak!”

“I’ll do the stitching! Huuuh!”

The white-haired man swung his arm.

Though it was clearly “throwing daggers,” perhaps due to the assistance of the middle-aged man with two wands, dozens of daggers began to dance in the air under the direction of the white-haired man.

The sight of them slicing through Kaztor’s flesh, tearing his clothes, and even embedding in his shins, wreaking havoc, was brutally gruesome from afar.

“Yes, there was someone manipulating toys. You’ve turned on quite a few, ‘Velraid.’”

“Kuhaha! Wasn’t I always the older one? But today, you’re the one going into the coffin!”

“Doesn’t make any sense-“

Kaztor attempted to reach out to the white-haired man, but his motion was forcibly stopped midway.

“Gant!”

Lepanto’s sword, having leaped into the action, plunged into Kaztor’s elbow joint from the side.

Kaztor looked at his crushed joint and smirked.

“Ha, I should’ve completely erased your memories.”

“Annoying talk. Our pain, having wandered the hell of ignorance for 20 years because of you-“

“Shut up.”

Whooosh-!

Kaztor swung his remaining arm at Lepanto.

In an instant, enveloped by a burst of dark energy, Lepanto was slammed to the ground.

“[Chain Bed]!”

Zzzzzt-

As the two wands were waved, chains of mana burst forth amidst the buildings on the ground.

The mesh of mana chains formed at Lepanto’s crash site, bouncing his body violently.

“Annoying magic user, ‘Yenoha’ the Linker.”

“It’s because I tracked your tracks to the very end, Lotzak. [Chain Spear]!”

Yenoha, the mage, swung his wands. The mana chains that had previously supported Lepanto sharply burst towards Kaztor.

“Didn’t I say, it was merely bothersome?”

Kaztor waved his hand. When a hemisphere of black appeared in front of him, the mana chains could no longer approach him.

It seemed the revenge of the lost heroes of the Second Human-Demon War was at its end if no one else had been there.

Whoosh-!

“Ah, were you still here, Leeha?”

Leeha’s bullet horizontally hit through Kaztor’s shoulder. The bullet entered the left shoulder and was about to exit the right, yet Kaztor merely staggered in the air.

Leeha bit their lip at the sight. He thought that such a simple attack wouldn’t be enough to kill him.

“Of course, I was still here. You thought I’d miss?”

“If you kill me, the secret of Matan’s Shooter will remain unsolved.”

“No, that’s not possible. I’ll kill you and solve the secret of Matan’s Shooter.”

“How? Even God couldn’t know that. Ask the Demon King’s Fragments? Those things are merely pieces after all. No one but me… nobody can know.”

“Hm?”

Listening to Kaztor’s story, Leeha tilted their head slightly. God? A Demon King’s Fragment?

These were names that had unexpectedly popped up, ones Leeha hadn’t even considered.

“I should have killed you from the start. You…that filthy gaze. The day we first met at the Royal Archives, I should have killed you then. But, luckily…”

“Luck? What luck are you talking about? Keeping me alive has been quite entertaining, hasn’t it? It’s too late for regrets now. What matters is, Kaztor, you’re finished.”

As Leeha spoke, one corner of Kaztor’s lips twisted into a smirk.

“Luckily, I can kill you in my preferred way. Dea-“

Just as Kaztor was about to complete his sentence, Leeha swiftly raised my hand.

“Gentlemen! Thank you for buying us time! Blaugrunn, Kidd-“

The battle between the heroes who went missing after the Second War of Humans and Demons and Kaztor was over in less than three minutes. The reason Leeha had been exchanging words with Kaztor until now?

Of course, there was a reason.

“-And Lieutenant!”

“Magnificent Six.”

“The Wild Bunch.”

Kidd and Browless simultaneously activated their barrage skills.

How many souls converged into two due to ‘Rapid Shot’? How many bullets were fired by them?

80!

Amid the incessant gunfire, Leeha Black Bass also contributed its roar. Kaztor couldn’t even speak. He was unable to move his hand.

To Kidd, Browless, and Leeha, he was nothing more than a ‘large target’ floating in the air, a difficult one to miss.

“Capture him! Blaugrunn! Hurry and capture him! This is just delaying the inevitable!”

Yet, Leeha did not look pleased. This relentless attack was meant to shatter Kaztor’s spirit so that he couldn’t cast his magic!

The most crucial aspect was about the capture and paralyzing magic that Leeha had mentioned earlier to Blaugrunn. Blaugrunn remained unresponsive to Leeha’s urging.

“The duration is about to end, hurry!”

“The dragon’s response is still-“

“Just a bit more! Even if the skills end, use regular bullets-“

The duration of Kidd and Browless’ skills nearly ended simultaneously. Leeha also reloaded and indiscriminately spewed bullets towards Kaztor.

“Blaugrunn! Please- no more- Kidd, block it! Block it with your body, catch Kaztor!”

“Krrrrr!”

Suddenly, ignited by Ignis’s power, Koma’s thighs swelled as if they were about to burst.

A cyan light that had been gathering in the form of a dragon’s body for two full minutes finally condensed.

“[Electric Jail: Mana Pool Charge]”

That explained why Blaugrunn’s magic took so long. Dragons had long known that ordinary magic could not bind him.

‘Okay, it worked! Although it’s Juvenile-class, Blaugrunn’s mana, which is close to Adult-class-‘

But Kaztor was already staring them down, standing upright. The moment he attempted to swing his arm, the cub, transformed into a bear by Ignis’s power, struck it down. With a single hit, Kaztor’s left arm was completely severed.

“Half-dead, dow-“

Yet, he did not stop. His body, riddled with holes and less than 40% intact, whether it could still be called a “body” I wasn’t sure, but he moved his remaining limb nonetheless.

As space tore apart, Kaztor disappeared. The prison of lightning blazed intensely in the air, but it was a spell already lost its target.

“Ah…crap.”

“Damn.”

Tsstsstssts-…!

Someone cursed loudly, but only the sound of the electric prison burning echoed emptily. In the spot where Kaztor had completely vanished, only Leeha and Kidd’s bodies were glowing faintly.

[Your level has increased.]

However, neither of them smiled.

Kaztor, who had turned the headquarters of the Ezwen Church to ruins and caused the unprecedented incident of the Pope’s death in the history of Middle Earth, just disappeared from their sight like that.