Chapter 552
‘The sound of footsteps has stopped.’ Elizabeth was squatting on the fragments of the rock that MY Brown had shattered, wearing an indifferent expression, as if saying, ‘I don’t care what happens to Leeha’.”
“Ah! Maybe you still can’t use the Multi-Warhead Shot? Hmm, it would’ve been good if you weren’t such a foolish protégé…… Although judging from seeing you barely shooting 5km and struggling, it’s likely that you haven’t mastered the fifth level yet. Phew, what has your master taught you? Ah, maybe you don’t have a teacher?”
Elizabeth kept babbling on and on, sometimes groaning, sometimes sighing with an implication of contempt, and occasionally yawning out of boredom.
Leeha remained silent in response to every comment.
His mind was already overwhelmed with worries about how to get through this situation.
“Ahhhhhh! Really not going to come out? Let’s just talk! You have no idea how bored I was with that idiot of a husband! Even the monster remains weren’t good company! I rushed over here thinking I finally found a protégé I could actually have a decent conversation with, but I am being ignored?”
As Elizabeth did not receive any response, her voice turned a little shriller.
Unable to adjust to her dialogues, it seemed as if she was bantering with an old friend or school protégé.
‘……a trap? Is she setting me up into a trap with that casual banter?’
Was she just planning to blow his head off the moment he responded to her friendly tone?
Leeha’s unease never faded.
The grim imagination of her gigantic muzzle from the long-barreled gun aiming at the back of his head kept growing.
“Is Browless doing well? Oh, I guess not.”
Elizabeth’s shrill voice softened a little at that moment.
A faint sigh trailed off after her sentence.
“He must have been upset for not being able to make a sound. Not just because he came here…….because he had to hide too much from the beginning.”
Elizabeth sighed again. Leeha thought that her voice seemed somewhat suppressed and emotional.
Though his ears were focused on her words, Leeha’s mind was filled with thoughts of getting out from this situation.
‘Think. If Elizabeth has skills at least equal to Mr. Brown, survival post-fire should be considered impossible.’
If Leeha targeted Toon, he would have to put his own life at stake.
Of course, considering the common and spirit quests, there may be a worth in an exchange of that level.
After all, Leeha just needed to log in calmly after ten days to collect the [World Tree’s Fruit], right?
The problem, however, was if Toon wasn’t neutralized.’If the [Scattered] doesn’t work…?’ Elizabeth was already behind him.
The moment Toon was hit by the initial gunfire, he instantly figured out his location. It was certain that Brown and Elizabeth had been exchanging messages with magic akin to whispered words.
What if Elizabeth contacts him before the bullet from the multi-barreled gun reaches me?
There’s a high possibility that Toon can avoid it.
‘Damn it, I can’t shoot while this woman is by my side. If I shoot at Toon, Blaugrunn-ssin might alert him beforehand…
The person by his side wasn’t a normal monster or regular user. Her mana control of a dragon could move faster than he could anticipate.
Another line of thought occurred to him as he thought this far.
There’s a woman sighing heavily behind him!
Isn’t there another consequence of this situation!
‘Elizabeth being here means Bailephus can approach Alexander! Once the complete dragon knight is formed, he can confirm Toon’s neutralization and retreat-‘
What would have happened to the check against Bailephus if Elizabeth was here?
Leeha stared at Bailephus with hope-filled eyes.
And he was horrified.
—————, Wrecking —————!
The sound of hitting Bailephus’ perfect barrier was still ringing intermittently.
‘…Then who is that?’
Brown, with Luger and Kidd, was still in a close-quarter artillery fight. It is impossible to shoot Bailephus in that mess.
Neither is it Elizabeth. Even if she were using a silencer, it wouldn’t make sense.
‘Even if I use a silencer, it would be impossible to block the sound completely. I wouldn’t be able to not hear it from this distance?!’
There is only one possibility.
Leeha could only pray desperately that his heartbeats wouldn’t be heard by Elizabeth.
‘There is a third party.’
There is another musketeer who is neither Brown nor Elizabeth.
Someone whose face and identity he does not know!
And Leeha was able to ascertain the third party’s identity in an instant. Not because he was smart.
Because Elizabeth, who was babbling beside him, gave him more than enough hint.
“But I couldn’t say anything because of the war. If I spoke up, he who looked fierce but had a kind heart would have tried to stop us… Neither my husband nor I are the kind to stay still. We probably would have ended up fighting more. Isn’t it extremely normal to stay silent? Pregnancy does not reduce shooting skills. Oh right! Are you male, female? Hmm, I hope you are a female. I think you’d get along well with our son.”
When she headed to the Demon Army, there was a child inside her.
The child of Mr. Brown and Miss Elizabeth.
What if it was 20 years ago and Koma has grown after a safe birth?
That child would be about twenty years old now.
Perhaps there was another male NPC somewhere who had completed elite training in shooting, perhaps even inheriting the properties of ‘Penetration’ and ‘Accuracy’.
Luger and Kidd were still struggling in their fight against Brown.
They had unleashed all sorts of dazzling skills, but Brown was by no means easy.
Even with his threatening attacks, his bullets seemed to miss Luger and Kidd.
It was as if the purpose of this battle was not to kill them, but for mere containment or educational purposes.
Luger and Kidd, feeling the nuance in every bullet, became increasingly provoked and tried even more fiercely to corner Brown. Still, that was no easy task.
The same was true for Toon.
The ‘Dinosaur’, who knew perfectly well that Bailephus could not get close, had nothing more to fear.
Rankers and other users were already using numerous skills, their mana almost depleted. But Toon, who only uses physical combat capabilities, showed no difference between then and now.
“Damn, the more we fight, the stronger he seems!”
“We feel like he’s getting stronger as we die!”
The cornered users cried out tragically.
A considerable number of users had faintly felt this, but hadn’t realized it.
Only two people discovered this fact.
Pei Wu and Kijung instantly grasped Toon’s nature.
“…He absorbs blood!”
“Crazy – It’s Igor!? He has a Berserker-like tendency!”
A monster that gets stronger by absorbing blood.
The reason Toon frolicked even more whenever users died was not simply because there were one or two fewer people to stop him!
Alexander and Lee Jiwon’s faces distorting greatly.
That means Toon’s current state shows no difference when compared to when he first started fighting.
Distasteful as it was for Lee Jiwon, who had expended all his energy dealing with nearby small monsters and even the lightning cloud energy, and for Alexander who couldn’t fully utilize Bailephus’ power. Despair, chaos, and panic gradually spread among the users fighting Toon. Elizabeth, muttering from behind Leeha, also sensed that atmosphere.
“It’s over. But are you really not going to come out? I only wanted to talk. Should I praise you for being so cautious, or call you a coward? Ah, it’s no fun. Life is boring.” The sound of Elizabeth stretching reached Leeha’s ears.
And not only was Elizabeth watching that scene. Leeha also scrutinized Brown, Luger, and Kidd’s battle, as well as the war between Toon and all the other users.
“If you really won’t shoot, show your face, kid! If you don’t come out, I’ll just-“
Listening to Elizabeth’s last whining, Leeha had to make a decision.
“Are you really not going to shoot.” swoosh……
It had been quite a while since the initial fight with Brown.
Leeha got up from his seat, dissolving all his joint fixation and camouflage.
Elizabeth, who turned around, was a woman who certainly did not look middle-aged or over forty.
As she gazed at Leeha, she was a purely innocent NPC who sparkled endlessly.
“Wow?! You really showed yourself? Are you a fool?”
“Fool, while you were asking me to show myself-”
“You?”
Her brows dramatically narrowed.
Where was the twinkling-eyed woman from just a moment ago? Leeha felt sweat flow down his neck.
At this moment, the charisma dominating the air seemed to suppress Leeha’s body.
“Ma’am- umm… Senior–”
“Could you please call me senior? Hehe, I don’t want to act like an old fart now. But we should get this right.”
Elizabeth laughed heartily.
Being fixated on such unimportant honorifics.
Leeha was a bit flustered, but if he could save his life by calling her senior, he would gladly do it.
‘It’s not just about saving my life.’
Blaugrunn: Ha Leeha-nim! You are not really trying to talk to her!? Even if I can summon quickly, If you can’t signal, it’s the end!
The strategy he shared with Blaugrunn was to try to dig up information through conversation. That was why Leeha stood up.
Even Blaugrunn knew how dangerous this strategy was.
Leeha ignored Blaugrunn’s whisper and met her eyes.
“It’s a little disappointing that you’re a boy… but you look quite decent. What do you think?”
“I don’t want to have that kind of conversation.”
“Huh? Then what? Ah! I promised to give you advice, didn’t I? Um, let’s see… what should we talk about first? What’s been the most difficult for you recently?”
Elizabeth sat back down on the rock
Leeha’s Black Bass briefly caught her eye, but she soon lost interest in the gun.
It made Leeha even more nervous, the actions of a person who was confident that no matter what Leeha did, it would pose no threat to her.
‘The magazine is in good shape. The gun is loaded. At this close range, there’s no need for click adjustment.’
Shoot immediately.
‘It won’t even take a second.’
Can she react at this distance within a fraction of a second?
“I’ll tell you in advance, don’t bother. If I wanted to kill you, I would have done so already. You do know why I’ve been sitting here, don’t you?”
“…Because you knew I was here.”
Leeha’s brain froze for a moment.
Elizabeth was an NPC who could control the surrounding air with just a simple change in facial expression.
“So why–”
“I don’t know. Maybe because I’m getting older, I enjoy chit-chat. Do you see my excited husband over there? Somehow, it feels like the older we get, the more childishly we behave.”
Elizabeth pointed in Brown’s direction with a giggle.
It was a distance that could be considered almost close to the horizon without a scope, an extremely far distance, but she saw that place?
“Do you see that?”
Leeha pulled out his gun at the same time as her answer. There were no rails on top of her gun barrel.
It was a pure gun. A gun without any attachments.