Chapter 19
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Translator: Silver Dragon
Chapter: 20
Chapter Title: Gang Sweeping Operation (3)
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In the silence blanketing the village, only Jinwoo's steady breathing echoed quietly.
'Damn, there are way too many.'
Jinwoo's gaze was locked on the target a kilometer away.
A hell of a lot of bandits.
Wind direction, humidity, distance.
The ballistic calculations that would normally demand agonizing over every detail wrapped up in a flash.
Thanks to the Hawk Eye sniper rifle's auto-targeting function.
In-game, it was worthy of Atlas civilization's legacy. Outside the game, it was broken performance tailor-made for multi-run players.
Jinwoo's finger eased onto the trigger, applying pressure softly, ever so slowly.
Click! Psh!
To the villagers, it was just a faint pop in their ears, like a distant tree branch snapping.
But to the Waterloo Gang's vanguard captain riding proudly at the front, it was the last sound he'd ever hear.
Splatter—
The captain's head exploded like a overripe watermelon.
"!"
Red blood and brains erupted in a fountain, drenching the mane of his horse in gruesome color.
The body, denied even a scream, swayed for a moment before flopping to the ground beneath the horse like discarded baggage.
"C-Captain?"
"What the...!"
The gang members froze atop their horses, stunned by the surreal scene unfolding in a heartbeat.
"Sniper!"
"W-What noise? From this far away?"
No gunshot cracked the air. No magical flash lit the scene.
Their captain had simply dropped without a trace, right before their eyes.
The shock and terror of that unforeseen death paralyzed their minds in that instant—and Jinwoo's vision flooded with crimson.
Red Eye Activated!
In the slowed world, he coldly locked onto the follow-ups.
The adjutant's forehead as he opened his mouth to shout at his panicking men.
The lips of a terrified man raising a signal horn to warn the main force.
And the heart of the formation's biggest threat—the heavy gunner just now gripping the handle of the Gatling gun mounted on the wagon.
Jinwoo yanked the trigger in impossible succession.
Firing speed bordering on the divine.
Pew! Pew pew!
Cleaner than a suppressed modern rifle, the popping cracks rang out one after another across the quiet wasteland.
Each time, gang members tumbled from their saddles like wind-scattered leaves, denied even a scream.
"G-Good lord, would you look at that!"
"The gang scum are dropping like flies! From that range!"
"That's a master marksman!"
To the villagers below, the lone gunslinger silhouetted on the hilltop looked like a vessel working miracles from on high.
Just 10 seconds.
The vanguard pack rolled across the sands as cold corpses, never mounting a proper fight.
At Blackwater Village's makeshift defensive line below the hill, a stunned silence hung in the air.
A one-sided slaughter.
The people stared blankly at the faint smoke wafting from the distant dune, struggling to process the scene they'd just witnessed.
Dozens-strong enemy vanguard halted by one gunslinger.
All those gang thugs vanishing without a trace in under a few minutes?
The old sheriff shattered the hush first.
"W-We... won."
His cracked voice began as a hesitant whisper, then erupted into uncontainable joy.
"We won! We won!"
His cry lit the fuse.
Sighs of relief mingled with cheers bursting out everywhere.
Color finally returned to the villagers' faces, frozen white in death's terror.
Some embraced in glee.
"We held the village!"
"Woooo!"
Others already fired celebratory shots skyward.
Far too hasty hope blooming from despair's ashes.
The sheriff roughly wiped tears from his eyes and staggered toward the hill where the hero stood.
He yearned to rush to the outlander behind this miracle and pour out his thanks.
"Young fella! You did it! You saved us...!"
But his emotional shout halted midway up the slope. Atop the hill, Jinwoo lay prone, unmoving, eyes fused to the scope.
No trace of triumphant joy anywhere on his face.
If anything, his senses sharpened keener than before, fixated on the now-empty battlefield.
He clocked the sheriff's approach but didn't so much as glance over.
"Why the hell the celebration already?"
"Huh?"
His words cut like ice.
"This is just the start. Back to your post."
"...Pardon?"
The sheriff balked, but Jinwoo offered no reply.
Every ounce of focus poured beyond the scope.
A word or two was all he'd spare.
"The ones who just dropped? Vanguard. Main force inbound soon. Clear?"
In Jinwoo's mind, the game's scripted flow unrolled like a panorama.
'No annihilation signal from vanguard? Main force chalks it up to failed recon and flips to textbook phase-two assault.'
What came next was predictable. Classic western showdown village raid.
Cavalry-led frontal smash to rattle defenses, infantry flanking simultaneously for encirclement and wipeout.
By-the-book, time-honored tactics.
No sooner had Jinwoo's foresight ended than distant proof roared to life.
Woooong!
A long, eerie horn blast rattling the heavens.
"That sound..."
"It's the horn! Those gang bastards'!"
The cheers cut off like a bad joke.
Villagers turned anxious eyes to the eastern horizon.
What unfolded defied belief.
"There! Look!"
"God save us! More coming!"
Dumbstruck, they gaped at the vista one pointed out.
The horizon blackened.
Like the ground boiling alive, a colossal host—hundreds, no thousands strong—raised towering dust clouds as it emerged.
No mere vanguard. A proper army.
And true to Jinwoo's call, the behemoth split precisely in two, weaving a massive encirclement around the village as it advanced.
The old sheriff's face drained white.
"No way..."
"No way what?"
The villagers who'd cheered moments ago lost all color anew.
Their guns weighed like lead ingots. Fleeting hope twisted into deeper despair, vise-gripping their hearts.
Psh!
Until the shot cratered the dirt at their feet.
Jinwoo bellowed, rifle in hand.
"You morons! Suicidal? Weapons up—back to stations now!"
Spurred by his razor command, the villagers rallied, weapons raised.
"Stick to the plan! Screw up and we're all dead!"
"R-Right!"
With a final shove to the lingering sheriff, Jinwoo readied for round two.
The true threat kicked off now.
Dozens of enemy cavalry thundered across the barren plain, churning dust clouds in their wake.
Earth-shaking hooves gripped hearts and sapped will—terror incarnate.
The riders brimmed with cocky assurance.
How many villages had they trampled and torched?
How many slain and ravaged?
The flimsy knee-high fence ahead? Laughable hurdle.
A wooden barricade like that? Trample or leap it, done.
"Sweep 'em!"
"Puhaha! Check that pathetic fence!"
"Hack the cowards' heads clean off!"
Savage roars fueled their surge to full gallop.
Villagers cowering behind the barricade blanched.
They clutched rifles desperately, but against that steel tidal wave, they felt like grains of sand.
Mocking smirk on the lead rider's face. The instant he spurred to vault the fence—
Jinwoo roared.
"Now!"
Crunch!
His horse snagged something, shrieking horribly as it somersaulted.
The fence was a double bluff.
Per Jinwoo's orders, villagers had gouged the earth beyond it, burying razor stakes and snarled ropes.
A lethal snare calibrated for charging cavalry speed and momentum.
Lead horse down—followers piled in blind, no dodge room.
Like dominoes toppling, the flawless charge dissolved into screams and equine shrieks.
Hellish pandemonium swelled.
Flung riders crushed under trailing hooves.
"Argh!"
"Halt! Halt!"
Chaos snowballed unchecked.
Jinwoo's trap? Flawless.
Meanwhile, flank infantry—frozen by the cavalry carnage—hit the trench line at last.
"Damn it all, fire! Drag 'em from those trenches!"
Enemy bellows heralded the village's first incoming volley.
Villagers in the trenches—hushed as mice—sprang up at the sheriff's cry, unleashing in unison.
Rat-a-tat-tat!
Every Blackwater muzzle blazed. All-out war ignited.
Jinwoo surveyed it all from the hill via scope.
'Mobs anyway.'
Ants scrapping at his feet? Irrelevant. Eyes on the real prize, higher up.
His stare pinned one spot.
Amid the bedlam, a hulking brute drew axe and pistol, rallying troops in a desperate bid to rebuild command.
Field Boss: Blood Axe Dico has appeared!
First faint smile tugged Jinwoo's lips since battle joined.
'Real fight starts now.'
His eyes gleamed cold, zeroing the fresh quarry.