The Rifle's Hidden Power
That rifle is…… ‘Why the Udanhwa…?’
Kim Hayun, the 3rd Team Leader of Yeomyeong-ui Seongjwa, couldn’t comprehend the sight of the Udanhwa scattering into petals. It was understandable. The Udanhwa was notorious for its tenacious vitality. Because it regenerated endlessly, defeating it required unleashing overwhelming firepower in a single burst. Yet none of the hunters who had come to Hangang Park had directed that kind of power at the creature. After all, there were only three hunters present—including herself—capable of producing such firepower.
“T-Team Leader! Did you defeat it?!”
Seo Arin, the high school girl among them, asked in a startled voice.
“It wasn’t me.”
She glanced down at her sword. The treasured blade of Silla’s renowned general. General Kim Yu-sin’s Heavenly Dragon Sword. The vibrant blue mana blazing along its edge was stained with the severed stamens of the Udanhwa. But that was all. Regrettably, she had clearly seen that her firepower had been insufficient, allowing the Udanhwa to begin regenerating. Therefore it could not have been her. She had never defeated one. The same went for the vice-leader of Team 3 who had arrived alongside her. And from Seo Arin’s surprised reaction, the only other possibility, it was clear she hadn’t done it either.
‘Then who on earth…’
Kim Hayun swept her gaze across the hunters clustered along the Han River, all busy filming videos. Yet no matter how closely she looked, she could not spot any high-ranking hunter capable of killing the Udanhwa.
At that moment, her eyes landed on Choi Seojun as he lowered his rifle.
‘It couldn’t be.’
The thought flickered through her mind, but Kim Hayun quickly shook her head. She had seen Choi Seojun fire his weapon. But his target had not been the Udanhwa—it had been that creature. Shooting the creature could not have caused the Udanhwa to explode. It was not entirely impossible, but it would have required absurd levels of firepower.
‘At the very least, it would require an ancient-grade relic or the power of a ranker.’
Choi Seojun matched neither condition. Had he possessed a narrative-grade relic, she would have noticed. And she had never heard of a ranker walking around in such shabby clothes.
Dismissing Choi Seojun from her thoughts, Kim Hayun scanned Hangang Park once more, searching for the ‘mysterious ranker’ who had slain the Udanhwa.
*
“Huff… huff…”
After quietly slipping out of Hangang Park, I didn’t make it far before I leaned against the wall of a tunnel and slid to the ground. My heart hammered in my chest.
“What the hell is this……”
The hand gripping Napoleon’s Rifle trembled. It was mana exhaustion. The instant I pulled the trigger while aiming at the young Udanhwa, every drop of mana in my body had been sucked into the rifle.
All from a single shot.
Yet what shocked me even more was the raw power of Napoleon’s Rifle.
“That was only ten percent?”
With merely ten percent of the relic’s strength unleashed, the Udanhwa had burst apart. Not an ordinary monster, but a boss-class entity with its own infamous title.
“……Insane.”
I was still staring at Napoleon’s Rifle resting on my knee with shaking eyes when it happened.
“Huh?”
◈ Bound to user
◈ Mana consumption: extreme
The shape of Napoleon’s Rifle had suddenly blurred and vanished. I was startled for a second, but I quickly realized the rifle hadn’t truly disappeared. It had simply been stored in the newly generated artifact list.
“You scared the hell out of me.”
I had thought it was given only to be taken away again; it felt like I had aged ten years in an instant.
‘Must be because my mana is completely drained.’
Although it was called a relic, Napoleon’s Rifle was not, strictly speaking, an object from this reality. The failed world line simply meant it belonged to the Napoleon of another world. In the end, it was part of my own awakening ability. In game terms, it was a bound item that could not be traded.
‘Actually, that’s for the best.’
It meant no one could steal it from me.
In any case, this confirmed it. Napoleon’s Rifle was at least an ancient-grade relic. It might even be legendary.
On the very first day I opened the general store, I had obtained a divine weapon.
*
After a full day of experiments, I discovered several key facts.
First. When my mana ran out, Napoleon’s Rifle disappeared automatically.
Second. Once it vanished, the rifle could not be used again for a set period. According to my tests, its cooldown was one hour. If I was unlucky, I would be left completely defenseless for a full hour.
And third. Napoleon’s Rifle was a mana devourer. The relic sucked in mana endlessly, regardless of my will. If I lost concentration even for a moment, it would drain massive amounts in the blink of an eye. The only solution was practice.
And to practice with a relic of this caliber, I needed to fight real monsters.
“I should stay away from Hangang Park for a while.”
The video of the Udanhwa exploding the previous day had completely flooded YouTube.
It was pure chaos—political clickbait, stitched-together fake news, and live streams from YouTubers. I searched to see if anyone had mentioned me, but there was nothing. Every video and news outlet was pointing to Kim Hayun as the one who had exterminated the Udanhwa.
Even though Kim Hayun herself had stated that she had not defeated the Udanhwa, no one believed her.
The comment section was flooded with praise for Kim Hayun’s character. I added a single line.
After watching the comment section get flooded with curses, I closed the community page and called a taxi. My destination was Bukhansan. It was the mid-tier hunter zone where the C-class gate Black Tunnel was located.
*
“An E-class, you said?”
“Yes.”
“And your profession is an appraiser?”
“Correct.”
The gate employee managing the Black Tunnel stared at me with an incredulous look.
“You do realize this is a C-class gate, right?”
“I do.”
“And you intend to go in alone?”
“If it becomes dangerous, I’ll come right out. There’s no need to worry.”
The employee shook his head but did not stop me. At gates, your life was your own responsibility.
Stepping past the gate, I was greeted by the dark interior of the cave. I covered the lower half of my face with the black mask I had brought from the general store. If word got out that my rifle was no ordinary relic, people would swarm me trying to take it.
“Where is it?! Catch it!”
“It jumped that way!”
Hunters who had entered before me were in the middle of a hunt. Pitch-black toads were leaping across the cave walls and ceiling in every direction.
‘Shadow toads, huh.’
These creatures could not only climb walls but slip into shadows as well. I raised Napoleon’s Rifle and took aim at one of the leaping shadow toads. Their erratic movements made them nearly impossible to hit with a gun, yet—
Accuracy Rate +60%
The mana bullet pierced straight through the shadow toad’s body.
Bang—!
Bang—!
Bang—!
Unlike the day before, I fired one shot at a time, carefully conserving my mana so I wouldn’t collapse.
“Whoa…”
“What is that guy doing?”
The other hunters forgot about their own prey and simply stared at my shooting in awe.
“Was it always that easy to hit them?”
The shadow toads traced bizarre trajectories across the cave, yet I didn’t miss a single one. When I moved deeper inside, one of the watching hunters shouted in alarm.
“It’s dangerous over there!”
“Kiiiik!”
A poison toad hiding in the shadows sprang from the ground. Its path looked almost impossible to hit.
Bang—!
The rifle pierced the monster without fail. One of the watching hunters quietly took out his phone and pressed record.
*
“Everyone, come look at this.”
Ha Jinwu, 1st Team Leader of Yeomyeong-ui Seongjwa, brought a laptop into the waiting room where the guild members were gathered and played a video. It was a hunting clip an anonymous hunter had uploaded to YouTube. A masked man was sweeping through shadow toads with a rifle. The masked man in the video was none other than Choi Seojun.
“What is this?”
“Impressive, isn’t it?”
“His accuracy is certainly good. But is that all?”
One guild member tilted his head, clearly failing to see what was so special. The others seemed to feel the same. After all, none of them would have trouble hunting shadow toads. They were monsters even an average C-class hunter could handle.
“Does it really look that way to all of you?”
“Is there something else?”
“This guy is hiding his abilities. Quite a few of them, in fact.”
“Pardon?”
Only then did the guild members look at the video again with wide eyes. Ha Jinwu stared at Choi Seojun with sharp focus.
‘Is he suppressing his power? What an interesting fellow.’
He had no idea that Choi Seojun was simply unable to draw out the full potential of Napoleon’s Rifle yet.
“Hayun, what do you think?”
“……”
“Hayun?”
Kim Hayun stared at the screen in silence. In her eyes, only the rifle Choi Seojun was holding mattered.
‘That rifle is……’
The image of the man she had seen at Hangang Park flashed through her memory.