Long-Range Sniping (2)
“But even if it looks this far away, it’s barely about a kilometer. So how am I supposed to snipe at two kilometers?”
Amid the chat’s laughter and banter, a single line floated up and caught Yeongho’s eye.
A comment calling out the 10,000-coin mission registered before the game had even begun.
- Seriously, that’s way too obviously a safe bet.
- Honestly, I was worried that because of that, the whole thing would turn into boring turtle-sniping.
- I’ve barely ever seen even pro players pull off a 2km shot.
- Isn’t the longest real-world sniper record like 3km or something? Two kilometers shouldn’t be impossible.
- The bigger issue is that you almost never even get a situation where you spot someone from that kind of distance.
As the criticism grew sharper, the owner of the stream himself finally stepped in.
“Thanks for the donation, BearRubRub. I’m just grateful you put up the mission—I don’t have any other thoughts about it. If the chance comes, I’ll try it. If not, then I guess that’s that.”
Now that the streamer himself had firmly said it was fine, the few disgruntled chatters quickly quieted down.
Maybe wanting to change the mood, someone seized the moment to send in a video donation.
“Ah, thanks for the do— Huh? What is that?”
When he checked it, a scene straight out of an old Western movie was playing.
A man in a cowboy hat fired his Winchester at an enemy, then spun the gun in one smooth motion before shooting another.
“Ah! So you pull the lever while spinning the gun?”
- That’s called spin-cocking. It’s a loading method unique to lever-action rifles.
- The ultimate useless-cool reload lololol
- Honestly, unless you’re one-armed, there’s no real reason to practice it. lol
- If you know what ‘cool’ is, you’ve gotta try it, right?
“It doesn’t even really speed up the reload, and if you’re moving around doing that, you could easily make a mistake. It feels pretty impractical to me.”
He said it dismissively, but his body was already moving to mimic the scene from the video.
The great thing about Battle Sense was that, once Yeongho decided to do something, he could control his body with a precision no one else could match.
Even though it was his first time, he demonstrated spin-cocking with the kind of natural ease most people needed tens of thousands of practice reps to achieve.
“It really is inefficient. From now on, I’m going to make this my preferred method.”
- LOLLLLLLLLL
- Sir, your context is a little weird.
- Damn, that looks cool as hell, lol.
- Who cares about efficiency when coolness is on the line~
- This man understands style!
As he chatted and joked with viewers, just when he was thinking he’d learned something nice...
Far off in the distance, a pale cloud of dust rose, and a vehicle came racing out at high speed.
“Looks like we’ve got another customer. Let’s open for business.”
The distance was about 800 meters.
It didn’t look like they intended to approach the center where Yeongho was; instead, they were skimming along the outskirts of the farming zone.
They were closer than the two he’d dealt with earlier, but the snipe itself would be far more difficult.
That was only natural, since the speed difference was several times greater.
Focus.
Once again, he sharpened his senses, stretching them long toward the target.
A four-seater SUV.
There were four players inside.
Seeing them fully kitted out in body armor and even driving a vehicle like that, they were clearly a squad with either serious skill or outrageous luck.
Or maybe they’re just lucky? If that were the case, they wouldn’t have run into me.
It was a slightly cringe thought, but it was also undeniably true.
He aimed at a point a fair distance ahead of the vehicle and pulled the trigger without hesitation.
Twung!
It looked like he’d missed, but the bullet flew in a gentle arc and struck the driver square in the head.
A shooting technique called a lead shot, where you predict the path of a moving target.
Even for a master, it was an extremely difficult skill and one that naturally suffered in accuracy.
But Yeongho wasn’t calculating distance and speed like a normal person. He fought by instinct, so to him it was nothing more than a natural shot.
Swish, click!
Tuhoong-!
He reloaded with the spin-cocking he’d just learned, then fired again at the driver.
Apparently the target was wearing at least a level-2 bulletproof helmet, since the first shot hadn’t killed him outright.
The driver could be seen jerking the wheel left and right in a frantic attempt to evade, but it wasn’t enough to escape the calmly incoming bullet.
After consecutive headshots, the player’s body went limp, and the steering wheel yanked hard to one side.
The sharp turn sent the vehicle smashing into a nearby utility pole, where it finally came to a stop.
“Were those guys passing through some prey, maybe? Oh! Nice shot, big bro~!”
He hadn’t noticed because he was projecting his sensory net straight ahead, but Choi Pinam, who had apparently returned at some point, came strolling over with a whistle.
Of course, the hunt wasn’t over yet, so instead of looking at him, Yeongho spun the Winchester and took aim at the enemies.
Whirl—click!
Tuooong-!
The remaining three players stumbled as they opened the doors and got out.
The collision had left them with the concussion status effect, so for the moment they could barely steady themselves.
The fired bullet pierced the back of the head of the player climbing out of the passenger seat.
This time, it must have been only a level-1 bulletproof helmet, because it couldn’t stop the penetration and the enemy died instantly.
“No way... when did you learn that flashy reload move? Who was it? Who taught him that!”
Pinam flailed a finger at the air as if to show it to the viewers, but Yeongho ignored him.
He spin-cocked again and, this time, targeted one of the players getting out of the back seat.
Whoosh—click!
Twung!
The car’s frame blocked a clear headshot, but that didn’t matter. A head wasn’t the only vital point.
Headshots had the highest damage multiplier, sure, but any other vital area was still enough to inflict a fatal wound if you hit it cleanly.
Even though the enemy was 800 meters away, the bullet itself was traveling at nearly the same speed, so the chunk of lead closed the distance in about a second and buried itself in the target’s neck.
Whether the scope made the target look tiny enough to be hard to aim at or not was irrelevant to Yeongho, whose concentration was operating at maximum.
As long as he decided where to hit, it happened exactly as he intended. It was to the point that sniping almost seemed too easy.
“Puhaha! That guy’s completely freaking out, huh?”
With his entire team dead in an instant, the last survivor crouched down in panic and crawled under the car.
A sniper shot might let you dodge for a moment, but in the end it was a foolish move that only dug your own grave.
While Pinam laughed and pointed at the scene...
Whir—clang!
Tuhooong!
Yeongho, having reloaded and aimed almost on instinct, fired at the final survivor.
But after pulling the trigger, he immediately thought, Oh, crap.
The target’s upper body had already gone under the chassis, so he’d just aimed at the center of the visible part and shot.
Then he saw the bullet’s trajectory driving precisely between the two raised mounds, and even he jolted, his pupils shaking on their own.
SJ DAD -> WantToSetTheWorkplaceOnFire (dead)
- Holy crap.......
- Huh? It really went in?
- The workplace... yeah, that’s on fire...
- ANG~
- Damn, my sphincter just clenched without me even realizing it.
- So “the workplace” was that workplace, huh;;
- Are you a demon?
As the chat bucked and convulsed like an earthquake had hit it, Pinam turned to Yeongho in confusion.
Judging by the kill log, this was the kind of awe-inspiring moment where he’d wiped out an entire squad with nothing but long-range sniping.
So why was everyone reacting like this?
“W-what? What is it? What’s going on? Guys, what are you all freaking out about?”
Since he had been sharing his vision, the viewers had seen everything through the scope, but Pinam, watching with his bare eyes, had no way of knowing why they were losing their minds.
- The bullet hit, but it looks like it didn’t punch a hole through the body?
- Boo, God-trash.
- He’s pulled off insane plays every time, but this time he really slipped up for once;;
- Well, if it went through an existing hole, it wouldn’t make a new one...
- You sure it was an ass shot? Looked like it went a little lower than that.
- God-trash? What even is that lol
- Shit, if it’s below the ass, that’s even worse!
Only after watching the chat a little longer did Pinam understand what had happened, and he looked at Yeongho with a slightly pale face.
“B-bro? Did you really have to go that far, humanly speaking?”
“Ah, n-no... there wasn’t really any good place to aim...”
“They were already taking collision damage, so even hitting the legs would’ve killed them.”
“Ah... r-right? But I really didn’t mean to.”
That wasn’t a lie. He’d just fired reflexively, relying on his senses.
But nobody believed him.
How credible could it be when the same man who’d been hitting vital points dead-on all this time suddenly said he hadn’t meant to?
- He’s scarier than he looks...
- Butt shot vs egg shot.
- It was too far to see clearly, but we’ll probably have to zoom in on the replay.
- Shit, this matchup is enough to make your balls shrivel;;
- If I ever run into God-Father while gaming, I’m just going to put the gun to my own head and fire.
- A man without pity or mercy!!
“Um... I really didn’t, everyone. It’s a misunderstanding.”
“That’s right! Our big bro isn’t that kind of guy. Oh, right! Here, try this gun, bro!”
As a professional broadcaster, Pinam knew the viewers were all just joking around.
Still, since Yeongho—the streaming rookie—seemed genuinely flustered, Pinam decided to casually change the subject and held out a gun he’d picked up while looting.
“I tuned it up all nice and pretty for you!”
The Kar98k he’d mentioned earlier.
It was fully modded with a compensator to reduce recoil and a cheek pad on the stock, and the most important part of all—the scope—was an 8x optic.
- Whoa, an 8x scope? Don’t those only drop in supply crates?
- He really went full mod on everything, damn.
- 8x scopes can spawn in the field too, but the odds are so low they’re hard to ever see.
- He must’ve wanted to switch Yeongho off the Winchester so badly to set this up with that much care lololol
“Hmm...”
Yeongho stared at the Kar98k with a sulky expression for a moment before extending his hand.
He liked the Winchester, with all its imperfections and its romantic charm, but Pinam had gone to the trouble of bringing this, so he should at least try it.
After changing weapons, he perched himself on the railing and looked around.
With the high-magnification scope attached, he could see much farther and in far greater detail. It did feel different.
“This gun’s a bit heavy.”
“Right? Heavy guns are strong, that’s how it works! It’s probably about a kilogram heavier than the Winchy? Since it’s fully modded, maybe even more?”
“Still, if you’re going to run around and fight while holding it, wouldn’t lighter be better?”
“...No, seriously, stop acting like you’re naturally going to rush around with a sniper rifle!?”
They were in the middle of bantering back and forth when movement finally caught Yeongho’s eye at the far edge of the horizon.
He would have missed it if not for the high-powered scope.
“Ah, big bro. We should probably start moving soon too. The radiation’s spreading like crazy.”
“Just a moment.”
A lone player was sprinting desperately to escape the spreading radiation zone.
With no one else visible around them, it looked like they’d barely survived some kind of ordeal and were left alone in the end.
Maybe they were even a pro who had managed to carry a solo squad.
“There’s one coming this way. Let me take one last shot before we move.”
“Really? Where? I can’t even see him with my own eyes.”
As Pinam shaded his brow with a hand and craned his neck, rolling his eyes for a better look, Yeongho placed his finger on the trigger and let his breathing settle into perfect focus.
A transformed sensory net, stretched long in a cone shape.
And yet the target was still beyond the edge of perception.
The distance was nearly three times farther than the vehicle squad he’d just wiped out.
I need to be sharper.
He drove his concentration to the extreme and honed the sensing net even further.
The angle narrowed, little by little.
And then, at last, in the state of total focus where he’d reached his limit, the sensory tendril that had become almost a straight line touched the target.
He held his breath and pulled the trigger.
Twang-!
Three seconds after the great report of the gunshot...
- Did he miss?
- Even God-Father can’t do it?
- Huh? He’s falling over!
- Direct hit!!!
There were people who thought the shot had missed because the target was still running after being fired upon, and they were disappointed.
But even a bullet faster than sound still needed time to cover a distance like that.
Once the system notification clearly confirmed the enemy’s death...
- How far was that? Felt like at least two kilometers?
- Wasn’t that mission success?
- Yerin! Show me that hand! Is that maybe 2km?
- LOL how is this even possible?
Remembering the mission worth 10,000 coins, the chat room burst into a frenzy.