Arcane Sniper [Matan’s Shooter]

“It’s legendary.”

He snatched one of the swords with a smirk. It was of legendary grade.

“What? This one too is legendary.”

He grabbed another one. Legendary grade. He threw away the legendary sword and picked up a nearby spear. Legendary grade as well.

“No heroic ones…?”

By this point, he was bewildered. Anything he picked up turned out to be legendary, legendary, legendary…

Even Kid’s ‘Crimson Geckos’ or Ruge’s ‘Cobalt Blue Pythons’ are basically only heroic grade.

But here, the number of legendary items seemed to surpass the number of heroic ones!

“…This can’t be the legendary homeland or something, but having so many legendary items here… It’s crazy, just crazy. This isn’t the right time for me to find items I can use.”

His thoughts started to shift.

Initially, he only intended to find suitable equipment, but the situation was different now. One-handed swords were the most popular item across Mid Earth. They were suitable for both DPS and tanking classes, making them wearable for all occupations.

Compared to similar grade two-handed swords, maces, muskets, and such, the overwhelming demand for one-handed swords drove their prices to a whole new level.

“If I can find a grade higher than legendary for one-handed swords…? If I put it up for auction, it might even go for up to a billion. With the money I’ve collected so far, that billion, and a bit more farming and grinding…?”

Gulp. It was just a dream.

“No, no, that’s wishful thinking. Maybe it’s better to find other items that all classes can use. Granville took something from the treasure vault in the Phuvial Palace, and it was called ‘Magical Marmot’ or something.”

If there were more items of that kind?

Not only as a means of transportation but also as an emergency escape during combat. Jobs like mages or ranged dealers weak in close combat would certainly desire such an item.

“Even tanks could use it to lure monsters. Hiyah, what’s this?”

As he thought about it being a useful business item, he couldn’t stop his thoughts. In a certain sense, Bahamut’s gifts were torture for him.

In the vast treasure vault with no end in sight, at least 70% of its content consisted of legendary-grade items lined up before him, daringly saying, ‘Choose just one!’

“Ugh! Almighty above! Why do you put me through such trials!”

It was a waste to spend any more time wailing. So he made up his mind to invest the next five hours tightly focused on the most expensive item.

“Now, let’s start digging.”

Pasha-pasha!

He began to dig into the mountain of items.

Stamina depleted, and his fingertips felt sore, but he still enjoyed the feeling.

“They don’t show up easily. Are there really no higher grades?”

Sitting down, he rested for a moment with his sleeves rolled up.

The cloak he sat on was also of legendary grade, not even paying attention to heroic-grade items. He had seen so many legendary-grade items that even most legendary ones didn’t catch his eye.

“No, it’s too early to draw conclusions. I’ve been working for over four hours, and I’ve barely seen one-fifth? Maybe I couldn’t even check that much.”

While carefully inspecting the detailed descriptions of the items, there were just too many numbers to process.

“Phew, for now, I could sell these items in the worst-case scenario… Hmm, by the way, as I was drawing legendary items, it’s funny that I said ‘worst-case scenario’.”

Arranged on the edge of the mountain of items were several items separately set aside.

They were items with options that might fetch a high price when sold.

“But are there really no such items? Something that would be useful for magical creatures would be great. Hm… huh?”

As he hesitated, one item sparkled before his eyes. It was a baby ostrich egg.

“After thinking about it, there are many other gemstones, but I only saw this one here. I don’t know if it could be somewhere else, but it seems Bahamut’s item classification is grouping similar items together.”

Rows and rows of all kinds of sapphires shimmered like a kaleidoscope. And diamonds of various sizes and colors were also lined up.

For over five hours, he could roughly guess Bahamut’s classification system.

However, the baby ostrich egg-like item was different.

He couldn’t see it anywhere else Except where he first stepped on it.

Of course, given the vast amount of treasure, there might be another one somewhere. But at least for the five hours he was so thoroughly digging into the items, it was the only thing he found.

“‘Should I take a look at that? Maybe there’s some connection with the item from the moment I first stepped on it,’” he wondered.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

“Huh?”

Just as he was about to get up, an alarm sound echoed in his head. It was a sound he had never heard before since starting Mid Earth.

External call detected.

“Ah!”

At this time, if there was an external call, there could only be one reason. His friend, Kijeong, must be waiting with bated breath beside the capsule.

In that moment, memories of his past class advancement flashed in his mind.

If his mother hadn’t pulled out the code, if he had used this function, what would he be now?

“Maybe just a ‘Plain Wizard 1’? Hmph, maybe I’d be working hard in Kijeong’s guild, or maybe I didn’t grow that much? I might have barely crossed level 100 by now. I couldn’t even compare stats.”

Life was indeed full of unpredictable variables, he thought again, preparing to log out.

As he stepped out of the capsule, Kijeong rushed over to him.

“Unga! I told you to come out earlier!”

“Sorry, sorry. But why are you–”

“Cough, what do you think? Is this okay? How are you going to dress, Hyung? You can’t have too much overlap with the concept, but you can’t be too separate either.”

Kijeong, sitting in a wheelchair, supported him and spun around in front of him, showing off his neat and dandy style, revealing his fairly toned body despite being slender.

“Hey, what… It’s not like I’m going on a date or anything. It’s winter, so isn’t it enough to dress warmly?”

“This Hyung, saying something that might get him into big trouble! But I thought you’d be like this, so that’s why I came. Come on, let’s go to your room. I’ll do some hair grooming, and if you don’t have any decent clothes, we can go shopping! There are only one or two things to prepare!”

Kijeong shook his wheelchair’s handlebar vigorously and pushed him along.

Of course, it was just a whim from Kijeong. Anyway, since he was going to meet Shin Na-ra, he didn’t want to just dress sloppily.

“But dressing up like this seems too–”

“Hey! What’s wrong with it? Didn’t you say we weren’t going to meet anyone important? But when it comes to dressing like this, you can’t wear just anything, you know?”

“Well, yeah, maybe. But even so, wouldn’t it look too casual?”

“Well, it might. We need to dress up nicely for our guild master, Shin Na-ra, and the treasure master, Park Bo-mi! They’re Olympic medalists, you know! They’re geniuses in their respective fields, and they’re so famous in Korea that just hearing their names makes people go, ‘Ah!’ Naturally, we should do our best to dress up when meeting them. Isn’t that right?”

He was taken aback by Kijeong’s words, but when it came to matters of reason and relationships, he couldn’t beat Kijeong.

As he said that, Kijeong was already pushing his wheelchair. “Come to think of it, when was the last time I went shopping…”

The only difference from before was that he didn’t have trivial worries now.

“Just wait, Kijeong.”

“Huh?”

With the outerwear that Kijeong brought, he took out the wallet inside. There were only a few bills in the wallet, but that was not the real item. The true item in this wallet was an old check card, which he slid between his index and middle fingers before stretching out his hand completely.

“Might as well use the good stuff for shopping. Let’s get something for our mom too.”

“Eheh~ Wow, that’s cool!”

“We rarely use it, so when else would we use it? Let’s go! She’s been helping us, so let’s treat her to a nice meal!”

“Hehe, got it! Then let’s head to the department store main branch!”

“Hmm? That might be a bit expensive…”

“Agh, you’re being weak from the start!?”

“Alright, alright. Let’s go!”

“Safe travels!”

As he pretended to accept Kijeong’s suggestion reluctantly, Kijeong chuckled and pushed his wheelchair.

How long had it been since he had breathed the outside air like this? He wished he could walk on his own two legs in good health.

Together with Kijeong, he went shopping, and soon regretted it.

Before the accident, his average shopping time was within 15 minutes of arriving at the store. He would think about what to buy, go get it, and be done. End of story.

But Kijeong’s shopping process was on a completely different level.

It was the first time he realized that two men could wander around shopping for over four hours.

“Are you okay, Kijeong?”

“Looking cool. You look way cooler than when you were wearing military uniform.”

“Hmm, but this hair…”

“No, it’s fine. Your overall impression is already sharp, so if you expose your entire forehead, it might look even sharper. We already trimmed all the messy hair, so having a slightly natural-looking fringe is even cooler, Hyung.”

“Is that so?”

Finally, it was Saturday morning at 11 a.m.

Kijeong and he arrived at the meeting place with Shin Nara ahead of time.

Kijeong had come to his house early in the morning for hair styling, and they had checked the Friday’s outfit once again.

Preparations felt complete, but his heart was still a bit uneasy.