Arcane Sniper [Matan’s Shooter] - Chapter 41

Ch 41

‘Although I did not hunt that much, I was still able to reach level 23 by hunting monsters that took a party consisting of level 25 players to hunt. The level-up speed is really unbelievable!’

If Leeha’s level did not rise when he was hunting alone, how could a party possibly raise their level?

Phew, Leeha sighed and shook his head.

Kuuung, Kuuung!

“Aigoo”

When Leeha picked up the meat of the little bear and mother bear, he saw a smaller bear next to them. It seemed to be the size of a dog.

“Ahh……. Really, there was another baby?”

The medium-sized bear who bumped his back against the tree should have been the eldest son then.

When he thought to himself why the mother bear hadn’t run away, he realized that it was because there was a real “little bear” as well.

“Umm, this, this.”

Kkuung! Kkung!

The bear cub approached and hugged Leeha’s ankle. Looking closer, it was only the size of a small dog.

Did it or did it not know that Leeha was the person who killed its parents and siblings? Maybe it didn’t know yet.

‘Damn it!…’

Leeha took the gunpowder bag and put it back into the bag. If it’s this size,  it would die in one shot. It doesn’t have parents or siblings, so it would die anyway.

However, it was also true that a Maltese-sized guy snagged and clung to him.

‘Umm…… It would be strange to give bear meat to a bear, right?’

Leeha took some bread out of his bag and cut it a little. He put a piece of bread in his hand and put it in its mouth. It grunted and licked it.

The bear’s tongue tickled Leeha’s palm.

“It tickles, you punk!”

Kyuung! Kkung!

What could a bear hunter say to a bear? Leeha took care of the cub and set foot outside the forest.

However, no matter how far Leeha went, the bear cub kept on chasing him.

Kkyuung!

“Don’t follow me! You punk, I’ll one-shot you. I am your family’s enemy.” He picked up his musket and made a rattling sound, but the bear cub only tilted its head while looking at him.

It then went to Leeha and hugged his ankles.

“Shit……It’s cute, but what should I do with it?”

The man wearing the leather of the bear king looked closely at the cub.

-Kijeong.

-Oh, hyung! Have you arrived in the capital?

-I’m still on the way. I will die walking.

-Kek, be careful. The bears are pretty strong. You won’t even be able to run away, so just follow

the road.

Leeha whispered to Kijeong.

Kijeong told him to be careful of bears… Leeha held back on telling Kijeong what had happened to him. It would be more effective when they met and gave Kijeong a surprise.

-Right. But aren’t you going to sleep? Aren’t you still a student? What about school?

-I’m pulling an all-nighter. We decided to run a raid a little later. I’ll be having my exams, but what can I do? The raid is more important. Don’t you know something called prioritization? Shouldn’t I prioritize things?

-Uh, yes. I see. Priority. It’s important, isn’t it?

He didn’t add that his aunt would really like how he prioritizes things.

– I have a question. By any chance, is it possible to catch and raise animals?

-Animals? Why? Do you want to buy a horse?

-I don’t. I’m talking about animal monsters in the field.

-Ah. Kek, you want to tame it and hunt together? But if you’re not a tamer, you won’t be able to tame monsters. Basically, they think of humans as enemies. Unless you dominate them completely, it is impossible to tame them.

-Right.

Kijeong had a point. An aggressive monster is not called aggressive for no reason. They attack humans because it is already embedded in their instincts.

In order to tame these monsters, a Tamer has to use ‘Harmony Cognition’ and ‘Taming’ skills consistently to relax their mind and then control them.

– Can you give it food when it is only a cub?

– A cub? Have you seen a monster cub? Cubs are hard to find. Even when a monster’s HP is different, monsters of the same species still give the same experience points. Who will save a monster that gives the same amount of experience while having less HP? As soon as it is seen, it would get gruesome. They would get killed immediately.

Of course, from the standpoint of monsters, it was ‘murder’, but from the standpoint of users, it was ‘Jackpot’.

– I see. So you don’t know what to do, right?

-I don’t. It should be possible. Combat pets are used by Tamers, but transportation pets such as horses are also used by regular users. It’s very expensive because you also have to buy a sub-space pocket for animals. Anyway, I don’t think it’s impossible.

Kijeong concluded that even though it had no precedence it should still be possible to tame monsters.

-Okay. Copy that. I’ll talk to you when I arrive in the capital. It will take 5 more Middle Earth days.

-That’s just terrible. I will give you some money to buy the scrolls… You’re having a hard time, hyung. Come quickly and let me have a look at you.

-Okay, I’m looking forward to it.

Leeha stopped whispering to Kijeong. As the sound of the rumbling disappeared in his mind, he was worried about the bear cub in front of him.

‘If I leave it like this, it will die sooner or later.’

Wouldn’t it be better if it died naturally due to starvation?

As Kijeong said, a baby doesn’t give users less experience. There is no way for users to overlook the “bear monster” that can be easily killed.

The word terrible spread in Leeha’s mind. The image of a bear cub being killed came to his mind for a moment.

Kku? Kku!

“I’m worried about you, man.”

The bear cub was struggling to hug Leeha’s legs while being ignorant of what its fate would be.

The specks of moonlight sparkled in the cub’s black eyes.

“God damn, why is my heart so troubled? It’s a really big deal.”

Leeha talked to himself on purpose and giggled. If people looked at him, they would think that he had a mental illness.

The cute little bear made him smile just by looking at it.

Because it was still a cub, it couldn’t sit properly, and the feeling of sloppiness when it was walking amplified its cuteness.

“Right, I’ll take you along. I have to take responsibility for you since I killed your mother and sibling.”

Deeply entranced with Middle Earth, Leeha did not think of the bear cub as a monster but recognized it as a sentient creature.

And he felt a strange sense of guilt.

“Let’s go, kid.”

Kii- KiiK!

He thought that he had seen it on TV before.

Leeha pinched the skin on the back of its neck and lifted the bear cub. Although it was a cub, it seemed that the bear was still a bear and made a rather threatening sound.

“Ah, do you dislike being lifted up like this?”

It was slow. It was so slow that even when Leeha slowed down his pace, the bear cub was unable to follow properly. Besides, since it was a cub, it did not have enough physical strength.

‘If I just let it walk, it will take another 20 days to reach the capital.’

If it’s obvious that it’ll get tired after half a day, what’s left is…

“Did I just suddenly become a nanny?”

Leeha hugged the cub. As if the skin of the Agonia Oso was its mother, the bear cub rubbed its head on Leeha’s coat and licked it. “Hmmm, It’s cute but… … I was worried about the weight, but when I held it, it was pretty light?.

Thanks to his achievements Leeha had gained a lot of strength, and he was able to carry an additional weight of about 4kg.

‘Another one…’

Carrying a bear cub did not stop Leeha from his bear hunt. On the way to the capital, if he did not need to deviate for more than a certain distance from the road, Leeha would hunt a bear when he saw one.

He wouldl eventually need to raise his level so Leeha tried to get experience even if it’s just a little.

A brown bear laid on its side after he fired a third shot.

[You leveled up.]

“Wow, I am now level 24. It’s been going smoothly until now.”

Smooth? It’s an extremely fast level-up speed that general users can’t even dream of. Leeha took a step into the forest to gather some bear meat and sundries.

Kkung?

“Oops, I have to carry you.”

It’s only about 60m to the edge of the forest, but it took a long time for the bear cub to walk on its own.

Leeha hugged the bear cub.

It’s only been one night but it felt heavier and it looked bigger as well.

‘No matter how big an animal can be, isn’t it growing a little too fast?’

It takes a year for a puppy to become a dog. Do bears grow on a daily basis?

“Noice?. Two pieces of meat and one claw. Wouldn’t it be good if I sold all this? Right, kid?”

Kkung!

Leeha smiled while taking the sundries near the dead bear. If he also sold the equipment dropped by users, he would be able to make quite a bit of money.

“If you only get past the initial hurdle, musketeer would be worth it-ah ah!”

[You have been poisoned.]

[HP will decrease by 50 every 10 seconds for 3 minutes.]

“Kaa, what is this?”

Kkung!

Rather than being sick, Leeha screamed out of surprise. Leeha shouted and dropped the bear cub on the floor. After he felt a cool sensation on his calf, he quickly checked the ground.

And between his coat and shoes, on the part where his crappy pants were located, he saw something green running away.

“A snake?”

Right. This is an area where bears and snakes appear simultaneously. It was wrong to ignore the things crawling on the floor and only deal with the bears.

Even so, he was less concerned because he confirmed that bears appeared in all areas of the forest and snakes only appeared in the middle of the forest.

Ssss- sss.

The snake flicked its tongue and quickly opened a distance from Leeha.

Snakes that had bitten and poisoned their victims quickly slithered away or dug underground and waited until their victims died.

It was an intelligent beast monster that was annoying to deal with.

“Crazy, with 50 HP every 10 seconds for 3 minutes, it dealt a total damage of 900?”

This meant that dealers around level 25 would have died with just one bite. Tankers and fighters had similar HP to Leeha at around 1300.

How about magicians that did not put any points in constitution? If they are bitten without an antidote, they would still die even if they could catch the snake.

It was also one of the reasons why there were no wizards or one-shot damage dealers in the hunting ground.

“This damn snake bastard, it bites and then runs away …”

Slithering on the floor in an S-shape, the snake had a small size. Shooting it with a gun would require enormous concentration.

Guoong, guaah! Sss, sss一一一.

“What? Kid?”

While holding the musket and focusing, a brown mass struck and fought against the green line. Kyaaak, Kyaak! The bear cub was still a bear, so will it let the snake’s attack pass? No, more than that.

“You can fight?”

(To be continued…)