Chương 137: Reborn as the Dragon — Chapter 137 - The Beautiful Country Player's Gun

"Since the final target is a Black Dragon, and one that outlevels us — a full-scale assault is off the table." Medraco's eyes gleamed with quiet certainty, the look of a man who had already played the game out to the end.

"So what exactly are you suggesting?" Yamaguchi Mura Chicken felt like he was almost there. Almost. Like a sheet of paper stood between him and the answer, thin enough to see through but not quite tear.

"Exactly what you're thinking," Medraco said.

"We run a decapitation strike."

"Per the intelligence you gave us, the Black Dragon has a frail elf girl at its side. They travel together. They're close."

"So we don't attack the dragon head-on. We get close, we grab the girl, and the dragon folds." His tone was perfectly level. The battle was already playing out behind his eyes.

"But..." Yamaguchi Mura Chicken shifted uncomfortably. Something about this still didn't sit right.

"But what if the Black Dragon doesn't care whether she lives or dies? What if they're not companions at all, just master and servant? Or a hired arrangement?"

"Still not a problem." Medraco shook his head and began to pace, slow and unhurried, confidence in every step.

"Even if they have no real attachment to each other, taking the elf girl either enrages the dragon or weakens it. Either outcome works for us."

"She can produce magical attacks comparable to flashbangs. Any way you cut it, she's a serious liability on the battlefield."

"As for the dragon itself..." A cold, mocking smile crossed his face. He reached into his coat and pulled it open. Inside, hanging from every available inch of lining, were parts. Dozens of them. And they were unmistakable, the curves, the mechanisms, the machined metal surfaces. Guns.

"My inventory was already full of crafting materials," Medraco said pleasantly, "so I had to get creative with storage." He began laying the components out on the table at the Starter Village entrance, piece by piece.

"Recognize these? You're the young master of the Yamaguchi family. You should."

"Yes," he continued, answering his own question.

"That's a disassembled firearm."

"We can't produce fully automatic weapons yet, the material requirements are too high. For now, it's old-style rifles only."

"You, you actually—" Yamaguchi Mura Chicken's words died in his throat. He stared at the parts on the table, jaw slack. Even a bolt-action rifle is still a rifle. One bullet ends a man.

"No need to look so shocked, sweetheart number two~ Heheheheh..." This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. David Jones, a mountain of a man, had Ohguchi Akase tucked under one arm like a bundle of laundry. A wet, wheezing laugh rolled out of him.

"Back home, owning guns is the most ordinary thing in the world."

"We use them, we study them, we point them at God Almighty's backside~""The man assembling that rifle right now? Before he entered this game, Medraco ran a weapons shop. One of the most well-known firearms enthusiasts around."

"This world and ours share more physical rules than you'd think." Medraco picked up the thread without looking up from his work. He turned a barrel over in his fingers, stroking the smooth metal with quiet appreciation, then pressed it into place with a sharp, satisfying clang.

"Steel melts and holds a shape. Gunpowder converts to thermal energy. Stones obey gravity."

"Guns work here."

"The limitation is automatic weapons, the materials are far more demanding, and the manufacturing process is genuinely complex."

"I know guns. I don't know how to produce the specialized materials they need. Magic offers a lot, but for now, old-style rifles are my ceiling." He shook his head, a flicker of genuine regret crossing his face. If the conditions were right, he could build a Vulcan cannon. But expertise has its edges. Materials science was never his domain, and weapons-grade materials science, specifically, was the kind of knowledge that lived in military research programs. Not in a gun shop owner's head.

Maybe someday, players from other Starter Villages would crack it. When that day came, firearms would light up this other world like nothing it had ever seen.

"With this rifle, even if we can't put down the Black Dragon, we can put down that elf girl. Either way, we've stripped it of something. We weaken it."

"So." Medraco looked at Yamaguchi Mura Chicken evenly, an easy, mocking smile on his face.

"Any remaining objections to the decapitation plan?" In his private assessment, these Sakura players were frogs who'd never left their well. Comfortable bullying anyone smaller than themselves. The moment they ran into something genuinely dangerous, they fell apart. What else would you expect from people who drank nuclear wastewater.

"No objections at all." Yamaguchi Mura Chicken nodded rapidly, bobbing up and down in a way that was difficult to distinguish from the behavior of a very well-trained lapdog.

"Good. Then I'll lay out our approach."

"Originally, I wasn't going to bring you. You're dead weight — that's just a fact." Medraco made no effort to soften it. His contempt for Yamaguchi Mura Chicken, and every Sakura player, was simply part of the air in the room.

"However. You know the terrain. So I'll extend the charity of letting you fight beside us. You should feel honored." The arrogance in his voice was total. And yet Yamaguchi Mura Chicken felt no resentment. None at all. It simply seemed correct. Like the natural order of things. And if he was being honest with himself, he was honored.

"David Jones is enormous, yes. But he has a talent that lets him cloak all of us in shadow after dark. We become invisible."

"That's the linchpin of this entire operation."

"The traps and monster army that stopped your group before? No longer a factor. We walk straight to the dragon's lair." After so much talking, Medraco's mouth had gone dry. He pulled a waterskin from his pack and drained a long swallow.

"Your uncle, Ohguchi Akase, his single-target damage output is exceptional. His ghost sword energy is sharp enough that cutting through a dragon's scales should be entirely within reach."

"And if it isn't, we kill the elf girl, or we take her. Either strips the dragon of something it doesn't want to lose."

"Once we're at a higher level, we come back and finish the job." Medraco set down the waterskin. His gaze turned hard and cold as he looked southwest, past the tree line, past the horizon, toward where the Silvermoon Forest bled into the Silvermoon Mountains.

"Four of us is exactly right. More people means more chances of exposure."

"Now." He turned back.

"Let's move."... Far away in Silvermoon Forest, Su Nian had absolutely no idea that two players from the beautiful country had already marked him as a target. At this particular moment, he was lying peacefully along the riverbank, stretched out in a patch of warm sunlight. And Anna was conjuring water spheres, each one larger than a minivan, and methodically using them to wash him down.

"Anna," Su Nian said, with the tone of a man losing a very slow argument.

"As a dragon, I really don't need to be washed this thoroughly."

"I'm a Black Dragon. Nothing's going to show." He was genuinely helpless about this. The pitch-black scales meant it didn't matter whether he bathed or not, you couldn't tell the difference either way. He looked at what Anna had assembled for the occasion. The soap and essential oils lifted from the players, fine, he could accept that. But polish? Was she planning to scrub his scales until they reflected like a mirror?. ps: Sorry, not feeling well today, update came out slow. Really rough... (? _? |||) As always, votes are appreciated ➤ Next: The Potato Song