Translator: Legge
The reason why P5092 said the two snipers were very powerful was because the two seemingly simple shots were not simple at all.
First of all, the frontline commanders were unable to confirm the snipers’ location even though they had covered a very large area during their carpet search. If so many people could not even confirm the snipers’ location, then the snipers would have to be at least 900 meters away.
At a distance of 900 meters, both shots had landed right on the barbarians’ chests and killed them. This was not something that just anyone was capable of.
After all, the two barbarians had stayed hidden all this while. From the moment they appeared to the moment they swung down their axes, it took only a split second. Meanwhile, the snipers had to immediately calculate the trajectory of their shots after discovering the barbarians when they showed themselves!
While the barbarians were dropping down from above, the snipers had to pull their triggers and fire the bullets across the vast distance to land accurately on their chests.
A frontline commander asked on the radio, “Sir, should we pursue those two snipers?”
P5092 thought for a moment and said, “Search for any barbarians in the vicinity first. Be careful. Those people might look like muscleheads, but they’re actually very cunning and like to set up ambushes. As for the snipers, it seems they have the same target as us. We can look for them after the search is complete.”
It was not that they did not want to look for the snipers but that they had their priorities.
Furthermore, with the enemy in front of them, since both parties’ objective was to kill the barbarians, the Pyro Company would naturally not treat the snipers as enemies. Even if they were to find them, they would hope they could join the Pyro Company and the Qinghe Group and form a united front. They would not try to kill the two snipers.
The entirety of Mt. Dashi was divided into 39 zones on the map. P5092 needed to search through these 39 zones one by one. Today, they had only managed to search up to Zone 12 when they encountered the barbarians’ ambush. Based on the previous battles, there were still at least 400 barbarians hidden in Mt. Dashi.
P5092 was not bothered by this. The dozens of platoons were only the reconnaissance troops he had sent out in advance. Once he encountered a large number of barbarians, he would immediately bring all of his troops to the battlefield and complete the encirclement of the enemy.
But even after all of Zone 12 had been searched, the platoons at the front line were unable to find any further signs of the barbarians. It looked like it would still take several days or up to half a month to clean out all of Mt. Dashi.
“Sir, what should we do now?” a frontline commander asked.
P5092 said calmly, “Let’s look for those two snipers now. At the very least, we have to identify the location they fired from. I need to assess the strength of those two snipers.”
The snipers must have already left. No sniper would foolishly stay where they were after firing a shot. But as long as they could identify where they were shooting from, they could confirm how many meters away from the target the snipers were.
When a platoon finally discovered traces of the two snipers in Zone 13, it was already evening.
P5092 frowned. No wonder he could not find the two snipers. It turned out they had killed the targets in Zone 12 from Zone 13.
He took out a pen and recorded the location of the snipers on the map. Then he measured the distance from their position to where the barbarians were hit. To his surprise, he discovered that the distance between the two snipers and the targets was around 1,200 meters.
It was even further than the 900 meters he had initially thought!
“1,200 meters. That’s considered outstanding even among snipers. Why did the two of them suddenly appear on Mt. Dashi?” P5092 lowered his head and pondered it. He looked at his adjutant. “Do you have any intel of two snipers working together recently? Since those two are so strong, they must be quite well-known.”
His adjutant said, “I’ll submit your request to the intelligence department and let them match any possible suspects. However, this’ll take some time and we might not get the results we’re looking for.”
“OK.” P5092 nodded. “I want you to think about it carefully as well. Are there any well-known snipers who appeared recently… I do know of a group that has a particularly powerful sniper, but there’s only one of them.”
His adjutant wondered, “You mean the person who controls White Mask?”
“Yes, I mean them,” said P5092
The frontline commanders shouted on the radio, “Sir, we’ve discovered a suspicious location. There’s signs of disturbed weeds here.”
After that, the platoons of the recon troops started gathering in the 11 o’clock direction. They conducted another carpet search in the radius of a kilometer around where the tracks were discovered.
P5092 waited quietly in the command vehicle to see if there were further discoveries. However, he did not have many expectations. After all, it had already been more than four hours since the two snipers shot and killed the barbarians.
But a cry of surprise suddenly sounded over the radio, “We’ve found two barbarian corpses over here!”
P5092 was stunned. “Give me a detailed sitrep!”
The commanders at the front line had already rushed to where the corpses were hidden. The two barbarian corpses were only covered by some tree branches, so they were easily discovered.
“There’s no gunshot wounds.” A rough autopsy report came in from the front line. “Of the two, one of them was pierced through the neck by a sharp weapon. I don’t know how sharp the weapon was, but it actually broke the spine in his neck. The other man was slashed across his chest and got punctured through the heart. His left arm… his left arm was chopped off.
“I suspect the barbarian whose neck was pierced was ambushed. The other barbarian with him tried to take out the enemy after that, but he was caught off guard and had his left arm chopped off. The blade sliced through his left arm and slashed across his chest. After that, the perpetrator must’ve retracted his blade and stabbed it straight into the barbarian’s heart. End of report.”
Static was still sounding on the radio. After P5092 heard the simplified autopsy report, he fell silent. He could even imagine how ruthless the attacker must have been through the simple language used.
The blade had severed the barbarian’s arm muscles and cut through his hard bones. The severed arm must have fallen off in front of his shocked gaze as the blade slashed across his chest. Then the attacker retracted the blade and delivered the fatal strike in one swift motion.
But P5092 could not figure out something. He had initially thought that there were only two snipers, so where did such a fearsome close combat expert suddenly pop out from?
Did the snipers have other comrades? Or were those two snipers that ferocious to begin with?
P5092 had been worried it would be really dangerous if those two snipers were to encounter the barbarians at close range. But now it seemed it was the barbarians who were in danger.
“Wrap up.” P5092 said, “Set up camp for the night and be on Level One alert in case of a night attack by the barbarians.”
After that, he turned off the radio in his hand. His adjutant next to him asked, “Sir, will those two snipers become a threat to us in the future?”
P5092 shook his head. “Don’t be overly worried. Those who are here at a time like this to fight against the enemy can only be friends. As for whether we’ll remain friends in the future, we’ll have to wait until the war is over to find out.”
…
