Earth’s Doom Starts with… Me?

"Yes, I...?" I cocked my head to the side, anticipating his answer.

"You'll be our main attraction," general Emilio replied as he rummaged through his backpack and took out a piece of cloth, "here."

"Main attraction?" I parroted as I caught the cloth he handed to me with confusion, "and what's this cloth for?"

"General Zhang said you need some cloth to lay on when you snipe." He replied with a flat tone.

"He did? But I don't need one. I can do my work wherever, even on muddy grounds." I raised an eyebrow. Weird, but alright.

"Go get stationed somewhere high and snipe his subordinates from afar." He commanded.

"Wait, general. As much as I'd like to agree, but the forest is filled with, you know, trees," I explained using hand gestures, "and it's on fire right now, the smoke will cover up everything."

"You don't need to hit them. If you can, that's great. If you don't, that's okay. The important thing is to make them busy looking for you." He told me as he turned around and started walking away, declining any possibilities for negotiations.

"I-- argh..." I sighed, deeply. How was I supposed to snipe in an environment like this? Well, even if he said it was okay to miss, but I didn't want to miss, you know? It was kinda lame to miss my shots.

"Chaerin, we need to part ways here. Will you be okay?" Jeanne asked me with a worried frown on her face.

"I just hope I won't screw up too much," I laughed in defeat, "don't worry and focus on killing that maniac! I know you can do it, Jeanne."

Her eyes widened for a bit, and then a warm smile appeared on her smooth face, "thank you for believing in me, Chaerin."

"Bye bye! Firiell, look out for mean elves who are out to get you, okay?" I ruffled her hair and grinned, "you're in good hands, kid."

"Yes!" Firiell beamed at me, and I saw a rosy tint decorating her cheeks as she grinned widely.

I gave her one last big smile, before waving at them and parting ways. They went to sneak in through the forest, while I was supposed to find some high spot or something. Where would even be good? Like, roofs? ...Nah.

"Gah, the biggest problem here is the smoke and the trees!" I grabbed my hair in frustration, cursing at this task.

What should I do? Was there some way I could exploit something...

"Ah! Maybe that could work?" After pondering on my next step, I finally figured out a possibility that might be worth trying.

"Shop."

[Ding!]

A familiar screen popped up in front of me as I quickly reached out for the search bar and typed the name of a specific item I wanted.

[Would you like to purchase the item 'Water chameleon's cloak' for 300 gold?]

"Yup yup." I smiled with satisfaction when I saw the item I had lost during our escape started to materialize inside my inventory slot.

It was surprisingly cheap, and it was most probably because it wouldn't work against stronger monsters like elves, but it didn't really matter.

Because, my plan wasn't just to pretend I was invisible and shoot them from a close range, no no.

Instead, I was going to construct a drip rifle.

"Uhh, I don't think the elves use advanced weapons like rifles..." I looked around me to find something that resembled a weapon store of some sort, but I was only rewarded with disappointment.

"Gah, do I have to purchase another rifle using my gold? But I don't even have much..."

I opened my inventory to check, and yup, I only had a measly 1700 gold. Barely enough to buy anything. Hopefully there would be a cheap rifle in the shop system.

[Ding!]

After I muttered the keyword, the screen reappeared in front of me, and I quickly went to the weapon section and filtered through the long-ranged ones. And thankfully, I did find a cheap one. It was still unaffordable, though, seeing as it was priced at 2000 gold.

"Tch. Just a little bit short." I clicked my tongue, and opened up the sell function instead.

With a little bit of dismay, I sold the materials I got from the serpent's lair's raid. They were few in numbers, but I guess because they were pretty rare, I managed to fetch a nice sum.

"Okay, now that I have 2200 gold on me, I should be able to buy this rusty rifle."

[Would you like to purchase the item 'Low-grade Rusty Assault Rifle' for 2000 gold?]

"Yeah, yeah. Give it to me, quick." I sighed in annoyance. Now I was almost back to having no gold.

"Hey, big bro Luke, can you come out?" I whispered as I began running towards the highest hill I could see from here. That one over there might be good enough. It was far away from the forest and was also filled with trees, making it difficult to spot a sniper from below.

[Yeah. What's up? Now that you need me, you remember me.]

I let out a sigh when I heard a familiar annoying voice entered my ears, alongside a hissing sound. In a matter of seconds, a cute little white snake had materialized around my shoulder, wrapped all the way up to my head.

"Think of it like you're our secret ally. Cool, right?" I giggled when I saw his pouty face appeared next to me.

[Hmph. You better be honored that I'm helping you.] He answered with a huff, but I could see a little tint of red on his cheeks. Wait, snakes could blush? What?

"Sure, sure. I'll buy you some rat when we get home." I replied as I started to climb the trees so I could hike the hill faster. While I was training using Elena's illusion, she forced me to practice maneuvering around the forest. Well, I did admit, learning how to use trees to my advantage sure was convenient here.

[Why rats?] He inquired while his little head bobbed to the side ever so slightly.

"Snakes eat rats." I answered while I hopped from trees to trees quickly.

[I've told you before that I feed on your mana, right?] He pouted.

"I'm kidding," I chuckled, "but rats might be cheaper than mana, though..."

[Don't bully your big brother, you little rat. I'll eat you.] Luke said as he lightly poked my head a few times.

"Hehe. Anyway, help me with this," I said as I hopped off onto the ground, "we're going to build something."

[Build what?] He plopped on the ground and started to slither.

"A drip rifle. Ever heard of it?" I said as I took off my backpack and grabbed a hair tie out of it, "ah, using your human form will be easier."

'Poof!'

"I've never heard of it, but sure. I'll do what you want."

Alongside a puff of smoke, the little snake was replaced by a tanned young man with striking golden eyes who, for some reason, decided to wear an open-chested robe even though we were in the middle of a raid.

"It's basically a rifle that operates without a person behind it," I explained as I tied my hair into a high ponytail, "the materials should be inside my backpack. And I've just got the rifle, here." I said as I tossed him the rusty rifle I had just bought.

"Huh. Interesting. Where did you learn to make these kinds of things?" Luke asked as he inspected the rifle.

"In a bad place." I answered concisely and started to rummage through my backpack for stuff like a container, some ropes, and of course, water.

"So how does it work?" Luke inquired while he helped me organize my bag.

"Simply put, we will tie this container to the trigger, so that when the water slowly drips into it and ultimately weighing it down, the trigger would be pulled," I made a finger gun motion, "and bang! There you have it, simple unmanned rifle."

"Doesn't look as simple as you said, but alright," he said as he crouched down next to me, "why are we building this, anyway?"

"Well, general Emilio wanted me to snipe those elves from here," I pointed at the forest below us that was already covered with smoke and fire, with anything barely visible, "but come on, how can I snipe when I can't even see the trees clearly?"

"So you think this unmanned rifle can? Genius." He chuckled and patted my head, as if I was a 5-year-old who had just discovered that straws look bendy when you put them inside a glass of water.

"Of course not, you dummy," I frowned, "if we can't see them from here, then we'll just get closer. Simple."

"What?" He raised an eyebrow at my words.

"Let me explain it so you understand," I sighed, "we can't see them from here, but they also can't see us from there."

"Uh-huh." He nodded.

"That's why we'll set this up while we go down there using this chameleon cloak while this rifle keeps firing," I explained, "they'll think that a sniper is stationed above here, and get preoccupied trying to find an unmanned rifle while we shoot their heads off one by one down there."

"Ah! Now I understand! Wait, that's actually a good plan," he put his hand on his chin, "but a chameleon cloak won't work against them."

"Yeah, I know. We don't need to be 100% undetectable. I think the drip rifle, the forest fire, and general Emilio would be enough distraction for them to not notice us," I shrugged, "and if we do get noticed, then oh well, we'll just go nuts."

"Oho~ Not bad." He smirked upon hearing my plan.

"And you'll get some action, too, of course. Don't expect you can slack off." I grinned back at him.

"Agreed. I'm looking forward to some action, as well."