Chapter 27

While Elerina, Angen, and Memorus ventured forth to the fourth shrine, I had my own business to take care of. I sold two more of Elerina's cups, receiving over a billion Rupiah. With that, I looked around for some contacts, and managed to book myself a weekend flight to the US.

You could guess why I'm heading there.

It was standing in an empty parking lot, my back leaning on the building's walls. It was a bit out of town. Using black sunglasses and a fake mustache, I waited.

“Are you sure this is alright?” Elerina asked in worry. I had filled her in on the plans, but I hid the massive risks from her. I was sure my fear wasn't showing on my face, though.

“It's fine.”

A black SUV appeared in the distance, driving on the right side of the two lane road. The cars here are massive. It made Indonesian cars look like ants. I wasn’t used to such massive vehicles, and it looked much more imposing than I had expected.

And it just have to be black, doesn’t it?

I didn’t watch a lot of action films, but whether it’s used by the cartel or by government agencies, they always painted it black. It flashed its signal and pulled into the parking lot. I steeled my resolve, folding my arms to look as cool and mature as I could.

The black SUV stopped not too far from me. A large man came out. He scanned the vicinity, then looked toward me. “... Albert?”

I nodded and pulled myself away from the walls, a suitcase full of money in my right hand. My accent and my voice might give me away, so I didn’t say a word. Elerina was standing on my right, sword in the ready. Angen and Memorus stood further away back. We weren't sure how they could help if something happened, but they remained vigilant anyway.

The man looked at me with a sense of suspicion. Granted, I probably don't look all that trustworthy, but how I look isn't anyone's business.

Well, it is Elerina's business. When I showed my outfit to her earlier, she said it looked weird. I mean, yeah, I have never used a suit before, but it's not that bad, is it? She should at least pretend to like it.

Sigh… My wife is honest, at least.

The man opened his trunk, and what greeted me was a long, wooden box. “Tested it before I brought it here. Worked in perfect condition.”

He showed me a video of the weapon firing. Unfortunately, since I'm a foreigner, obtaining guns legally proved to be a challenge, so I could only rely on his words.

What's inside the wooden box is a single semi-auto sniper rifle. The reason why I chose a sniper rifle is simple. Elerina is super strong in terms of utilizing her sword. She could cut through waves of enemies without breaking a sweat.

She struggled against monsters with strong magic protection, but there aren't a lot of them, and that's not something I could solve, either. Another challenge is her lack of range. This, I could solve.

The sniper rifle allowed her to hit targets from faraway, putting her away from danger. It also allowed her time to rethink her strategy if shooting it didn't work.

“Can I touch it?”

“Feel free.”

I approached the rifle and took it into my arms. It's a heavy weapon, that's for sure. Had I not suffered through Elerina’s rigorous training, I wouldn't be able to hold it for more than a couple seconds. Now, though, I'm a different beast.

… Well, calling myself a beast when I still couldn't lift more than forty kilograms isn't right, but at least I could now hold twenty without feeling exhausted immediately after. In no way comparable to Elerina, but not that bad.

The sniper is a fairly old weapon, but it had a smooth metal finish. Its brown skin was clean and shining, evidence of the care its previous owner gave it. In the box were several sets of ammunition. There should be around six hundred of them. Pretty limiting in terms of ammunition, and honestly, I'm not sure if that will be enough.

The idea is one shot for each monster. If it fails, then they'll need to rethink their approach. As such, it would be able to take on six hundred monsters. Elerina wouldn't use it on the weaker ones, of course. I didn't want to use all the money on ammunition, either, since that'll be hard to sell after the war ended, and we need the money to support her life here.

“Would love to take you to a shooting range, but…”

I gently shook my head. Elerina had a much more expansive shooting range. She'll test it herself. After finishing the checks, although admittedly, I didn't know what I'm supposed to be looking out for, we finished the transaction.

“Nice doing business with you.”

With a firm handshake, the man boarded his SUV and went home, significantly richer than before. I took my stuff into a hidden corner and transferred it over to Elerina's world, along with its ammo and a headset for Elerina's ears. I also bought headsets for Angen and Memorus, although I doubt it would work on Angen’s cat ears. I’m not sure if it would even work on Elerina’s elven ears.

“Whoah, that's massive.”

“That's a bow…?”

Now that I'm connected back to the call, I could hear Angen and Memorus’ voices again. I showed Elerina videos about how to use it, given to me by the man. Elerina followed the instructions and put in the ammunition. She went down and put the rifle on the ground, her eyes looking through its scope.

“Stay back Angen, Memorus, and cover your ears.”

“Alright.”

“Why-”

The second they put on the headsets, Elerina pulled the trigger. A stifled click appeared in my ears, then silence…

That was, admittedly, much more silent than I expected. I mean, the rifle is suppressed, and I am hearing through the action camera, so I knew it wouldn't be loud, but I expected much more sound. Through the camera mounted on Elerina's helmet, I could see a large elephant-like monster fall to the ground.

“... Impressive.”

One shot, one victim, exactly as planned. The monster was as large as the T-Rex, so it's clearly not some small-fry. The silence also failed to alert any monsters nearby, making it the perfect weapon.

A smile flashed on Elerina's face. “It's time to hunt.”