Matan’s Shooter

“Seriously, everyone told me going on deployment wasn’t a big deal, that once I heard the operation plans, I’d be itching to go. Do you have any idea what nonsense they dragged me into? That darn division commander—”

The boyish face of the miyaw contorted into a barrage of coarse insults, continued his tirade, impossible to ignore.

His delicate appearance was a stark contrast to his profanity-laden speech.

It’s one thing for a warrant officer, but stirring up a storm with a general?

‘I remember Sergeant Kim hated insubordination the most… wasn’t he the one who would always come down hardest on the dongsaengs, even for fights among trainees from just one cohort apart?

Listening to Sergeant Kim curse worryingly loud, attracting unintended attention from passersby, he finally calmed down and turned to Leeha.

“Phew, sit down here. So, can you still not shoot that dinosaur bastard?”

“Yes. What?”

Seeing Sergeant Kim after a long time was a reminder that some things never change. I was momentarily confused by his question. How could he possibly know about our mother-son conversation?

“Again, poker face! I must have told you, a sniper who can’t assess the situation is as good as dead. How do you think I knew about that? Answer in 3, 2, 1—”

“Last time! You must have heard it last time. I was sitting on that bench over there talking to Kidd.”

Pushed into a corner, the human mind can conjure responses unimaginable under normal circumstances.

Indeed, Leeha’s spur-of-the-moment reply was accurate.

The miyaw’s idol-like features, nodded approvingly and took his seat.

“Right. But hearing it directly from you is different. Try unwinding a bit.”

“Ummm…?”

“Don’t wanna?”

“No, it’s not that!”

Though the sniper sergeant had been promoted to warrant officer, adapting to that young face still proved challenging for me.

• * *

Leeha recounted everything that had happened since he first encountered Toon. It wasn’t just a list of facts.

Why had he targeted Toon? Why had it become impossible to target him? And what about the ‘target’ that Leeha couldn’t even aim at now?

What about the oppressive feeling that bore down on me whenever I faced those monsters?

Spilling every thought and imagination was akin to a counselling session.

This harked back to something Kidd had once mentioned about “returning to the starting point,” which, for Leeha, was Sergeant Kim.

“This game would be perfect if it only had cigarettes. Seems like there’s a cigarette-shaped item, but without ‘Nicotin’ lighting up, what’s the point?”

After listening to Leeha’s entire story, sergeant Kim grimaced before speaking.

“Smoking now, are you? I thought you had quit—”

“Overseas, there’s not much else to do. Stupid stuff. Wish they’d increase the allowance instead of teaching us to smoke all over again.”

Stretching his arms and legs wide, the groaning Sergeant Kim drew my gaze, not just for the sound he made but also for the occasional glimpse of a wagging tail behind the bench.

“Hey, it’s me.”

“Sergeant.”

“Master Sergeant, my foot, the discharged guy—”

“Rick, wasn’t it Sergeant Kim—no, warrant Officer Kim who said that a sniper is universally recognized, regardless of where we go? What we’ve learned, what we need to uphold, the rules of engagement and basic combat doctrines. Whether we discharge or not, whether we’re from our country or not, a sniper always belongs to one clan, right?”

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“Remembering the rant meant to ‘snipe’ trainees, huh?”

“Sorry? I didn’t catch that?”

“Bloody hell! Anyway, ahem!”

Leeha’s prompt response left Sergeant Kim momentarily stunned, followed by an awkward shift and a stroke through his own—or Miyaw’s—facial scruff.

“From what I’ve heard, you’re quite the celebrity. Should such fame even weigh on you? Just enjoy blasting that dinosaur.”

“Not that famous really, but being well known doesn’t really relate.”

“Why not? To become that known, you must’ve fought plenty, right?”

“People? Well, users and NPCs alike, plenty—…”

Indeed, it was Leeha who obliterated the heads of many users and humanoid monsters during the national crisis.

Leeha was about to mention this lightly with a laugh when, suddenly, he halted. Why had he brought up people out of the blue?

“Sergeant?”

“Why can’t someone who’s fought people shoot them?”

A deep sigh followed.

Despite his youthful, idol-like visage, the sigh carried the weight of a life fully lived.

At least for that moment, Miyaw’s face was not what I saw. Instead, I saw the familiar face of the former sniper Sergeant Kim.”

What happened…?”

“What happened is, I realized that there’s a bigger difference between practice and reality than I thought,” he said.

Sergeant Kim attempted a smile, but even to Leeha, it looked like a forced act. Without needing to say it out loud, Leeha could understand Sergeant Kim’s experiences. He asked if the person had ever been in a fight. The question was directed at someone who had just returned from a deployment.

That person had been promoted.

Given the combination of these three facts, there could only be one conclusion.

“It must have been tough.”

Shooting real people, not just avatars in a game.

Leeha was among the trainees who acknowledged Sergeant Kim’s expertise more than anyone. An infallible sniper, even if it was his first time pointing his rifle at a person, sergeant Kim’s shots would never have been clumsy.

“It was tough. That’s why I came back.”

“Didn’t you return because your deployment ended?”

“If only. Carrying a sniper rifle for 17 years, and being a sniper team leader for 12. Even being the youngest and longest-serving team leader, I couldn’t shake it off.”

“What couldn’t you shake off?”

“Guilt. Like you are now.”

Sergeant Kim met Leeha’s eyes. Only then did Leeha truly understand Sergeant Kim’s heart, having previously thought Sergeant Kim was just sharing his own story after listening to Leeha’s.

“Leeha.”

“Sergeant first class—”

“I told you not to.”

Kim made a motion as if he was going to hit him on the back of the head but didn’t really touch Leeha.

Rough as his words were, sergeant Kim had also come to accept the idea that “Leeha is a civilian.”

“Guilt is something you can’t shake off. No matter how skilled, overcoming one’s own heart is difficult. It ultimately makes you doubt your abilities and paralyzes you. Afraid of Dinosaurs, are you? That’s a lie. You aren’t the type to be scared of such nonsense. You’ve been fearless since the day you joined.”

Sergeant Kim laughed heartily.

Leeha didn’t argue but simply listened quietly to his story.

“What you’re really afraid of is yourself. The fear is something you created. From the beginning, there was nothing to teach you about sniping because you already knew it all. What am I supposed to do when you’ve joined already perfected?”

Sergeant Kim reminisced about those days. Leeha knew too. The reason Sergeant Kim had been particularly strict with him compared to other trainees wasn’t because of Leeha’s attitude but because there really was nothing to teach him.

“It’s lucky I have something to teach you now, though it’s a shame it’s after we’ve both left the military.”

“I didn’t catch that? The military— oh, didn’t you just get promoted?”

“Promoted, yeah. Honorary promotion upon retirement.”

“Sergeant!?”

Leeha jumped up from his seat, startled.

Sergeant Kim didn’t look his way.

Was it not a promotion but just an honorary step up upon retirement?

Then what was that talk about visiting the division commander earlier?

Could it be related to that incident?

“Could it be because of me—”

“Eh? Pfft, buddy! That’s become interesting, hasn’t it? How can someone as shameless as you be so burdened by guilt?”

“Cough, it seems it wasn’t because of me. That’s a relief.”

“Yes. It’s because of what happened during the deployment. Well, since I was going to retire anyway, and since there was also your matter, it’s true I planned to visit the division commander.”

“My matter is just incidental?”

“Heh, then I saw you at the range.”

“At the range, you saw me?”

“With your sloppy shooting form, unmistakably you.”

Sergeant Kim gave a sad smile. Then, suddenly raising his voice, he barked at Leeha.

“250th position, nOW!”

“250th po— DOWN!”

Caught off guard, Leeha instinctively assumed the position.

Despite how abruptly and out of the blue it was, Leeha’s prone position, refined through Black Bass, was flawless.

Sergeant Kim had a troubled expression on his face where Leeha couldn’t see.

“Look at that. Just like when you first joined. Your shooting stance hasn’t changed one bit, not then, not now.”

“Is that so?”

His manner of speaking was as if it was “matchlessly sloppy,” but the nuances were never such. For Sergeant Kim, Leeha, who had been “perfect from the start,” closely resembled a genius.

“Leeha.”

Sergeant Kim called out to Leeha. This time, Leeha did not respond with his rank and name. Sergeant Kim chuckled as he poked at Leeha’s buttocks, who still remained in a crouched position.

“There, now you’re starting to look a bit more like a civilian. Haha, you know how to hit a hundred meters, right?”

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“A hundred meters, you say?”

“Might as well not ask. What about two hundred meters?”

“You just told me to aim for two hundred fifty meters, sergeant.”

“Right. So, what about a thousand meters?”

Sergeant Kim looked at Leeha, expecting an answer along the lines of how it’s impossible to hit a target a thousand meters away, only for his expression to collapse upon hearing Leeha’s response.

“I’ve hit at that range here.”

“What, what!? Are you crazy? Then, what about two thousand meters?”

“I have a hit it too.”

“You’ve hit two thousand meters?”

“Yes.”

“Three thousand meters!”

“That too.”

“Three thousand meters? How? With what kind of gun did you- No, no, never mind. Damn it!”

Sergeant Kim, his eyes bulging in disbelief, abruptly stopped himself from asking further and instead burst into anger. He was momentarily undone by Leeha’s unimaginable sniping abilities.

Leeha, still in his crouched position, couldn’t help but appear smug. After all, it wasn’t like he could deny his accomplishments.

“Cough. Alright then, let’s change the subject.”

Sergeant Kim seemed to want to say something else, and Leeha quietly listened.

“You know how to swim, right?”

“Yes.”

“Right. If you’ve learned to swim, it doesn’t matter if the water reaches your hips, your chest, or if your feet can’t touch the bottom. Heck, you could even do it in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Am I right?”

“Yes.”

“And you know how to swim. Right?”

“… Yes.”

“But what happens if you’re too afraid of drowning to even try swimming?”

Sergeant Kim asked. It was then that Leeha finally grasped what Sergeant Kim was trying to convey. Knowing it wasn’t really a question, Leeha chose not to respond.

After a moment’s pause, sergeant Kim walked over and sat down in front of Leeha.

“You’d die. A person can drown even in a shallow stream that barely comes up to their knees. Sniping is the same. It’s not the distance that’s scary. I’ve said it numerous times before.”

Sergeant Kim lowered his gaze to meet Leeha’s eyes.

“The target doesn’t waiver. It’s only your eyes and hands that shake. And it’s your heart that shakes your eyes and hands. Shoot. Better to shoot, because not shooting only heightens the guilt.”

The last words came from the lips of Kim, who lowered his posture as skillfully and flexibly as a Musketeer, matching the height of Leeha’s face as he still crouched in readiness.

“Don’t end up like me.”

Leeha was leaning back against a bench under the sunlight. The conversation with Sergeant Kim looped in his mind for days afterward.

‘If you don’t shoot, you’ll end up like me. So, you ultimately didn’t shoot, huh?’

Leeha reflected on Sergeant Kim’s experiences.

He had been deployed. Assinged on a critical sniping mission. But actually shooting someone was never easy. Even him, the youngest ever sniper team leader, couldn’t always pull the trigger as he wished.

‘And because he didn’t… what happened?’

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