Born Extraordinary

To give up, or to continue?

Maud gripped the gunstock, his brow furrowed.

He didn't want to give up this opportunity he'd waited for days, yet he also didn't want to risk doing something uncertain.

As he wrestled with himself, Red and his companion had already entered within eighty meters.

In a mere few seconds, Maud tried to find a reason to convince himself.

He glanced up at the sky, a sliver of hope suddenly appearing in his heart.

Risk and reward went hand in hand.

It would be fine even if one person survived, as long as they weren't discovered.

With the cover of night and the uneven cluster of buildings around, the possibility of escaping in time was high.

With this thought, Maud made his decision.

Even if the timing wasn't perfect, it was still too early to give up now.

He took a deep breath, held it, and stared intently at the two figures walking step by step towards him.

Seventy meters.

Maud's index finger hovered over the trigger.

Sixty meters.

Maud's index finger tightened slightly.

Fifty meters.

Maud held his breath.

Just as he was about to fire, Red suddenly quickened his pace and walked towards a wall on the side.

Maud's eyelids twitched, and he almost fired immediately.

After seeing what happened next, Maud's suddenly racing heart slowly calmed down, and his index finger slowly moved away from the trigger.

In the alley, Red was leaning against the wall, hunched over and spewing filth at the base of the wall.

His companion patted Red's back while saying something to him, leaning in from the side.

The dark clouds in the night sky suddenly parted slightly, and moonlight pierced through the gaps, casting down like beams of light into the alley.

Maud watched the two figures huddled together, and a bold idea suddenly flashed in his mind.

"This angle... no, it's still a bit off."

Maud slowly stood up and moved to another sniping position a few meters away.

Immediately, he half-crouched, held his breath, and aimed the muzzle at the two figures in front of the alley wall.

An imagined trajectory of the bullet, going straight down from above, would pass through the side of Red's neck and finally stop at the center of Red's companion's forehead.

"This will work!"

A murderous glint flashed in Maud's eyes, and his index finger forcefully pulled the trigger.

Bang—!

The deafening gunshot suddenly echoed through the alley.

The next second, two thuds of heavy objects falling to the ground followed in the alley.

Red lay on the ground, his eyes wide open, his mouth opening and closing like a gasping goldfish, struggling to breathe.

A bloody hole was blown through the side of his neck, and a line of blood shot out, forming a small arc that landed on the ground.

As for his fierce-looking companion, he lay beside him, utterly silent.

The bullet that passed through Red's neck, after its momentum weakened, precisely drilled into his forehead, killing him instantly.

A moment later, people startled awake by the gunshot looked out their windows.

Suddenly, a cacophony of voices rose in the night.

Meanwhile, Maud had already left his sniping spot, descending the stairs with the agility of a monkey, heading towards the weapon shop.

Dozens of meters away from the sniping spot, Saul stood in the shadow of a building.

His aura seemed to blend with the night, and even up close, he could easily be mistaken for a statue.

Looking at the two corpses in the alley from afar, Saul suddenly said, "What are your thoughts after watching?"

"Confusion, and... disbelief."

From another shadow a few meters away, Sunny's voice, full of doubt, promptly replied.

She stepped out of the shadow. Unlike Saul, who was looking at the corpses in the alley, she looked at the empty sniping spot with an incredulous gaze.

Her face, crisscrossed with knife scars, was now filled with indescribable shock.

"When Maud took the musket from Yasopp, I saw him fiddling with it. He looked clumsy, and he kept turning the gun over and over, like it was his first time touching that type of firearm."

"So I'd rather believe he used a pistol for that shot, not the musket. How... how did he do it?"

Saul glanced at Sunny, who seemed to have been struck.

He could understand how Sunny felt.

Because he had experienced something similar before.

Some things, no matter how unwilling you are, cannot be changed.

People are already divided by class from the moment they are born.

Some are born into poverty, others into wealth.

Some are born with extraordinary talent, others are born ordinary.

"Sunny, this world is never short of monsters. Some monsters are born to wield swords, and some are born to wield guns."

"Then should I... keep learning the gun?"

"..."

Saul frowned slightly, seeing a shadow of his past self in Sunny.

Seeing Saul's silence, Sunny looked dejected.

"I have no talent for swords, and my poor physique isn't suitable for specializing in martial arts. In the end, I can only grudgingly learn the gun."

"When Yasopp praised my talent, I even thought I had found the right path."

"But it turns out, the me Yasopp saw back then is different from the Maud I see now."

Sunny was negating herself, her dejection more evident than the night itself.

Saul sighed, "Maud's aptitude is indeed beyond my expectations, but when it comes to using guns, I don't think you're worse than him, even though he's moving faster than you right now..."

"Is this comfort?"

"If I had nothing better to do, I wouldn't do something as thankless as this."

"It really is comfort."

"..."

Saul shook his head, looking at the lights in the night, his words carrying a deeper meaning.

"Sunny, this path is longer than you imagine, so long that you'll personally feel what despair is. And you and Maud have only walked a minuscule part of it."

"You should know, when I was young, I wanted to become a world-renowned swordsman. But like you, my talent with the sword was... Hey, don't go? My memoirs of heroism have just begun, come back here!"

Watching Sunny walk away without looking back, Saul's wrinkled cheeks twitched several times.

"This little girl... I wonder if she took anything I said to heart."

Saul looked up at the night sky, the memories triggered by Sunny becoming clearer.

He had been frustrated by talent issues before, and had also thought there was no path suitable for him.

Until...

In his mind, the captain's smiling face slowly appeared.

Saul couldn't help but smile slightly, immersing himself further in past memories.

But soon, some unpleasant memories also surfaced.

A man wielding a massive iron fist, his entire body coated black with Armament Haki, burst forth and pushed the captain's smiling face aside.

Saul shook his head violently, gritting his teeth.

"Damn it, why do I have to think of him at a time like this?"

At this moment, Saul felt as disgusted as if he had eaten a hundred flies.

Weapon shop.

Maud returned to his room and carefully put away the Usopp who had just performed well.

"Hoo..."

Exhaling lightly, Maud summoned the Hunter's Notebook.

Above the black cover, a slightly larger star had appeared.

Maud lay on the bed, carefully sensing the changes in his body.

This time, with Sunny's intel, the benefits he gained were much better than the first time.

If his previous physical fitness was equivalent to 5 times that of an ordinary person, it should now be around 15 times.

In terms of physique alone, understood with Dao power, it is... 150!

Seeking votes daily~ Thank you~