Give up, or keep going?
Maud tightened his grip on the gun, his brow deeply furrowed.
He did not want to give up this opportunity he had waited so long for, but neither did he want to risk doing something he had no confidence in.
As he wrestled with the decision, Red and his companion had already entered the eighty-meter shooting range.
Within a few short seconds, Maud tried to find a reason that could convince himself.
He looked up at the night sky, and a sliver of hope suddenly rose in his heart.
Risk and profit went hand in hand.
It would be fine even if he left one survivor, as long as he was not discovered.
With the cover of the night and the uneven cluster of buildings around them, the chances of escaping in time were extremely high.
By the time he reached that thought, Maud had made his decision.
Even if the timing was not ideal, it was still too early to give up.
He drew a deep breath, then held it as he stared at the two figures approaching one step at a time.
Seventy meters.
Maud's index finger hovered over the trigger.
Sixty meters.
Maud applied a little more pressure with his index finger.
Fifty meters.
Maud held his breath.
Just as he was about to fire, Red suddenly quickened his pace and walked toward a wall on one side.
Maud's eyelid twitched, and he nearly fired on the spot.
After seeing what happened next, Maud's suddenly racing heartbeat gradually slowed, and his index finger slowly left the trigger.
Inside the alley, Red was leaning against the wall, bent over as he freely vomited filth at its base.
His companion patted Red on the back while turning sideways and saying something to him.
The dark clouds in the night sky suddenly scattered a little. Moonlight pierced through the gaps, casting beams of light into the alley.
Looking at the two figures huddled together, a bold idea suddenly surfaced in Maud's mind.
"This angle... won't work. It's still a little off."
Maud slowly rose and moved to another sniping position a few meters away.
Then he half-crouched, holding his breath as he aimed the muzzle at the two figures before the alley wall.
A projected bullet path ran straight downward through the side of Red's neck, finally stopping at the center of his companion's brow.
"It'll work!"
The killing intent in Maud's eyes flashed and vanished. He then pressed down hard on the trigger.
Bang--!
The deafening gunshot suddenly echoed through the sky above the alley.
The next second, two heavy thuds rang out from within the alley as bodies hit the ground.
Red fell to the ground, his eyes wide and his mouth working laboriously like an oxygen-starved fish.
A bloody hole had been blasted through the side of his neck. A line of blood sprayed from it, forming a small arc before landing on the ground.
As for his fearsome-looking companion, he lay motionless nearby.
After passing through the side of Red's neck and losing some of its momentum, the bullet drilled precisely into his companion's brow, killing him on the spot.
A moment later, the people awakened by the gunshot looked out their windows one after another.
For a while, all kinds of clamoring voices rose through the night.
But Maud had already left the sniping position. As nimble as an ape, he descended the building and headed toward the weapon shop.
Dozens of meters away from the sniping position, Saul stood in the shadow of a building.
His presence seemed to have merged with the night. Even from close by, one might easily mistake him for a statue.
Watching the two corpses in the alley from afar, Saul suddenly asked, "What did you think after seeing that?"
"Confusion, and... unwillingness to believe it."
Sunny's puzzled voice came promptly from another patch of shadow a few meters away.
She stepped out of the shadows. Unlike Saul, who was looking at the corpses in the alley, she stared in disbelief at the now-empty sniping position.
Her face, crisscrossed by knife scars, was filled with indescribable shock.
"When Maud took the musket from Yasopp, I saw him fiddling with it. His movements looked very unfamiliar, and he kept turning the gun over and over. That kind of behavior looked like it was his first time handling this type of gun."
"So I would rather believe he used a pistol to fire that shot just now than a musket. How... did he do it?"
Saul glanced at Sunny, who looked as if she had taken a heavy blow.
He could understand how Sunny felt.
Because he had experienced the same thing before.
Some things could not be changed, no matter how unwilling one was to accept them.
People were divided into different levels from the moment they were born.
Some were born into poverty, while others were born into wealth.
Some were born extraordinarily talented, while others were born utterly ordinary.
"Sunny, this world is never short of all kinds of monsters. Some monsters are born to wield a sword, while others are born to use a gun."
"Then should I... keep learning to use a gun?"
"..."
Saul frowned slightly, as if he saw a former version of himself in Sunny.
When Saul fell silent, Sunny's expression turned dejected.
"I have no talent for swordsmanship, and my poor physique isn't suited to focusing on physical combat. In the end, I could only settle for learning to use a gun."
"When Yasopp praised my talent, I once thought I had finally found the right path."
"But it turns out that the me in Yasopp's eyes back then was different from the Maud I see now."
Sunny denied herself, and the dejection in her voice could not even be concealed by the night.
Saul sighed. "That kid Maud's aptitude truly exceeded my expectations, but when it comes to using a gun, I don't think you'll be worse than him. Even though he's currently moving faster than you..."
"Is that supposed to comfort me?"
"Even if I had nothing better to do, I wouldn't bother with something so thankless."
"So it really is just comfort."
"..."
Saul shook his head and looked at the lights beneath the night sky, his words carrying a deeper meaning.
"Sunny, this road is even longer than you imagine. It may become so long that you'll personally experience what despair truly means. You and Maud have only just walked a tiny, insignificant stretch of it."
"You should know that when I was young, I wanted to become a world-famous master swordsman. But just like you, I wasn't particularly talented with a sword... Hey, don't walk away! My Memoirs of a Hero have only just begun! Come back here!"
Watching Sunny walk away without looking back, the wrinkled skin on Saul's cheeks twitched several times.
"That little girl... I wonder if she took any of that to heart."
Saul looked up at the night sky, the memories of the past that Sunny had drawn out growing increasingly vivid.
He had once been frustrated by his lack of talent, and he had once believed there was no path suited to him.
Until...
The captain's smiling face slowly surfaced in his mind.
Saul could not help smiling faintly as he continued sinking into memories of the past.
But soon, some unpleasant memories surged up as well.
A man wielding a massive Iron Fist, his entire body coated black with Armament Haki, burst onto the scene and shoved the captain's smiling face aside.
Saul violently shook his head, gritting his teeth.
"Damn it, why am I thinking of him now?"
At that moment, Saul felt sick as if he had swallowed a hundred flies.
At the weapon shop.
Maud returned to his room and carefully put away Usopp, who had just rendered meritorious service.
"Phew..."
After softly exhaling, Maud summoned Hunter's Notebook.
Above its black cover, an additional star slightly larger than the others had appeared.
Maud lay down on the bed, carefully sensing the changes in his body.
With Sunny's intelligence this time, the benefits he obtained were far greater than the first time.
If his previous physical strength had been equivalent to five times that of an ordinary person, then it should now be around fifteen times.
Judging by physique alone, if understood through Dao power, that would be... 150!
Please vote as usual~ Many thanks~
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