"You said streaming was just a hobby, and it seems like that’s true. You're not really a streamer who’s good at shooting, but more of an operator who's good at broadcasting."

"An operator who frequently appears on streams… That’s a pretty awful combination. Just hearing about it makes me think the higher-ups are probably having a headache."

"Well, there are more and more people like that these days. It’s no longer something we need to worry about."

Outside, the continuous sound of gunfire echoed, and faint flashes of gunfire could be seen outside the door.

After Eugene and Logan’s demonstration shooting, the first official mission began. There were quite a few targets, so two teams, four people total, were assigned to each cycle. After roughly five minutes, it was time for the next two teams to go out.

Unlike the teams who had already finished, those who hadn’t yet gone out were watching the screens to prepare, checking the wind speed and direction outside, drawing crosshairs on A4 paper, and repeatedly discussing how to adjust their aim.

However, not everyone acted this way. Many spent time chatting, and, naturally, Eugene and Logan’s team caught their attention.

"Even in the Marine Corps SSC—Recon Sniper Course—we didn’t push that hard. If I had shot like that during field training, the instructors would’ve clapped and put the top graduate badge on my forehead."

"Damn, I barely passed that with pull-ups."

The first mission of the Sniper Competition: shooting at targets from unspecified distances.

This was one of the most brutal selection tests from the U.S. Marine Corps Recon Sniper training, usually done during the last 15 days, and the graduation rate was always around 40%. Even highly trained individuals couldn’t hit every target, and in this competition, targets beyond the range of the SSC had to be hit accurately.

Moreover, the time to change magazines was included in the countdown.

Just as there’s always a deeper bottom, there’s always a higher top, and missions tougher than this were designed by the controllers, like Lorentina, to test the limits of human endurance.

Despite seeing how Eugene and Logan performed in the competition, things didn’t go quite as smoothly once the competition began for the other teams.

"Double miss on target 8. Move to target 14."

"Hoo…!"

A double miss.

The first mission had a simple rule: the first shot was worth 10 points. If missed, the shooter had 2 seconds to take another shot and hit the target, earning 8 points. But if they missed again, the score would be 0, marking a double miss.

In other words, missing twice meant throwing away a valuable opportunity.

It wasn’t a rare occurrence, but the aftermath varied. Some teams, completely thrown off by the first miss, struggled to get good scores, while others managed to regain their focus and finish strong. However, only three teams were consistently close to the results achieved by Eugene and Logan among the 32 teams: the sniper teams from the U.S. Mountain Division, the unclassified team (ISA), and another unclassified team (The Unit).

The scores appeared in real-time on the screen, ranking the teams, marking the end of the first mission.

Unlike the 100-minute first match, the second mission required a different set of skills and much more time.

Lorentina displayed the second mission on the screen and spoke:

"The second mission is long-range sniping."

The closest target from the firing position was 1.5 kilometers away.

There were targets at 1500m, one at 1700m, two at 1900m, and one at 2100m. The total number of rounds given was 12. Essentially, the first shot would be used to adjust, and the second shot had to hit the target.

Upon hearing about the long-range sniping, the expressions of participants changed to a serious look. Despite being the best of the best from their countries, many had never attempted a shot beyond 2km.

The controllers didn’t expect everyone to achieve valid results either.

"With twelve rounds, you can either keep firing until one target is hit, or switch targets if you choose to give up. It’s up to you to strategize. The time limit is 10 minutes."

The Earth's rotation. The Coriolis effect. The Magnus effect.

Knowledge of physics, meteorology, geometry, geography, and the types of weapons and ammunition, the length of the barrel, temperature, humidity, wind direction, wind speed, the shooter’s muscle tension, heart rate, blood pressure, vision, and even the amount of sunlight.

Changing the rifle angle by as little as 0.25 degrees could cause the bullet to deviate by 2.4 meters. In fact, a long-range shot over 2km typically required data collected from 10 shots or more before the target could be hit.

As such, Lorentina estimated the result in her head. Without advanced tools like Icarus Gear that calculate impact points in real-time, hitting more than half of the five targets would be a solid result.

And even if the rest of the shots missed, hitting the 2.1km target once would likely place the team in the middle ranks.

"How will Eugene and Logan perform?"

That was still an unknown for Lorentina.

‘...I helped the rookie and Harmony’s spotter hit the 1.5km target, so they should be able to do it too….’

But thoughts were thoughts, and turns were turns.

Lorentina made eye contact with Eugene’s team, and without any visible sign of nervousness, they picked up the huge weapon cases. One enormous sniper rifle, the TAC-50, stood out as it was revealed.

This time, Logan took the rifle. Her long, wind-blown hair moved like it had been freshly pulled from milk, and she quickly assembled the weapon before moving to the designated sniper position.

The wide field, nestled between the great valleys, had targets firmly placed in the distance. A small hill in the distance, about 150 meters from the auditorium, was the first firing point.

They didn’t load the magazines yet.

Instead, twelve gold-colored solid brass rounds were scattered where Logan’s hands could reach them.

"…I feel like I’ve seen these somewhere. Are these Woodleigh Projectiles?"

"Ten dollars per round, huh? Well, for a mission like this, you’d have to bring something like that."

Eugene mounted the top-tier spotting scope onto the tripod and started scanning the area, identifying all five targets within roughly 2 minutes. The targets were brightly painted with sharp blue and red, so the identification didn’t take long.

Sharing information between the two, Eugene then signaled with a circular "O" sign with his tail. Lorentina set the timer for 10 minutes, and the synchronized LED clock in the auditorium started counting down: 10:00:00.

Then, Eugene and Logan dove into their own worlds.

Eugene’s team’s first target was a humanoid target at approximately 2.1km.

"Target... humanoid target, 2300 yards ahead, 0.4mil horizontal, 1.2mil vertical. The scope’s mil value should match, right?"

"It matches."

"Adjust vertically to 23mil and wait. The wind is coming from left to right with an average speed of 8m/s. Windage click... move 1.2mil left. After the first shot, we’ll adjust for lateral and vertical shifts. I’ll monitor the bullet trajectory and impact, so shoot when it’s comfortable."

"Got it."

A crisp sound followed by a metallic "clink."

At that moment, a sharp ping echoed across Fort Moore in Georgia. Despite using a suppressor, the dust kicked up, and Eugene, without even taking a breath, confirmed the bullet trajectory through the spotting scope.

The sound of the shot, followed by the bullet veering 3 meters to the right, was observed, but Eugene quickly wrote the corrections in his notebook and adjusted the spotting scope’s magnification, confirming the grass pattern at the impact site.

The two variables Eugene added to the notebook were recalculated. He confirmed the wind was pushing the grass to the right, and in his mind, he finalized the necessary adjustment.

‘...Considering the 0.25-degree deviation means 2.4 meters of error, I need to shift left by 0.3 degrees. It’s easier to calculate that 1 degree is about 10 meters.’

"Shift 1.5mil left."

"Already adjusted. Second shot."

The shot rang out again.

The reconnaissance drone floating overhead marked the bullet’s trajectory in real-time, and Eugene, frowning, didn’t miss any of the curvature as the bullet approached its target.

A few seconds later, the bullet veered drastically to the right as expected, with the wind shifting as it descended through the valley.

But once the correction was made, no issues arose.

The next moment, the bullet struck the target just 30cm off-center to the right.

The adjustment values didn’t need to be called out by Eugene; Logan simply adjusted the mils to the decimal place and fired again.

– Kaang!

The bullet struck dead center of the target 2.1km away. The target swayed, and a few moments later, the faint sound of metal clattering reached their ears.

Eugene and Logan both confirmed the hit, and Lorentina, sitting beside them, smiled and added:

"Target 5 hit. 9 rounds remaining. Take your time."

"Of course."

Nine rounds were slightly insufficient to hit all the remaining targets, but as operators, the ability to turn the impossible into the possible was their forte.

As expected, Logan and Eugene hit all five targets, though with difficulty.

For the rest, the hell was just beginning.

"How did it go?"

"What do you mean, how? It was horrible. If I hadn’t been in the later group, I probably wouldn’t have even hit one, let alone two."

The lamentations echoed from a corner of Fort Moore.

Naturally, the sound of sorrow was unmistakable—it was due to the drastically increased difficulty of the test compared to before. The previous unspecified distance target shooting wasn’t easy, but it was universally agreed that the difficulty had skyrocketed.

This was the beginning of the disaster. Most units didn’t include sniping over 1km in their training programs, so participants had rarely faced such long-range shooting challenges.

"God damn it, I didn’t expect it to be this hard."

"Looks like I’ll need to retake the advanced sniper course when I get back home."

No team had failed to hit at least one target.

Among the 32 teams, less than five teams had only hit one target out of five, and the teams that hit two out of five were in the bottom 30%. Most teams had to accept a score of 3/5, with only four teams achieving 4/5, and just three teams—including Eugene and Logan’s—hitting all five.

One of the teams that managed to hit all five, JTF-2, celebrated wildly when they struck the final target. They ran back to us and high-fived, adding:

"At least we saved face. Even if the best snipers in the world are here, sniping is something you have to grind out to stay at the top, or you won’t have anything to brag about when you get back."

"But you just hit 14/15 in the last mission..."

"Damn it, don’t bring that up. I’m already embarrassed enough as it is."

The winners, or those in the top ranks, were already exchanging friendly gestures and creating a warm atmosphere. However, not everyone else was experiencing the same feelings. This was a place of infinite competition, and for every person who excelled, there was someone else who had fallen behind.

But that wasn’t something I needed to worry about. Moreover, just because I didn’t perform well today didn’t mean I wouldn’t do better tomorrow. Tomorrow’s events included fire support, allied rescue, and drone and turret operation tests. Many more challenging missions would continue to test all of us here.

That, however, was a concern for another time.

And on top of that, there were more people eager to talk to us.

Especially the ones from Korea.

"Good job."

"Phew, that was the hardest 10 minutes mentally. I managed to get above average with a good strategy, but…"

"That’s strategy for you. Well done."

The Navy SEALs, or UDT.

I had learned their strategy by watching their actions carefully—they used three of their rounds for three targets. It was a tough strategy, but it worked. The final shot had to hit a valid target, which meant precision was critical.

However, long-range sniping ultimately turned out to be a mental battle. Using three rounds for one target was a smart strategy because it allowed them to adjust based on the first three shots and then focus on getting that last, crucial shot. The fewer the variables, the less psychological pressure they felt, which made the task easier.

It wasn’t for nothing that Lorentina had mentioned that this was a battle of strategy.

"Do you feel it yet?"

"Instead of hoping for luck in long-range shooting, I think I’ll teach my juniors to focus on hitting targets at more reasonable distances."

"Ha, that’s not always the case, though."

"Exactly, that’s why snipers have such heavy responsibilities."

Indeed.

After a brief exchange of words, everyone went to a different auditorium.

Outside, the sun was setting. Unlike the first mission, which started at 2 PM and finished around 3:40 PM, this time, each of the 32 teams was given 10 minutes, meaning the time had stretched to nearly 5 to 6 hours. Of course, no food was provided. Snipers were expected to eat at reasonable times during their breaks.

Eugene and I, finishing our tasks first, warmed up about 30 slices of frozen pizza that we had packed into our bags.

It was delicious.

Back to the final task of the day.

Although it was a short mission, it promised to be a challenging one.

As always, Lorentina stood in front of us with her proud, elegant demeanor and added:

"Before we dive into the third mission, let me remind you all. You all know that the final mission today is ‘assembling the rifle and shooting,’ but... I never said that’s all there is to it."

At the same time, Lorentina opened a cabinet on the wall, revealing a selection of large and small rifles to everyone.

She continued:

"Inside, you’ll find disassembled sniper rifles from the US, UK, Russia, China, Korea, Switzerland, and other countries. They’ve all been maintained in a condition ready for shooting. However, I must mention that they’re not specially disassembled."

At that moment, everyone fell silent, waiting to hear what she would say next.

But it wasn’t an unexpected turn of events.

"Before the mission starts, you’ll randomly pick a sniper rifle from the cabinet, assemble it with the provided night-vision scope, and then enter the operation zone to make adjustments and fire at a target."

The mission required assembling a rifle within 2 minutes and 30 seconds, adjusting the sight, and hitting a target within 400m. Lorentina mentioned that the original time limit was 1 minute 50 seconds, but I wasn’t sure if the others were aware of that.

"Let’s begin. You two can come up and grab your rifles."

The weapon cases were of a standard size, but we had no idea what was inside.

We didn’t stop walking. The murmur of voices could be heard, but this wasn’t a place for anyone to offer reassurance or encouragement. Instead, it was full of people who were focused on their own preparations, silently pushing themselves forward.

The first day was coming to a close.