Chapter 3

The male lead Yan Xieyue’s game username was none other than Joker.

This game didn’t restrict duplicate usernames. Joker, which could be translated as “clown” or “big joker,” was a fairly common username.

No one would think that someone using the username Joker and playing the sniper position in the game was the real-life Joker himself—the strongest sniper whose true appearance the Inspection Team had never publicly revealed.

After all, there were at least eight hundred, if not a thousand, people named Joker in this game.

There couldn’t possibly be eight hundred “world’s strongest snipers.”

Jiang Yun thought for a moment, then typed into the username field: ACE.

ACE, ace.

It was also a very cocky username, and therefore used by many people.

She clicked to enter the game, and just as the system had promised, she and Yan Xieyue appeared in the sniper positions of the two opposing teams.

On either side of the screen, in perfectly symmetrical positions.

Among the four players on Jiang Yun’s team, the Medic player was a girl like her, and the other three were all boys. While waiting for the game to randomly assign the map and each player’s spawn point, the Medic girl turned on her mic and chatted casually: “Joker and ACE, both mean ‘ace,’ and both are playing sniper. What a coincidence.”

The man playing the first Assault role turned on his mic in agreement, laughing: “This is probably the fourth ACE I’ve met in-game this month, and the thirteenth Joker.”

Second Assault: “Well, Joker is the codename of the ace sniper officially announced by the Inspection Team. Everyone probably wants to try for good luck, or maybe they’re fans?”

Scout: “But this so-called ace sniper—his appearance, name, age, life history, all information is completely unavailable. And he has fans? What are they even fans of?”

Medic: “Simple. Because he’s the strongest. People admire strength.”

On the official website, Joker wasn’t just the number one ranked sniper—he was listed on a separate line entirely, clearly distinguished from everyone ranked below him on the list.

As if silently declaring that Joker’s “strongest” wasn’t just “number one,” but “number one” by a massive gap in strength from everyone else.

Beyond that, there was no other information about Joker at all.

Mysterious. Powerful.

Capable of inspiring endless imagination.

So on the internet, there was indeed a group of Joker fans who speculated extensively about his identity.

Jiang Yun didn’t speak, just quietly listened to their conversation.

The map they were assigned was [Holy Hymn Academy], a five-star difficulty map, and they had also randomly drawn a collective negative weather buff: [A Stormy Night].

The Scout’s voice was somewhat breaking down: “Oh my god, this is way too unlucky. Holy Hymn Academy is already one of the hardest game maps, and now with this extreme weather on top of it—it’s dark outside, and the rain is interfering with sound. How are we supposed to play this?”

Medic: “It’s fine! If it’s hard, it’s hard for everyone—wow, look, our spawn positions are pretty good.”

Jiang Yun saw the text on the screen and agreed internally: indeed not bad.

Aside from her, the sniper, her four teammates were relatively close together, avoiding being isolated and falling into enemy territory.

And she, as the sniper, had randomly spawned on the rooftop of Teaching Building A.

Not bad luck—she had a very wide field of view.

But once the game started, Jiang Yun still maneuvered her character down from the rooftop. In an open-air environment, the interference from the rain was simply too great, and the rain and wind would also affect the bullets fired.

Although the effect was very slight, so slight it was almost negligible, in a duel between experts, that one tiny detail might be what decided victory or defeat.

The first Assault player voluntarily took on the commander role. His game plan was simple: the two Assault players and the Medic would move as a group, while the Scout went ahead to scout enemy positions for them.

As for the sniper, he figured the sniper wasn’t very useful on this game map anyway, since visibility was so low, and the sniper was also too far from the four of them—even if he had some team strategy, it would be hard to use the sniper in time.

Jiang Yun had no objections and only replied with a simple two-word answer: 【Understood.】

The Assault player’s plan actually worked—or maybe they were just lucky. They ran into two isolated enemy players in a row and very smoothly took them out one after another.

One of them was even a Medic.

The Scout was smug: “Without a Medic, they basically can’t heal or revive for the rest of the match. This one’s in the bag. —I see one, about 9 o’clock direction, looks like another isolated one.”

First Assault: “Good, let’s circle around slowly.”

As he spoke, he was also a bit puzzled—was this game too easy today? Was the enemy sleepwalking?

However, the moment they opened fire and killed the enemy Scout, the latter turned on the lights in the classroom.

The next second, all four of them were down almost simultaneously.

Text appeared on the big screen.

Sniper 【Joker】 killed Assault 【Shanshan Weichuan】
Sniper 【Joker】 killed Medic 【Puppy_OvQ】
Sniper 【Joker】 killed Assault 【He An】
Sniper 【Joker】 killed Scout 【Suifeng Qianru Ye】

Quadra kill!

The four killed players were all stunned, and it took them a while to react—so they had just been shot four times in rapid succession by the enemy team’s sniper, each shot a kill?

…Ah.

For a moment, they didn’t know whether to marvel at how absurdly strong this sniper was, or mourn their dramatic fate: one second they were fantasizing about victory, and the next they’d been wiped out by the enemy.

Oh, “wiped out” wasn’t quite accurate—after all, they still had one sniper who hadn’t been killed.

The Scout cursed: “With visibility this low and rain interfering with sound, what use is a sniper? Might as well surrender now and start the next match. Talk about bad luck.”

Just as he was about to click surrender, a flicker of firelight suddenly flashed from the art classroom in Teaching Building C, and the next instant—

Sniper 【ACE】 killed Assault 【Ei Wo Jiu Shi Wan】

Everyone: “…?!”

Jiang Yun, who had shocked everyone, typed with complete composure: 【That’s how you use a sniper.】

The Medic snapped out of it and praised enthusiastically: “Ahhh! So amazing, worthy of an ace! ACE boss, how did you know someone was in the art room?”

Jiang Yun: 【Saw a bit of firelight, and heard a very faint gunshot.】

That was how she’d been able to use her scope to quickly locate the art classroom where the firelight and gunshot had come from.

Just a bit of a shame.

As Jiang Yun quickly switched positions and searched for a new sniping point, she thought regretfully—she hadn’t managed to headshot Yan Xieyue.

Incidentally, she was also a bit puzzled. That commotion just now should have been the enemy shooting at their own teammate, but why?

On the other side, the Assault player 【Ei Wo Jiu Shi Wan】 stared at his character’s corpse lying in the game.

For a moment, he didn’t know what to say.

In the game channel, a languid male voice sounded: “Sorry, my gun went off just now and let the enemy sniper find us.”

【Ei Wo Jiu Shi Wan】 swallowed nervously, feeling somewhat afraid: “It’s fine.”

At the same time, he began recalling what had happened earlier.

At the start of the game, he’d wanted to seize command and have everyone scatter to fight a guerrilla war. He hadn’t expected the female player in the Scout role to argue that this tactic was flawed.

He’d immediately flamed her furiously.

Then a player jumped in to play peacemaker, saying not to ruin the mood or delay the game—just scatter and everyone fights their own way.

Only then did his anger subside a bit.

But he hadn’t expected that the female player was right. His guerrilla plan really did have problems—the enemy, using a group tactic, had easily killed two of their players in a row.

He felt as if he’d been silently slapped several times across the face!

Just then, a male voice sounded in the game’s public channel: “Scout, can you go to the public classroom on the first floor of Building B? They’re nearby. I need you to adjust my field of view.”

It was their sniper, Joker.

Scout: “…Okay.”

The Scout quickly confirmed that four enemies were there. But that classroom was backlit, with not a single light on—it was completely impossible to see the enemies’ exact positions.

Joker: “Mind making a sacrifice?”

Scout: “Don’t mind. But what do you need me to do?”

Joker: “Lure them into the room. When all of them have entered, turn on the lights.”

【Ei Wo Jiu Shi Wan】 instantly understood what the sniper wanted to do. He needed a bright light source to see the enemy players’ exact positions clearly, and then wipe them all out.

“What the hell, does he think he’s really the sharpshooter Joker?” he muttered speechlessly. Aiming took time. The enemies weren’t stupid—if they noticed the lights coming on, wouldn’t they just turn them off and run?

The window Joker would get was barely a blink. What use would it be?

As it turned out—very useful.

Joker really did it, firing four bullets in rapid succession, fast, accurate, and ruthless, precisely taking lives.

So strong it almost seemed like he was hacking.

Just as 【Ei Wo Jiu Shi Wan】 was marveling at this, a voice sounded: “Good evening?”

At some point, Joker had appeared behind his character!

How had Joker gotten there? And how did he know he was here?

【Ei Wo Jiu Shi Wan】 was just about to properly latch onto the big shot’s coattails when the other unexpectedly turned his sniper rifle’s muzzle on him.

“Sorry, I’m not in a great mood right now. Kind of want to kill a teammate for fun.”

Languid and malicious.

Although 【Ei Wo Jiu Shi Wan】 was the type to get hot-headed in games—all bluster and no substance, always eager to boss people around—he had one big strength: a keen sense for danger. Instinctively, he concluded that Joker wasn’t joking.

Joker really wanted to kill him!

He immediately ran.

He hid in a corner of the art classroom, then watched as Joker strolled in leisurely, sniper rifle on his back.

He thought he’d hidden well and picked his moment to shoot, intending to kill the other with one bullet.

But Joker dodged with ease and casually fired a bullet from his gun.

He’d been smug, thinking this Joker was nothing special—the bullet wasn’t even aimed at him!

Then the bullet grazed the statue of a deity in the corner, changed trajectory, and instantly struck him in the eye!

The system notified him that his health had dropped dramatically.

Before 【Ei Wo Jiu Shi Wan】 could react, Joker suddenly flickered—seemingly dodging something.

The next second, he received the notification: he had been killed by the enemy team’s sniper 【ACE】!

【Ei Wo Jiu Shi Wan】: “……”

Fuck!!

What the hell—how was this enemy sniper also strong like she was hacking?!

Immersed in his emotions, he didn’t hear the faint sigh that came through the current channel from Joker.

“…Interesting.”

Like a cheetah on the vast, desolate savanna, finally finding a prey to its liking.

Who was the prey and who was the hunter—that wasn’t certain yet.

Jiang Yun thought this as she found a suitable sniping point.

Yan Xieyue was established as the [strongest sniper], but that was the strongest in the real world.

And before entering the game, she had already tried out the [modify settings] ability for the first time, defining herself as the [strongest sniper in the game].

Probably because this game had nothing to do with the manga’s plotline and wasn’t important, her setting didn’t conflict with the original plot settings, so the modification was completed smoothly.

However, these seemingly trivial little details, stacked up continuously, could actually pave the way for a pivotal character who carried enormous weight with ease.

Jiang Yun licked the inside of her upper teeth with some excitement.

Now then, in this game—who would ultimately emerge victorious?