Volume 3, Chapter 22 – Solo Clearing the Dungeon

Inside the workshop, Anran looked at the various materials Gray had sent over and clasped her fists.

She had already said what needed to be said. There was no need to hide what she was making now, so it was time to get to work.

The weapons Anran planned to make were the [Colin-style Ultra-Long-Range Sniper Rifle], [High-Energy Explosive], and [Flashbang].

Actually, if she could, she would rather make that [Flat-Type Robot Vacuum Cleaner]. It might look like a civilian machine, but with a little modification, it could be turned into a bomb cart.

Kill without anyone knowing.

She needed to level up to [Basic Mechanic] as soon as possible. Then she could become a proud programmer girl.

Making the sniper rifle itself did not require any special materials. The main problem was that the workshop had not had any lenses before, so Anran had been unable to make the scope.

Without a scope, this gun would only be for show.

According to the blueprint, the [Colin-style Ultra-Long-Range Sniper Rifle] had a caliber of 7.62 mm. It was a medium-caliber sniper rifle with an effective range of 800 meters, a maximum range of 1,500 meters, a magazine capacity of 20 rounds, and attack power of 41–65.

The game’s evaluation of this rifle’s attack power was that it was the highest among all the weapons Anran had seen so far.

No player’s HP could withstand a single bullet from this gun.

Anran was very satisfied.

Once she decided to do it, she got right to work.

Rolling up her sleeves, she began making the optical scope.

The scope on this sniper rifle was an optical scope. It had three optical lens groups in total: an objective lens group, an erector lens group, and an eyepiece group. Its magnification was adjustable from 3x to 9x.

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Optical devices generally had fairly high precision requirements, and the quality of the scope would also determine the performance of the sniper rifle to a large extent.

So Anran did not foolishly choose to grind the lenses herself. That was quite difficult and extremely troublesome. Even with mature equipment and high-quality raw materials, lacking enough experience in lens grinding, there was no telling how many times she would fail in the end.

Although doing it herself might have earned her more EXP, in order to save time, Anran had Gray directly get her some lenses that met the required standards.

Precision optical components were much more expensive than those raw materials. Anran had only asked for three sets of lenses, and they had already cost over 100 Bilu.

The money she had only just earned yesterday was instantly gone, and the culprit behind all of this was Morningstar.

Anran was getting more and more irritated.

After failing twice, Anran finally made an optical scope with fairly decent performance.

She set the scope aside and began making the sniper rifle itself.

Nearly an hour later,

the sniper rifle, weighing over five kilograms, felt as light as nothing in Anran’s hands. Her 12 points of Strength made this petite girl strong enough to match a heavyweight.

After installing the optical scope, Anran also received a notification from the game.

“Ding! You have successfully crafted the [Colin-style Ultra-Long-Range Sniper Rifle] and gained 800 EXP!”

“Green quality, haha.” Anran raised the rifle and took aim for a moment, then excitedly leaned it against the wall.

Those 800 EXP were an unexpected bonus too.

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Next came the [High-Energy Explosive] and the [Flashbang].

These two items were much more simple and direct, and they were also consumables. In the end, Anran made ten of each before stopping.

The extra income of 2,500 Free EXP left Anran completely satisfied.

There was nothing particularly special about the [Flashbang]. Its effect was simply to blind your eyes, stun you, but not kill you.

The [High-Energy Explosive] was different. It was a relatively small thrown explosive. After exploding, it could release a highly combustible substance that would cling to the surface of people and buildings, causing secondary damage.

If it was used when the enemy was unfamiliar with this kind of explosive, a single one could cause large-scale casualties. Even if the enemy was prepared, the splattering material would not be easy to avoid.

She packed the two kinds of bombs into boxes, then carefully put them into her backpack.

As for the sniper rifle, it was 1,111 mm long. There was no way to fit it into the backpack. Even if she forced it in, most of it would still stick out.

After thinking it over, Anran found a few pieces of cloth and made a cloth bag. She wrapped up the sniper rifle, stuffed some padding inside, and it looked as though she were carrying a musical instrument.

Only after finishing all that did Anran walk out of the workshop.

Gray did not care that she was making weapons, but the other people in the research center might not feel the same way.

Gray’s position there was not particularly good. In the research center, he did not have absolute authority.

If Anran avoided causing trouble for Gray, she was also avoiding trouble for herself.

…

“Let’s go. We’ll head back and rest first, then come back this afternoon.”

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Still several steps away, Anran called out to Aila, who was standing there in a daze.

“Mm.” Aila nodded, then handed today’s earnings over to Anran.

Anran still gave Aila 100 Bilu, only this time it was paper money. Aila glanced at it, showed no interest, and tucked it into her pocket.

Anran was pushing the cart and about to leave when Aila suddenly looked up and said, “It got really noisy outside just now.”

Anran paused. “Did something happen?”

“They were all saying that someone solo cleared the dungeon. What does solo clearing the dungeon mean?” Aila asked curiously.

Solo cleared the dungeon?

Anran’s gaze immediately fell on the group of players gathered at the entrance to Nine Songs.

From what she had observed over the last two days, the dungeon inside was still fairly difficult. Nine Songs was probably following the principle of preferring quality over quantity, so after two or three days, not many players had managed to pass, and those who had all cleared it in teams.

She had not expected a high-level player who could solo it to suddenly appear.

There were simply too many players. With several hundred million of them, there were bound to be quite a few top-tier players. Generally speaking, any of those top players could become Anran’s opponent.

“Solo clearing the dungeon means passing it alone. Here, you can think of the dungeon as a kind of test, where you play the role of a police officer and defeat the invading terrorists.”

“Oh.” Aila nodded as if she understood perfectly.

Words like police officer and terrorist, which were recorded in the dictionary, were things she could understand.

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Then, while Anran was still thinking, Aila suddenly turned her head and asked, “Can Anran solo clear the dungeon?”

“Ah! You mean me?” Snapping back to herself, Anran pointed at her own face.

“Mm-hm.” Aila nodded vigorously.

She remembered what had happened a few days earlier and thought Anran was especially amazing!

“Well…”

Anran scratched her head. Even among players, her strength would count as pretty impressive, but whether she could solo clear the dungeon was hard to say.

But Aila’s words suddenly reminded Anran of something.

She wanted to join the imperial side. Wasn’t this dungeon the perfect opportunity?

The test set by Nine Songs had never said that NPCs were not allowed to participate.

Normally, no NPC would take part in this kind of test, but Anran was not normal!

How had she forgotten about this before?

As long as she passed this dungeon, she could join the Security Department, and there was even a certain chance she could join Nine Songs.

“Aila, you’re absolutely amazing!”

Anran excitedly threw her arms around Aila. She practically wanted to kiss her on the spot, making Aila so flustered that she did not dare move at all. She could only keep both hands at her sides, like a student being punished to stand still.