Literature / Arcane Sniper

First, the eye. Next is the finger. Next is breathing. And finally, it's waiting.

"It seems that you have forgotten something since I've been in a wheelchair for so long... I am a soldier. A sniper nonetheless. Don't be worried. I'll show you results fit for a sniper."

— Ha Leeha

Arcane Sniper or Mystic Musketeer or Matan's Shooter is a korean 2017 comedy/action webnovel by Lee Soobaek and has been adapted in manwha by Deupo and Shaimel. Sergeant Ha Leeha is an incredibly talented sniper with a bright future ahead of him... until an accident damages the nerves of his legs, leaving him wheelchair bound. His only hope to recover the normal use of his legs is an outrageously costly surgery, and to get the money, he logs into the worldwide hit VR MMO Middle Earth at his cousin's urging. However, he accidently locks himself into the Musketeer class, considered the bottom of the tier list by the community.Armed with nothing but his experience as a soldier, his sniping skills, and a musket, Leeha sets out into the virtual world.

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This series provides examples of:

• 100% Heroism Rating: Leeha plays nice with NPCs (aside from a few outburst at outrageous prices), and is a diligent quester, which earns him a high reputation and a good relationship with nearly all NPCs. He even makes friends with the Sacred Knights and an NPC-Based information guild.
• Achievements in Ignorance: Leeha singlehandledly manages to revive a class thought not worth the effort into a one shot killing machine with a range of over hundreds of meters. Everyone else is baffled at this, as only high rankers can boast one shot ranges of over a hundred meters. And yet this person nobody knew of in a class no one takes seriously is accomplishing what was thought to be impossible. Meanwhile, Leeha, as an ex-sniper, thinks it as completly natural and a logical consequence of the efforts he put into his build.
• Accidental Celebrity: Leeha end up victim of this more than a few times when recordings of his achievements end up uploaded on the internet without his knowledge. His fame spreads further when he singlehandedly disbands the Rising Sun guild and skyrockets even more upon killing Igor.
• Americans Are Cowboys: Kid, one of the few other musketeers, is American and it shows. His introduction scene is him clocking out at a gunshop with a gun on the hip. His trademark hat, long vest, and Quick Draw playstyle is instantly reminiscent of cowboys as well. Leeha lampshade this, thinking he'll be right at home in a cowboy movie. His weapon, the Crimson Geckos, can even transform into 4 revolvers.
• Big Brother Instinct: Leeha and Kijeong have this towards each other, with the latter jumping at the former's call for help when he's ambushed by Rising Sun. When Kijeong and his guild gets massacred by Igor, Leeha makes killing Igor his next goal. A goal he eventually managed to achieve.
• BFG: Luger's weapon, The Cobalt Blue Python is a massive canon that shoots tank sized rounds. "Piercer" indeed.
• Boom, Headshot!: Any humanoid or animal target of Leeha's will usually get hit with this if he can, as it's a typical weak point that gives bonus damage.
• Bottomless Magazines: Subverted to Leeha's great dismay. Every bullet, and powder he uses must be bought in advance and stored in inventory. This is another reason why the Musketeer class is avoided, as getting ammo and gun maintenaince gets costly really fast. When he gets the Black Bass, he is reminded of this reality yet again, and has to commission special bullets for it.
• Broken Ace: In game, no one has any idea that the Arcane Sniper is a just a man desperate to use his legs again and get his old life back. Ha Leeha had everything going for him, he had a great career, was extremely talented, and loved his job. But then the accident nuked it all from orbit. Losing the ability to walk and shoot destroyed his self-esteem, made him feel like a useless burden and trapped in his own body. When he logs into Middle Earth for the first time, and walks again, he breaks down in tears and runs himself out of stamina 10 times in a row. When he logs out, he breaks down again, already missing the feeling. He converts that frustration into determination to get enough money for surgery.
  • When Shin Nara asks him if they and their friends could meet IRL, he immediatly comes up with an excuse that he can't for now. He's disapointed in himself that he's terrified at how they would react if they find out he's an invalid.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: To quote Kijeong, Leeha is messy on the outside, sharp on the inside. Leeha is Brutally Honest, and his outbursts can cross into Manchild territory. However, he has the largest one hit kill range in the game, along with disgusting weapon attack damage. This makes him into a walking talking death zone maker that can One-Hit Kill someone kilometers away. He's also a trained soldier, and has the brains to use his knowledge of warfare to prepare for battles and predict enemy actions.
• Cannot Talk to Women: Downplayed. Leeha can make small talk with women just fine, but struggles being natural with women he finds attractive. In his first meeting with Shin Nara, he stutters and blushes just hearing his name out of her mouth, which Kijeong teases him about afterwards. Justified, as Leeha graduated from a boy's only middle and high-school before immediatly enrolling in the military, not exactly the best places to meet women. To add salt in the wound, his last relationship was over 20 years ago in elementary school.
• Career-Ending Injury: How the plot starts to begin with. An ammunition box eplodes while Leeha was handling it, damaging his leg nerves which gets him discharged. While Leeha can still use his legs to some weak extent, he struggles to even stand up with help. His ego is shattered and he falls into depression, which leads his cousin Kijeong and mom to pay him the VR capsule to cheer him up. He's so overjoyed by the fact he can walk again in the game, he runs so much he gets an achievement and a skill for it.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Middle Earth being a MMO, many classes suffer from this for balancing.
  • Leeha's class Musketeer is also hit hard by this. Its single target damage is ludicrously high, but the reload time is a whole minute and the accuracy is a coin toss. Ence, the class is passed over by every player, seen as trash tier and just not worth the effort compared to something like Archer. Leeha has to bend over backwards, gets skills and use his own personal IRL knowledge to make up for the classes issues.
• Critical Hit Class: To garantee high damage and get that One-Hit Kill, Leeha targets weak points, usually with headshots.
• Cold Sniper: Zigzagged. See Friendly Sniper below, Leeha is a friendly Nice Guy on the day to day. But when sniping, he shows calm and composure fitting for his job, he even has a skill for it: Calm Heart. Piss him off enough, and he'll show you the ruthlessness of a soldier at war, as the Rising Sun guild can attest.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Finally done with the Rising Sun's guild bullying, Leeha provokes them in a guild battle (with him as the sole member of his own), and proceeds to humiliate them so bad the guild disbands. For starters, he gets the location of all the guild's branches and sniping spot from the NPC information guild he helped create, and starts ambushing and sniping members, sub-leaders and leaders left and right. He then baits the rest of their forces into following him (a SNIPER) into a dark and dense forest, and snipes over 500 members inside there with a combination of sniping, mines, and overhaul effective planning. The Rising Sun guild almost get the upper hand when they hire hitmen from the information guild Shinobigumi that take Leeha by surprise and break his gun... but then Leeha uses his Soul Link skill to summon Koma, who in between the time they last met became a FIELD BOSS. He kills the hitmen and quite litteraly beats the guild leader into submission, forces him to repay all the low level players they killed and looted from, and disbands the entire guild. This battle is what kickstarts Leeha's reputation in Middle Earth and earns him his first nickname: Magician of Clouds.
• Dragon Rider: The number 1 world ranked in the game, Alexander, rides a gold dragon named Bailephus who can actually speak. Leeha hitches a ride as well when dealing with Kuzy.
  • This is a part of the Dragon Knight class, which can be obtained by befriending a dragon. Leeha befriends Bluegrun, but even after the latter's rebirth, Leeha received no class change notice.
• The Dreaded: During the first war of Phase 2, the simple mention of Leeha's special forces would tank enemy morale. And even after the war, he becomes widely know and feared by the players of Minis, who were victim of his snipes. The Guild Master of Rush puts it best:
  Ron : "If you talk nonsense about him, your head will explode as soon as you log in, without even knowing his location. But on the other hand, it's a good thing. If you are logged out in one shot without knowing who the attacker is, wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume that Ha Leeha is the cause?"
• Friendly Rivalry: Leeha and Kid quickly form one of these, as the latter recognizes the former's talent and looks forward to his growth as a potential rival. Leeha gets annoyed with Kid's "cool and vague" attitude but respects his skills and is willing to turn to him for advice. This is a heavy contrast with the third member of the Three Musketeers, Luger, who did not hesitate to blow a hole in Kid to get the "Arcane Sniper". But the relationship doesn't seem to be hopeless either.
  • Turns out the Three Musketeers are supposed to have this sort of relationship, as one of them will inherit the "Arcane Sniper", which the two other can attempt to steal. They even get a skill that shows the location of the other two Musketeers upon officialy becoming a member.
• Friendly Sniper: As long as you don't get in the way of his goals, or are on the other end of his barrel, Leeha is a fun guy with a wide array of emotions and nice enough to help out complete strangers.
• Fluffy Tamer: Leeha bumps into a cute small bear monster whom he befriends and names Koma, and forms a Soul Link bond with. But since monsters aren't allowed in cities, he releases it and they part on good terms. When, as a last resort during his battle against the Rising Sun guild, he uses the skill to summon Koma... it had become a "Fire Bear": a FIELD BOSS. This becomes one of the many tricks he keeps up his sleeve.
  • The number 2 ranker of the game, Lee Jiwon, eventually asks Leeha how he managed this, so he can do it too and fight the number 1 ranker Alexander on equal grounds.
• Good Parents: Leeha's mother is brimming with love and patience for her son. She was destroyed when Leeha became an invalid, and willing to give up her entire savings if it would let him walk again, she saved up money with Kijeong to buy Middle Earth to cheer up Leeha, she works for the both of them since Leeha lost his job, and breaks down in tears upon receiving the money he earned through the game.
• Guile Hero: For how dorky Leeha is, he was an elite and the army, and will make use of his knowledge of warfare to win battles. Especially during Phase 2, which is a straight up war, where his plans and talents turns the tides of battles and make him into The Dreaded.
• Gun Accessories: Leeha eventually commissions a few of those to dwarves, from scopes with specific ranges, and eventually a night vision, not caring a bit how tough it would be to make those in a fantasy world. When the blacksmith tried to get out of making the former saying that he needs a special field boss material for it... Leeha slammed that same material on the table with a big smile.
• Gun Porn: The webnovel and comic gives ample descriptions and pictures of the many tools of the trade Leeha encounters and or inspires himself of during his adventures. Leeha, as self proclaimed gun nut, geeks out over weapons a fair amount as well.
• The Gunslinger: The Musketeer class is slightly more akin to this than actual Musketeer, since they are never seen wielding sword. Each member of the Three Musketeers are a different shade of this trope.
  • Leeha and Elizabeth are the "Bullseye" or "Sniping". Relying on long range One-Hit Kill using Sniper Rifles.
  • Kid and No-Brow are the "Quick". Sacrificing range with firing speed and coverage using small guns.
  • Luger and Brown are the "Piercer". Using massive sized rounds with BFGs.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Even before stepping a virtual foot in Middle Earth, Leeha established the Korean record for the longuest sniper shot at 1.833 meters (1.138 miles)! His skills didn't rust in the slightest once in the game, and with a combination of the right skills, and a Dexterity stats to match he manages to pull off One Hit Kills at longer and longer ranges over time. Among the long list of Leeha's insane shots, there is snping a small target 250 meters away while being flown above an altitude of 50 meters!
• Laser-Guided Karma: The Rising Sun guild gets slapped hard with this on multiple occasions.
  • The first was them attempting to attack Kid while he was sleeping. Kid then shot 30 guys to death while still sleeping, ironically kickstarting Kid's fame as "Sleeping Kid".
  • A member named "Kimflowerpetal" and a slapped together party attempted to slay a field boss. When things started to go hairy, he disbanded the party and ran, leaving the ex-party members behind to get roasted. Upon seeing Leeha attempt to finish off the boss, he ignores Leeha's call for help and dips, letting Leeha do all the work while he'll reap the rewards afterwards after Leeha gets killed. When he shows up an hour later with a new squad, there's nothing left as Leeha killed the boss, and took all the dead players' gear. The players that died then start hounding Kimflowerpetal for ditching them and have their dropped gear back, and the entire incident nukes his reputation.
  • Kimflowerpetal strikes again, as he hunts down Leeha to get the boss drops and dead players' gear from him. Leeha understandably tells him to eff off, and runs away before the situation escalates. This was the start of the guild's bullying of Leeha, whom eventually gets so fed up with their crap he proceeds to cook up a plan and single-handedly destroy the guild so bad it gets disbanded.
• Health Care Motivation: A rare "self-serving" example, as Leeha works to get the money he needs for his own leg surgery.
• Long-Range Fighter: In Middle Earth, "long range" would be considered being able to land attacks douzens of meters away from the target, and only Rankers have managed to have a One-Hit Kill range of over a 100 meters. And then there's Leeha, who IRL has established the Korean record for the longuest sniper shot at 1.833 meters (around 1.138 miles), and is slowly working his way up to that range in game as time goes on. To unlock all the seals on The Black Bass, he needs to defeat higher and higher level monsters at longuer and longer distances.
• Min-Maxing: Quickly, Leeha realizes Dexterity is the best stat to invest in for his build, as it boosts his accuracy, range, and potential reloading speed. Perfect for a sniper.
  • When he gets his hands on the Black Bass gun which scales on Dexterity he doubles down and barely touches his other stats.
• Mood-Swinger: Leeha can go from a good mood to Suddenly Shouting and end in pure concentration. His cousin Kijeong is relieved at this, pointing it out as a sign that Leeha is recovering from his depression.
• Mook Horror Show: Being Leeha's target usually goes like this: A member of the group, usually a precious healer, scout or long range DPS gets one shot out of completely nowhere, and as the rest scrambles to get in formation someone else gets shot down with only a single sound to go with the invisible attack. They try to pinpoint the enemy to no avail, as the the clock ticks the bodies keep falling more and more, with nobody having any explanation as to why or how it's happening. The first chapter of the webnovel depicts and describes it as a total nightmare.
  • During Phase 2, Leeha becomes The Dreaded for having singlehandedly destroyed entire parties and turning around battles with this tactic. Even his allies are left wandering "what the hell just happened" after watching him snipe an entire enemy camp.
• No Fair Cheating: Middle Earth has two mesures around character creation: A user can only have one character at a time, and if a user deletes their character, they'll have to wait months to create a new one, which prevents smurfing. The second is that the character's look will be in line with the user's true appearance, preventing identity theft. This can be zigzagged however, as character creation lets the player get rid of imperfections, as well as obtaining species specific traits which can muddy their appearance. They can also gain a different looks depending on the powers they obtain through the game, like with Shapeshifting.
• One-Hit Kill: Naturally, this is what Leeha, as any good sniper, aims for. As time goes on, it becomes harder and harder to find anything that can resist a single bullet from him.
  Leeha: "Sniping is not about shooting multiple shots. One shot. It has to end with only one shot."
• Player-Generated Economy: As an MMO with an auction house, this naturally comes into play. Leeha notices that it would be possible for high level players to throw the economy out of whack with high level items. However, because a player loses some EXP and their inventory upon death, and keeps the higher ranked player on a board for all to see, they are encouraged to keep their high level items instead of selling them, to avoid other players using those same tools to climb to their level. It's also to keep the items hidden "out of inventory" in case they do get killed and need to replace equipement. Thus, keeping the economy balanced through competition.
• Player Killing: Middle Earth has an entire mechanic around it to punish it without banning it as a whole: The "Chaos Index" is a value a player gets when attacking another player without consent. The higher one's Chaos Index, the less likely NPCs will cooperate with them or even talk to them. Only the agressor will gain Chaos Index, a victim will obtain no Chaos Index if they retaliate against or kill their attacker. There are also achievements for killing players with very high Chaos Index values, encouraging defending against them even further.
• Quick Draw: Sleeping Kid has brought it to an art form. He is so fast in his draws, he became well known after gunning down 30 Rising Sun guild members in an instant, while ASLEEP ON A TABLE. His personal gun, The Crimson Geckos, shapeshifts into 4 revolvers he juggles with to go along with the playstyle.
  • No-Brow, the director of the Musketeer Academy is very proficient at this, Leeha noticing that he takes seconds to reload a musket. As a member of the previous generation of the Three Musketeers, he was nicknamed "The Quick" for having this style. He was the original owner of the Crimson Geckos, and Sleeping Kid above is his succesor.
• Rage Breaking Point: Leeha flies off the handle when he shows up at Gaza, only to see the Demon King's army destroy the place and massacre the citizens. He summons Koma, activates his attack buffs, and starts pumping lead in every monster and Tzar member in sight.
  Leeha: "You’re dead, you fucking bastards! [..] Igor, I will kill you myself!"
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Leeha, having gone way past his tolerance threshold, gives a long one to the nominal lord of Gaza. Describing every single action he should've took to protect the city from Tzar in a perfect Drill Seargeant Nasty fashion, and so, how utterly incompetent and useless he was.
  Leeha: "In this place? What kind of place is this? Did you think it was a place where you could hide and take care of yourself in case of danger and run away? You’re the nominal lord... but what are you doing? You! You're the lord of this city! Where were you when the city was attacked by the Chimera, Golem, and Demon King’s army bastards!?"
• Rule of Three: Luger, one of the Three Musketeers, never repeats himself more than two times, because the third usually means getting blown up. When Leeha does manage to make him, Kid has a good laugh about it afterwards.
  Kid: "The first is a recommendation. The second is a command, and the third is the shell."
• Serious Business: Dying in the game is taken to an almost comically serious degree, but for good reasons. First: You will be unable to log in the game for 48h. It's not much of an issue for casual players, but for those who make money in the game and potentially have their livelihood depend on it, this is a serious problem. Leeha exploits this in his battle against Rising Sun. Having killed a large amount of players, including leaders, he severely cripples Rising Sun's revenue. And second: Inventory and EXP loss. This is a severe time and ressource loss, especially at higher levels where obtaining high level gear and leveling up is a serious investement. There is also potentially losing achievements and so stat points.
  • Becomes even more serious when Phase 2 begins. Now, dying can lead you to fail missions, which can lend you in the negatives in the "War Contribution" points. Those in the negatives at the end of the war receive a penalty and miss out on rewards.
  • Leeha exploits this while bargaining the retreat of the Sea Serpent fleet with Admiral Drake. While the NPCs want to go down with the ship, Leeha manages to sway the negotiations in his favor with threatening the players with the huge loss that'll come with their death.
• Shipper on Deck: Jachung is very determined to hook Leeha up with one of the Ram Sisters, even performing a background check on him when his fame picks up. However, that only earns him a Flame Strike/Ice Blast combo to the face and a weirded out Leeha.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Shin Nara develops an interest in Leeha after he shielded her with his own body when she accidently walked in the Rising Sun guild attacking him, and so got attacked as well. Leeha is embarrassed after finding out her idendity, and that he tried to protect someone much stronger than him, but she is genuinely thankful for the gesture and admits no one ever did that for her. She stealthily sends him a friend request after the whole event.
• Sleepyhead: Kid dozes off a lot. For starters, he earned the nickname Sleeping Kid for the sheer amount of time he spends sleeping in game, as well as being able to fight off 30 guys while asleep. Leeha is shocked it's possible to sleep in game in the first place. It's implied Kid works at a gun shop all night and catches up on his sleep while playing.
• Sniper Pistol: In-Universe done by Leeha, who, after grinding and getting used to it, can manage to hit targets hundreds of meters away with a musket. A feet that baffles his allies and enemies alike.
  • Subverted when Leeha gets a pair of small guns. Upon testing them, he quickly realizes those don't have accuracy at all, and should only be used for close range combat.
• Suddenly Shouting: Leeha has a habit of suddenly yelling curses when something doesn't go his way, like gear being really costly.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Leeha, Kid, and Luger eventually have to go through this has part of the Three Musketeer quest. All three are tasked to work together to take down a boss in the mountains, and any of them dying would signal immediate failure. While Leeha and Kid have no problem getting along, Luger is another story. While it has gone a bit off the rails, all three of them did manage to finish the quest by the skin of their teeth. Leeha even shows off such Improbable Aiming Skills that Luger has no choice but to ackowledge him by finally adressing by name instead of "Bullseye".
• Too Dumb to Live: The Rising Sun guild seriously thought following a Long-Range Fighter that had already demonstrated Improbable Aiming Skills into a pitch black forest was a good idea. To no one's suprise, they get destroyed within.
• Tsundere: While Hwayeon is the more fitting example... Leeha namedrops this trope at Kid. Turns out he's pretty on the nose.

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