My Sniper System

Chapter 19 - The Portals

[Warning! You are entering the portal’s grounds!]

[One adventurer has entered the portal]

[Warning! This place is a Class-C portal. Do you still wish to enter, adventurer?]

[Yes/No]

My system kicked in and delivered me a notification. But since I had seen worse days, I shrugged the alert protocols and smacked the yes button like a pro. Although I wanted to know what might happen if I pressed the [No] button, I would save that thought for later. Curiosity kills the cat, after all.

As soon as I penetrated the portal, everything didn’t change around me. It was the same shrine, with the people traipsing around the streets. But when I called out for their attention, none of them looked at me. It was as if I wasn’t there with them.

“Hello? I’m here! Hey, please don’t ignore m-...”

I tried reaching out to them by touching their shoulders. One guy was in front of me. But by the time my hand should’ve touched the bloke’s body, I slipped right through him. I became the ghoul that I once fought from the previous portal.

“Am I dead?... No. It can’t be. If I am dead, then my system would’ve already notified me. Not unless…”

This was a simulation done inside the portal.

Every portal was unique. It was stated by the adventurers, guilds, and the government that the portals they had experienced weren’t always the ones they had conquered. And it was based on their experiences. The monsters those adventurers fought inside the portal also varied, especially their difficulties. There was a possibility that an evolved form from a basic creature - a goblin from a D-Class portal would appear on the A-Class portal as a hobgoblin. The setting of these portals would also change, evident from the ones I had encountered before. When the masked man killed my parents, we were inside a cave of some sort that barely had any light source inside. And the more recent portal Hina and I stumbled upon in the field akin to a graveyard. And our enemy was a Grim Reaper.

This time around, the place didn’t change. It remained as the busy city where I knew and took it as the dimension inside the portal. Since it had the same scent of smoke everywhere, I knew, paired with the noise coming from the automobiles. There was no doubt about it. The place inside the portal was the real world, mixed with this distorted dimension.

The instructions of every portal were also the same. It only included killing the monsters inside of it within the allotted time. There wasn’t anything like this before. Maybe the one I had entered was something unique that no adventurers had experienced? Or maybe my luck had just run out.

Millions of questions spiralled inside my head, asking about these portals’ endless possibilities. But now was not the time for thinking about the uncertainty. I needed to act quickly to take down the monsters as soon as possible. They may appear soon.

Luckily, this was just a C-Class portal. The guilds and the government stated that C-Class portals contained C-Class monsters. And those low-levelled creatures were weaker compared to the four-legged beast I witnessed or the Grim Reaper I fought with Hina from the previous portal. How bad could this be, right?

[Survive the onslaught provided by the portal for 1 hour. If you are alive, the portal shall grant you the reward.]

[Since the requirement is dangerous despite its class, the portal shall grant you a Class-B item instead of a Class-C weapon.]

[Only one adventurer is present inside the portal]

I was terribly wrong. I jinxed myself. When those panels and instructions appeared before me, my mind shattered into a million pieces. It was something new that I had never witnessed before.

“Survive? Should it be ‘defeat the monsters inside the portal’ kind of thing?”

That question was the only thing that occupied my mind. Even in games, there was only one instruction to beat the game of the challenge faced by the players. However, this occurrence was different. It was as if the game developers or the entity behind the portals mocked the adventurers and played everyone who wished to conquer the portal. It was far worse than an unfinished video game.

And the hours I needed to survive were beyond my expectations. One hour. A lot could happen within an hour, not to mention the monsters I needed to fight and the energy inside of me. Although my sniper didn’t run out of bullets, my mana depended on my energy. And the physical bullets came from the system. If I became exhausted in the middle of this match, the creatures in this portal could turn the table. Even though I was five steps ahead of them, an army of ants could still trample an empire if they tried.

And the worst part was no adventurer could escape this place or enter. I was the only one in this portal, trapped in the outside world. Calling Hina wasn’t an option. Even if I tried, the reception inside the portal was non-existent from my cellular phone. And the only way to free me was to die or beat the portal. I aimed for the former.

But, it was still one hour. I had a big chance that I would survive this fight. If I fought the Grim Reaper of death that out levelled me, maybe I had an option to survive for an hour.

However, there was one odd thing about this dimension. The people roaming around existed in this place. And when I tried touching those humans, my hands never reached them. It was as if I became a ghost of some sort.

“Maybe it’s just a feature of the portal,” I muttered, and shrugged it off. I just hoped it wouldn’t come back to bite me later.

There was also one good thing about this challenge. Instead of getting a C-Class weapon, I would receive B-Class equipment. It would be slightly higher than what I had envisioned. Although the exchange rate wasn’t that high, it was still something that I could scrape by.

Just as my thoughts flooded my brain, several magic circles appeared before me. My map, which I also had with my system, expanded and located every place and building in this area. The setting was the entire city of Tokyo. And I could go wherever I wanted while fighting against whatever would come out of those gates.

And the creatures I looked forward to finally materialised from the summoning rings. The arcanic runes called out to the beasts and invited them in front of me.

Dozens of fiends appeared at my fore. Some monsters had colossal heights and weighed like a whale, while others had the characteristics of a bunny. It was like a salad with pork mixed inside the plate. And that monstrous meal was placed in front of me, forcing me to eat everything the portals had thrown.

My appraisal system had finally kicked in and browsed every beast present up ahead. Thankfully, each beast had an average level of thirty, and the maximum level I saw was a level fifty creature. Considering this place was just a Class-C portal, nothing stronger like the Grim Reaper would show up and kick my ass. The best thing that these weirdoes could do was scratch me.

_________________________

[Level 20 Winged-Gorilla]

[Classification: Mammal Animal]

[Level 15 Goblins]

[Classification: Mythical Creature]

[Level 10 Skeleton Soldiers]

[Classification: Undead]

[Level 5 Golems]

[Classifications: Summoned creatures]

[Level 30 Higher Rank Golems]

[Classifications: Summoned creatures]

[Level 5 Bats]

[Classifications: Mammal Animal]

[Level 15 Greater Bat]

[Classifications: Leader of the Mammal Animal for Bats]

[Level 8 Worm]

[Classifications: Invertebrates]

[Level 15 Giant Worm]

[Classifications: Leader Invertebrate]

_________________________

[Note: Each monster classified and listed from the system is the only ones present within the player’s view. Countless creatures may be lurking in the shadows. The system shall automatically appraise the beast (s) as soon as the player appraises the beats. Each fiend may or may not also have a horde once they appear to fight against the adventurer(s). But for each herd that materialised inside the portal there will always be one leader for the enemy’s group.]

__________________________

And the list went on. The levels may vary because those were unreliable numbers that my system couldn’t gauge. Even so, the idea still remained inside my head. ‘These monsters are nothing against me,’ I pondered, and it motivated me to kill those creatures even more.

The portals also included animals that were present in our world. Examples of those were rabid tigers, wolves, bats, and gargantuan insects with slightly higher levels than these otherworldly creatures. None of them were humans among the series of enemies I needed to defeat. Thank god that was the case.

Despite facing an army of beasts, a smile emerged on my face. The trauma that I once had was brushed off as if it was a dream or a horrible nightmare. And the fear I hated became chaos running rampant inside my head.

I thought about killing these creatures and turning them into money. I also had an additional goal. If I became stronger, I could fight the masked man behind the death of my parents. I needed to stumble upon stronger portals to meet him, considering that the portal I accidentally entered when I was a child was an S-Class portal. It was nothing that the world had seen before.

I was overconfident. My ego skyrocketed over the roof after dealing with the ghoul at level one with a couple of bullets. Facing an army of weaklings didn’t scare me. So, I let my guard off and found the laziest way possible for me to finish the portal.

“I should just kill these monsters and earn exp from them! This is just like a farming area, right?” I spoke, and took my first shot at the gorilla with wings. As I had expected, the murder became a breeze.

[Level 20 Winged-Gorilla defeat]

[Experience + 720]