"Do the machine gunners already have silencers for weapons?"

Latludious nodded. Ronnie put his palms together, squeezed his fingers until they were white, and thinking about his next move, asked in a low voice:

"What about the other three points?"

"You like everything to be clear, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Ricochets and collapse of walls are solved in a very simple way. Tell me, do you know why trees in the forest can't be cut down?"

Ronnie's eyes darted. The sconce stopped blinking and went out, plunging the magician's side into semi-darkness. A light draft ran into the room, disturbing the curtains, and swept through both interlocutors. The skin on the sniper's hands was covered with goosebumps, a chill ran down his back. He moved the pawn from A2 to A3 and said:

"Are you playing mentor and student? If you start from afar every time, we'll sit here until the game turns us off."

Latludious's dimple twitched at his mouth, he was quiet for a couple of seconds, grabbed the bishop and moved it from the F8 to E7, and continued with obvious irritation:

"Then I'll be brief. The walls of the cave are protected by a magical shell thicker than the trees in Elgoreombdon. As soon as the bullet comes into contact with the enchantment coating, magic will immediately destroy it. The same principle will protect us from collapse. And I'll answer your last question right away. For small monsters, we have two excellent machine gunners and a flamethrower. We'll only need you during the boss fight. Vvy will distract its attention, gathering the aggro on himself, I'll protect the machine gunners and the tank from long-range attacks, and you'll aim at the enemy's weak points. When the boss will be exhausted, its defense will weaken, and I'll put all my magic into one blow and finish him off."

"Won’t using spells be detrimental to your power? The mana you use reduces the amount of your experience, right?" Ronnie asked and moved his queen to F3.

Latludious calmed down a bit and glanced at the board, grimaced, and said:

"Good question. This is the first thing I thought about when I realized how to train magic. Mana is divided into two types: clean and dirty, in simple terms. The first one merges with our character's body and improves its abilities, such as strength, agility, reaction, and magic. We get it for killing players or monsters. Dirty mana, the one that is part of everything on this planet, is subject only to wizards. They know how to extract it and transform it into spells."

"So, there are no equals to magicians in the dungeons? After all, mana is in everything, right? And there is more of it there than on the surface."

"Paradoxically, but you are only partially right. We, without realizing it, constantly absorb dirty mana, it's just that players without the "magic" parameter can't notice it. And as a consequence, the higher the basic parameter of wizards, the more "dirty mana" they can control. In the dungeon, the reserves do not increase, but the recovery is four times faster."

"And so we smoothly move on to your weaknesses and the real reason why your guild needs a sniper with a powerful rifle."

Latludious laughed and said:

"Yeah. Well... one... let's say... very strong spell reduces my mana reserve by fifty percent, or even more. Will it be lethal? I doubt it very much. S+ rank dungeon. Maybe a wizard with a magic parameter of 30 or 40 will be able to protect his allies with one hand and destroy the boss with the other, but I'm still very far away from that. Just like anyone else."

Latludious clapped his hands and looked at the chessboard and reached for his knight on A6, but changed his mind at the last moment and castled. Ronnie crossed his arms over his chest and asked:

"If I agree now, what are our next steps?"

"We sign an electronic contract through the game AI, which is actually why I called you to talk in person, you write out your requirements, we sign our paper, then the treasurer of Top Secret buys your rifle, gives it to you, you tell him how much money you need, he sends it, you do the first part of the job, and after ten days we board the plane. Our people have almost completed the airport in the fort at the foot of Orodrim Eoul, we’ll get there fast, regroup and go to the dungeon in the morning."

Ronnie sighed and looked up at that red carpet ceiling, licked and cleaned. The glare from the bright light penetrating inside through the small windows appeared in his eyes, his breathing remained even and calm.

"Kill Nika when she'll bring the weapon."

"She won't bring it. Have you never used auctions?"

"Only Vanguard's one."

"It's different with the players. They give a weapon or something else to a special bank, then the item is publicly available in a virtual auction, you buy the thing and it is delivered to you by mail."

"Tell me your plan for completing the dungeon. What monsters live there, which way will we go?"

"Damn it, Ronnie, you got carried away. Don't forget about our chess game."

He looked at the board, took the bishop on F1, and ate the knight on A6. Latludious wrinkled up, but continued:

"I don't know what kind of monsters we'll meet on the way. To find out, you need to kill at least one and scan its body. The first explorers didn’t succeed. They just died like flies. The furthest where the players could advance before us was five hundred yards. To the question: "what happened to them?" and "who killed them?" they just shrugged their shoulders."

"Is that all?"

"That's all."

"That's absolutely fucking nothing. It’s as good as going blindfolded!"

"No. You're wrong."

"How can you be sure we won't die like them?"

Latludious bit his lip and looked once more at the chessboard and rubbed his right eye, blinked, and shouted: "Oh shit, I missed it." Ronnie didn't say anything. The magician got up from the ottoman and said that with the advent of magic everything would change.

"It's time to show you our trump card, Ronnie. Let's go to the shooting range."

They came out on a spacious plain with green weeds overgrown to the shin, on which mannequins were arranged at a distance of 100, 200, and 300 yards. Latludious stretched out his index finger in front of him and drew a circle, Ronnie felt the ground vibrate under his feet. The magician bent his knee and touched the grass with his palm. In the next instant, the wheatgrass was petrified, rose into the air, and showered three targets with machinegun-like fire. Once soft blades of grass turned into real steel needles that pierced through the metal armor of the mannequins.

"No fucking way!" Ronnie shouted. He was smitten by what he saw. "Was it a strong spell or a weak one?"

Latludious let out a small laugh but did not answer. He took a lighter out of his pocket with his left hand, released the fire and touched the flame with his right palm, and clenched it into a fist. Ronnie saw how his eyes lit up. The magician opened his fingers and a fiery ray flew out of his hand, with a force like a shot from an RPG. Latludious did not stop there, he erected a purple protective field around Ronnie - causing him a strong deja vu - and then raised his right hand to the sky, and out of nowhere a ball lightning struck Ronnie. There was an explosion, bright sparks showered the plain and went out. A barely noticeable rainbow appeared in the sky. Latludious laughed when he saw the "great Gunsmith of the server" fall with the face of a frightened child.

"Bloody hell!" Ronnie shouted, with heavy and rapid breaths and exhalations. "What the fuck is with the balance in this game?"

"Yeah," Latludious replied, grinning and holding out his hand. "So what do you think now? I was able to convince you that your Barrett and my magic are enough, huh? One dungeon and go wherever you want."

Ronnie grabbed his palm with a clap, jerked to his feet, dusted himself off and looked at him from under his brows, and said:

"Convinced."

"Only Ronnie, if you die before we get to the dungeon, you'll return all the money spent on you."