A Mercenary's War Chapter 17 - The Importance of a Good Gun

Chapter 17 - The Importance of a Good Gun

Translated by: Spot

Edited by: Isalee

Seventy-four thousand dollars for a M1A. Gao Yang was scared sh*tless when he heard this amount. From what he knew about the civilian guns in America, particularly from the factory that produced the M1A, the most expensive was only three thousand U.S. dollars. And this price tag already indicated the good ones.

“Bob, you’re telling me that you bought your gun for seventy-four thousand dollars?”

The extremely pleased Bob apparently had let out a secret in front of his father. After hearing his dad’s ill tone, Bob immediately corrected himself: “Oh this, I said it wrong. I meant seventy-four hundred dollars. Now isn’t the time to talk about this, heh. Friend, you should get rid of that sniper. Then we can leave. What do you think of this plan?”

Gao Yang felt now wasn’t a good time to chit-chat either; he obviously also wanted to annihilate the enemy sniper. Except, the problem was he didn’t dare leave the car’s cover, and the opponent’s sniper also didn’t leave any opportunity for him to shoot. Aside from doing this stand-off, he truly had no other means.

“If you have a method to get rid of that sniper, go for it. Mm, do you guys have any rocket launchers, or missiles of the like?

Bob’s dad sadly answered, “None, there were a total of two RPGs. We just used up one earlier.”

“Ah, what a shame. Okay then, currently neither one of us is willing to move and thus we have some time to chit-chat. What are you people? Why are you being attacked?”

“We’re here to hunt. As for why we’re being attacked, you should ask the people attacking us.”

Gao Yang laughed out loud and responded, “I don’t want to get involved with your private affairs, but bringing a rocket launcher to hunt, isn’t that a bit inappropriate? Mister Morgan.”

Right after Gao Yang finished talking, Bob’s dad’s demeanor changed dramatically as he replied with nervousness: “Who are you? How do you know my name, and why did you appear here? Please answer my question otherwise I have no choice but to shoot you.”

“Seems like I’m not mistaken. You truly are Mr. Morgan. The answer to your question is very simple. This is because somebody took us as part of your crew. We even lost fourteen people, no, that’s not right. A total of sixteen people. We became your scapegoats and many of us lost our lives. And the killers said your name over the walkie-talkie. When he found out that he had gotten the wrong people, only then did he find you. Now do you understand, Mr. Morgan?”

A moment of silence later, Mr. Morgan said in a somber voice, “It’s truly unfortunate. As for this, I’m very sorry.”

Gao Yang sighed: “In reality though, you can’t be blamed. It can only be seen as a coincidence, that’s all. But this coincidence was fatal. I have a question I wanted to ask from the very beginning but there wasn’t any time. Now please tell me, where is this place? And who are the people attacking you?”

“This is Sudan, as for who the attackers are, I don’t know either. Except I will find out, and make him pay considerably. For my people, as well as for your people who died. Now what about you? Who are you?”

Gao Yang was gobsmacked, because he was in Ethiopia when he got on the plane and the plane’s destination was also within the borders of Ethiopia. Although the area where the plane crashed was unknown, it was impossible for the plane to have gone to Sudan. However, after finding out that he was in Sudan, Gao Yang immediately understood why he kept running into battle, one after another.

Sudan was continuously in warfare — there was a civil war between North and South Sudan. Even though the present widescale civil war had already stopped, the smaller fights never ceased.

“This is Sudan? This place is unexpectedly Sudan? Oh dear, how did I end up in Sudan? How far away is Ethiopia from here?”

“I’m not too sure about the distance to the borderline of Ethiopia, but it should be around three or four hundred kilometers. Why do you ask that?”

Gao Yang replied absentmindedly: “Due to a plane crash, I ended up here. I got on the plane in Ethiopia. F*ck, how did I end up in Sudan.”

Mr. Morgan laughed: “No matter where you are, you should thank God. At least you didn’t die in the plane crash. Alright then, I have a GPS. After finishing off the opposing sniper, you can easily find out where we are.”

After composing his mindset, Gao Yang didn’t say anything. He placed his attention back onto the opposing sniper and furthermore, he felt that Morgan and his son were very mysterious. If there were any doubts, he could just ask Professor Buck and them. No need to have so much contact with Mr. Morgan.

Thinking of Professor Buck, tribal chief, and the rest, Gao Yang became even more eager to kill off the sniper. However, after racking his brains, there was no method to get rid of the sniper without putting himself in danger.

Thanks to the infrared imaging scope, the car’s engine that the sniper was hiding behind had just recently been turned off, so the temperature was still hot. Within the scope, it was a huge mass of red light. It created a big interference in Gao Yang’s scope. Now that the engine was slowly cooling off, the obstruction in his scope was slowly dispersing.

After thinking for a bit, Gao Yang started to fire at the engine as he planned to blow up the car that the sniper was hiding behind. He was not going to let the opposing sniper have the ability to drive away with the car.

After firing a few shots at the engine, Gao Yang suddenly felt that instead of wasting bullets, he might as well use this opportunity to calibrate the scope.

After aiming at a particular spot on the engine, he fired a shot. Since the new hole’s temperature was very high, a small red dot could be seen through the scope. Using this, Gao Yang could distinguish the difference and begin calibrating the gun.

In reality, the crosshair and the scope’s positioning weren’t too off. Within a distance of about 150 meters, the inaccuracy was twenty centimeters or so. Gao Yang reached out, twisted the scope a few times, and then fired another shot. Soon after, found that it was pretty much done. As soon as he hit the fifth shot, the crosshair was already within the radius of a tangerine.

There weren’t any precise reference objects in range of where he was right now. He was only able to use a rough approximate to calibrate the gun. It was already very impressive of him to have managed to get the inaccuracy down to a radius of a tangerine. At this moment, he didn’t have any objections to what Bob had said earlier. Great guns were truly great; it could be tested after trying it once.

After calibrating it decently, Gao Yang suddenly remembered something. He immediately turned to the injured Bob and said, “Bob, do you still have any bullets? More importantly, any tracer ammunition?”

Bob nodded his head, but he then realized that Gao Yang couldn’t see the motion he was making so he immediately replied softly: “I do. Though there’s only five tracers, I have one magazine. Inside, for every third lead bullet, there’s one tracer. I originally wanted to use it to hunt lions at night. What do you want it for?”

Gao Yang became very excited and he laughed in reply: “I want to try it and see if I can blow up that car.”

Once Bob heard him, he also became ecstatic; he immediately said, “Good idea, we have a lot of bullets. You can slowly try it out.”

At this point, Mr. Morgan spoke up with his deep voice: “That car is a Toyota LC80, the oil tank is on the left side of the car. Hit the rear side of the back wheel and you should be able to penetrate the fuel tank.”

Gao Yang didn’t know what sort of a car the Toyota LC80 was, but as long as he knew where the fuel tank was, it would be enough.  He wanted to confirm another thing. “Are you sure the opposing car’s fuel tank is behind the rear left wheel?

“Of course, I’m sure.”

Gao Yang eyed the position of the front part of the car. What he saw made him jubilant, because this luck too damn good. The sniper had hidden his body on the left side of the front of the car. That meant the fuel tank was directly facing him.

Gao Yang faced the left rear wheel and fired in that direction. Everytime he shot a bullet, he shot another at the engine, just in case the sniper realized his plan. Also, he needed to guard against the sniper’s return fire.

As expected, Gao Yang shot one after another, leaving his opponent unable to hold back as he started firing at Gao Yang. But that sniper didn’t have any good opportunities and almost all the bullets were wasted on the car’s body.

Gao Yang finished the rest of the ammunition clip and changed to full twenty bullet magazine. After shooting out all the bullets and thinking it was enough, he switched to the tracer ammunition magazine. Then he started firing at the car's left rear wheel’s vicinity near the ground.

The fourth bullet was a tracer bullet that shot out a red light, but after the tracer bullet struck the soil near the rear wheel, it didn’t even start a tiny flame. Truthfully, Gao Yang didn’t know if he had made a leak in the fuel tank, nor did he know that even if he did make a leak, if it would be lit by the tracer bullet. But for right now, he could only foolishly try.

He fired off nineteen consecutive rounds; the third tracer bullet had already been fired, and next was the fourth tracer bullet. However, the opposing car was still perfectly fine and at this point Gao Yang felt a bit pressured. He gently kissed his trigger finger and softly said, “Give me some face — it’s all up to you to stop this fight.”

Right after saying that, Gao Yang pulled on the trigger and a red light flew out. A flash flickered underneath the opposing car and a flame immediately started burning. After one or two seconds there was a boom, and the car that had been ignited had already become a ball of fire.

Gao Yang excitedly shouted, “Success!”

At this moment Mr. Morgan urgently said, “Ignition doesn’t mean it’ll burn him to death. But no matter what he’s using, be it night vision or infrared vision, neither of those will work. Take advantage of it now and go kill him.”

“There’s no need to charge over. Check out my skills.”

After finishing his sentence, Gao Yang armed himself with the M1A and ran to one of the front sides of the car by borrowing the burning car’s light. He took a gun out from the dead god-like guy who had fallen out of the car door.

That godly guy had been using a M4A1, and it was even the one with the double magazine fast reload system. Gao Yang grabbed the M4A1, approached the car, and circled around it.

Standing beside the burning car and looking out, one could only see darkness. However, if one were looking from the darkness at the burning car, then it was as clear as day. Gao Yang ran ten plus steps, and when he could already see the other side of the car, he saw the silhouette of a man staggering away hoping to make an escape.

Chapter end