It might sound absurd, but it did happen.
At this point it seems appropriate to start with a brief biography of Yan Xueshan.
He was a war orphan who was rescued by the Federation from the rubble at the age of five and put into an orphanage, but he wasn’t adopted until he was ten.
His adoptive father was a soldier.
The adoptive father loved shooting, so out of the instinct to please his caregiver,the child Yan Xueshan claimed that he was very interested in shooting after his adoptive father taught him how.
He was very talented at that.
Since then, his adoptive father cultivated his sniper ability and taught him how to protect his eyesight.
He said, “My dream is to be a Master Mecha Sergeant who is qualified to pilot a sniper mecha.”
Later, his adoptive father became a sniper Mecha Master Sergeant as he wished, but he wasn’t famous because he died in the war not even a year after receiving his license.
Yan Xueshan became an orphan again.
However, he was about to turn 18. He attended high school graduation early and submitted his application for enlistment on the day he turned 18.
Soon after entering the army, his officers found him to be extremely talented.
At that time, the war wasn’t yet serious, so after the recruit training his officer wrote him a letter of recommendation asking him to go to the Imperial Military University to study in the Department of Mecha Division. Before leaving, he patted his shoulder and said, “it would be a pity if you didn’t become a Master Sergeant with such qualities.”
Yan Xueshan: “I don’t have much money. I don’t think I can afford to pay the tuition, so I’d better not go.”
The Officer: “After graduation, you can pay off the training fee with ten years of compulsory service.”
Yan Xueshan felt that this rule was very flawed. What if he died in battle as soon as he graduated, just like his adoptive father? Then the country would have spent all this money for nothing!
He couldn’t understand, he really couldn’t.
Anyway, this way he didn’t need to pay for school.
Not going to school would be bad.
He took three years to complete all the divisional courses and graduated with a combined grade of only B+ due to serious bias.
On a full percentage scale, he received the following final grades:
Thirty points in War History .
Sixty points for Introduction to Strategy.
Eighteen points for the Tactical Analysis Exercise.
One hundred points for Shooting Practical Skills.
Ninety-eight points for Battleship Fighting Skills.
Ninety-nine points for Machine Engineering Exercises.
The school regulation stated that you needed to pass at least four subjects before being allowed to graduate. Originally, he failed in Introduction to Strategy, but the teacher tried every means to get him past the pass line!
So, at the age of 21, Yan Xueshan officially became a Mech Master Sergeant serving the Federation and was thrown into the middle of the war.
After the human race entered the interstellar era, warfare also evolved according to the times. The mechas developed by the Federation were divided into melee and long-range combat and according to the Federation’s Tactical System, each close combat mecha needed to be paired with a distant combat mecha. This meant that each close combat mecha Master and a distant combat mecha Master needed to cooperate with each other.
Among the military academy students, there are very few soldiers who could drive mechas and there were even fewer snipers.
Because they were at the forefront of the battle, the sergeant mortality rate was extremely high, close to 60% , and the average years of service on the battlefield was about three years. This usually meant death, but if you’re blessed by the Goddess of Luck, then you would just get an injury, which would allow you to retire.
The mortality rate of the Sniper Division Sergeant, compared to the Melee Division Sergeant, was lower, but after all it was a battlefield. After a Melee Division Sergeant died, the enemy would focus on eliminating the Sniper Division Sergeant.
Since joining the army, Yan Xueshan has changed partners eight times, with an average of one partner killed in less than a year.
Even so, he was still alive and was never even wounded.
So among Division Sergeants, he was known as the Black Widow, while the enemy lovingly called him the Blue Reaper because the thermal molten ion rays emitted from his sniper rifle had a faint blue light.
Yan Xueshan still had no shortage of partners, because his skills were so good that several times when his Melee Division Sergeant partner died, he survived and even counter-killed the opposite side.
Even after being surrounded by the enemy several times, he remained unharmed.
He was even on the verge of matching the record number of sniper kills by Xun Ying, the Federation’s all-time Sniper God and was also the pioneer of Sniper Master Sergeants. If the war had dragged on a little longer, he might’ve actually been able to do it.
Yan Xueshan himself was not obsessed with the title of so-called Sniper God. He didn’t even consider himself very talented, so when people asked, he would just say, “I just got lucky and survived every time. I didn’t have an idea of doing meritorious deeds, I just wanted to survive.”
That was until six years ago, when he was twenty-six years old.
Fresh out of military school, a green-faced Arthur became his new partner. This was the youngest soldier from the Mecha Division assigned to him by the army. Arthur was just 19 years old and judging from his youthful face, he had never been on a battlefield.
When Yan Xueshan saw Arthur, he thought: It seems that the Federation is indeed getting more and more nervous about the war. For them to actually assign such a young rookie to him…. Didn’t that kid know he didn’t have much longer to live? Such a silly and naive person, it was estimated that wouldn’t live more than three months.
At the time, Yan Xueshan was already a Class A Master Mecha Sergeant, the highest level available in the Federation.
His superior officer personally introduced Arthur to him, urging him to, “Take care of him little more.”
He didn’t know if it was because Arthur was really too young, but Yan Xueshan felt a little sorry for him. Being sent over as cannon fodder at such a young age, he really felt a sense of pity.
He took more care of Arthur than his previously more experienced partners, teaching him many survival tips that new recruits needed to know.
Arthur was very touched and it didn’t even take him a day before he started calling him “Master.”
Edited by: Antiope1
Support translation:
Ohhh~ mc was actually older OwO
And damnnn 😭 what having no money can lead you to — glad mc survived and wow, skilled tooo~~~ and got the right attitude 😆