Outnumbered? I'll conquer America with an unlimited number of suicide soldiers.

The reason for choosing a gun shop is simple: I've developed a fear of insufficient firepower.

Forty guns are not enough for everyone. If we don't get more, what will happen to the suicide squads in the future when they have no guns or gunpowder?

Furthermore, the gun shop owner's family consisted of only four people, making them easy targets.

This morning, when the assassin went to the gun shop to check gun prices, he was scolded. With several factors combined, who else would he rob if not him?

Time flies, and four days have passed in the blink of an eye.

The five assassins who went to San Francisco returned successfully, bringing back the guns and ammunition they had purchased separately. Including the sixteen new faces recruited in the past few days, a total of twenty-one assassins gathered like ghosts deep in the dense forest outside the town.

A dark and windy night is the perfect time for murder and arson.

Everyone covered the lower half of their faces with dark cloths, leaving only their eyes visible. The leader said, "The master has ordered that anyone who dares to obstruct us will be killed!"

The group nodded, mounted their horses, spurred their steeds, and the twenty-odd riders charged out of the woods, heading towards Wolf Town.

The sound of horses' hooves kicked up clouds of dust.

In the small town, David, the gun shop owner, lay on his bed, somewhat restless, tossing and turning.

"Honey, what's wrong?" his plump wife asked sleepily beside him.

"I don't know why, but I just can't fall asleep."

David reached out and pulled his wife closer, nuzzling his chin against her forehead: "It's probably because of what happened with Charles a few days ago that I've been under a lot of pressure."

"I think you're overthinking it. Things have been calm these past few days; those bandits have definitely run far away."

His wife moved David's hand to her chest, her warm breath brushing against his neck: "Besides, we have so many guns and so much gunpowder, what robber would dare risk an explosion to rob us?"

"Here, let me help you relieve some stress."

David was also aroused, and after taking off his shirt, he was about to take the next step when he suddenly stopped.

Because he heard the thunderous sound of horses' hooves approaching the town from afar.

Almost simultaneously, the heart-wrenching screams of the night watch cowboy and the sound of warning gunshots rang out from the town entrance!

"The bandits are coming! The bandits are coming!"

The next second, the roar abruptly stopped, and several bullets pierced through his chest. The cowboy's second-in-command, who had given the warning, didn't even see the enemy coming before his chest exploded in several sprays of blood, and he fell straight backward.

The sound of horses' hooves did not stop for a moment, and they surged into the main street of the town like a flood, splitting up instantly.

A squad of eight riders, with a clear objective, headed straight for David's gun shop. The remaining assassins scattered and quickly occupied advantageous positions at the street corners surrounding the gun shop, forming a blockade.

"Just rob gun stores, don't be stupid!"

The crowd roared in unison, warning the rest of the town not to meddle.

He kicked open the door and saw long and short firearms displayed on the walls and in the cabinets, gleaming with a cold light. Hunting knives, axes, pickaxes and other ironware were piled up haphazardly on the ground.

Terrified screams and hurried footsteps came from upstairs.

David, who only had time to put on his pants, grabbed a revolver and a shotgun and rushed down the stairs with his two nephews.

The two collided head-on at the top of the stairs!

There were no warnings, no questions asked.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Bullets rained down, and flashes of fire, symbols of death, spewed wildly in the confined space.

Wood chips flew everywhere, and David's two nephews were knocked to the ground by several bullets without uttering a sound, dying instantly.

On the other side, some assassins were shot and killed or wounded, but the assassins were expressionless, advancing through the hail of bullets and stepping over the corpses of their comrades, firing continuously, like machines without feeling pain.

"Devils! You are devils crawled out of hell!"

David was terrified by what he saw, and the two gruesome corpses beside him extinguished his last shred of courage. He was filled with dread and tried to run upstairs.

boom!

A bullet pierced precisely into the back of his right knee.

David screamed and tumbled down the stairs, crashing heavily onto the ground floor.

The lead assassin grabbed him and, without a word, delivered two heavy punches to his cheeks. After he coughed up blood, he finally asked, "Where did you hide the money? If you can't tell me, your head will be gone!"

"Ah...ah..." David could only groan in pain.

"search."

The assassins quickly went upstairs, kicked open every room, dragged the woman hiding in the attic to the first floor, and left two people to guard her.

The other six men, like ants, quickly moved the guns, ammunition, and even the heavy tools from the house to the two freight wagons that had been prepared outside.

"Crying? Crying counts as time too."

The lead assassin slammed down the hammer, pointing his gun at his wife. "Or how about this: from now on, for every minute you delay, I'll kill one person."

"You have two family members left, including yourself. Want to take a gamble and see if the newly appointed sheriff can arrive and rescue you within a minute?"

"No, no! David, save me!" The wife, dressed in her pajamas, curled up on the floor, pleading in fear.

"No, please don't hurt her. I'll talk, I'll talk!"

David groaned and said, "There's a hidden compartment in the wall behind those barrels of gunpowder at the very back of the basement. The money is all in there."

Several assassins immediately went to the basement.

A moment later, they brought in two well-sealed barrels of gunpowder and a heavy little iron box. Inside were five gleaming gold bars and dozens of twenty-dollar Double Eagle gold coins.

"Thank you for your cooperation."

The leader of the assassins smiled slightly, and almost as soon as he finished speaking, several short gunshots rang out in the store, and two corpses fell down at the same time.

"Time to retreat! There's movement at the east street corner, people are gathering here!" a member of the assassin squad shouted from outside the door.

The assassins loaded all the spoils onto the wagons, and the two wagons, laden with goods, headed out of town.

The leader of the assassins looked to the side, where a comrade lay with a gunshot wound to the abdomen.

"Can you walk?"

"His internal organs are shattered, he's beyond saving." The assassin calmly shook his head, picked up his revolver, pointed it at his temple, and ended his life with a single shot.

The lead assassin picked up a revolver and walked outside the shop. In the most conspicuous spot on the shop's exterior wall, he carved several large characters with a hunting knife.

Then the group mounted their horses and disappeared into the deep night like the wind.

It wasn't until dawn that the still-shaken townspeople dared to approach the gun shop.

Outside the gun shop, a line of blood-red characters proclaimed the name of the visitor: The Killer, Dutch van der Linde.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Meanwhile, on the other side...

He was once holding a dip pen, organizing the intelligence sent back by Leon and Azrael in his notebook.

The guards from the two gold mines will depart in a few days to transport the gold mined over the past month to San Francisco. There will be ten guards in total, in one carriage.

The guards were all armed with a long gun and a revolver of varying models, but special attention should be paid to the leader, William Schneider, who carried a Sharps carbine with an extremely high rate of fire.

"We haven't found out the most crucial route. The gold mine doesn't trust these two new recruits."

The pen tip lightly touched the paper, and his brows were once slightly furrowed.

"Let Leon and his men try to find out as much as possible without revealing themselves. If that doesn't work, then we'll have to use the most primitive method: send out scouts to monitor every road."

"Anyway, there are only a few roads to San Francisco, and they can't avoid them."

"That Sharps carbine was a good weapon. I remember a few years later during the Civil War, the Union army used this breech-loading rifle to rout the Confederate army..."

As Lucy was pondering this, she knocked on the door and came in, saying, "Master, breakfast is ready."

"it is good."

He put down his pen and looked at the breakfast laid out in front of him: corn porridge, pork stew with beans, and a glass of milk.

"Is it the same old thing again, Lucy? Can't you come up with something different?" he sighed.

"Yes, Master, I'll change it to corn tortillas and pork stew with potatoes tomorrow, and coffee for drinks instead." Lucy said earnestly.

"..."

She twitched her lips and waved her hand weakly. "It's alright, you can go back to your work."

He genuinely hoped that the next system upgrade would allow him to select which type of specialist to summon. He really wanted to summon a Chinese chef so he could eat steamed buns and soy milk.

After breakfast, I would open my notebook and continue writing and drawing.

Last night's operation was quite successful. Although two suicide soldiers were lost, dozens of rifles and pistols were captured, and the amount of gunpowder and bullets is sufficient for the time being.

They are just waiting for a new batch of suicide soldiers to arrive, which will arm more than twenty people.

In terms of money, the five gold bars, thirty double eagle gold coins, and some valuable jewelry found in the house were worth about $5,800.

As for the use of the money...

Recalling the Sharps carbine mentioned earlier, he pondered for a moment and used the Hive Consciousness skill to contact the distant assassins.

"Dach".

"My lord," replied the assassin named Dutch van der Linde respectfully.

"You and Hosea go to San Francisco and investigate what permits and equipment are needed to open a weapons company."

"The ambush on the gold mine guards a few days from now will be directed to Arthur."

"Yes, my lord."

In a valley dozens of miles from the town, Dutch and Hosea, having received their orders, mounted their horses and rode toward San Francisco.

Giving assassins these names was naturally a perverse past hobby.

After all, when it comes to Western gangs, the infamous Van der Linde gang is bound to have a place.

Moreover, all those assassins had gun mastery level 3 in their attributes. Although they didn't have something as mysterious as the Eye of Death, their marksmanship was so accurate and fast that it was almost like they were using cheats.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Meanwhile, forty miles northeast of Wolf Town, nestled in the folds of a winding mountain range, lie two gold mines facing each other, one to the north and one to the south.

Both gold mines are owned by the same company, so the guards and miners are shared.

The hillside between the two gold mines was covered with simple wooden shacks.

Two rows of crude wooden fences, one to the south and one to the north, completely enclosed the wooden shacks and the people inside. At the edge stood watchtowers, with guards carrying revolvers at their waists, keeping watch over the surroundings.

The main mine shaft was pitch black, filled with dust, the stench of sweat, and the smell of cheap tobacco. Leon, standing at the mine entrance, covered his nose and whistled—the sound of the day shift changing hands with the night shift.

Soon, dozens of night shift miners emerged from the mine, their bodies emaciated.

They are all Chinese.

He was exceptionally thin and small, dressed in a tattered dark cloth shirt, looking as if a gust of wind could blow him over.

Four overseers were behind them, brandishing whips and lashing them every now and then.

The person who was chosen groaned and staggered, but dared not turn around. He could only speed up to catch up with the group, like a herded animal.

But there are always those who fall behind, so the whipping never stops.

Seeing Leon looking over, a burly foreman named Blake said irritably, "What are you looking at, you piece of shit? Want to fight?"

Leon didn't hold back and retorted directly: "You've got shit in your mouth, you should thank your parents for not throwing you into a urinal to drown you."

After all, they're a bit out of their minds, which is why someone like you, with your face on your ass, has survived to this day.

If I were your father, I would rather have shot you against the wall than stuffed you into your mother's hole, which is wider than the Mississippi River!

The three overseers beside Blake were stunned for a moment, then burst into laughter, almost laughing to tears: "Hahahaha, my God, Leon's mouth is like it's been blessed by the devil."

"Holy shit, how did he come up with something like that with his charming little brain? It's brilliant."

Blake's face immediately turned a deep liver color, his nostrils flared wide, and he gasped for breath.

He roared angrily, threw down his whip, and lunged at Leon in a fit of rage.

"You piece of shit, I'll kill you!"

Leon sneered, grabbed Blake's arm with one hand and lifted his sleeve with the other, throwing him out of the hole with an over-the-shoulder throw, where he slammed heavily onto the ground.

The conflict between the two men caused the mine entrance to be crowded with people.

From the line of day shift miners, a middle-aged man with an oddly shaped face and a long, greasy braid squeezed out of the crowd and shouted in Cantonese, "What are you all doing here? Want to die?"

"A bunch of lazy bums, working so slowly, believe it or not, their entire paychecks will be docked this month!"

Looking down and seeing Blake on the ground, he quickly switched back to English and bent down to help him up: "Mr. Blake, who was the blind man who pushed you?"

"Get out of here!"

Blake slapped the man across the face, got up, and glared at Leon. "Fine, you're something else!"

"Your mother knows best whether I'm good or not," Leon spat. "Not convinced? Let's have a duel now. You kill me, or I kill you."

Blake looked at Leon with resentment, but dared not agree.

He had witnessed Leon and Azrael's marksmanship firsthand when they came for the job interview. Twelve bottles were placed fifty yards away, and before he could even see them draw their guns, they were all shattered.

With his marksmanship, facing Leon would be a certain death for him.

Blake ultimately said nothing and slunk back to his place.

The middle-aged man covered his face and continued to berate the miners in Cantonese, urging them to speed up their work. The other three supervisors sidled up to Leon with grins: "Leon, you're almost off work too, want to play cards later?"

"Okay," Leon nodded in agreement.