Chapter 38
Chapter 38
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 38
Chapter Title: Genius Divine Archer Who Became a One-Man Legion
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The atmosphere shifted.
'Well, well?'
No sooner had archery come up than confidence began to gleam in the man's eyes.
Gerard rose from his seat and spoke.
"Did you ask if I know how to shoot a bow?"
"Yeah."
"I've been shooting for over ten years. This little stick isn't even comparable."
"It'd be nice if your skills matched that confidence."
Lian headed toward the archery training ground he had set up.
"Wow...."
Gerard arrived at the training ground and let out a gasp of admiration at its impressive setup.
The shooting distance stretched out straight for nearly a hundred meters.
It was incomparable to the crude setups he'd made for himself up until now.
Lian said,
"Let's see your skills."
By then, the bow Gerard had brought was laid out at the training ground.
With Lian's perfect preparations in place, Gerard gripped the bow and said,
"Don't be surprised."
He nocked an arrow onto the string.
Creak.
A clean stance.
There was no wasted motion up to the point of drawing the string. He soon aimed at the target and released.
Shweeeeeek!
The arrow flew swiftly and thudded into the target.
Gerard's lips twitched momentarily at the bullseye.
"What do you think?"
"...."
Lian looked at the target where Gerard's arrow had struck.
Pretty decent skills.
For a first shot in an unfamiliar environment, that is. But,
'Praise him, and this guy's head will swell right up to the heavens.'
With types like this, it was important to press them down just a bit.
"Didn't you say the bow was your specialty?"
"Yes."
"And you think showing off one shot like that makes you hot stuff?"
"Pardon?"
"Try rapid fire. At your maximum speed."
"....Yes, sir."
Feeling thoroughly dismissed, Gerard's expression hardened.
He needed to show his true skills and knock this guy down a peg.
"Suuuuuck."
Gerard took a slow breath in and began firing arrows rapidly.
Paat! Kik... Paat! Creak... Pat!
Pretty impressive speed.
No, more than the speed, the process of gripping and firing the arrows was incredibly fluid.
'Looks like that claim of over ten years wasn't a lie after all.'
The only regrettable thing was that with proper training, he could have been far better than this.
Around the time Gerard fired his sixth arrow,
"I said maximum speed, so what's with this sluggish pace?"
Lian approached Gerard and snatched the bow from him.
Gerard furrowed his brow and shot Lian a glare for a moment, but—
Shweeeek! Pat! Pat! Pat!
It was insane rapid fire, like unleashing a pre-loaded crossbow.
In the time Gerard fired two or three arrows, Lian had loosed ten.
And that wasn't the end of it.
"Huh?!"
Two arrows in Lian's hand.
He wasn't firing one at a time—he was gripping and shooting two at once.
Gerard stared at Lian in awe, forgetting even to gasp at the godlike archery.
"I'll give you one more chance, so do it right this time."
Lian, who had hit every single arrow dead center, handed the bow back to Gerard and spoke.
At those words, Gerard unconsciously swallowed hard.
Something told him instinctively that this was his last shot.
Gerard slowly regulated his breathing and picked up an arrow. But then,
"Hold on."
Lian suddenly looked toward Florang.
Florang nodded and dashed quickly toward the targets. He positioned himself by a pillar next to them and began hanging something up.
"....You don't mean I have to hit that, do you?"
The moment a round something was hung on the rope around the pillar, Gerard asked Lian.
Lian nodded.
"Florang's going to tap it and dodge to the side. Once he does, I'll give the signal."
He then spread five fingers and said,
"Shoot within five seconds."
"Y-Yes? That's impossible. It's definitely a moving target!"
"If you don't have the confidence, just take that bow and head out. I won't stop you."
"...."
This guy meant it.
'But the difficulty's way too high...!'
He wanted to protest.
Who could possibly do something like that?
Grit.
But Gerard couldn't give up.
He'd finally found a unit where he could use his bow. If he went back to his old one, he'd just swing a spear around and age into a mediocre soldier who was neither fish nor fowl.
"I'll do it."
At Gerard's response, Lian raised his hand.
The signal to begin.
At Lian's cue, Florang shoved the round target hanging on the pillar to the side.
Swoosh.
Once the target swung into motion and Florang fully cleared out,
"Go."
Gerard drew the string and aimed at the moving target.
Lian watched him silently.
The guy was so laser-focused on the target that he probably wouldn't even notice if someone poked him from the side.
And just as the five seconds were about to elapse,
Paat!
Shweeeeeeeeek—!
The arrow left Gerard's hand, slicing through the air toward the target.
"Hit it!"
Gerard shouted without thinking as he watched the arrow fly. But—whoosh!
It completely missed.
At that sight, Gerard's eyes shook violently.
He'd blown his last chance.
Gerard looked at Lian with a desperate expression and dropped to his knees on the ground, yelling,
"P-Please, just one more chance...!"
"Hey, Gerard."
"....Yes?"
"Did you aim with your eyes?"
"....How else would you aim?"
Gerard replied with a puzzled look. Lian burst out laughing at his response.
It was the same in any field—talent was fundamentally required.
But compared to other weapons, a bow demanded a slightly higher proportion of it.
And one key element of that talent was 'eyesight.'
You had to be able to see the target clearly to hit it more easily.
'This guy... he tried to track the movement with his eyes.'
He'd released right when the target had swung to the left end and stopped.
Meaning he'd observed the target's motion precisely.
'If he learns the right methods... he might just work out.'
There was considerable potential.
Hadn't Lian himself learned archery around this guy's level?
Florang had been right to mention him.
Lian extended a hand to Gerard.
His expression was still curt, but,
"Get up. You're in."
"R-Really?"
"But from now on, you'll train like hell. With skills like this, I can't build the archer unit I want."
"I-I'll train hard! So hard!"
Gerard grabbed Lian's hand, bowed at a perfect ninety degrees, and shouted loudly.
Lian grinned as he looked at him.
Seemed like a pretty decent guy had joined.
* * *
"One—two—three—four! One—two—three—four! One—two—three—four—!"
The Arrowhead Unit, now filled with about ninety men, began full-scale training since its formation.
As part of Eagle Company, they did standard company drills as a baseline, followed by additional Arrowhead Unit training.
"Run—!"
"Stragglers die! Keep up!"
And the Arrowhead Unit's training was so intense that even other companies stuck out their tongues in awe.
"Ughhh—!"
They ran in step at a steady pace until the signal dropped, then broke into a full sprint.
They operated in three groups of thirty, but every group had guys tumbling over.
"Uwaaaah!"
Three of them hurriedly covered their mouths and bolted to the edge of the training ground by the wall, promptly vomiting up everything from breakfast.
Kyle watched them with a pitying expression.
It reminded him of his own first time.
'This insane training....'
He knew.
He knew in his head.
How brutal this training was at the start. But as squad leader, he couldn't just coddle them.
"If you collapse from this much, you're worthless! Hurry up and catch up! Vomit while you run! Grit your teeth and go to the end!"
At Kyle's bellow, the guys who had been retching in the corner wiped their mouths frantically and rejoined the group.
Kyle started running behind them, and then,
"Hey, Squad Leader Kyle. Isn't this a bit too harsh?"
"Harsh? This is the minimum."
Kyle replied indifferently to Brandt, who had pulled up alongside him.
Brandt chuckled at Kyle's words.
"Didn't you puke after twelve laps your first time?"
"Sh-Shut up!"
Kyle yelled hastily, but by then, his squad members were giving him cold stares.
Kyle flinched and shouted,
"Wh-What's with those looks! You punks want five extra laps today?"
"We'll just run!"
"Sorry!"
Their exaggerated expressions suggested they were still hanging in there.
Kyle smirked at the sight.
"They've definitely changed a lot from a month ago."
"We did too."
It had already been a month since the Arrowhead Unit had started operating in earnest.
In that time, Lian had done his utmost to establish the unit's foundation while pushing through high-intensity training.
"Everyone's doing well."
"I'm just grateful they're keeping up."
Lian murmured softly in response to Isaac, who stood beside him.
There was still much to do, but with intensified tactical and physical training, they were gradually syncing up.
'The stuff from before has been a huge help.'
He'd only made it to platoon leader, but he'd observed and learned from exceptional commanders.
However, openly applying systems that would emerge ten or twenty years from now felt a bit risky.
Surely someone somewhere was researching them even now.
"Alright, time for me to...."
Lian glanced at Gerard, running at the tail end of the soldiers.
Contrary to first impressions, the guy had quite the grit.
Lian had thought he had no redeeming qualities besides shooting a bow well.
'Stamina was weak, and his strength was pathetically low.'
But his biggest strength was that once he had a goal, he never gave up.
Even now, with a deathly expression, his feet didn't stop.
"Gerard! Over here!"
"Hek... Hek... Hek...!"
At Lian's call, Gerard halted in place, hands on his knees, gasping for breath.
He looked ready to drop dead any second, but he couldn't ignore his sky-sent vice captain's orders.
Lian smirked as the guy shambled over like a zombie.
Then, looking at Isaac, he said,
"Move to specialty training now. Pounding stamina too hard will just backfire."
"Yes, sir."
"Gerard, you're with me to the archery range."
"Hek... Hek... Y-Yes!"
Lian, arriving at the archery range with Gerard, envisioned the future.
Someday, this place would bustle with comrades shooting bows.
Lian silently picked up a bow.
For training, he used the standard-issue military bows as much as possible.
Using the one from Walter felt, well, kinda bad for Gerard.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Each arrow Lian released slammed into the target, making it shake violently.
But Lian drew and released the string steadily, without a hint of disruption.
"....Vice Captain."
Gerard, who had been watching Lian, looked at him.
When Lian glanced over,
"How can I shoot a bow as well as you, Vice Captain?"
Gerard asked with earnest eyes.