Chapter 31

Chapter 31. 

Talent Plunder of the Weakest Conscript

Rian pressed himself like a shadow behind a boulder the size of a house. He did not so much as twitch. The cold, rough surface of the rock dug into his back, but that chill helped calm his seething senses instead.

He did not make the novice mistake of worrying that the enemy might hear his heartbeat. His breathing was shallow and long, controlled as though it had nearly stopped. In this moment, he was part of the boulder. Not a living creature, but part of the landscape.

WHISH, CRASH—!

A second arrow came flying with a sharp sound of displaced air. This time, it struck the rock face about a handspan above where Rian’s head had been. It collided with the hard granite, and fine stone dust poured down like rain. A few fragments fell onto his hair.

Through the rock pressed against his cheek, a heavy vibration carried clearly.

‘A threat?’

Rian slowly closed his eyes, then opened them again. Not the slightest agitation showed in his empty eyes. Emotions like fear or surprise had long since been worn away and vanished. What remained was only cold reason, analyzing the situation and calculating his odds of survival.

WHIZZ, THUNK—!

The third arrow buried itself deep in an oak trunk as thick as a man’s torso to the right of the boulder where he was hiding. The arrow tore through the tree’s hard fibers and vanished almost halfway in. Under its force, the branches thrashed violently and shed dry leaves.

It was as though an invisible giant hand were drawing a circle around him, scoring a line into the ground. It felt like an unspoken warning that if he stepped even a single pace outside it, his heart would be pierced at once.

The archer in the distance could kill Rian. The first arrow missing had been proof that it was no mistake. He was deliberately not killing him. Like a seasoned predator driving its prey into a corner and enjoying its reaction.

‘A warning not to move.’

Rian accepted that warning obediently. He kept himself perfectly still, as though he had become one with the boulder. His body had stopped, but his senses instead awakened wide. Every nerve stood on end as he began absorbing every scrap of information outside. The senses of Elias, the dead archer, flowed through his veins and took command of his body.

He turned his head very slightly, so little the movement could hardly be felt. Through a gap between the rocks no wider than a finger joint, he surveyed the view outside. All he could see was the eye-stingingly blue sky and the dark blue silhouette of a distant ridge. The enemy was nowhere in sight.

The sensation of the wind brushing his cheek felt sharp. It was blowing from the northwest. The wind was not steady. It blew gently, then at times gusts powerful enough to stir the branches of the forest mixed in.

‘A difficult wind for a sniper.’

Yet the opponent had calculated that wind perfectly and struck exactly where he wanted with all three arrows. Rian could feel the gap in their skill.

His gaze turned to the first arrow embedded in the rock. The arrow, precariously lodged in a crevice, belonged to the imperial army. The imperial army’s distinctive black fletching, a shaft made of straight, hard ash wood, and a steel point gleaming eerily in the sunlight.

Compared to the arrows he carried, it looked incomparably more precise and powerful. Each arrow was a weapon crafted by a skilled artisan’s hands. The ones in Rian’s quiver were nothing more than crude wooden sticks.

He turned his gaze back through the gap in the rocks and gauged the distance to the far ridge. Elias’s senses completed an immediate calculation based on the scenery in his field of vision.

Even by rough estimate, it was easily more than four hundred meters away. It was a sniping distance beyond common sense.

Rian unconsciously touched the oak longbow slung over his back. The familiar knots carved into the bow’s surface and the rough feel of the wood touched his palm.

‘There’s no chance with this bow.’

The effective range of this oak longbow was, at best, one hundred and fifty meters. Even if every condition aligned perfectly, its maximum range would struggle to exceed two hundred meters. Four hundred meters was a distance the arrow could not even reach, let alone fly properly.

The absolute difference in distance stood between him and the enemy like a massive wall.

PING! Tap.

Just then, a small stone flew in with a sharp sound and landed near Rian’s feet. This time, it was a fragment knocked loose when an arrow embedded itself in the ground in front of him. The circle of pressure was gradually narrowing.

But Rian’s expression was still numb. He looked like someone watching something that had nothing to do with him.

‘No need to hurry. He’s enjoying the hunt.’

He was waiting for the prey to panic and come dashing out. Then he would seize that moment and cut off Rian’s breath with the final arrow.

Rian quietly closed his eyes. In his head, he drew a map of the surrounding terrain. With the information Elias’s senses had gathered while roaming the forest, he reconstructed a perfect map.

The enemy was at the very top of the ridge. It was the best sniping point, with an open field of view and nothing around to block it. From there, this entire area would be visible below him as though it lay in the palm of his hand.

On the other hand, Rian was midway up the slope leading toward the ridge. Only sparse trees stood around him, and there was no cover to hide behind except the boulder he was leaning against now.

‘The worst possible position.’

He was trapped, unable to move. He quietly opened his eyes.

At that moment, Elias’s senses flowed through his veins and whispered an intense impulse.

‘Fight. Raise the bow. Showing your back to a sniper means death.’

It was the instinct of a seasoned archer who had lived with a bow in his hands for decades. The fighting spirit that insisted he must never let go of his bow, no matter the situation, and must face the enemy head-on. That was the conviction the archer named Elias had upheld his entire life.

Rian’s right hand tightened around the bow’s grip before he realized it. The muscles throughout his body began to tense minutely into the perfect posture for shooting a bow. Something hot seemed to boil up inside his veins.

He moved his body little by little toward the edge of the boulder. He was trying to create a shooting angle somehow and return fire, even if only for a single shot. His body was shouting that this was the only solution for an archer.

WHISH!

The fifth arrow flashed past along the very trajectory Rian had been about to move through. If he had moved even 0.1 seconds earlier, the arrow would have pierced his temple.

He could vividly feel the heat of the wind the arrow had sliced past his cheek.

Every one of Rian’s movements froze again. He stopped as though nailed to the boulder.

His eyes sank coldly, like sheets of ice.

‘He’s reading every movement.’

The opponent was not merely skilled. Even at this distance, he was perfectly seeing through Rian’s subtle movements and intentions. As though he could look inside his head.

Rian slowly loosened the hand that had been gripping the bow. Strength drained from each joint of his fingers, and Elias’s battle impulse, which had been boiling hot, gradually subsided. Rian suppressed that impulse by his own will.

‘This isn’t a duel between archer and archer.’

It was not a fight where they were testing their skills under equal conditions.

This was a one-sided execution.

Rian organized his thoughts. His mind was clearer and colder than ever.

First, the absolute disadvantage in distance. His arrows would not even reach.

Second, the overwhelming gap in equipment. With a crude bow and arrows, he could not beat an imperial-made strong bow.

Third, the one-sided advantage of terrain. The enemy could see him perfectly, but he could not even see the enemy.

‘There isn’t a single factor that lets me win.’

It was impossible using Elias’s method. The moment he faced him as an archer, there was only death.

With his back fully against the boulder, he looked up at the sky visible through the gap. A clear blue sky without a single cloud entered his vision. It was so peaceful that his current situation almost felt unreal.

What would happen if time simply passed like this?

‘Can I escape once the sun sets?’

Once darkness fell, visibility would be blocked, so he would seize that chance to flee. It was a plausible thought, but Rian immediately shook his head.

No. Before then, an imperial army search party would come. There was no way a master archer of that level was moving alone. The archer was bait, and while he kept Rian pinned here, other forces would close the encirclement.

‘Time isn’t on my side.’

Waiting was the most foolish choice.

Rian’s gaze returned from the sky to the front. But his eyes were no longer turned toward the distant ridge. The enemy there was no longer his concern.

He began combing through everything around him.

The size and shape of the boulder he leaned against. The arrangement of the trees standing here and there around him. The slope of the ground beneath his feet. The location of the bushes blocking line of sight.

He took in all the information with his eyes, combined it in his head, and searched for a new escape route.

‘I can’t win with the bow.’

His hand left the bow completely. Then it slowly moved to his waist. The hilt of the cold dagger touched his palm.

‘Then I just have to not use the bow.’

At that moment, Elias’s senses, which had been ruling his body, faded. The senses of an archer who had handled a bow for decades withdrew, and in their place, something more primal and vicious raised its head.

It was the survival instinct of a conscript who had struggled for only one purpose on a hellish battlefield: to survive.

Rian lightly gripped a handful of dirt from the ground. Dry, soft soil trickled down between his fingers.

‘There’s no need to fight on this board.’

Fighting on the stage the enemy had created, by the rules the enemy had set, was a path that invited defeat.

He began drawing a new plan in his head. A plan not as Rian the archer, but as Rian the hunter.

His gaze turned to the dense forest on the left side of the boulder. Trees and bushes grew thick there, so as long as he managed to dive in, he would be able to escape the enemy’s line of sight.

‘Of course, there’s a higher chance my back gets pierced before that.’

It was about twenty steps to the forest. During the time it took him to run that distance, at least three or four arrows would fly. There was no way he could dodge them.

He looked to the other side again. To the right of the boulder was a steep slope close to a cliff. If he rolled down, it would be difficult to survive, but that also meant he might escape the enemy’s prediction.

‘I need risk.’

There was no safe path. Every choice carried the possibility of death. In that case, he had to choose the path with the highest probability, the path the enemy would have the hardest time predicting.

Rian looked at the ridge straight ahead again. Now, it was no longer a mountain he had to cross. It was only a backdrop he had to use.

‘Eric must think he’s the perfect hunter.’

He was probably enjoying himself, controlling everything and holding the prey’s life in his hands.

The faintest movement brushed across Rian’s lips. It was not a smile. It was the emotionless expression a starving beast wore when it made a hunting plan with its prey before its eyes.

He tightened his grip on the dagger.

‘I’ll change the board.’

He crouched as much as he could. Like a spring compressed to its limit, ready to burst out at any moment. Every muscle waited for explosive movement.

‘From the archer’s stage to the fugitive’s stage.’

And the end of it would not be flight.

For the first time, a cold calculation toward something other than a bow flashed in his eyes.

He listened to the sound of the wind one last time. The direction of the wind, its strength, and the interval before the next gust. Everything was entered into his mind.

‘Now it begins.’

On the distant ridge, Eric still looked down at the motionless boulder and leisurely set the next arrow to his bowstring. The prey, quiet as a dead mouse, was starting to bore him.

It was about time to end this.