Chapter 32

Chapter 32. 

Talent Plunder of the Weakest Conscript

Rian crouched behind the massive boulder and did not move a muscle. He lowered his body as much as possible and melted into the shadows. As though he had become part of the boulder itself, he even killed the sound of his breathing.

His gaze was fixed on the sun in the sky, visible through the crack in the rock.

Little by little, ever so slightly, it was leaning westward. Time was steadily passing, regardless of his will. The only thing standing still was this standoff.

‘How long can I hold out like this?’

An hour, maybe two. Any longer would be impossible.

He turned his head and looked at the path he had run from. The rough wasteland and the rocks rising sparsely here and there. Somewhere beyond them, the corpse of the imperial army Messenger Team Leader Pero must be growing cold.

The place where he had killed Pero was not far from here.

‘If the Messenger Team Leader doesn’t return at the appointed time, the imperial army will soon send a search party.’

That was the standard procedure. And the sniper up on the ridge knew that fact better than anyone.

Eric was simply waiting. Until his comrades arrived and completely surrounded this area, he was keeping Rian pinned helplessly behind this boulder.

‘This standoff is a trap meant to dry me out and kill me.’

A fight where victory and defeat had already been decided. The silence now was not part of a process leading to victory, but only time flowing toward a predetermined defeat.

Yet there was no impatience in his heart. It was not fear or despair, either. Only a fact recognized as cold as ice sat clearly within him.

Rian looked at the ridge ahead again. A tiny dot more than four hundred meters away. But that dot was seeing through everything about him.

‘In a fight against a sniper, time is always on the sniper’s side.’

The one who waits always has the advantage. The one who has to move is bound to make a mistake.

At that moment, Elias’s senses flowing through his blood whispered hotly. It was a strange sensation, as though another personality were speaking inside his head.

‘Wait. The moment the wind changes, the moment the sun blinds him, a fleeting opening will appear. Aim for that moment.’

Rian’s fingers unconsciously touched the string of the oak longbow slung across his back. The familiar sensation brushed against the calluses on his fingertips.

His body was trying to respond to the orthodox solution of an archer. The instinct of a master archer who had handled a bow for decades was presenting the best move. Endure, observe, and stake everything on one single chance.

But Rian slowly shook his head. His will suppressed his body’s instinctive response.

‘If I wait for that opening, I’ll be surrounded.’

Elias’s method was only effective in a duel between archer and archer. Not now. This was not a sniping match, but a fight for survival.

He let go of the bow he had been touching. It was a familiar and powerful weapon, but on this board, it was nothing more than cumbersome baggage.

In that instant, a completely different sensation brushed through his mind.

What he felt in his hands was not the light, nimble sensation of a bow. It was the heavy weight of a spear, carried through a solid wooden shaft. The heaviness that tensed every muscle in his body came vividly to mind.

It was Borik’s memory.

A spearman who had not taken even a single step back in the face of dozens of enemies. That headlong movement with which he had thrown himself, ready for death, toward the tiny gap between shield and shield.

‘Borik didn’t wait. He always broke the board and made a path himself.’

An archer searched for the best move on the board, but a spearman overturned the board itself.

Rian’s eyes changed in an instant.

From the eyes of a precise sniper calculating wind and distance, to the eyes of a conscript who used everything in front of him for one purpose alone: survival.

‘If the archer’s method doesn’t work, I just use another method.’

He lowered his body even further. He was almost lying with his stomach against the ground.

His gaze began sweeping across the surrounding terrain again from a completely new perspective. Things that had once looked only like variables in a sniping match now looked like tools for survival.

To the left was the dense forest. To the right was a steep slope that looked as though it had been cut away.

‘I have to go to the forest.’

It was the only place where he could completely neutralize the sniper’s field of vision. As long as he got inside, the one-sided hunting arrangement would be over.

The problem was the distance from the boulder to the forest. Roughly twenty meters. There was nothing in between to hide behind. It was a completely exposed space.

‘The moment I run, I become a target.’

Running twenty meters while dodging arrows flying from four hundred meters away. It was nearly impossible.

Rian’s gaze lowered to the ground.

Because it had not rained for a long time, a thin layer of bone-dry soil and dust covered the ground. Each time the wind blew, grains of sand scattered.

He lightly scraped the dirt with the tip of his foot.

Puff.

Light dust rose like smoke. It was a very small amount, but it was enough to show a possibility.

Rian’s gaze shifted to a fist-sized stone lying beside the boulder. It was an ordinary stone, nothing special. But in his eyes now, it looked like a weapon more powerful than anything else.

‘Draw his eye, and block his sight.’

The plan was completed in his head in an instant.

A single plan for survival, extremely simple and absurdly reckless. A gamble where even calculating the odds of success was meaningless.

His heart began beating a little faster than usual. It was not fear. It was the sharp tension right before he threw everything on the line and leapt onto the board.

He quietly gripped the stone with his right hand.

The cold, rough texture of the stone carried vividly into his palm. He tightened his grip around it.

His left hand braced against the ground and supported his body. Like a sprinter waiting for the starting signal. It was a low posture from which he could spring out like a compressed coil at any moment.

For the last time, he inhaled deeply, then slowly exhaled every bit of air in his lungs. All stray thoughts vanished, and his mind became as sharp as a blade.

‘One chance.’

Rian drew the arm holding the stone back hard behind his shoulder. Every muscle in his body pulled taut like a bowstring.

His target was another rock on the right side of the boulder, toward the steep slope.

He threw the stone with all his strength.

WHISH!

The stone made a sharp sound as it cut through the air.

CLANG—!

The stone struck the distant rock and burst into a sharp crack. The sound rang especially loud across the quiet mountainside.

On the distant ridge, Eric’s gaze reflexively turned toward the right, where the sound had come from, for one fleeting instant. It was the instinctive reaction of a trained hunter. He had moved unconsciously to confirm the movement of something.

At that exact moment, Rian moved.

The instant he pulled away the left hand braced against the ground, he kicked the dirt underfoot like a madman with his right foot.

PFFSH—!

Dry dust exploded upward like a bomb and covered the area around him in a thick curtain. A sandstorm formed, one where he could not see an inch ahead.

Rian hurled himself out into that dust.

His target was the forest on the left.

He did not turn his head. He only ran forward. The moment he looked back, his speed would drop even slightly, and that would lead straight to death.

His back felt cold. The sensation of death, like killing intent stabbing into his skin, chased him ferociously.

On the ridge, Eric pulled his bowstring in rage after realizing he had been deceived. The sneer vanished from his lips, and the savagery of a predator that had lost its prey was revealed.

Without hesitation, he loosed an arrow toward the faint silhouette moving through the dust.

WHIIISH!

The first arrow grazed past Rian’s right cheek.

He felt a scorching heat, as though his skin were burning. Without even a moment to feel pain, he lowered his posture further. He bent his upper body until it was almost pressed to the ground. At the same time, he changed his stride irregularly and ran in an unpredictable path.

THUNK—!

The second arrow buried itself deep in the ground he had just stepped on. If he had hesitated even slightly, or run in a straight line, it would have been a blow that pierced his heart precisely.

The thick dust began to settle as it scattered in the wind. His figure was faintly revealed.

Only five meters remained to the forest. It felt like an eternity.

PING!

The third arrow flew in and pierced the leather quiver on his back.

A tremendous impact slammed into his back. His body staggered from the pain, as though he had been struck by a giant hammer. His breath caught in his throat. But Rian did not fall. He gritted his teeth and endured.

He squeezed out the last of his strength and kicked off the ground.

At last, his body disappeared into the deep shadow cast by the first tree of the forest.

Rian did not stop.

He ran deeper into the darkness, tearing through the trees and bushes untouched by human feet like a beast. Branches scratched his face and sharp bushes tore his clothes, but he paid them no mind.

Huff, huff…….

Only after running for a long while did he stop, leaning his back against a thick oak tree the size of a house.

Ragged breaths burst out of him along with pain that felt as though his lungs would explode. He focused on the heavy sensation he felt behind his back.

He fumbled for the quiver with his hand. A hard, cold sensation touched his fingertips.

The imperial army’s solid steel arrowhead had pierced through the thick quiver and leather armor, embedding itself close to his back.

‘If it had been a little deeper.’

It might have lodged in his spine. Without any emotion, Rian snapped the broken arrow shaft with a crack and pulled it out.

There was no trace of pain on his face. Only cold relief and focus on the new phase of the battle lingered there.

Leaning against the tree, he looked back in the direction from which he had escaped.

There was no longer anyone on the ridge visible between the leaves. The red-haired sniper had vanished without a trace.

‘He’s coming down.’

This place was no longer a sniping point.

The entire vast forest had become a hunting ground for the two of them alone. The one-sided sniping arrangement had collapsed. From now on, this would be a true hunt, fought at a distance where they could hear each other’s breathing.

What appeared on Rian’s lips was not a faint smile, but the expression of a starving beast.