Chapter 35: First Shot

Upon hearing the urgent noises of the bell, Abel readied himself whilst picking up his compound bow and quiver. Then, he ran his way to the castle’s front gate. When he was just about to pass through the town square, everyone seemed panicked to see him. None one knew what was going on.

Having climbed a ladder on the side of the retaining wall, the first thing that Abel saw was the sight of the Knight of Marshall in his full set of armor. He was standing right on the edge of the castle with about twenty of his own guards standing beside him. All of them were holding a long spear in their hands.

The Knight of Marshall got worried when he noticed that Abel was here, “What are you up here, Abel? Go back inside the castle. It’s dangerous around here.”

Without listening to the words of his adoptive father, Abel probed his head out of the retaining wall. He wasn’t able to get a good view, though. An arrow was just shot at him the moment he drew his head out. Luckily for him, he was quick enough to dodge with his head and managed to shot the thing down with his own bow.

As fast as that was, Abel did see about twenty orcs outside the wall—some of them were riding on top of wolves while others were using inferno bovine as their stead.

“Why are the orcs here?” Abel asked in surprise.

“There are two or three squads of them here. That’s how many of them they need to take down a fort,” the Knight of Marshall replied, then said with a sneer, “Not this one, though. Not with that.”

“Where are our own archers?” Abel asked in frustration—he was just being fired at a few seconds ago, “Are we just going to let them stay there?”

“There are only five archers in the castle,” the Knight of Marshall pointed towards a bunch of injured soldiers over the distance, “Two of them were already injured. The rest… they are no match for their wolf-riding opponents. I have ordered them not to fight back.”

As undesirable as that sounded, the Knight of Marshall continued to mock the invaders, “These imbeciles have picked the wrong place to attack. They are no match for the walls that hold us here. Wait, is that a bow in your hand?”

Realizing that there was a bow in Abel’s hand, the Knight of Marshall began to have a puzzled look on his face.

“Yeah,” Abel said smugly, “This thing has pretty nice firepower to it.”

To be honest, Abel wanted to talk so much more about his compound bow. He wanted to show off about how he had invented a quick, easy-to-use and long-range weapon in this backward timeline. However, since he couldn’t explain it within anyone, he decided to stop after one sentence.

With a quick skim of his eyes, the Knight of Marshall quickly understood the mechanism behind this compound bow. He took an arrow out of Abel’s quiver, placed it on the nock of his bow, and started laughing when he saw the shape of the release aid that Abel had just made.

“It’s a good design that you’ve made,” the Knight of Marshall commented, “Instead of using just your fingers, you use this so you can use your entire arm’s strength.” He then said after seeing the small lever on the release aid, “No wonder they call you a master blacksmith. With this little thing here, you can shoot an arrow very easily without hurting your fingers.”

Archers were one of the most difficult soldiers to train because they had to rest after they’ve practiced for about 30 to 40 shots. Besides, the fingers were the most delicate parts of a human’s body. If a bowman injured his fingers, he could no longer use a bow and arrows for the remainder of his life. Even without these said reasons, it was already pretty hard to find someone with the right talent. This was why despite the fact that there were so many guards within Harry Castle, only a handful got to learn how to shoot arrows.

The Knight of Marshall began to use the release aid on the bow. Once he pulled on the string, a white aura flashed out of his body before the arrow was released. To his surprise, he couldn’t pull the bow’s string completely but was only able to hold it for a while after stretching it a little.

This was a very tight bow. After using about 80% of his strength, the Knight of Marshall had almost immediately failed to hold the bow in its place. If he didn’t release his combat qi on time, he would’ve lost so much face in front of Abel. The Knight of Bennett would’ve laughed so hard if he learned how hard it was for an Intermediate Knight to even pull a bow.

Strangely enough, once you’ve pulled the string and hold it there for a while, it was not very hard to keep it in place. The Knight of Marshall widened his eyes when he took notice of this.

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“What is up with this bow, Abel?” he asked without even having an idea of what the question should be. As far as he could tell, this piece that Abel made was nothing like any bow he had seen before. Actually, screw it. With so many living targets outside the fort, he might as well just test the bow’s effectiveness right away.

The Knight of Marshall quickly stood up. Having locked his arrow to a wolfrider, he quickly released it from his hands. It didn’t hit, however. Instead, it very quickly flew over the wolfrider’s head.

The orcs saw the shot, too. Just when they were about to dodge it, the arrow had already went past them and flew further beyond.

“Hargh Hargh!” The orcs laughed as they pointed their fingers at the Knight of Marshall. Then, one of the taurens threw an axe at him. Unbothered by ridiculing noises of his enemy, the Knight of Marshall caught it with his bare hand.

The Marshall Knight asked as he threw the ax to the ground, “What can’t I shoot with this bow, Abel?”

Abel pointed towards the marking on the bow, “That’s because I’ve just made it, Uncle. The only testing that I’ve done with it was at a 50-meter shooting range. If you are firing from here, you’d have to shoot the arrow in a straight line.”

That was all that the Knight of Marshall had to hear. During his past experience with archery, he’d always have to point directly above the target that he aimed to shoot. In other words, he had to shoot in curved lines. Now, he had to use a different technique because of the “firepower” he was given.

The Knight of Marshall pulled the bow again. This time, it was aimed at the tauren that was laughing the most. On click of the bow, and its skull was crushed the moment the Knight of Marshall had released his finger. It didn’t stop there, though. After punching a hole with the size of a fist, the arrow went through the tauren’s head and was plunged into the heart of a wolfrider.

The orcs got pretty panicked after that. They would never expect an archer to hit a double kill. No, not right after a complete miss.

“Arrow!” Marshall Knight reached his hand out to Abel, to which Abel responded as he quickly took an arrow out of the quiver.

Having reloaded himself up, the Knight of Marshall began to look for a new target. The distance between the orcs and the wall was about 50 to 60 meters. With that mind, a shot was guaranteed as long as the bow was directly aligned to its target.

The Knight of Marshall pressed the trigger again. This time, it was an orc that had fallen to the ground.

Without doing much talking, Abel passed another arrow into the Knight of Marshall’s hand. Three shots were fired after that, and six of the orcs were down on the ground. The surviving ones saw this and retreated as fast as they could.

The Knight of Marshall wasn’t sparing them, though. Unlike the orcs, the taurens remained on the battlefront. It wasn’t because they were braver. If anything, it was because their steads were much slower than that of the wolfriders.

Having readied his arrow, the Knight of Marshall aimed the bow towards the tauren who was the last one in line. As relatively slow as its stead was, it still ran a ten-metre distance within a short amount of time. With that in mind, there were about 70 meters between it and the Knight of Marshall.

Without thinking too long on it, the Knight of Marshall aimed his bow horizontally to his target. If he held the bow slightly lower than it should be, he could still hit the stead even if he missed. Without something to ride, there was no way a tauren could’ve ran out of his range.

It was headshot from 70 meters away. It was clean shot towards the tauren, and the poor thing fell to the ground on the spot.

Another one from 80 meters away. It was another tauren. It got down, too, after the triggered was pulled.

90 metres away. Another one down. 100 meters? No problem. Another down.

The last tauren was about 110 meters away from the Knight of Marshall. Once again, he released the arrow and succeed to hit his target. It was in the neck, though, which was a tad off from being the perfect shot. It was now the time to use the sight on the bow.

All the taurens were pretty much gotten rid of. Even the slowest wolfrider was about 150 meters away from the Knight of Marshall. Unfortunately for that one, though, the Knight of Marshall could still hit a headshot whilst using the sight on the bow. In fact, the hit was so impactful that the wolfrider was thrown off after that hit.

Realizing how frightening the archer that was the Knight of Marshall was, the wolfriders quickly covered their heads with their bare hands. The wolves they were riding on, on the hand, covered their master with their whole body. As the threat of death was imminent upon them, the beasts decided to shield their masters as a means of displaying their loyalty.

The Knight of Marshall decided to stop after that. For a knight such as him, eliminating the enemy’s stead was not something that should be done when the victory was already taken. For now, he was more than satisfied with the result of this battle.