She stared at her telescope carefully, taking in the view of the water guard that was 500 meters away. With her index finger, she practiced her trigger control without touching the trigger. From her shot earlier, she found out that a slow and steady trigger was better when using this gun, hence she began mimicking pulling the trigger slowly and steadily.
As her turn approached, she was able to shoot with the same accuracy, her finger remaining on the trigger 2 seconds after she sniped before she moved away to check her target.
"PASS!"
"PASS!"
Only 1 person from the special forces passed, which was the person who had skipped the 400m distance.
"Should we take this to the next level, Comrade Eugeneia?" Said the soldiers next to Eugene. This person wasn't the soldier who slung his arm on her but was the person who brought up her credibility as a soldier due to her status.
Eugene nodded and together they walked to the 1000m mark which was 1km.
Commander Guang looked at them in surprise but didn't say anything.
"They say shooting is 2 percent physical and 98 percent mental. Hence age or their body difference will have nothing to do with their ability to aim." The person behind Commander Guang spoke.
Sniping was easy for Eugene as she was a mentally stable person most of the time, excluding her mental breakdown last month but besides the fact. Hitting the water gourd that was 1000 meters away was as easy as breathing to her.
The special unit trainee did not focus enough mentally and failed to pass the 1000 meter distance. This made Eugene the overall winner. Since sniping at 300m, everyone in the special unit trainees has changed their minds about Eugene, which is why they were ecstatic when she shot the 1000m distance successfully. Only the person next to Eugene who failed to pass the 1000 meter had a sour look on his face.
Eugene naturally ignored him. She was about to walk back to where her comrades were when Commander Guang spoke,
"Was that easy Comrade Eugeneia?"
Eugene stopped walking and replied, "Yes." Frankly speaking, it was easy because of the telescope.
"Would you like to test it out more?" Commander Guang spoke.
Eugene thought for a second. She didn't have to as she felt that she knew the limits of the telescope and the range of the gun, however, she nodded. She thought that maybe the Commander wanted her to experiment some more in order to improve the gun so she agreed.
"I believe that this sniping rifle has a limit of 1500m. Accuracy will drop to 50 if I go further with this telescope. Not to mention, firepower for this sniping rifle will decrease significantly after 1500m." She explained to Commander Guang.
Commander Guang looked at Eugene in surprise. If she went further than 1500m, her accuracy will drop to 50? Which means that her accuracy at 1500m was still above 50? His heart beat faster from excitement. He had known how special Eugeneia was from the start as evidenced by his students Amos Rodriguez and Earnest Marleigh, and seeing her now, he truly believed them.
Eugene picked up her sniping gun and walked to the 1500m mark when suddenly the wind began blowing. Commander Guang and her comrades frowned however Eugene wasn't affected and she stopped at the 1500m mark. Eugene felt the wind with her hand before deciding to snipe from the ground to counter the wind. If she sniped up, the bullet's trajectory would be more powerful. Everyone was surprised that Eugene was suddenly lying on the ground, even the runner-up was shocked as he watched her.
While everyone else predicted that the wind would reduce her chances of success, Eugene was the only one who came up with a solution to increase her chances of success. Eugene was in the army crawl pose as she held herself and the gun steady.
She inhaled and exhaled deeply and calmly as possible as she focused on the water gourd that was basically the size of half of her thumbnail. Eugene waited for a long time in this pose. Long so that she could find her chance when the wind was at its lowest. She removed her headset and continued to stare at the target, using her hearing skills and sensing the wind with her body, she waited as if she were a hunter waiting for its prey to let its guard down.
When she sensed the wind had died, she shot out in 0.2 seconds. Her finger was still holding the trigger as she eyed the telescopic vision to check if she succeeded or not.
After checking, Eugene moved away from her telescope and stood up with the rifle in her hand. No one said anything as they stared at the water guard that had broken into many different pieces. After a while, they turned to Eugene who was standing far away with her hair braided, her hair flying with the wind. Well, they couldn't see Eugene but could imagine it okay?
The image they saw was that she was a warrior. She did not look like a child despite her young face and looked like a true soldier.
Eugene turned to the tree towards the man who had cried upon seeing her, only to see that he was no longer there.
After that, Eugene walked back to the 300m stations where everyone was and began cleaning up. She disassembled her gun, and cleaned up every part, before putting it back into the case. It was only then that someone spoke up.
"Do you know you have a talent for shooting?" He asked her as he stepped closer to her.
Eugene saluted, "Thank you for the compliment sir." She thanked the instructor. Her response basically meant that she knows she has a talent for shooting.
"What do you think? Care to join the special forces?" Someone asked which shocked everyone yet wasn't that surprising at the same time.
Eugene turned to the Commander and examined him carefully to see if he was joking or not and when she realized that he wasn't joking, she respectfully declined, "My apologies Commander. I will be heading to the academy soon. I would like to focus on my studies." And live like a normal person for a while. Only after thinking that she wanted to live like a normal person, Eugene realized something big. And that was that she had never taken a break for the past 7 years since training as a soldier. The only thing she had in her mind was surviving and training, nothing else.
The Emperor's suggestion of enrolling in the academy was actually very good. Maybe she will discover herself there and take that chance to relax.
Commander Guang nodded. He had forgotten about her real age for a second and only realized just now that Eugene was 10. She has been busy with training since the age of 3. Of course, she should have some time to rest… unlike his odd-headed son.
The rest of the day went as follows. The special trainees apologized to her comrades like agreed. Of course, they were willing to apologize and were sincere. They felt bad for accusing Eugene's comrades of sucking up to Eugene because she was a noble. The runner-up of the shooting test also apologized to Eugene, though he was still not very sincere. Eugene didn't accept his apology and basically ignored the man which made him mad, however, he did not condemn her again.
After that, she said her farewells to her comrades one by one. She thanked them for everything with her indifferent face, before leaving the military base to go home. There were many thoughts as she watched the scenery flashing by.
One of her thoughts was on the sniping rifle test just earlier. She had been indifferent to training and didn't feel anything special when she was sniping just now. She was of course relieved that she won, however, she also wasn't too happy about it.
There was also another thing in her mind and it was the Emperor's words.
As soon as she got home, she showered and asked for an audience with Moniqua who set everything aside and hurriedly rushed to meet her daughter. Unlike Levis's Jasmin tea, Moniqua prepared rose tea for Eugene, which to be honest, wasn't Eugene's preference as the smell of roses was too much however she did not complain and drank it to Moniqua's happiness.
After a few minutes of silence and after finishing their first cup of tea, Moniqua spoke first, "Did the audience with the Emperor go well? You arrived here very late."
Eugene set her cup down and replied, "Yes it went well.. I went to the military base afterward which is why I came home late."