Chae Nayun let out a satisfied laugh as she watched a flurry of arrows thud into the shooting range. "Yes! This is it!"
The way to break past the limit she had been feeling this entire time. The path through the seemingly insurmountable wall she faced as an archer.
The main difficulty Nayun had was always the fact that aiming was difficult. Because she had assigned the steps as 'take position, aim, fire,' in her head, it always led to her struggling against fast opponents. Not only that, but since she had thought that you had to have perfect form in firing each time, it meant that she left opening where she simply evaded.
"But this whole time, I could have been firing back...! Ugh, I'm an idiot!"
Nayun laughed again, her heart bright.
For once, she didn't disagree with Yeonha saying that Nayun was a bit dim.
Because...
"It was this simple. The whole time, this simple."
Nayun had drilled archery until her fingers bled and snapped. She had practiced evasion and retreating until her legs cracked and knees creaked.
The act of shooting an arrow had long sunk into her bones.
She just never realized that by clinging so tightly to the act she was stopping her own breath. Constraining herself so she couldn't breathe.
To test again, Nayun ran off the wall and stared at the target. She didn't think, just let her body go through the motions while she stared at where she wanted to shoot. At where her 'instincts' told her to fire.
Draw, fire, thud.
Nayun landed and stared at the target.
It missed the mark.
Of course it missed.
Nayun had never done this before.
...But it still hit the target.
Not exactly where she wanted. Off by ten centimeters or so.
But in combat, that was fine. Because there would be more than one arrow firing anyway.
Nayun burst out laughing again and said, "Lee, that crazy guy...!"
She had always thought Kim Suho was ridiculous. That guy's swordsmanship was so smooth and polished it seemed otherworldly. Nayun couldn't understand it at all.
But this?
Nayun shook her head and said, "Well, I know how he got into Cube now, at least..."
The lack of magic power would have absolutely hamstrung Lee on his rankings.
And whoever was doing admissions would have been hamstrung for letting a guy like Lee who had little to no magic power into Cube.
But if it was Rank 999.
If it was barely above the cut-off. Almost like a consolation prize...
It was allowed.
And considering the fact that just a few words from him allowed Nayun to break through the wall she'd been facing the entire time she was at the Agent Military Academy...
"Dammit." Nayun laughed again. "I see why Rachel likes the guy."
Someone who made you feel like you could do anything. A guy who was also pursuing the pinnacle himself, running towards it without stopping. Who, even when moving sideways, never retreated and still advanced, if only by millimeters.
And someone who was willing to lay his life down to test a hypothesis that could lead to a breakthrough, like how he entered the gravitation chamber without any magic power when Nayun had it set to 10X gravity, a fact CLEARLY labeled on the wall before you walked in...
Nayun picked up her bow and drew five arrows from the quiver. At the same time, she adjusted her grip on her bow to point the top forward, letting her tilt it back with her wrist to draw and fire in the same action. Just like Lee had shown her...
*thud thud thud thud thud*
...And five arrows flew in the span of a second.
They weren't very accurate. The spread was far too wide to be practical yet.
But the fact that she HIT the target at all.
The fact that it was POSSIBLE.
The fact that, for a damned fact, no other Hero using a bow shot their arrows like this...
Nayun laughed again as she drew another five arrows. "Alright. Whatever that guy asks for in the future, I'm getting it for him."
No amount of money Nayun could muster would be enough to repay this. Because it was something that money couldn't buy.
How much had her father searched for her? How many tutors did he send her way? How many instruction booklets, videos, and accessories?
None of them compared to that short ten minutes she had with Lee just earlier. The freaking throwaway demonstration that he didn't even care about, running away with Rachel at the first sign Nayun was going to cause a mess.
"Argh. This bastard!" Nayun cursed Lee out but smiled at the same time. "I hate debts, dammit!"
Even so, she kept firing.
Because since that guy... No. Since that friend of hers had laid out the red carpet, how could she not follow it?
===
> Modified Setting - Due to external factors, Chae Nayun's potential has increased. 9.5-> 9.9
"Huh?"
Hajin had returned to his room to rest since there was still combat training tomorrow. Although it was anti-personnel training, it was still something that required moving his body.
So after modifying a recovery drink to optimize his growth, he had laid down to sleep when that window popped up in front of his eyes. "...External factors? What the heck? No, hold on, 9.9?"
Nayun's potential of 9.5 was when she was wielding a sword to maximize her hidden talent of excessive magic power.
But the fact that it had bumped up to 9.9...
"...Did she breakthrough with archery somehow?"
That was the only thing Hajin could think of.
But... how?
Archery had a clear limit.
Since all you did was just stand there and shoot, at some point, there was nothing else you could do. Against proper monsters and characters who were fast, they were just sitting ducks.
At least, that was what Hajin wrote in his novel.
But...
> Modified Setting - The original author's knowledge of archery was deemed incomplete. Proper knowledge from the original author's homeland has been incorporated to bring the story to proper realism.
Hajin sat up and ran his hand through his hair. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN MY KNOWLEDGE OF ARCHERY WAS INCOMPLETE?!"
You had a bow! You notched an arrow! You fired! That was all you did as an archer!
...Wasn't it?
> Modified Setting - The original author's knowledge of American history was deemed incomplete. Additional knowledge has been incorporated to bring the story to proper realism. See: Comanche archers, various alternative bow grips, alternative firing techniques, etc.
> Modified Setting - The original author's knowledge of guns was deemed incomplete. The weight of firearms history and mythical grade firearms have been added to the setting. See: Helongjiang Hand Cannon (c.1288), Emperor Charles V's Wheellock Pistol (c.1540), Yaita matchlock guns (c.1543).
"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!"
Was the co-author fact-checking him in real time?! What the hell?!
===
Rachel's dorm, around midnight.
Sitting at her desk with the deskside lamp turned on, Rachel quietly read through the copy of the bulletpoint notes that Lee had handed over.
Notes that were, blessedly, written in English.
"...I owe him a great deal, don't I?"
Rachel couldn't help but let out a helpless laugh as all of the concepts that had been so hard to understand for her were suddenly made clear.
Part of it was because it was written in English... after all, it didn't help that Rachel had to translate esoteric terms from Korean back into English. Terms which, often, didn't have a proper translation.
But most of it was because of how STRUCTURED it all was.
Rachel traced her finger down the neat timeline of Outfall to the current day, complete with annotations and footnotes. Then she murmured, "I have a feeling taking the first spot in the exams will be difficult..."
She had noticed that morning already: Lee knew the material.
No, from the comprehensive notes he handed over, it was clear that Lee had already used the syllabi to work ahead and understand the material up through the mid-terms... and maybe through the end of the semester.
In other words...
"...This is all just review to him now."
Rachel felt a pang of... not quite jealousy, not quite envy either. But... something like that mixed with respect.
Because now she realized it.
"...I didn't have to reread everything over and over again."
How inefficent had she been with her time?
Because she was bearing the expectations of her entire country on her back, Rachel had gone over and over and over the material until her eyes were bleary and her head pounded. But even then, there were things she missed. Memory could only go so far, especially with how little sleep she got.
And now she was presented with a clear alternative. Evidence that her tactics had been incorrect.
Rachel wasn't a slouch in academics. She had the first rank in Cube for a reason.
Because of that, she understood how Lee had studied- No, LEARNED the material.
The syllabus for each class was the groundwork. The foundation.
From that, he crossreferenced each textbook and expanded the syllabus with the headings already present in the textbook.
With that, he developed a map of the entire subject.
Then, he pulled out a separate sheet of paper for each heading. And for that, he made a one-page summary of the key topics. No more than ten, no less than five.
It was a tiered system of understanding, as well as filtering the key information. And in the process, remembering any one piece would pull up the rest.
...Although Rachel still wondered how he managed to do this on the first night before class started, the proof was laid out before her.
Lee HAD read through and learned all the subject matter. Well enough to write comprehensive summaries of all the topics they were studying up through mid-terms... at least from these set of notes he handed over.
But more than that...
"...He gave this. To me."
Lee hadn't offered it to anyone else. Not to Nayun, not to Yeonha...
Just her.
And, objectively, Rachel didn't NEED it. Since she was the top of their class... what was the saying they used in the East? Giving wings to a tiger?
It was unnecessary.
And if Lee was aiming for the top spot like he seemed to be, then this would only hurt him since Rachel was technically his rival.
But...
*"Got it. Then I just have to be exceptional then to stay at your side, right?"*
...His words from that morning echoed in Rachel's mind.
And when she recalled them, Rachel placed her hand to her heart, feeling it race. "Ah... this is indeed a problem."
Rachel Elizabeth Louise was the future ruler of the Kingdom of Britain. And all of it was looking to her as their hope to bring not just the territory of England, but all of the Kingdom of Britain back onto the global map.
But right now. At this moment. Realizing that Lee had made an implicit confession. That he had affirmed it was all for her sake...
Rachel slumped over her desk, a helpless smile on her face. "...Ah, why is this so hard?"
Emotions that Rachel had never felt. Words she wanted to say but couldn't because of her status. And the boy- no, the man who had practically declared he would climb to the heavens just to be able to stand beside her.
"Oh, mother..." Rachel thought about her deceased mother, the one who was surely watching down on her in heaven. "...Is this a blessing you sent my way? Or a curse to drag me down?"
Rachel didn't know which it was.
But she did know one thing.
...For better or worse, she could no longer get Lee out of her head... or her heart.