Chapter 78: Jensen vs. Almond (1)

[LIVE Almond vs. A squad of stream snipers.jpg]

[LOL Is it the guys who teamed up earlier?]

[Are they the five idiot musketeers?]

[Fucking idiots. They targeted him because of their inferiority complex, but got fucked instead.]

[Five idiot musketeers. Pin this post so they'll be ashamed forever!]

The five-person squad had proudly announced on Battle31 that they would hunt Almond. They thought they would be revered as heroes, but everyone treated them like fools since two of them instantly died.

[We're still not sure what will happen.]

Several similar posts appeared. Not all of them had died yet. Three remained in the Arsenal. It seemed like one of their teammates made that post.

— Yeah, whatever you say stream sniper.

— Are you the youngest out of the five? Get me some water kiddo.

└ HAHA

└ Listen to your seniors!

— What do you mean we're not sure what will happen? Everyone knows except you. LOL

└ I think the other three are in the same boat as well.

└ For real haha

The post claimed anything could happen, but everyone in the comments already knew.

[Recurve Bow]

Their fates had been sealed once Almond called jackpot and collected the bow and arrows.

"Oh? They're running away."

The remaining three musketeers also predicted their fate and ran away. However, leaving the Arsenal wasn’t so simple after entering it.

"M-Move!"

"Who the fuck are these guys?!"

"Argh!"

Instead of Almond, they had to fight the aggressive players at the entrance.

An arrow pierced one player's head as they fought.

Thwack!

[Almond → UrFault]

[Eliminated!]

[83/100]

— One down!

— Now it's the two musketeers.

— Wow!

— How did he perfectly hit with so many heads there?

They quickly hid in the crowd after seeing their teammate die.

"D-Damn!"

Almond simply shrugged, "What are they doing? Do they think I can't hit them if they hide?"

Creak…?

He readied his bow like usual and released.

Thwack!

"Kugh!"

The arrow struck the player that stood in front of the two musketeers.

Almond didn't stop there and continued shooting. The recurve bow allowed for a quicker succession of shots.

Thwack! Thwack!

[Almond → NobelPrize]

[Eliminated!]

[82/100]

An innocent player died, but that didn’t matter.

“I guess it's a win-win.”

He had to kill everyone to win anyways. That’s why he came to the Arsenal in the first place.

— For real.

— You've gotta kill everyone anyways.

— It's like criminals hiding behind a civilian.

— But everyone's a criminal here!

— Just shoot everyone!

Almond shot without a care and killed the players one by one. He didn’t worry about running out of arrows and already cleared the second floor.

"Urgh!"

"Kugh!"

Another person fell every time they hid behind someone. It looked like a scene out of a horror movie.

"There's an archer on the second floor!"

"Kill him first!"

The two musketeers ordered the other players to target Almond, who was attacking them. Surprisingly, it worked.

"Ow!"?

The player struck by Almond's missed shot screamed in pain.

The arrow was supposed to pierce one of the musketeer’s heads, but it pierced the poor player's shoulder instead. Naturally, he directed his anger at Almond.

"Die, motherfucker!"

Swoosh!

He and the other players threw their knives at Almond.

Almond answered the projectiles with his bow.

"Get rid of him first!"

"Damn pest!"

Ten or more players became hostile toward Almond, but he easily dodged their attacks. The knives they threw only scratched the wall behind him.

"K-Kill him!"

"You saw him, right? He's no joke! We've gotta kill him first!"

"Urgh."

This scene baffled everyone and the other players decided to team up against the overwhelming Almond.

— What the, is this considered teaming up as well?

— This one's kinda iffy.

— I guess it’s unfair if the opponent is Almond.

— Wow, playing so dirty!

The enemies whipped out their weapons to throw at him.

Swish.

Countless weapons whistled through the air.

'Should I run?'

Even for Almond, facing around eleven players at once seemed a bit much considering he could only shoot the bow so fast.

'If only it could shoot faster...'

The bow always held him back.

He could activate a consecutive shooting skill in

?Kingdom Age

, but no such mechanic existed in

Battle Large

. It was up to the user if he wanted to pull off something similar here.

— Just run.

— There are too many.

— Yeah, use a grenade or something.

— Maybe if you have a car.

— LOL

The viewers advised him to run, but Almond recalled a video he saw when he was little.

'Should I try that?'

He recalled watching a European man perform stunts with the bow on YouTube.

The title of the video was:

[Archery used back in ancient wars!]

This form of archery looked completely different from modern archery. It wasn't extravagant or complicated, but efficient and powerful. It was the perfect killing technique for wars.

Any man would desire to learn the technique. Sang-Hyeon also tried to learn it, but couldn’t fully master it because his coach kept scolding him about fooling around with arrows.

'I wonder if it'll work now?'

He was using an older recurve bow instead of a modern one. His coach wasn't here to scold him either. Besides, this was a video game. Movements that weren't possible in real life were possible here. And his condition felt perfect.

'I think it's possible in my current state.'?

He tried to recreate it as much as he could from memory. First, he had to hold all the arrows in his right hand. He placed a total of four arrows between his fingers.

'Hold the arrows in the hand that's holding the bow.'

This was the basics of shooting rapidly. For an experienced archer, it was five times quicker like this instead of taking each arrow out from the quiver or holding onto them by the mouth.

Almond didn’t have much experience with this technique, but only confidence could be seen in his eyes because he was a genius when it came to bows.

'It's coming.'

Swoosh!

A dagger flew towards him from below. Three more accompanied it, four in total, which matched the number of arrows in his hand.

Creak…?

Almond drew his bowstring and nocked the first arrow in his right hand.

Click.

Only perfectly nocked arrows could make such a sound. The hard part was over. It was difficult to ready the bow in such an awkward stance, but he accomplished it easier than expected.

Everything else was familiar like the silent release he was proud of.

Pang!

The arrow flew and perfectly struck the knife.

Clank!

The knife fell out of the air.

'Next.'

He quickly knocked the next arrow in his hand and fired.

Pang!

Indeed, this was much faster than taking arrows out one by one from a quiver.

Kang!

He deflected another knife flying toward him in the air and his arrows kept flying out even faster.

'Next.'

Almond readied the next arrow and fired again.

Pang!

The third knife scattered away.

Pang!

The next arrow deflected the fourth knife in mid-air as well. As a result, he successfully deflected all four projectiles.

— W-What the?

— Damn!

— Holy shit!

— How many did he shoot at once?

To the naked eye, it looked like he had shot four arrows simultaneously.

Pabababang!

Four arrows suddenly rang out and deflected all the enemy weapons.

"Again."

Almond held another four arrows in his right hand.

Creak…?

This time, he shot them even faster than before and quickly released after a full draw.

Pang!

An arrow perfectly pierced an enemy's forehead.

Thwack!

"Kugh!"

Before the first enemy collapsed…

Pang!!!

Another arrow flew.

Thwack!

And another enemy died.

Pang!

Pang!!

More arrows fired nearly simultaneously and struck two more enemies in the head.

[Almond → OhMan]

[Eliminated!]

[79/100]

[Almond → diyoe09]

[Eliminated!]

[78/100]

[Almond → loyman2]

[Eliminated!]

[77/100]

[Almond → honeybee3]

[Eliminated!]

[76/100]

"..."

The players on the first floor became dumbfounded. The four knives flying towards Almond had all been deflected and the four players who threw them also died.

'He did all that with a single bow?'

'What is this?'

'Where is this?!'

That would’ve been a difficult play even with a machine gun, but Almond managed to do it with a bow. He just made a superhuman play.

But...

"Oh, not bad."

That was his only reaction.

— LOL Oh...

— Oh...

— Oh oh oh...

— Ooooohh...

— LOL What's wrong with you guys?

— Ooohohohoh…?

— Oh man…

Almond prepared the next four arrows in his hand as the chat busily typed their ohs.

Pabababang!

He instantly fired those arrows and kept getting faster. He was already adapting to this new technique.

"Kugh!"

𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

"Urgh!"

"Oof!"

He readied four more arrows without even checking the kill log and they simultaneously ripped through the air too. Not a single arrow missed its target.

Pababak!

Again, precisely four players collapsed.

— Damn, how many kills is that already?

— 18 kills since the start LOL

— Holy shit!

— This is the Arsenal.

— Wow!

— This is arrow hell!

— This was thanks to the jackpot. He has infinite arrows!

Usually, Almond would need more arrows for this many kills so early. However, he had a surplus right now thanks to the player who ran around collecting arrows for him.

Pabababang!

The noisy Arsenal finally fell silent after he shot the last four arrows.

"It's quiet now, right?"

— How was my assassination?

— The 5 idiot musketeers are out!

— Oh...

— I believed in you... Oh man...

— Go to hell, oh man…?

— Ooohhh…

The place could only be described as unholy after the rain of arrows.

[NutReligion has donated 1000 won.]

[This is... holy. Oh man.]

[LetsPray has donated 5000 won.]

[Let us give to the church.]

[RubySword has donated 10,000 won!]

[It suddenly turned religious here! I thought I was watching a different channel LOL!]

"Thank you, NutReligion and LetsPray. Ruby, you're in the right channel. You gave me a mission earlier, remember?"

— Ruby's so cute

— Playing dumb after giving a mission. LOL

— Hahahaha

— Let him pass, Almond!

[SniperSnipe has donated 1000 won.]

[Hey boss, could you tell the stream snipers from the rest?]

"Ah..."

The question stunned Almond. "I don't know. Which ones were they?"

— LOL

— They died without even having their names known.

— So satisfying.

— I have no idea who they were.

— There are too many bodies.

The five-man squad, who tried so hard, ultimately suffered a pathetic fate. The viewers didn't even remember their usernames.

"

Hm.

Now, do I have to enter here?"

After a brief celebration, Almond looked down the dark basement entrance with an anxious thought. Fully equipped survivors could be waiting down there for him.

— For real...

— Let's just fucking run!

— There's probably a monster down there!

— They might have a power suit on. Then you're fucked for real.

— Just run!

He had a good chance of securing a high rank if he left now. However, he would have an even better chance of winning first place if he killed everyone here.

'I want to win first place.'

Almond wanted first place no matter what.

Just then…

Slam!

A loud noise rang out from the basement.

Slam!

It definitely came from the basement and sounded like a power suit...

— Just run!

— Stfu pussies. Don't you believe in Almond?

As expected, a survivor was down there. Almond scrolled up to check the kill log.

[Jensen → 007jond]

[Jensen → 5padthai]

[Jensen → Doraibong]

[Jensen?→?Simales]

One name kept showing up, Jensen.

"

Ah

, as expected, it seems like the biker from before survived."

That guy tried to run over Almond in the beginning. He seemed to be fully equipped and on his way up judging from the kill log.

The noise gradually grew closer.

Slam!