Genius Archer’s Streaming - Chapter 681

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Genius Archer’s Streaming Season 3 Episode 151
51. Indoctrination (1)
Pring!
[Movement]
The order that came down was simple.
Move to that designated area, no matter what.
It was certainly strange that the order came to proceed to that location even in this situation where we had encountered Vikings.
However, none of the Joseon Soldiers hesitated.
Almond was no exception.
Swish, swish, swish…!
He led the way, pushing through the dense undergrowth ahead of everyone.
‘They’re nearby.’
His keen senses made it abundantly clear.
Beyond our twenty, there were more enemies approaching from the surroundings.
Normally Pangeo would have given the signal for this, but this time Almond was the leader.
Almond raised his index finger and rotated it once in a circular motion to signal.
It meant enemies were approaching nearby.
Whoosh.
His finger completed another rotation.
It meant enemies were surrounding them from all sides or at a density close to it.
Because the soldiers were following only Almond’s back through the confusing mountain path filled with undergrowth, they all accepted the signal.
Perhaps that’s why—when Almond spread all his fingers and changed his hand signal, everyone moved nimbly and took up a defensive formation.
The line that had been advancing in a single file spread out into a diamond shape, establishing a four-directional perimeter.
Naturally, the speed was slower than when running in a single line.
But Almond decided to maintain this formation.
This wasn’t his own judgment, but rather a manual that had already been discussed with Cookie.
Moving quickly was important, but keeping all twenty intact was far more crucial.
‘All twenty taking their respective positions near the valley.’
Almond silently reaffirmed the core of this operation and took another step forward.
Swish, swish, swish!
As our pace slowed, the sounds coming from the other side became distinctly audible.
They were rushing toward us madly, showing no mercy to our situation.
‘Run.’
Whoosh.
He swung his hand again, pointing toward the destination.
The formation had been adequately reorganized, so now it was time to run again.
[Mountain Folk]
The faction ability activated, and their speed noticeably increased.
Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap!
The Archers sprinted forward at a speed that seemed impossible for running in the mountains.
However, the Vikings also had a faction that moved faster when advancing toward enemies, and melee soldiers were inherently set to move at greater speeds.
Twang!
The sound of an arrow being loosed echoed from the rear right.
‘Already?’
Thwack!
An arrow shattered an innocent young sapling with a sickening crack.
It hadn’t struck a Viking soldier.
“Hyaaaaaaah!”
“There! Charge forward!”
“Rooooooooh!!!”
Savage war cries erupted from all directions as the Vikings advanced.
‘They’re deliberately making noise.’
They were creating a cacophony to mask their approach.
It was undeniably effective.
Their voices echoed and reverberated, making it impossible to focus on the sound of footsteps.
“Yooooooooooh!!”
As their cries filled my ears, my senses became muddled and disoriented.
The undergrowth obscured my vision, and the echoing sounds made it impossible to hear properly—all I could perceive were the obstructing branches.
I realized something instinctively.
Expecting everyone to survive this might be wishful thinking.
Cookie had indeed prioritized getting many soldiers to the destination over arriving quickly myself.
But the absolute priority was reaching that location in the first place.
If we continued like this, we’d be completely surrounded and unable to arrive at all.
‘Run.’
I gestured to the rear ranks and began accelerating our pace.
The diamond formation that had been maintaining defensive positions began stretching longer.
The diamond stretched further and further until it became a single file line.
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!
The forest filled with the thundering footsteps—whether from Joseon soldiers or Vikings, it was impossible to tell.
The Joseon soldiers simply ran forward, seeing only dark earth and green vegetation.
But then—
Whoosh!
Suddenly, Vikings burst forth from the undergrowth all around us.
──Crunch!
A Joseon soldier was cleaved by an axe.
Like a child struck by a car, the soldier flew backward through the air.
“Damn it!”
“One of ours is down!”
“Fire!”
The other Joseon soldiers nocked their arrows and returned fire.
Pwoosh! Bang!
Yet it proved ineffective. They paid no mind to their bodies, merely shielding their heads behind their shields.
Thud!
Crack…!
Only dull impact sounds echoed out, and the Vikings remained unscathed, their shields alone bristling like hedgehogs with spikes.
“Stop shooting!”
Danggeun’s voice rang out.
“If we keep shooting, we’ll fall behind! We can’t win like this anyway! Just charge!”
She was right.
We had to charge.
“Run for your lives and we’ll be faster!”
Counterattacks usually work because archers are slower than close-range soldiers.
But not here. Joseon Soldiers move far faster than other soldiers in mountainous terrain.
So we had to charge.
The high ground wasn’t far.
The counterattack would begin from there.

* * *
“You’re really going to choose this map?”
During the map selection meeting, Chiseung asked with the most bewilderment.
“Yes.”
The map Hee-cheol had chosen lacked persuasiveness even at first glance from Sync Tank’s perspective.
It was good for blocking the Vikings’ early rushes, but archery was difficult to execute and cavalry couldn’t be utilized effectively.
“Wouldn’t the Ancient Walls be better?”
With the Ancient Walls, the walls themselves would be provided as a base to protect territory, and there were no particularly bad elements for using archers.
“No. You can’t defeat the Vikings by simply barricading your base. Countless civilizations have tried that throughout history. But how many times has it actually worked?”
At Cookie’s words, Chiseung could only shake his head.
Now that he thought about it, that was true.
‘Right… of course all civilizations know such basic theory. Yet the Vikings still made it to first place in their group.’
If simply blocking early base penetration made it easier to deal with the Vikings, the Vikings wouldn’t be facing Joseon in the main tournament right now.
“This Viking team is very skilled at squeezing opponents who try to lock down the early game. Especially through food control.”
Not all Vikings play the same.
Depending on how a person played, their playstyle could be completely different.
“The moment the enemy shows signs of trying to lock down the early game, this Viking team immediately moves into full-map food control and rolls that snowball very quickly.”
“…I see.”
This Viking team had demonstrated exceptional skill in controlling food resources, the core of Viking civilization.
In the preliminaries, there were even matches where the enemy didn’t secure a single hunting ground.
“Especially since the Ancient Walls are desert terrain with scarce food. For the Vikings, it’s easier to control.”
“Ah.”
That was it.
If the Viking faction begins controlling food supplies based on their early-game strength at the ancient fortress, Joseon—already lacking hunting grounds—might end up with absolutely nothing to eat.
That’s when I finally understood.
“Ah. So that’s why we’re here?!”
A treacherous mountain valley.
Being a mountainous terrain, this map was densely populated with mountain beasts.
It was a map abundant with food sources.
So even if the Vikings tried to monopolize food resources, it wouldn’t be easy for them.
The early game would be difficult to invade, and food would be hard to control.
This is actually quite significant.
Chiseung’s thoughts were interrupted when he quickly spotted a critical flaw.
“Wait, but that still means we’d only be eating scraps that the Vikings leave behind…”
No matter how many mountain beasts populated the map, the Vikings would still end up taking far more.
“And it’s difficult to establish farmland on this mountainous terrain either.”
Farming in mountainous terrain costs more resources. In the early game, the costs would outweigh the benefits.
“Hmm. We won’t farm. We’ll hunt just like them.”
“But what if we run into the Vikings? Our archers can’t be effective in terrain like this…”
This map’s other greatest disadvantage.
The dense trees rendered archers completely useless.
For Joseon, where the bow was the ultimate weapon, this was a fatal weakness.
“We’ll use archers.”
“…?”
Yet Cookie said he would use archers.
How on earth?
“Skill.”
“Skill?”
“The Vikings too. They offset their civilization’s disadvantages through the skill of squeezing out opponents who block them early on.”
“…So, you mean we improve our abilities?”
No. By that logic, the Korean national team could win the World Cup too, couldn’t they?
Just improve your soccer skills, right?
Of course, what Cookie meant wasn’t such vague skill improvement.
He meant they would learn something that could truly be called a ‘technique.’
“Ah. I suppose that’s the result, but I’m talking about a specific technique. Chiseung.”
After that, Cookie showed the Sync Tank members a certain scene.
The screen displayed Almond.
It was a scene of him capturing Tres while mounted on a horse.
“…!”
Everyone in the Sync Tank was astonished.
The scene of Almond capturing Tres was already a familiar one, having circulated so much on the internet by now.
‘You want us to learn that?’
The technique used in that scene.
I was shocked by Cookie’s claim that he would master that technique.
“Curve shot. With this, I can hit arrows even if there are obstacles.”
Even in Persia, where this technique originated, there were few soldiers who could wield it freely.
Joseon’s situation was even worse.
Almond was the only one who knew how to do it.
So this question was inevitable.
“How on earth?”
“There’s a way.”
Then, Cookie pointed to somewhere on the map as if he’d been waiting for this moment.
A valley.
‘A valley…?’
A valley running through the middle of a dense forest.
What was the point of this place?
The next moment, Chiseung’s eyes widened at what Cookie said.
“!”
He now understood clearly why this map had to be chosen.

* * *
Shortly after, in a dense forest with a valley flowing through it.
The archers gathered in small groups.
They were all looking at one place.
It was Almond.
“Here.”
Almond pointed to somewhere on his bow and spoke.
About one-third of the way along the bowstring.
“If you don’t nock it at the center of the bowstring, but instead throw off the balance…”
Whoosh.
The arrow he shot lightly curved smoothly around the tree in front and struck the target behind it with perfect accuracy.
“That’s it. The method is simple, really.”
Almond shrugged and finished his demonstration.
Clap clap clap.
The archers sitting in front of him applauded and each dropped a comment.
“Wow.”
“Insane.”
“W-well, the method itself is simple? Haha…”
As he said, the method itself wasn’t difficult. Borrowing Danggeun’s analogy, this was like a computer.
Binary calculation using 0s and 1s that computers use is simple and primitive in method.
But no human calculates faster than a computer.
There is no human who can apply that simple thing to any situation and process it infinitely fast.
The curve shot is the same.
The problem wasn’t how to shoot—it was how accurately I could gauge the feel of hitting my opponent with this technique.
“But how are we supposed to master this well enough to use it in actual combat before the finals? That seems impossible…”
The Archers could only look bewildered.
But Cookie had a special plan.
“Memorize it.”
He gave the order simply.
“Each of you take your positions and memorize the curved shots suited to the cover you can shoot from at these locations.”
His solution was memorized curve shots.
To use curve shots in any situation would require extensive training.
But within specific situations, it’s different.
It’s like a math problem. If you memorize a specific formula, you can solve that particular problem very quickly.
But if you change the problem even slightly, you can’t solve it anymore.
So if the terrain changes, it becomes useless.
Civil M’s maps maintain their concept, but the terrain details always change.
However—
“It’s not widely known, but some of Civil M’s maps have areas that don’t change in order to maintain their concept.”
“!”
That’s when everyone realized it.
Despite several practice sessions, this area had never changed even once.
“That’s precisely here—the valley flowing through the treacherous mountain gorge.”

* * *
“Huff… huff… we made it!”
After running until they were breathless, the Joseon Soldiers finally reached the valley.
That valley they’d grown so tired of seeing.
Almond gestured and shouted.
“Everyone to your positions!!”
With these words, several beams of light cascaded down from the sky in succession.
Ping!
Ping!
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
.
.
.
Numbers began to be assigned to specific positions around the valley.
An unusually detailed battle order.
It meant this battle was that important.
“Take your positions!”
The Archers echoed the command and moved to their designated spots.
Once in position, the Joseon Archers drew their bowstrings taut toward the Vikings.
Screech!
The Vikings, seeing the bows, advanced while taking cover behind obstacles.
“Hold…!”
A soft white light bloomed slowly from the taut arrows.
[Concentration]
Then, light fell from the sky once more.
Whiiiiine…!
The light began drawing a long line across the ground. It curved. The curve soon closed into a circle, and it repeated in alternating sizes.
Before long, concentric circular rings like targets were being drawn layer upon layer.
As if each soldier had created ripples in a still lake.
The purpose of these circles became clear immediately.
Because that’s when the Joseon Archers released their bowstrings.
“Loose!!”
Whoooosh!
Countless arrows blazing white streaked through the air, each carving its own path.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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