Genius Archer’s Streaming - Chapter 683

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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 153
51. Indoctrination (3)
On one side of the stadium, near the bench.
Where the Director and coaching staff would normally gather, the think tank teams from each faction had assembled instead.
The contrast between the two teams was quite striking.
The Viking side sat in silence, their eyes alternating between the match and the monitors….
“Waaaaaahhhhh!!”
“Wow, that was perfect!”
“This is it, this is it!”
The Joseon team members were punching the air and roaring with unbridled enthusiasm.
Their display was captured directly by the camera and broadcast on the streaming screen.
Hahahahaha
-Haha
-Oh, so we can see it from here?
Hahaha Chisung haha
-You can tell what’s happening in the match just by looking at their expressions
The Joseon think tank team was generally younger, so their emotional expressions were quite vivid.
Because of this, the broadcast camera kept capturing them.
The moment the camera caught Gob Spear, he would shake his entire body in celebration….
But there was someone who seemed displeased by all this, sitting quietly with her hat pulled down.
A blanket draped across her lap extended so far that she was hidden in shadow—you couldn’t even tell she was sitting in a wheelchair unless you looked carefully.
She kept her gaze fixed solely on the monitor rather than the current situation.
From her expression alone, it was difficult to tell whether they were winning or losing.
It was possible her emotions simply didn’t show easily, or perhaps she herself hadn’t yet made a judgment either way.

* * *
Cookie’s eyes widened as he surveyed the battlefield.
‘It worked…!’
This battle was a decisive victory for Joseon.
That meant the tactics I had prepared had succeeded.
The soldiers had executed them flawlessly.
With a sigh of relief, I dispatched additional soldiers.
Their destination was not the valley.
While the Vikings gathered in the valley, the soldiers would hunt beasts in other regions.
Their targets were the scattered buildings across the land.
[Hunting Outpost]
To increase hunting efficiency, Vikings constructed simple buildings called hunting outposts near hunting grounds. Here they could periodically obtain gold while storing prey.
It was quite a valuable faction building, but it had a weakness.
[Plunder]
The accumulated meat could be stolen outright by enemies.
‘Once plundering begins, they’ll naturally return.’
Of course, the Commander would notice immediately if the meat disappeared.
The Vikings in the valley might come back.
Because of that, the crossbowmen in the valley needed to perform even better.
‘Five minutes. Just five more minutes and victory is certain.’
The success of this plundering operation depended on how long they could hold their ground against the Vikings.
‘I need to make the Vikings hesitate.’
The way to pin down the Vikings was to make them doubt themselves.
If they made a decision and committed all their forces to attack the valley, even the crossbowmen who had memorized the terrain would suffer a crushing defeat.
With greater numbers came too many variables, and they wouldn’t be able to shoot properly.
But the Vikings didn’t know that.
They would believe that all of Joseon’s archers had mastered curve shots.
They had no choice but to believe it.
So they would hesitate.
Even a moment of hesitation would leave the Vikings unable to seize the valley or defend the outposts.
That paralysis in an instant.
That fleeting moment was what I was aiming for.
So I watched the approaching red dots of Vikings and murmured like a prayer.
‘Come on… stop.’

* * *
“Stop!”
Jessi raised her sword as she shouted, approaching the valley.
All the soldiers following behind her came to a halt.
Jessi crouched low, observing the situation ahead.
‘What is this.’
A valley passing through densely overgrown forest.
This place was originally where wild beasts came to drink water, making it a hunting ground of legend.
But now, the hunted were not beasts—they were Vikings.
‘With this much cover…?’
The Vikings, whose archery was underdeveloped, were specialists in evading arrows.
Moreover, nearly every unit carried shields as well, making defense incredibly easy.
For such warriors to be slaughtered by arrows in this terrain was something even the veteran Jessi was experiencing for the first time.
‘What on earth just happened.’
Jessi couldn’t believe what she’d just witnessed.
She held her tongue for now.
But even the soldiers following behind couldn’t keep quiet.
“Did they all just fire curve shots?”
“Is that even possible?”
“No… they have the skill to land every single one like that?”
“Joseon’s archers are famous, but….”
Jessi shook her head.
“That can’t be right.”
Haven’t I watched all of Joseon’s matches until now?
If something like this were possible, similar scenes should have appeared long ago.
Then someone voiced this argument.
“Maybe they simply didn’t need to use curve shots until now?”
Joseon hadn’t needed this technique until now. So they simply hadn’t used it.
“Damn it! If they’re like that, getting close is suicide! They’re insane!”
“No wonder they rivaled Rome.”
“How much training would it take for that many soldiers to….”
The confusion among the Viking soldiers.
It was understandable.
If there were so many soldiers freely firing curve shots, the close-combat focused Vikings couldn’t possibly win.
Especially in this treacherous mountain valley—with curve shots, it becomes the perfect map for archers.
They’ve positioned themselves in the valley now, but imagine if they took position in the harsh terrain and rained curved arrows down.
‘Wait.’
Now that I think about it, why did they position themselves in the valley?
If curve shots are second nature, there should be better positions available.
They even had the right to choose the map.
There had been ample opportunity to practice.
‘There’s something here.’
In the moment something began to crystallize within Jessi’s mind.
Beep!
[Attack]
The order came down again.
The Commander clearly intended to seize that valley.
Apart from the soldiers under Jessi’s command, the other forces began to charge.
“No!”
Jessi signaled upward with her hand.
For now, her soldiers halted their assault.
“What, what is it? Why?”
“Listen—we need to enter simultaneously if we have any chance of winning.”
“Be quiet.”
Jessi sent another signal upward.
‘Will they understand?’
Communication with the Commander was one-sided.
Hand signals were the best she could manage.
The Commander had to understand this complex situation somehow.
‘Even if they don’t understand, we have to find a way to resolve this on our end.’
Even if the Commander failed to grasp her meaning, her own unit had to execute the strategy flawlessly.
She concentrated her focus, quietly observing the current state of battle.
The other Vikings, apart from her unit, were already charging forward under the attack order.
By observing how the Joseon forces responded, the answer might reveal itself.
‘Huh?’
Something strange flickered across Jessi’s eyes as she observed.
It was the moment something vague as smoke suddenly took on a definite form.

* * *
Meanwhile, at the battlefield in the valley.
The archers frantically drew their bowstrings from behind their designated cover positions.
“Second wave incoming! Fire!!”
“Excellent! Excellent!!”
With Pangeo’s cheerful encouragement, they were literally shooting with exhilaration, slaughtering the Vikings.
“Keep going! Keep shooting!”
“One-two! One-two! One-two-three!”
“Right here, men!”
The reason they were so energized was that the Vikings advancing in the second wave were equally helpless against the onslaught.
There weren’t many soldiers carrying shields yet, and even when they held their shields sideways to anticipate curved shots, arrows came flying from different directions.
──Thud!
This was because during training, we had focused on just two directions as reference points.
「If you memorize just these two directions—left and right—for each piece of cover, the opponent cannot respond.」
In other words, the Joseon archers could attack the left and right flanks of every piece of cover visible from their respective positions.
Given this situation, the Vikings tried to hide behind cover and approach as safely as possible.
‘It’s all exactly as we predicted.’
Joseon already knew their movements far too well.
Spreading out without closing in, moving behind trees, behind rocks.
Leaping from cover to cover as they advanced.
Everything the Vikings had learned like a manual.
「The Vikings standardized their anti-ranged strategies by teaching them to each other, raising the entire unit’s level significantly.」
These excellent manuals instead made their movements far too predictable.
「Maneuvers like a manual can raise the unit’s overall level, but when a terrible variable emerges, they cannot adapt.」
That terrible variable would be this very moment—Joseon, holding the map advantage, had brought out a counter-manual to their tactics in this valley.
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
The arrows the archers shot all pierced through the hiding spots of the Vikings, inflicting damage.
The more the Vikings focused on cover,
the more they were taking the shortcut to death.
The very tactic that had led them to victory was now pushing them into the abyss.
Some Vikings understood this, but they couldn’t change it unless the commander made the decision.
They had fought this way all along—suddenly fighting differently wasn’t easy.
「In extreme situations, you can only move the way your training has ingrained in your body. Even if they notice, it’ll be hard to adapt.」
Just as Cookie’s predictions came true one by one, Joseon’s arrows embedded themselves in the Vikings’ flesh.
Thwack!
Thud!
“We’ve killed almost all of them!”
“Just a bit more shooting!”
The Vikings who had already advanced in the second wave were falling pathetically, piling up in heaps.
“They’re collapsing before the arrows even hit them! Hahahaha!”
Joseon was already in a celebratory mood over their victory.
“Here! Here! There are too many! They’re swarming us!”
A scream echoed from the western direction.
The other archers besides Pangeo turned their heads to look in that direction.
“Huh…?”
The Vikings were charging forward in a single line. They weren’t using any cover. Or rather, they were using it but not relying on it.
They simply zigzagged between the trees, passing through without hesitation.
A charge focused purely on speed with only minimal cover.
It was completely different from the Vikings’ movements so far.
Leading them was a woman with flowing red hair, sword drawn as she charged forward.
It was the unit led by Jessi.
Pangeo muttered with displeasure.
“That… that’s pretty dangerous!?”
Arrows were released, but only three archers were assigned to cover the western flank.
Moreover, the enemies weren’t actively using cover.
There was no angle for a curved shot.
But shooting straight ahead meant too few crossbowmen.
If other archers moved over there and fired, the situation might improve.
So Pangeo instinctively shouted.
“Go over there and provide support… huh?”
No, he was about to shout.
‘Huh…?
Pangeo was flustered.
That’s when he realized it.
‘We can’t leave this position, can we?’
They were fighting within the manual as well.
If they left this position, they couldn’t fire curved shots.
「In extreme situations, you can only move the way your training has ingrained in your body.」
This statement applied equally to the Joseon forces.
When irregular entities like that appeared, the manual became worthless paper.
But to deviate from the manual?
If they weren’t careful, this valley would quickly become a graveyard for archers.
The Joseon forces had won so far thanks to the manual based on their positioning.
Pangeo had to make a decision.
Almond was the leader, but that was more of a field commander position.
Pangeo was the one actually giving orders.
The soldiers still trusted and followed Pangeo more.
But his mouth wouldn’t open.
“…”

* * *
At the forefront of the western Vikings, Jessi’s lips curled upward.
‘I had a hunch. It was real.’
She had noticed earlier that they couldn’t break from their positions.
‘They really only practiced from that one spot?’
The Archers’ curved shot technique only manifested from the position she had designated.
That had been Jessi’s hypothesis.
And it was exactly right.
‘These crazy people are actually fun.’
She was well aware that Joseon overcame their combat disadvantage with unusual strategies.
But experiencing it firsthand was astounding.
She shouted back to those following behind.
“Keep pushing forward with speed! The moment we’re in axe-throwing range, throw immediately!”
“Yes!”
A few of Joseon’s Archers fired desperately, but it was futile.
They passed so close to the cover that the curved shots didn’t work, and even when they had a straight line, the Aces at the front easily blocked or deflected the arrows.
Losing confidence, their accuracy became increasingly pathetic.
Anticipating victory, Jessi laughed and charged forward.
“What good is memorization!? They can’t hit anything if it changes even slightly!?”
The Joseon Archers couldn’t break from their positions.
“Charge forward!”
Tap-tap-tap-tap!
All the Vikings stopped evading and charged forward to enter axe-throwing range in an instant.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
The Crossbowmen fired desperately in haste.
But arrows shot hastily in straight lines were far too easy to block with shields.
Clang…! Boom!
But then—
“!”
A familiar figure broke formation alone.
‘What?’
That was it.
That player wasn’t constrained by position at all.
Or perhaps from the start, no fixed position had been assigned.
‘They were prepared for this?’
Jessi realized it.
That player existed precisely to counter this situation.
Creak.
Drawing the bowstring from the front was Almond.
He, who had been on the opposite side, was now drawing his bowstring from the west.
Three arrows were nocked on the string simultaneously.
“Dodge… Get out of the way!”
She herself cried out while throwing her body aside, but it was already too late.
Whoooosh──
Three arrows curved like serpents, rushing toward their respective prey.

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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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