In the afternoon after lunch at the campsite, Zarba could be seen stretching his shoulders before he picked up the Alright bow that one of the Zar-Bros offered to him. The sun is quite strong in the afternoon as he notched an arrow, his gaze fixed on another Zar-Bro standing in the distance around ten meters away from the camp.
Zarba nodded his head as he signaled at his summon, who will serve as a living practice target before the Zar-Bro begins to move with unpredictable bursts—zigzagging, barrel rolling, stopping randomly, even dancing—as Zarba's arrows fly at the Zar-Bro body, sometimes hitting and sometimes missing. It would have looked quite cruel if someone saw this scene and didn't know that the living target, Zar-Bro, was just a construct that has no emotion or feeling.
"Next!" Zarba commanded, his grip loosened on the bow as the target Zar-Bro finally expired, turning into shimmering particles after the arrow punctured the summoned unit's brain through the mask eye slit.
Hearing his command, another Zar-Bro walked out from the camp and took the previous target's place before he started to move acrobatically to make it even more challenging for Zarba to hit him.
Zarba then resumed his archery practice with a focused expression as he released another arrow; this time the new Zar-Bro twisted mid-air while jumping to dodge as the arrow grazed its armor before embedding itself in mossy earth in the distance.
'Using a live target, huh? What a "noble way" of practice…' Nadia thought as she watched Zarba training from her spot at the picnic blanket in front of the bonfire, her fingers absentmindedly wiping the sharp edge of her greatsword that was lying on her lap with a piece of cloth.
This is really an eye-opener to Nadia, as she has never seen such an extravagant way of archery practice before. She had heard of the rumors about the empire nobles' cruelty before, that they might actually be doing something like this to their slaves in private, but she just dismissed them as wild rumors then, and now seeing Zarba shooting his summoned constructs, Nadia realized that humans might actually be capable of that level of cruelty after all.
The Zar-Bro dodged sideways as Zarba's arrow flew past his ear while he quickly put his forearm in front of his face to block another arrow that bounced off the gauntlet. Zarba hums with satisfaction, seeing that the Zar-Bro is giving him more challenge as Zarba draws another arrow from the quiver. He feels that this training is better than normal practice on the stationary target, as he can feel himself actually improving his archery skill after so long.
"Oh my, such a creative use of your summon, my husband…" Xin murmured as she lay lazily sideways on the soft lap of one of the summoned maids, who was also fanning her with a feather fan not far away from Nadia, while Xin took a quick glance up from the grimoire in her hands at Zarba's archery training with his summons.
Next to the half-elf there's also another maid who is currently holding a large umbrella for them, and if anyone ever sees them, they will never think that this half-elf is actually a slave since she is living like a noble lady on a picnic.
Xin is now pretty much enlightened about what Zarba means by their quality of life will improve with these professional maid units around after she tried commanding them to do things for her, and the result is that she might not even be able to go back and live without them anymore...
"Mmh?" While they were watching Zarba training, footsteps sounded behind Nadia, and before she could turn, a white hand and fingers holding a teacup came in front of her from the side. Nadia turns her face and sees the summoned maid kneeling beside her there, holding a steaming teacup towards her and a silver tray in the other hand that is placed on top of her thighs.
"Ughh… tea..." Nadia wants to refuse by instinct since she doesn't like tea but chooses to accept the cup obediently, as she doesn't like to waste things, especially since the tea is already made for her. The tea smelled quite nice as she sipped it comically with two hands while the warmth spread through her chest. Nadia wonders why some people like it so much as she returns the cup to the maid.
At the same time Zarba loosed his arrow again, and this arrow caught the Zar-Bro's neck, splintering shimmering dust that blew out instead of blood. The summoned unit stumbled slightly, its movements growing sluggish. Zarba predicted the Zar-Bro movement before he quickly unleashed another one-two combo, which killed the summoned unit with the second arrow to the skull.
"Alright, enough," Zarba commanded softly as another Zar-Bro that was about to go replace the expired one froze mid-step before he stepped back into the group that was guarding the camp. Zarba lowered his bow, satisfaction on his face. He feels like he should be able to reach the master level in archery if he keeps this up for a year or two.
"Accuracy needs a little work," he mused, running a thumb over the bowstring before giving the bow back to its owner. "But speed? Perfect."
Then, like, it's on cue; the maid that has been on standby for a while now walks towards him with a clean towel as Zarba grabs it from her and wipes his sweaty forehead. Zarba then returned the towel to the summoned maid before he commanded her to bring him some wine as he walked to his two slaves with a smile.
'It's too bad that I can't stop for training as much as I want to currently…,' Zarba thought, as when they arrive at the Dewendy, they will be pretty busy with purchasing the lands and construction of their new residence, so he will probably not be able to relax and take his time to train his combat skills for months. Zarba almost wants to sigh as he takes a seat between his two slaves under the umbrella.
A couple of minutes later the summoned maid brought him the wine glass he commanded her to bring along with a teacup for Xin and Nadia. Xin then got up from the maid's lap and gracefully accepted her tea, while Nadia reluctantly took her teacup with her hands wrapped around the warm porcelain cup with pursed lips. She looked like she wanted to exchange Zarba's wine for the teacup in her hands as she glanced at the man beside her but was too prideful to ask him.
Zarba stretched a little as the afternoon sun was no longer burning his skin anymore under the umbrella shade before he took a sip from the wine glass while Xin crawled next to him, and then she also took a sip from her cup in harmony with him.
"We'll resume travel at night. For now..." His gaze drifted to Nadia, who stiffened under his intense gaze, as she could feel the lust in those brown eyes. The grip on her teacup was tight as she glared back at him. Zarba smirks back and continues to speak. "Enjoy the rest. We've a long night ahead."
Seeing Zarba teasing the muscular woman, Xin giggled with amusement as she traced a finger along Zarba's thigh. She can't wait to see her husband playing with their new slave again tonight.
"Of course, my husband. Though I wonder…" Her eyes slid meaningfully toward Nadia's exposed brown skin, lingering on a fading bruise around the muscular woman's exposed skin, to be specific. "Shouldn't we ensure our newest asset is... properly marked with something more permanent?"
Nadia's knuckles whitened around her cup, as she doesn't like what she is hearing from the half-elf, but she feels a little relief and embarrassment as Zarba shakes his head in denial and says, "No need for that; I like her as she is now."
"My, my, you try to charm her now~?" Xin is hiding her smirk with her hand as she leans her head on Zarba's shoulder and sends a teasing look at the muscular woman, while Nadia just harrumphs as she turns her face away from the two of them. Zarba chuckled at Nadia before drinking the wine from the glass.
Before they could continue their teasing, a faint sound of clothes fluttering against the wind from somewhere suddenly caught all of their attention. Then one of the Zar-Bros standing guard saw something and pointed towards the sky as he slapped his chest to alert Zarba of something approaching.
Zarba quickly stood up along with the two women after he put down the wine glass, his eyes narrowing at where the Zar-Bro was pointing, as in the clear blue sky there's a silhouette of something flying towards them with a strange shape that made it hard to understand what it actually was.
He turned towards Xin as she understood his intention instantly and began casting a clairvoyance spell to see what it is in the sky. Then, when the spell was complete, as the magic circle materialized, what greeted them was not something that any of them expected since the image that the magic circle showed them was a woman riding a broom in the sky with travel luggage with her, who also noticed them somehow and began awkwardly waving her hand in greeting…