Shirou's match with Sara ended, and the adventurers present were all stunned.
They carefully checked the targets hit by Shirou and Sara, and found no possibility of cheating or using other tricks.
Shirou truly relied purely on archery to repeatedly hit the same spot.
This accuracy was less like exaggeration and more like a monster; it was a level humans couldn't achieve.
"Is this, is this really possible? How did he do it?"
Suzanne looked at Shirou with a shocked expression, showing suspicion.
She couldn't imagine someone taking archery to such an extreme, and she couldn't understand why Shirou could hit the target so accurately in such deep darkness.
"Because I don't rely on my eyes to shoot."
Shirou replied quietly, "When I shoot, I don't look directly at the object I'm shooting at. Instead, I imagine it in my mind. After I imagine the arrow hitting the target, my body naturally moves. This method has limited use against moving objects, but if it's a stationary target, I can hit it countless times, even with my eyes closed."
"Rely on imagination to shoot arrows?"
Suzanne and many adventurers didn't understand Shirou's words.
This is normal. For ordinary adventurers with limited talent, if they want to kill an opponent, they must observe the opponent's appearance, make corresponding judgments in their minds, and then attack accordingly.
For adventurers who have grown up in real combat, imagination is a superfluous and meaningless action.
But this is the foundation of Shirou's archery.
He uses imagination to become one with the arrow, like the unity of sword and man in swordsmanship, erasing his own will and becoming a pure arrow.
Most people can't do this, just as Shirou can't reach the level of a sword god in swordsmanship, others can't achieve the same level as him in archery.
This is the so-called gap in talent.
It's something invisible and intangible, but it creates real barriers, blocking every challenger who desires to climb to the top of a certain path.
Suzanne and Captain Timothy, as adventurers themselves, understand this to some extent.
In the past, they had also seen some geniuses whose talents far exceeded their own, people they couldn't understand with ordinary thinking.
They just didn't expect Shirou to be one of them.
They then quickly looked at Sara, their faces showing concern.
Because although they had experienced a long life and understood the so-called gap in talent, knowing that inequality is a root part of human beings, it was obviously too cruel for a young person like Sara to witness such a huge difference in talent.
Sara's reaction was indeed as they expected.
The blonde girl had been staring blankly at the arrows split in half from the middle, her eyes like she had lost her soul, staring straight ahead.
Suzanne and Timothy couldn't help but look at each other, both showing expressions not knowing what to say.
They then looked at Shirou, as if saying they could only rely on him to comfort her.
They knew that they, as average people, couldn't comfort Sara. No matter how much they explained the big picture, they couldn't make her instantly understand the true meaning of the so-called gap in talent.
Only Shirou, only letting him, as a genius, explain it himself, could possibly make Sara face reality.
"..."
Shirou did not refuse such a difficult task.
Because he knew that this was a mess he had created, and he had to clean it up himself.
"Well, Sara, you don't need to be discouraged."
Shirou hesitated, deciding to try to appease her first, "Your archery is already very good, if you can improve the details and increase the accuracy..."
"Don't talk to me!"
Before Shirou could finish speaking, Sara had an angry expression, even with tears in her eyes, and then turned and left the scene.
The scene fell into silence.
Everyone was at a loss.
Suzanne showed a bitter attitude, not expecting that her good intentions would lead to such a helpless result.
She finally understood why Shirou pursued so many skills, because his talent was too exaggerated, far exceeding the realm of ordinary people, so he wasn't limited to one path.
Although Suzanne's idea was wrong, that Shirou was not a genius but an ordinary person, she had reached the conclusion that Shirou wanted her to reach.
So everyone went back to the campfire, chatted casually, and then broke up unhappily with sorrow.
The next day, Suzanne found Shirou again, but Sara didn't appear.
Suzanne said that since last night, Sara hadn't come out of the carriage, and had been silently staying in the carriage, not saying anything.
Shirou couldn't help but apologize, saying, "It's my fault, I shouldn't have shown off that kind of skill for the sake of being competitive."
"No, it's not your fault. If I hadn't forced you to spar, that kind of thing wouldn't have happened."
Suzanne's tone was complicated, "Although I realized that I underestimated you when I saw your magic, I didn't expect Shirou to have such exaggerated skills, far beyond what average people like me can understand. Don't take what I said before to heart."
"Yeah, I know."
Shirou knew that Suzanne meant well when she wanted him to study one path, but she had just misjudged Shirou's strength.
Suzanne scratched her cheek, looking a little embarrassed.
She wanted to chat with Shirou more, especially because she was curious why Shirou, who was so talented, still pursued more skills.
As an adventurer, she had seen many powerful individuals and talented young people, but most people didn't have Shirou's twisted obsession with strength.
Generally, once you master a skill to its peak, you can often rely on that one skill for the rest of your life.
Shirou clearly had intermediate magic and godlike archery, but he was still trying to master other skills and martial arts, making it hard to imagine what kind of belief he had.
Of course, more than Shirou, she now regretted it more.
If she hadn't forced Shirou to show his skills, she probably wouldn't have stimulated Sara.
Thinking of Sara, she felt mixed emotions, because she had seen too many average people who gave up on themselves after being crushed by geniuses.
Even if Sara's character was strong enough, she might not be able to withstand the huge gap like a wall.
Suzanne instinctively sighed.
On the other side, seeing Suzanne so distressed, Shirou realized that he might have to find a way to help her, that is, solve Sara's problem.
If it were an average genius, they might not be able to solve the problem, because they couldn't understand the pain of average people.
But fortunately, Shirou wasn't a genius and was just a normal person.
So he could completely understand Sara, and he also knew exactly what Sara needed now.
...
Sara sat in the carriage, staring blankly at the snow falling in the air.
She had accepted what happened last night to some extent.
But accepting didn't mean letting go, especially for Sara. She couldn't accept the fact that she lost to Shirou.
When she first met Shirou, she hated him because she heard his last name - Greyrat.
In the Asura Kingdom, Greyrat wasn't an uncommon surname because that was the surname of the nobles. Although Shirou wasn't dressed like a noble and his clothes were very simple, the fact that he could appear alone in the northern part of this continent was enough to show that he was rich. If it were an average person like Sara, they wouldn't be able to move an inch in this world without joining an adventure party.
So she assumed that Shirou was a noble who might just be dreaming of being an adventurer, so he traveled alone.
This could be seen from the fact that Shirou carried so many different weapons and didn't seem to have received any systematic training - which was very much like a noble son who bought a lot of weapons in a hurry after reading too many adventurer stories and ran out to adventure.
Sara hated nobles because when her family was hit by monster disasters in the Asura Kingdom, the Notos Greyrat noble family, as the lord, didn't provide any help or even compensation. They were the kind of people whose conscience had been completely eaten by dogs.
She didn't want to have anything to do with Shirou, that annoying noble son.
But unexpectedly, Suzanne cared so much about Shirou, even trying to persuade him all day long, trying to get him to take the right path.
Those guys from noble families should just be left to fend for themselves.
Sara had such thoughts.
So, when Suzanne proposed a match, Sara undoubtedly wanted to completely defeat him and make him realize the difference.
When Shirou showed his talent for magic, Sara didn't think highly of him, but became even more hostile towards him.
Because it was natural for nobles to use magic.
Nobles received education from a young age. Reading, writing, and arithmetic go without saying, and they could also go to school to receive higher education. The threshold for learning magic, which was difficult for ordinary people, didn't exist for nobles.
This made Sara even more sure that Shirou was a noble who had run away from home after reading too many adventure stories.
Born into a wealthy family, receiving education without any worries, and being able to have a fulfilling life just by daydreaming.
Sara undoubtedly found it difficult to accept that such a guy wanted to become an adventurer.
Even if she took a hundred steps back and said wanting to become an adventurer was forgivable, they weren't mentally prepared to live as adventurers, nor were they prepared to lose their lives.
They would run away when they encountered monsters and got injured or when their companions were in danger, because they had a place to run back to. They never thought about that in this world, there were people who had nowhere to escape and had to make a living by working as adventurers. They never thought about what would happen to those people who were injured as a result of entertaining the whims of others, being forced to end their adventure journey.
Sara thought Shirou was that kind of person.
Moreover, Shirou not only came to be an adventurer, but also brought so many different kinds of weapons, completely not taking the difficulty of the adventurer profession seriously, like a child playing a game.
So she planned to use her most proud archery to make Shirou understand that you should never use your hobbies to challenge other people's means of making a living.
She was fighting for her life and had become an adventurer for the same. She didn't pick up a bow and arrow and hunt monsters with a playful attitude.
Sara originally thought so, but she never expected that the result of the match would be her complete defeat.
Honestly, the moment Shirou drew his bow, Sara, as an experienced archer, realized the problem. His movements were extremely skillful and standard. He was definitely not a novice, but might have exaggerated skill.
Of course, Sara didn't think too much at that time, and didn't think that Shirou's archery could completely suppress her, or even make Sara feel there was a talent gap.
Shirou was a true genius in the field of archery.
Moreover, he didn't just have talent, but had also put in more exaggerated efforts than she imagined.
The result was that kind of godlike and completely unconventional archery.
Yes, Sara didn't deny Shirou's power. She acknowledged that Shirou's level in archery was beyond anything she could reach.
But it was precisely because of this that she was so out of control.
What people fear is not high mountains and long rivers, because no matter how high the mountains or how long the rivers, as long as you put in enough effort, you will eventually be able to reach them one day.
What truly causes a person to be afraid and destroys a person is the sky.
Only the sky is so strange, appearing as though it is reachable, yet in reality, is unreachable for humans.
Shirou's archery gave Sara such an impression, making her truly realize what despair is.
But this shouldn't be.
A nobleman whom she hated most had archery skills that she could never reach in her life. What a cruel fate this was for Sara.
She was even so angry that she wanted to kill Shirou.
Only in this way was it possible to save her inner feelings.
But this was impossible, and Sara was not the kind of person who would kill people.
"Something must be wrong... It shouldn't be like this..."
Sara couldn't accept Shirou. She couldn't accept the fact that a hateful nobleman had completely surpassed her.
Of course, what she couldn't accept even more was herself, being so jealous that she had completely lost her peace of mind.
In Sara's heart, a large amount of negative energy continued to engulf her, leaving only unwillingness, anger, and despair, with nowhere to vent.
---
Read 55+ advanced chapters on patreon.com/yeyeqiu