Chapter 440: Archery Training: The Basics for Three Archers

Jier stood to one side, arms crossed, watching the three archers prepare to shoot.

At the very first glance, he rolled his eyes in discomfort.

"Stop, stop, stop!"

Jier waved his hand to call a halt to the three of them, pointing directly at their respective quivers as he said: "Haven't you realized that the three of you have different ideas about how to use a quiver?"

The three archers looked at each other, only then discovering that the three of them actually had three different ways of hanging their quivers.

One person carried it on their back, one hung it horizontally on the belt behind their waist, and another had it strapped to their right thigh.

The three of them were somewhat confused: "Knight Jier, is there something wrong with this?"

Jier was speechless, so he said to the first archer: "You carry the quiver on your back; can you tell me if there is a specific reason for that?"

This young man scratched his head with his finger and explained embarrassedly: "Knight Jier, I used to hunt back in my own village, and that was how the hunters in the village taught me to carry the quiver."

Jier patted his own back: "It's not that you can't carry a quiver like this, but there is a reason for it. Simply imitating without specifically seeking to understand the reason behind it will only lead you down the wrong path. You must understand that the main reason for carrying the quiver on your back like this is to prevent it from getting caught on branches in dense forests, which would cause obstacles during movement or pursuit."

Jier then asked: "If I'm not mistaken, there should be continuous forests near your hometown, right? You and the hunter who taught you archery usually hunted in lush, dense forests?"

The young man looked surprised: "That's right, how did you know?"

"Just as I said before, carrying the quiver on your back is a habit only hunters who hunt in dense forests have." Jier shrugged: "But the problem is, there is no need to keep this habit in the current team. You won't be fighting alone later; more often, you will be applying pressure to the enemy during battle, using arrows to cover teammates, and using bows to pursue fleeing enemies."

Jier patted his own right hip: "You can hang the quiver here. Since you are all right-handed, it is more convenient to draw arrows this way, and shooting is faster."

Afterwards, Jier asked the second archer: "What about you? Why do you hang the quiver horizontally behind your waist? Don't you think it's very inconvenient to draw arrows this way? And your quiver isn't hanging vertically, it's even somewhat flat. Hanging it like this, won't your arrows fall out during mobile combat?"

The second archer was incredibly awkward. He hurriedly unhooked one of the straps from the quiver on his back and re-hung the entire quiver on his right waist. After finishing, he explained to Jier: "It's like this, Knight Jier."

"I saw the soldiers stationed at Baishi Pass before, and they all hung their personal weapons behind their waists like that. I thought the quiver could be done the same way."

Jier nodded: "I understand. You've never used a bow before, right? So you observed the behavior of the soldiers at the pass. Did you learn your archery in the Refugee Team?"

"Yes, my lord. When I signed up for the Armed Squad and they were distributing captured weapons, they gave me a captured bow. Although I didn't know how to use it, I didn't find it very difficult once I actually started learning, and I could hit the enemy."

Jier took a deep breath. Good grief, if a warrior with absolutely no experience in using a bow could keep mixing in the Armed Squad, it seemed he had underestimated the chaotic and unprofessional nature of the Refugee Team. In the Refugee Team, many things were in a state of barely making do; they looked stable and normal on the surface, but in reality, everything behind the scenes was full of makeshift and crude arrangements.

The shields before were like that, and the archers now were too.

"That's fine. You work hard in the future; if an archer's technique is superb, they can be very powerful. When we arrived at Tuolituo Village before, you should have seen the three brothers who used Large Bows, right? They were very powerful. After they accidentally entered Huitou Shulin a few years ago and were detained by the Dwarf, even the Dwarf had to value their archery skills. It's a pity that those three brothers, like that Herbalist, were forcibly detained by the Dwarf. We can take them on the road north to Yemei Town, but as for heading south to rescue the villagers of Changmai Village, most of these people have no interest."

Speaking of this, Jier shook his head, stopped worrying about it, and turned to the third archer: "What about you? Why are you hanging the quiver in such a strange way?"

The third archer had already re-hung his quiver on his right waist and was scratching his head as he answered Knight Jier's question: "It's quite convenient this way, my lord."

"How is this convenient?" Jier complained helplessly.

"Try running and shooting arrows at the same time. Yes, just aim at the training dummy not far away." Jier pointed at the dummy, making the archer demonstrate on the spot to let him see exactly where it was convenient to have the quiver strapped to the thigh.

The archer was quite embarrassed because he seemed to have discovered that strapping his quiver to his thigh was a completely stupid idea. But since Knight Jier asked him to demonstrate, he couldn't say no, so he strapped the quiver back to his thigh, started a light jog, and attempted to shoot at the wooden dummy not far away.

But he tried to draw an arrow twice and failed to pull the wobbling arrows out of the quiver on his constantly swinging thigh.

He had to stop and say to Jier: "Knight Jier, I used to shoot while standing still; I don't know how to shoot at moving targets."

Jier waved his hand: "But what I want to say is that hanging the quiver on the waist of your dominant hand and letting it swing with your body is a method that is not only convenient for standing shots, but also for Mobile Shooting, which you don't know how to do."

At this moment, the first archer spoke up: "Knight Jier, I know how to do Mobile Shooting! When chasing fleeing animals in the forest, shooting while running is a necessary skill!"

Finally, there was an archer who put Jier at ease. Jier looked at the young man gratefully: "Very good. It's good that someone has the corresponding foundation. Later, when there's nothing to do on the road, you can exchange archery techniques among yourselves in private."

Afterwards, Jier said to the three archers who had re-formed their line: "I just corrected your quiver hanging, so now, before we start formal training, I need to understand where else you have informal, inappropriate, or non-standard areas."

"Using a bow formally and correctly won't necessarily improve your archery skills by much, but it will prevent you from having any oversights. It can raise the lower limit of your archery! Just like the use of a Shield, archery also has basic techniques."

Jier clapped his hands: "First, you will each shoot at the dummy, let me see how your marksmanship is."

So the first young archer, who had been a hunter before, demonstrated first.

He stood still, gripped the Short Bow in his hand, and his right hand drew an arrow from his waist, nocking it onto the bowstring unhurriedly. Then, his right hand pulled the bowstring to a half-draw, and he released the bowstring from his thumb, the arrow flying out rapidly.

Whoosh—thwack!

Because the distance was not far, only about ten meters, even at night, he could hit the dummy with the illumination of the campfire.

"Knight Jier, I hit it," the archer reported.

Jier took a look and found that the dummy's abdomen had been hit by an arrow, so he said: "One more arrow, this time move faster."

Hearing Jier ask him to move faster, the young archer was not timid. He drew an arrow and pulled the bow in one go. While his left arm pushed the bow body away, his right hand caught the arrow and simultaneously pulled the bowstring. This way of working with both hands was the foundation of Mobile Shooting.

When used in standing shooting, it allows for rapid fire, but accuracy cannot be guaranteed.

It was just that this young archer had already shot one arrow, and feeling he had found his rhythm, he maintained good accuracy even with this rapid fire.

Whoosh—thwack!

This time the result was even better; the arrow hit the chest of the dummy. For an ordinary Human enemy, if there was no armor protection or timely treatment, this would be a fatal wound.

Jier clapped his hands without hesitation, clapping and clapping to encourage the archer's technique.

"Very good, very good. Your foundation is good. For fixed shooting, as long as you get used to drawing arrows from the quiver at your waist, it will be perfect. Next."

Following Jier's words, the second archer scratched his head, rubbed his hands, and stood out. He looked a bit nervous, constantly lowering and raising his head to judge the distance between himself and the dummy.

Seeing this, Jier shook his head: "This distance is very close; there is no need to repeatedly judge the distance. The more you judge distance, force, and such, the more you will miss."

Seemingly encouraged by Jier's words, the archer raised the bow, drew an arrow, and nocked it, doing every step as standard and slowly as possible. Jier didn't urge him again and just let him take his time.

Taking a deep breath, the archer straightened his left arm, gripped the bow arm firmly with his palm, hooked the notch at the end of the arrow onto the bowstring with his right hand, and then pulled the bowstring back with his thumb.

Even from two meters away, Jier could feel the archer's nervousness. He wanted to say a few words to tell him not to be so nervous; after all, this was just training, and the results didn't determine anything. As for poor results, Jier couldn't possibly return to Huitou Shulin to replace him with a new archer, could he?

Jier believed there were better archers in the Armed Squad, but having the courage to take the initiative to follow him and risk saving the villagers of Changmai Village was not something everyone had. Didn't he see that out of the hundred-plus people in the Armed Squad, only about twenty were willing to sign up?

More people, the other warriors and archers in the Armed Squad, would rather stay in 【New Hope Town】, which was still a camp at the time, as ordinary civilians than join the team to take risks.

Whoosh—

There was no sound of an arrow hitting the dummy; the arrow seemed to have missed the dummy, flew past it, and stuck into the grass not far away.

Jier clearly saw the archer's face turn pale. He hurriedly comforted the other party: "It's okay, try again. Not everyone has the experience of a hunter, and with little experience in archery practice, it's normal to miss. When I was practicing archery, I didn't give the old hunter who taught me a headache."

The truth was, it didn't take Jier long to master the signature skills of the old hunters, leaving the young hunters who had been practicing for several years far behind.

Hearing Knight Jier's comfort, the archer's complexion improved a lot. After calming down, he took an arrow, raised the bow, nocked the arrow, took a deep breath, pulled the bowstring, and aimed—this whole series of procedures.

Jier was stunned by the man's mechanical method of drawing the bow, but since the other party was in the middle of "tense" aiming work, Jier found it hard to speak up and complain, so he could only watch silently for a long while until the man released the string and fired the Arrow.

Whoosh—

This Arrow missed again, and it seemed even worse than the previous one; the trajectory of the Arrow was even further away from the dummy.

At this point, Jier had to speak up: "You seem to be a bit too tense? Relax, please relax a little. Don't think of this as a test, but as a, um, form of entertainment! Yes, a relaxing recreational activity! Just like how everyone gathers to wrestle and fight when they have nothing to do."

Jier explained, and it seemed this statement surprised all three Archers.

To the first young man who had been a Hunter in the Cunzi for a time, using a bow to shoot was a means of hunting to make a living. His family had many people but little land, and the land near the Cunzi was already being managed by his father and two uncles; the other grown boys in the family could only clear new fields at a distance from the Cunzi.

But he was the youngest, and by the time he grew old enough to farm, the new fields cleared by the Cunzi were already too far away. Being responsible for clearing, sowing, watering, weeding, and driving away birds and beasts alone was truly too exhausting, and being far from the Cunzi was also unsafe, as it was very likely he would be attacked by wild beasts or Monsters.

Therefore, he had to give up the means of survival that everyone else in his family relied on, and only after his father and older brothers paid several chickens and a few baskets of wheat were the Hunters in the Cunzi willing to take him on as an apprentice.

Those were several very arduous years; the Hunters in the Cunzi would not teach any techniques, just give him a bow and Arrow and let him follow along, and how much he learned depended on his own ability. If he were injured or died during the hunting process, the other party would not take any responsibility.

Fortunately, every time he returned from hunting with the Hunter, his father would give the Hunter a chicken or a bag of eggs as a gift. In consideration of these gifts provided every time they returned, the Hunter pointed out the life-threatening dangers during several hunting trips in advance, allowing him to carefully avoid them.

In short, for this young man, the bow and Arrow were already a skill he relied on to survive in life.

But for the young Archer who had missed two shots in a row at this moment, the bow and Arrow were nothing more than a tool that could hurt people, and the Archer was just a job that could maintain his decent life.

He neither liked it nor disliked it.

Before becoming a Refugee, he had a decent job in his hometown Cunzi—responsible for guarding the village houses. This job could only be held by someone with a rigorous attitude and a serious work ethic, and of course, one also had to be a relative of the Village Chief or an Elder of the Cunzi.

Unfortunately, the world had started to turn bad since last year, causing everyone in his entire Cunzi to flee outward. With the Cunzi and the village houses empty, he had no choice but to follow along and look for a safe place to survive and find work.

When Knight Jier and Bata'er Jiaoshi were recruiting people at Baishi Pass, he saw that the number of participants was large and, believing himself to be no weaker than the others participating at the time, he joined in with an empty stomach. But the subsequent attack by Bandits made him quite regretful—regretful for participating in this dangerous operation.

He also regretted why he hadn't found someone to teach him some martial arts back then, which would have allowed him to protect himself when facing Bandits.

The Bandits were subsequently beaten back; this was natural, as how could ordinary Bandits defeat a Knight? After that, he took the initiative to join the Armed Squad, thinking that rather than waiting for others to protect him, it was better to protect himself.

He had always felt before that fighting and such were not difficult; it was nothing more than swinging a sword, holding up a Shield, and pulling the Bowstring a few times.

But here and now, he no longer thought so.

Because the bow and Arrow he usually felt were very easy were now refusing to listen to him at all, unable to honestly hit that damn dummy stuck in the ground ahead!!

Jier watched the Archer speechlessly as the other party fired arrow after arrow, yet not a single one managed to hit the dummy, and he even seemed to be shooting further and further away?

Seeing that this man was about to empty his quiver of Arrows, Jier walked up and pressed down on the man's hand, saying: "Stop for a moment, your current state is wrong; you cannot hit the target like this."

Jier took the bow and Arrow from his hand, held it himself, and then pushed the Archer, who had lost face due to embarrassment, to the side, signaling the third Archer to shoot at the dummy.

Whoosh—Thwack!

Although the third Archer had some strange ideas about the installation position of the quiver, his hand technique was impeccable; he easily drew the bow and fired a shot, hitting the dummy directly in the face.

"Oh! Good technique!"

Jier praised him, and even the first Archer who had shot felt it was amazing and applauded; after all, he himself had only hit the largest part of the dummy's body with both shots, and he did not have full confidence in hitting such a small target as the head, so he dared not aim there to shoot.

"Haha, it's just good luck. Maybe his luck rubbed off on me?" This Archer gave a simple, honest smile and joked.

As for the second Archer who had shot, his face turned pale. He crossed his arms over his chest and muttered to himself about whether he should change jobs and join the Melee Squad; he could surely handle a job without technical requirements like close-quarters combat, right?

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