335 In Earnest
I retraced my path back. There has been a total of zero people trying to mess with me so far.
You heard that right, there's not a single trouble cropping up. To my surprise.
(Man~, this is scary in a way, I mean it's calming yeah but...)
It's like the calm before the storm. But no point worrying that now, what's important is present.
I arrived back at the secret base and flipped the revolving door after making sure there was nobody around.
'I'm back', the moment I muttered that, six figures moved altogether. It's the kids.
They were so swift, lining up by the wall to meet me.
Without a word and in a perfect unison at that.
(...What the heck... What went down here while I wasn't around...)
It's bothering me but I'm too afraid to ask.
'I shouldn't tread further, it's not my place to', I thought as I fetched what I bought.
"I'm going to teach you kids how to use a bow. Once you nail the basic down, we'll go straight to hunting. There's a forest right outside the nearest gate from here, conveniently enough. We'll be hunting our prey there."
I handed the bows to the six kids. Alongside arrows and quivers. I've still got lots left in my magic bag.
I'm keeping them there and replenish the kids' whenever needed.
"First of all, a simple explanation about bows is in order. Then, you're gonna try them out a bit and then we go straight to practical test."
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I noticed something here. None of the kids asked me a question or voiced their doubt.
(I did tell them to follow me and not to back talk but going this far might misfire instead.)
If there's no communication, then there's only going to be one-way traffic between us. I can't check if they even understand what I teach them.
No way to confirm if a mutual understanding has been established. Hence I say to them.
"Make sure you ask me anything you don't understand right away, you hear me? Otherwise you might get something wrong and that could land you in the worst possible outcome later."
'Yes!', the one who replied that resolutely was '1'.
With that cleared up, I gave them a rundown about bows.
Like how a bow shoots an arrow, how the arrow will fly, and what's needed to hit a target with an arrow.
How you must get within range of your prey stealthily in the forest by hiding your presence, smell and sound.
And how your focus, imagination, reasoning and discernment are necessary to track down prey in the forest.
I explained with words and drawing I made on the ground with a knife. Just the rough gist of things though. Merely explaining didn't take time at all.
What's more important is putting that into practice. The only way to learn this 'feeling' is by experiencing it yourself and going through repetition over and over until the form solidifies within you.
Up until that point, you just gotta keep trial and error-ing.
But it's not like I'm expecting them to immediately get it all by taking them into the forest.
I might be taking it slowly, I made them practice first, down to the minute detail.
Inside the secret base.
I had them learn how to nock an arrow without an arrow. Holding the bow, pulling the bowstring with the right amount of power, and maintaining the stance.
I tended to them from following the target until they let the bowstring loose.
You'd think they'd start pestering me to go for the real thing instead now, but these kids were completely obedient.
In fact, they were desperately repeating what I taught them again and again.
(Is this what they call hungry spirit. Speaking of hungry...)
Thanks to buying these bows and arrows, I'm pretty much penniless now. On top of that, I don't think there's much foodstuff left inside the magic bag.
If they can't manage to hunt well after this, I'll have to take things in hand.
(Which is just me hunting down some random magic beast nearby.)
I'm disappointed in myself for relying on this uncontrollable power yet again when things are starting to look the tiniest bit dire.
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