Season 3: Chapter 186: Three Archers (3)
Meanwhile, Pang's group ran for their lives.
“Huff... huff...”
As they escaped the forest, Pang looked like a man who finally saw the light after being trapped in a cave.
“Fi-Finally!”
They desperately ran and finally entered the Persian base.
“Are they following us?!”
“No!”
For some reason, the Persian archers didn’t chase them.
“What? Where did they all go?”
Carrot was still on guard and aimed her bow behind them. She could handle the enemies outside the forest now.
Pang placed a hand on her shoulder.
“No. They probably couldn't come.”
“Huh...? Couldn't come?”
Pang avoided her question and muttered, “Just as I thought. It was Almond.”
“Almond?”
“Almond gave me the signal to go first.”
“...!”
Carrot and Spam realized for the first time why Pang had told them to keep running forward.
“You made us run without looking back because of that?”
“Yeah.”
No wonder he acted so reckless.
Carrot shrugged and finally lowered her bow.
“He must be pretty reliable.”
“He’s always pulled through... Wait.”
While speaking, Pang suddenly drew his bow toward the base. He had sharp senses and reacted before the enemy did.
Someone was hiding behind the wall of a building.
Thwang!
Pang’s arrow flew toward that spot.
“!?”
An arrow struck the enemy archer from a distance and knocked him down. However, Pang also had an arrow lodged in his shoulder.
“Damn.”
Pang grimaced.
“There are some guards here too. Maybe three? I saw two just now.”
“There won’t be many. We just need to win the range battle.”
“Then we’ll break through to the workers in a triangular formation. Now!” Pang started running as he spoke.
Spam and Carrot followed. They ran in a triangle formation to check different directions.
“At seven o’clock! Fully charge your focus to shoot from a distance!”
“There’s no one on this side.”
“Seven o’clock! Only two people!”
“Don’t let your guard down because there are only two. We’re at the base. Set the order!”
Joseon archers had a greater range than Persian archers due to the focus trait. However, it took three seconds to fully charge the focus, so they had a sequence. By alternating shots, they could effectively shoot a focus shot every second.
“I’ll go first!”
Spam released the first charged shot.
Whizz!
The threatening arrow didn’t hit, but it made the enemy hesitate and stop advancing.
“Next, Carrot!”
Carrot fired the next arrow and directly struck the hesitating soldier.
Thud!
“Now it’s my turn...”
That soldier wouldn’t advance any further.
Pang spotted two Persian archers and aimed at one of them.
“Oh...! Hey! Barbarian soldiers are coming too!”
Persian barbarian soldiers ran in front of the archer.
“...?”
The Persian archer used the barbarians as shields and planned on shooting from behind.
‘Damn. Trying to hit us with obstacles in the way?’
The archer clearly intended to use curve shots. He hadn’t shot yet because the distance wasn’t right.
Thwang!
Pang shot one of the barbarian soldiers. Then, the sequence continued.
“Ham! I’m shooting!”
Thwang.
His arrow brought down another barbarian soldier. However, the enemy archer started shooting arrows in succession.
“!”
Thud!
Thud!
Two arrows quickly struck Spam’s side. They had been curve shots.
“Ah...”
[HP: 12%]
Another hit would have killed him.
The Persian archer began shooting again, forcing Spam to flee desperately.
“Spam! Move back! I’ll...”
Carrot, next in the sequence, shot but only struck another barbarian soldier.
The enemy archer shot another curve shot.
“Dammit. Did they only practice this?” Carrot cursed and threw herself back to avoid the attack.
Pang observed the attack closely.
‘The accuracy isn’t high.’
Spam got hit twice, but the enemy archer wasn’t consistently accurate.
Pang quickly decided.
“You two go ahead! Kill the workers! Speed is crucial for this rush.”
“What? But—”
“I can handle that one!”
Swish.
Pang ran forward after saying that.
‘Here.’
He found a spot and settled in.
His hand moved in an unusual pattern as he drew his bowstring to the center. The bowstring stretched into an awkward shape.
‘If this angle I memorized is right…’
Pang recalled something.
‘Maybe...’
He had memorized different angles and distances for each position. Lines had been drawn on the field back then to help gauge the distance. He could shoot because of those lines. Now, no lines could be seen and the obstacles kept moving.
And...
[Focus]
Whirr...
Watching the white glowing arrowhead, Pang reiterated the last difference between then and now.
‘Since then, I’ve practiced like crazy...!’
Whizz!
The glowing white arrow shot out. It flew in a completely different direction, missing even the barbarian soldiers.
A slight smile appeared on the Persian archer’s lips. He drew his bow again, thinking he had won.
Whirr—
At that moment…
Thud!
The white glowing arrow struck his head.
“!”
It happened in an instant. The seemingly off-course arrow came back to pierce his head.
Naturally, a curve shot with three seconds of focus from a Joseon archer vastly differed from a Persian curve shot.
“Woooaaahhhhhh!!!”
The Korean spectators filled the stadium with cheers.
***
The commentators briefly watched the scene at the Persian base.
“Pa-Pang!?”
Almond’s situation was important, but the base situation ultimately needed to be resolved for it to matter. Joseon had to stop Persia’s lumber production to continue the rush.
“Pang!?”
OrangeKing stood up and couldn’t contain himself.
“Curve! Shot!”
— Wow
— Amazing
— What an artistic angle
— Pang is incredible;
— Unbelievable
— Awesome
— How did he shoot that?
“What, what just happened!?”
“Is this the same Pang who was punished with running in the Fake National Team episode today!?”
“I can’t believe it! Is this what happens when you work hard enough!? Miracles happen!”
Pang had successfully shot a curve shot at the most critical moment.
“There’s no Persian archer left in the base near the lumber area, right!?”
That was the last archer blocking the lumber resource. Persia had to resupply and give out new bows.
“Yes! The other resources are also under attack, so they can't come here!”
“Ah, Cookie! Truly...! The diversion strategy worked perfectly!”
Cookie had sent archers to less important areas like gold mines and food supplies first, making the enemy focus elsewhere temporarily. This left the lumber area vulnerable.
“Elepher didn’t even build a guard tower!”
Elepher probably believed that his archers in the forest would handle all the Joseon soldiers.
“He put more important units in the forest instead of a guard tower!”
By sending all his ace players to defend the forest, he thought that investment would stop Joseon.
“But things took a turn there!”
The battle in the forest had gone entirely differently from what Elepher had expected.
“Elepher tried to use barbarian soldiers to catch Pang’s group, but that also ended with a single curve shot!”
“Ah! Right! Elepher’s strategy just now was good, wasn’t it? Using barbarian soldiers as shields and shooting from behind! The Persian archer even used curve shots! It was a good strategy to win with fewer troops!”
However, Elepher still failed despite showing his ingenuity until the end.
“Yes. This is also a tactic Joseon has used before.”
The tactic itself wasn’t the issue.
“Ah. It was in the Viking match, right? Joseon almost lost in the early stages, but survived with this tactic!”
“It depends on who uses it and who’s defending! That makes the difference!”
The difference was in the players. Without any excuses, Persia had lost in skills between the players.
“Now, the nightmare begins for the workers in the Persian lumber area!!!”
Pang was slightly late, but Carrot and Spam already started shooting the workers. The workers quickly fell as both archers shot one worker at a time together.
“If they don’t charge their focus, it takes two shots per worker! Since focus takes a while, they just shoot each worker together! That’s very efficient!”
“The lumber per minute is drastically dropping for Persia!”
“The workers are relocating!”
“They’re hastily building a guard tower. Will it hold?”
Not all the workers died. However, the resource supply had been significantly disrupted.
The screen briefly showed the lumber supply rate per minute.
[Joseon: 320]
[Persia: 250]
The previously similar supply rates sharply diverged now.
“It’s dropped to two hundred fifty for Persia and it’ll only drop further!”
The supply rate plummeted to one hundred eighty, one hundred twenty, and only continued dropping.
“The guard tower is going up! Joseon steps back momentarily, but more Joseon archers are coming!”
After the guard tower went up, further disruption would be challenging. However, the lumber resource disparity meant more archers for Joseon.
“Persia can’t keep producing archers while Joseon’s archers will keep coming!”
“And they’re coming out quickly! Elepher must be stunned! Why are they coming so fast!?”
The fallen Joseon barbarian soldiers returned as archers one by one with unmatched speed.
“They don’t come over the mountain! They’re born at the mountain’s base and run over!!”
— Lol
— This is the strategy
— Awesome, they respawn so quickly
— Joseon has over 20 archers lol crazy
— Amazing
Even after Persia fought hard and reduced the archer count, Joseon’s archer count remained over twenty. Their supply speed was unparalleled too.
Elepher hadn’t anticipated this. Usually, soldiers respawned at the base after dying and took time to return. The Joseon soldiers came back to the battlefield incredibly fast.
“A forward barracks in Civil Empire is truly powerful! The respawn speed is no joke!”
“Elepher didn’t see the forward barracks! He must have realized it now though!”
Elepher probably suspected a forward barracks, but it was too late to react effectively.
“Joseon might actually finish this in the second era?”
“Yes, but they can’t be complacent! The opponent is a master of turtling!”
“True... Oh?”
The screen switched back to the Persian forest.
“Ah. As we speak, back to the forest situation with Almond. He was stalling. What’s happened now...?”
“He’s probably holding up well.”
The commentators were surprised.
“!”
“Huh? Almond!?”