Chapter 4: A Flawless Archery Machine 3  

A Flawless Archery Machine 3

Usually, to leave peacefully, Jaehwang had a trick of being extra nice. When he finished his treatment, he came by and he became lonely. The 3rd year sunbae students were in charge so they yelled at quite a few students who got in their way.

He just finished shooting and he had used his equipment without using anything. The director had banned the students to walk down the hallway with arrows in their hands and this, they had just created chaos at that moment.

“Sorry.” Jaehwang’s decision to quit school had nothing to do with the arguing that he hated. He just politely lowered his head and turned around but unfortunately, the sunbaes wouldn’t let them slip away that easily.

“Hey! What are you doing? why’d you come, Dongchul? Are trying to skip school?!”

“Uuh...” He kept his cool and followed Jaehwang out of the building, giving not the slightest bit of care about the sunbae students trying to start a fight.

“How dare they try to start something with us?!”

Pong!

One of the sunbaes marched up to Dongchul and slaps him on the side of his face. They might have driven them mad because they just walked away without a word or it might be Dongchul behaving like a quiet bear around the school. He kept his calm to the point that they are not sure what to do with him now.

After being hit, Dongchul turned and looked towards Jaehwang in surprise, asking him if he should not hold back this time.

In the beginning, he wanted to be friends with Jaehwang but he couldn’t since his parents only let him have friends who play archery. But after introducing his unskilled orphaned friend to his parents, they treated him as their own. That’s why since then, Dongchul strived to be better in archery until somehow he ended up being in the same team as Jaehwang.

However, when Jaehwang said that he’s finished with archery, that made him uninterested as well. But through all his current thoughts, he got busy fighting some of his classmates.

“No.” Jaehwang shook his head.

Jaehwang has work to do. He wanted to visit his parent’s graveyard as well as take care of the rest of his family’s things. It doesn’t matter even if he used his mother’s name since his uncle’s evil plan robbed him of everything. But even so, he has to care for what’s left with him and with Dongchul giving up on school, the future looked bleak for the both of them.

The moment Jaehwang calmed Dongchul down, an older student they triggered his short patience with a single breath.

“Are you stupid!” The sunbae student hit him again and he screamed in pain.

“Looks like I’ve been too nice!” Dongchul grabbed him by the back of his hair as he tried to walk away. He then took his wrist, turned him around and punched him in the mouth.

The others who laughed while watching was forced shut their lips in shock of just what happened but It wasn’t long before they bared their teeth in anger and ganged up on Dongchul.

A big fight broke out...

But Jaehwang acted faster than them. He grabbed Dongchul and they started to run before the others could take out their arrows.

Swoosh Swoosh!!

He throws 2 arrows within 1.5 seconds. They quickly flew through the hallway and made its mark into the wall, landing just 1 centimeter away from hitting right through the middle of the ‘Relax and be Kind’ banner written in fancy Chinese writing.

“Wow!”

The sunbae students fell on their rear ends. They looked where the arrow had landed before they looked towards Jaehwang in fright, forgetting that they had just provoked a monster in archery.

But what’s more surprising was how weak his shooting was compared to before. His current equipment could be blamed, but the shot wasn’t even accurate.

“Dongchul.”

“What...”

“Don’t you regret it?”

“It was their fault, ask them...”

“Let’s go.” Jaehwang walked in front of the arrow he shot as tears began to well up in Dongchul’s eyes. He then looked over towards Dongchul thereafter and throws the arrow over to the pleading students before they left the hallway.

***

They walked out of the school with no delay and with no words to say to each other. They marched in the dreary winter weather with the cold wind blowing through their warm bodies.

“Geez...It’s so cold.” Dongchul said with his body covered in sweat to which Jaehwang replied with a light laugh. But that feeling soon disappeared when his demeanor started to look more serious.

“Are we really going to quit school?”

“Yeah. There’s no reason to stay...especially when things are only getting worse..”

“...” Jaehwang just shook his head at Dongchul’s answer. Dongchul was actually only going to that school because of Jaehwang’s parents. After going to one of two archery events, he found that sports aren’t for him. He was able to get into the school without much skills with the help of Jaehwang parents but now, it would be hard for him. His support from them was already gone so unless Jaehwang comes back, he had no choice but to leave.

Jaehwang knew that and that’s why he decided to join in when Dongchul decided to fight for him. Getting expelled or leaving... It doesn’t mean anything to him anymore.

“What should we do...”

“What are you thinking?”

“I...Want to go to the mountains... There’s nothing here left for me.”

Dongchul looked at him with a reluctant look on face and asked,

“...That hell?...”

Jaehwang smiled. He should be calling their current position hell. The familiar whispers of the city relaxed them as the birds in the background chirped a comfortable rhythm. Nothing’s more comfortable for him than something like relaxation, meditation... and Archery.

“Let’s go to my parents grave. I have to go take care of everything...”

“Okay.” Dongchul shook his head without a word and Jaehwang then clicked his tongue as he glared at him in the same way. He obviously didn’t know what Dongchul was thinking of. He wants him to come with him but, Dongchul has to take care of the younger orphaned kids. That created a bit of a conflict between them.

“So, you’re sure you don’t want to come?”

“I don’t know..”

“You don’t have to pay for the food,” Jaehwang said. Dongchul was left unsure of what to say since he was a big eater.

“Okay. Well...I don’t know,” He replied. Jaehwang realized Dongchul’s greatest burden so he decided to take that worry away from him.

“Then, what do you really want to do?”

Dongchul scratched the side of his face after he heard his question. He looked over towards the giant building in the distance. He then saw a picture on the giant multivision screen and said, “I’m going to do that...”

“Oh...” Jaehwang looked over in the same direction and knitted his brows.

-They just came out of the Daehyun Battle University dimension gate. In the past at 2018’s first dimension gate, hundreds and thousands of peoples’ casualties were generated. 60 years later after the first generation fusion, our country’s best hunters kept everyone from being destroyed and the Daegu dimension gate’s 7th expedition was successfully finished.

Bright fancy lights shone onto the giant baseball field-like multivision screen through the night match. There was a giant transparent mirror that reached 20 meters high. There were dozens of support lights and about 20 people standing in there.

-Two more posts was being built with the expedition at that time and it’s available to anyone within 20 kilometers in every direction. The natives are still...

“I volunteered for military work so I tried to apply to the Military Gagseog Training program support. The country will pay for all the Gagseog procedures in the country. They said that they will give it to you for your 5 years of service.”

“Dongchul.” Jaehwang looked at Dongchul with a worried expression.

Gagseog, hunter... Things like that are said to not be for ordinary people. Of course in the past, it was one of the biggest jobs but, those who are naturally born with the Gagseog talent were most likely to earn more money.

The examination for Gagseog skills was free, obviously. Whenever the country saw that there was a lack of hunters, they would first find someone with the skills to fill the spot.

The country paid for one’s Gagseog procedure so they could check their skill rank. It was hard to reach the rank to be qualified...

For reference, Dongchul’s rank was 3, and even though it’s embarrassing to say, Jaehwang’s closest rank was 5.

“You’re going to do the procedure and even if your skills remained the same after three years?. You have to change to make do with the work terms right?

“Rank 4 hunters even die here,” Dongchul replied.

“And besides me, your younger siblings are going to worry about you...” Jaehwang showed Dongchul a face full of concern.

There were a lot of fancy and brightly shining spotlights in the place. It looked good but, how many Gagseogs died in there? That’s something that had to be thought about. Especially hunters that was in the 2nd rank and below, there was said to be an average of a 30 percent fail rate for them.

“Even if you’re a rank two, you’ll just have to endure a lot for over five years and then they give you one hundred million and a level El license. Doesn’t it sound so easy?”

“Oh...”

Jaehwang knew that Dongchul was strong so he just shook his head for now. Even those with similar ranks needed an infinite variety of physical strength followed by true fighting skills. Even if Dongchul were in the same rank, he may not have a top rank fighting skill but, there was something else that Jaehwang was worried about.

“There’s something I was trying to explain to the director...”

“Ah...Oh...” After hearing that, Dongchul then looked at him with a sad face and put his head down.

He remembered the times of them going to school every day, that was the school that the director took pride in working for. But now they quitted school and were considering doing dangerous things like volunteering for the Gagseog Hunter Procedure.

“Darn...Maybe you can go during archery season.” Dongchul clicked his tongue.

“Maybe.” Jaehwang then looked away.

Everything changed 60 years ago after the fusion. The generation fusion... Some have called it the dimension mashup...

Some said that it was a sign of an alien invasion and even though it wasn’t a sign of ruin, it was clearly not a natural thing. It was speculated that it involved a passing meteor colliding into the earth, It resulted in a cataclysmic impact that shook their earth along with two other dimensions.

“That’s not it, I’m planning to go and at least reach the 4th rank...”

Jaehwang then took a deep breath. He’s going to try to improve his skills through Gagseog training and make it up to at least level four even though it sounds very unlikely. If he’s good enough to get into third place then maybe he can get into second and maybe if he’s lucky enough, he can get into first.

“Say that you just want to at least get 6th place.”

“Haha...” Dongchul just laughed.

A Flawless Archery Machine 3, The end.