I Am a Bowman

A while after the deal was made.

In the starting village, two new users, Ralph and Trein, appeared.

They cleared the tutorial several times faster than the users who started at the same time, and hunted day and night without rest.

They were skilled beyond beginners and never got lost even once.

However, they didn't party up even though they were together.

They didn't say a word to each other and growled at each other occasionally when their eyes met.

The two stalkers who followed Daphne were their true identities.

They had deleted the characters they had carefully raised for the past month and were raising them again.

They spent 3 million won to recreate their characters and changed to archers, the top-ranked job that all users avoided, believing in Daphne's unclear statement that she liked archers.

It was clear that anyone who heard it would think they were crazy. No, before thinking they were crazy, it was obvious that it was a lie.

They knew it too.

But what was more important than other people's gaze was their determination to make Daphne theirs.

When they reached level 10, they headed straight to the job change center without hesitation.

"I came to change to an archer."

"I want to change to an archer."

Of course, just like Lars said, there was no one from the Archer Association in charge of job changes dispatched there.

The two men who felt disappointed came out of the job change center side by side.

"I miss Daphne."

"I miss Daphne too."

The two men looked at each other and felt a sense of camaraderie.

Friendship born from fierce competition.

Isn't this the true function of sports! Because games are also respectable E-Sports. ...Or not.

* * *

At the same time, Lars was glaring at Helum.

What made him even more angry was that Helum was happily talking with Daphne under a tree.

He had just started the game and had already brought two couples together.

To be precise, all Lars did was deliver letters until they had the courage to meet, but still.

In fact, Helum and Daphne liked each other from the beginning, so Lars didn't need to actively intervene.

Lars began to seriously consider his career as a 'couple consultant'.

'How many hours has it been....'

Actually, it hadn't even been an hour, but it felt like ten or twenty hours to Lars who was frustrated.

At first, Lars felt touched because he had worked hard to connect the two and their stories were touching.

"Why couldn't I remember such a handsome face?"

"Don't worry. I remembered you as much as you forgot me."

"Ah! Helum!"

But as you can see, the conversation reached a point where he couldn't listen anymore.

Lars couldn't stand it anymore and intervened between them. It was a very commendable action.

"Wait a minute!"

"What? Are you still here?"

"Oh my. You're still here."

"...."

How well the couple got along after becoming a couple.

Lars was amazed, but he quickly regained his composure and demanded quest rewards.

"Helim. It's time for you to teach me how to use a bow."

"Ahem."

Helum hugged Daphne and made another third-rate melodrama.

"Daphne.... I will definitely come back to you."

"Don't worry. If you don't come, I will come to you this time."

"Come on, I'll send you off quickly so let's go."

It took more than 30 minutes for them to fall again, despite Lars' efforts to calm them down.

* * *

Helum started training deep in the eastern forest, not wanting the villagers to find out his true identity.

Not even monsters passed by the user.

Small animals and forest bugs that were not treated as monsters occasionally revealed their presence only through sound.

Lars also thought the place was good. The air was good, and it had a nice atmosphere.

Above all, if he shot a bow at the training center, he would receive unwanted sympathy and encouragement.

“Huff. Huff.”

“Straighten your back. 20 reps, 5 sets. Begin.”

“D-Drink some water…….”

“Begin!”

The problem was his training method.

Pushing people to their limits like Sparta!

Lars had never heard of such a lie that his HP would decrease just from training.

But seeing is believing.

Lars cried as he watched his stamina bar decreasing in real time.

There was one time when his HP dropped to the bottom, and Lars deliberately exercised harder to die.

Then at least he could rest while walking from the village to here, right? As if reading his mind, Helum subdued Lars like a ghost and forcibly fed him an HP potion.

Gulp-gulp-

HP increased and training resumed.

Lars thought this was too much and scolded Helum during break time.

“Helim. I will stop this foolish training. I clearly asked you to teach me how to shoot a bow.”

“With that weak body? No way.”

Helum looked up and down at Lars and smirked before throwing a bow at him. It seemed like he wanted Lars to pull it.

The bow he received in his arms was heavy from the start.

Just in case, Lars invested all the bonus points he had saved in strength.

The weight of the bow felt a little lighter. As it became lighter, his confidence grew.

“Huff.”

He tried pulling it. It was heavy and didn't pull well. It was also difficult to maintain the maximum pulled state for a while.

‘Why is this bow so heavy!’

⟦Training Bow⟧

A bow used by masters when training.

-Grade: Normal

-Attack Power: 0~1

-Stat Limit: Strength 50

Strength 50!

‘What kind of bow requires strength as a stat….’

Currently, Lars' strength is a total of 25. Considering that each level up gives 5 bonus points, he had to level up 5 more times.

He wanted to learn how to use a bow for hunting, but in order to learn how to use a bow, he had to level up, and in order to level up, he had to hunt. What kind of dilemma is this?

Seeing Lars dejectedly, Helum threw out his words.

“Don't worry too much. If you do as I say, you can become a great archer.”

⟦Quest Created⟧

<Training: The First Step to Becoming a Bowman>

Grade: A

Currently, there is only one remaining archer with a long history.

The reason why archers have declined is not only because of their unimaginable and grueling training, but also because they have lost power within the Archer Association.

As a reward for fulfilling his first love, Helum wants to make you a respectable archer.

Clear Condition: Endure Helum's training.

Reward: ?

⟦Will you accept?⟧

The quest's grade was not the usual C or B, but A.

The highest grade quest that has appeared in Grand Story so far was S-rank, so Lars could guess the difficulty of this quest to some extent.

Three days have passed since then, on the fourth day of training, Lars keenly felt why the clear condition was 'endure Helum's training' instead of 'receive Helum's training'.

The second day of health training, where he sweated the most in his life, was at a ridiculous level.

Although he wanted to quit earlier, Lars was able to muster strength every time he looked at the status window.

[Status Window]

Name: Lars

Level: 10 (2%)

Class: Bowman

Title: None

HP: 760/760

MP: 330/330

Strength: 49

Agility: 72

Stamina: 31

Intelligence: 13

Commanding Power: 7

Luck: 7

Bonus Points: 0

Stats that are unreasonably high compared to his level!

It was the result of his training.

Even when other people hunted or trained, their stats occasionally increased.

People thought of it as a kind of 'Deus's Gift'.

I thought it was a kind of random encounter since my stats didn't increase even though I invested a lot of time and trained.

Of course, it was a misunderstanding. Anyone could increase their stats as long as they rolled like Lars. Maybe not as fast as him though.

Helum's virtue played a big role in being able to achieve such rapid growth in just three days.

Training curriculum that was almost perfect, and the priestly relationship between Helum and Lars that was formed without them realizing it, even though it seemed like they were just rolling around ignorantly.

"Drink all the water. Begin!"

Lars clenched his teeth again and started doing push-ups.

"The stats are good, but if I raise my strength by 10, this suffering will end!"

After finishing 20 push-ups in sets of 5, a total of 100, Lars could see a pleasant notification message.

[Strength has increased by 1.]

The water tasted sweet as honey, and the wind passing through the trees gently messed up Lars's hair.

Lars looked at the status window with strength 50 for a moment and then looked at Helum as if he had made up his mind.

"Master."

“His title had changed without him realizing it.”

"What is it?"

"Starting today, I will shoot a bow."

“Lars said as he held up the bow and nocked an arrow.”

Helum chuckled as if to say 'If you can'. It wasn't a problem that could be solved in just three days. It took him several months to finish basic stamina training.

"Impatience is understandable, but impatience is at the extreme of calmness. It is more fatal than anything else to an adventurer who must always be calm. This process is a time to build stamina while eliminating impatience from a Bowman... Huh?"

Helum was watching Lars and was about to make a strange noise in surprise. Fortunately, he swallowed it and didn't lose face in front of his disciple.

Lars's form of shooting a bow was clearly a mess, and the trajectory of the arrow was completely off from the target.

But Lars was relaxed. He could properly aim and shoot at the target, which he had found difficult to do just a while ago. His breathing remained calm as well.

"He's an interesting guy. Is it because he's an adventurer?"

Helum's judgment was correct.

It was logically impossible for muscles to grow in just three days.

But here, even if the muscles didn't actually grow, if only the strength stat increased, the power would become stronger in the game.

Helum looked at Lars again.

"Alright. Let's begin."

"Yes! Master!"

“”

However, it didn't take long for Lars to blame his impatience once again and he thought he would never be hasty again.

Lars, who realized Helum's theory of eliminating impatience in a completely different way.

Lars once again thought that he should judge everything carefully.

Archery training was so difficult that it made him miss the hellish basic stamina training.

Of course, he didn't really miss it. It was because he did two hours of basic stamina training every day before starting his training.

The double agony of experiencing two different hells alternately.

If he used to endure the training by looking at his stats, now he felt a sense of accomplishment as his skills grew.

"Alright! 50 shots!"