18 - Shooting an Awakened in the Head

After hunting the goblins, Leo walked another fifteen minutes until he started to hear some noises. When approaching the noises, Leo saw a red outline with the Wall-Hack, and to his joy, that red outline was that of a bird very similar to an eagle, but this eagle was apparently in confrontation with something.

As he got closer to the direction of the red outline, other red outlines began to appear in his vision. Among these outlines, Leo could see one eagle lying on the ground, apparently unconscious from the battle but still alive. Four other eagles were flying in the sky as they descended to attack a group of five people every now and then. Out of those five people, two were leaning against a tree, apparently both injured, while the other three were trying to deal with the four eagles that were attacking them.

Seeing these people in battle against this group of four Bronze 3 Star monsters, Leo figured they were at least Bronze 3 Star themselves, or even Bronze 4 Star. While the people were battling, Leo slowly approached closer and watched the confrontation from behind a tree, out of sight of the people and the monsters, but just to be prepared, in case he became involved in the battle, Leo had his bow loaded with 4 arrows.

Battle awareness was a new experience for Leo, as he always dealt with monsters very easily because of the Aim-Bot. This was probably the first time he's personally seen ordinary Awakened dealing with monsters in the traditional way.

Among the three Awakened who were still fighting the eagles, at the front was a large man with a shield that looked like a door. Strangely enough, this man wasn't using a weapon, just holding the shield with his two hands. But despite the shield's size, the man was extremely agile as he moved to the sides of his companions to protect them from the eagles' attacks.

Next to the outline of the man, there was the outline of a woman holding a bow, continuously shooting at the eagles, but she apparently didn't have any Quirk that improved her aim, as most of her arrows were missing their targets due to the eagles' high speed.

But she wasn't the only one missing the targets. Beside them was another man in a cloth suit. This man had been practically stationary the entire time since the battle began it seems, but Leo could feel the temperature rising every now and then as the man pointed his hand at the birds, probably attacking the monsters with some kind of fireball. But unlike the archer who occasionally shot an arrow at the eagles, this man could not hit any of the eagles, as their agility was the highest among the Bronze 3 Star monsters.

Seeing how this group was having so much trouble dealing with these monsters, Leo already deduced that they were just Bronze 3 Stars. Knowing this, Leo became more carefree, as he could deal with groups of Bronze 3 Stars monsters alone; dealing with groups of Bronze 3 Stars Awakened would be even easier if he needed to, since humans were usually weaker than monsters of the same level.

"Hit one of them Josh! We're going to die here if you don't hit them!" the woman yelled angrily at the mage.

Hearing the woman yelling at him, Josh, who was already stressed from not being able to land any attacks, got even angrier, "Stop yelling at me, woman! I'm trying to get it right!"

"Shut up and stand behind me, both of you!" The man with the big shield also yelled angrily as he had to keep moving to defend these two.

Swoosh!

The woman shot an arrow which luckily hit a wing of one of the eagles, causing the monster to fall down screeching in pain.

"Come on, just three more to go!" the woman squealed excitedly as she looked at the three remaining eagles. This made the mage, Josh, even angrier, as this was the second eagle the woman had shot down, while he couldn't even land a single attack.

Seeing that another eagle was hit, the other eagles became enraged and started attacking only the woman, ignoring the man with the big shield and the weak man who couldn't hit anything. When the woman realized this, her expression darkened. She was the only one in the group to manage to take down these eagles, but that was only because the eagles were attacking everyone in the group. Now that they were all focusing on her, she had to continuously run for cover, as she wouldn't be able to shoot on the move. After all, even when she was standing still, she couldn't hit with most of the arrows, let alone shoot while she was running.

Seeing the eagles targeting the woman, the wizard Josh opened a small smile on his face and began to conjure more fireballs to attack the eagles, taking advantage of the woman as bait, but still he couldn't hit any of the eagles. Meanwhile, the man with the big shield was angry that instead of running to him so that he could protect the woman with his shield, this woman was running away in another direction alone!

As the shield man failed to protect her, an eagle used its claws to open a large gash on the woman's arm, while another eagle opened an even larger wound on her leg. Feeling the immense pain in her body, the woman fell to the ground screaming in despair. During her fall, the bow she was using fell from her hands, leaving her unarmed with nothing to defend against these eagles.

Leo from afar could see the anger that these eagles were aiming at this woman, and as it looked now, they would eat the woman alive. With a sigh, Leo donned a black mask that covered half his face and came out from behind the tree while aiming his four arrows at the eagles. After 2 seconds, when the two male Awakened closed their eyes in fear of the bloody scene of the woman being eaten alive, three noises of something cutting through the wind were heard.

Swoosh, Swoosh, Swoosh!

Leo only shot three arrows, and kept the last arrow still loaded in the bow, prepared in case he needed to use it for some reason. The three eagles that were attacking the female didn't even understand what was happening before they felt a great force going through their chests, quickly ending their lives in an unimaginable way.

When the Awakened opened their eyes, they didn't see the scene of the woman being eaten alive, but rather the scene of the woman looking dumbfounded at the three eagles lying lifeless on the ground beside her as she gulped. As an archer, she saw that these three arrows were shot simultaneously, meaning there was probably a group of highly coordinated hunters hiding around them with bows aimed at them at all times. But seeing that these hunters only killed the eagles, saving her life, the woman was very grateful to them as she started to cry with happiness.

She thought her life was over, that these eagles would eat her alive while that useless wizard couldn't even hit one of these monsters with a fireball, but because of this mysterious group she could still breathe and live a happy life.

The injuries she received would just prevent her from getting around in a comfortable way; she could still go back to town and use the hospital, and after a few weeks she would be fine again and could get on with her life. But unlike the woman who was extremely grateful to have been saved, the wizard Josh was instead furious. Irate, he turned to where the shots had come from and saw only a boy holding a bow with an arrow loaded on it. Anger clouded this mage's mind, and when he felt that this boy was only an Awakened Bronze 2 Stars, he got even angrier and screamed, "What are you doing here, you little shit? Why are you meddling in the battles of other Awakened?!"

Leo frowned after hearing the mage's shouting. He saw how this man was the most useless of the team and yet this man had a senseless arrogance.

"She was going to die for your incompetence," Leo said in a cold voice as he pointed at the woman.

"So what? Is she one of your group by any chance? No! So stop meddling in other people's affairs and go back to sucking your pacifier, you little shit," the wizard Josh yelled angrily as he moved towards the eagle closest to him.

As he moved towards the eagle, his angry expression changed to one of greed, as he knew these eagles had a golden feather that cost at least $2,000 each! With these 5 eagles it would be equivalent to $10,000! But when the man was getting close to the eagle, Leo said in a cold voice, "Do not approach the eagles."

Josh looked at this boy angrily again. "You're just a Bronze 2 Star Awakened! What are you going to do?! My group hunted these eagles; you just took advantage of them being distracted with us and hit a lucky shot."

Leo looked towards the big shield man to see if this man also agreed with this mage, but seeing him raise his hands in surrender, Leo was satisfied and pulled his bowstring as he pointed it at the mage.

Josh's eyes widened, seeing the bow aimed at his head. He didn't imagine that this Bronze 2 Star kid would actually point his bow at him, and considering that he was a mage, his clothes wouldn't pose any resistance against an arrow. Not to mention, by the time he could start making a fireball the boy would have already released the arrow.

"Boy, put that bow down. You're in the middle of a group of 6 Bronze 3 Star Awakened. Being only Bronze 2 Stars, you better recognize your place," Josh said as he started to sweat.

He didn't understand why the man with the big shield hadn't yet come to his side to protect him from this boy's arrows. Out of anger, Josh didn't think Leo was accompanied by a group of powerful Awakened, but that didn't mean Josh's teammates didn't realize that, even more so after realizing that the three arrows had all hit the exact same position on the three eagles!

But Leo didn't listen and just kept pointing the bow as he said, "This is your last warning. Get away from the eagles."

Hearing this kid talking in such an arrogant way to him, Josh was even more furious. He knew the boy didn't have as much battle experience as he did, since from his looks this boy was probably someone who was still in school, or someone who finished school but didn't pass a university yet. Having thought of all that, Josh smiled as he jumped to the side to try and dodge Leo's arrow as he started conjuring a fireball.

But as soon as he started to make the sudden movement, Leo instantly let go of the bowstring he was pulling with full force as he let the arrow fly to where the Aim-Bot was pointing.

Swoosh!

"Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhhhh you son of a *****!!!!!!!!!!" Josh screamed in rage as he fell to the ground, writhing in pain, his hands trying to stop the blood that was spewing from where the arrow had hit him.

Leo's movement to get another arrow from his quiver was extremely fast. By the time the arrow hit the mage, Leo already had another arrow loaded in his bow as he aimed at the other Awakened around, prepared in case someone tried to make a move against him. But the other Awakened had shocked expressions as they looked at Leo and Josh, who had his hands holding the part hit by the arrow.

The men who were still conscious looked at the place where Josh had been hit and felt a shiver run down their spines. Perhaps the only worse place to get hit than where Josh was hit is to hit the head, or rather the other head, since one way or another, Leo had hit one of Josh's heads. Leo purposely aimed at Josh's place; he didn't want to kill this man, at least not until this man really threatened his life and Leo could use the case of self-defense… But shooting the man in the head down below wouldn't be a problem for Leo.

Seeing that no one was moving to do anything to him, Leo slowly lowered his bow and said out loud, "Don't try to do anything funny. My companions probably have an arrow aimed at each of you. You've seen how we killed those eagles with ease, and killing you all would be even simpler. We just need those golden feathers; the rest can stay with you."

The Awakened just nodded slowly in fear of Leo and his hidden companions who had killed the eagles so easily while they nearly died while just fighting these monsters. In these people's minds, they were pretty sure that Leo's teammates were probably Awakened Bronze 4 Stars at the very least.

'We cannot provoke this person.' It was everyone's thoughts as they watched the masked youth calmly picking up the golden feathers while ignoring Josh's screams.

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