You've Got Chops

Following Vaylah over to the target, Ava couldn't help but inspect the distribution of the arrows. Other than the initial arrow, which was quite a ways off, the remaining arrows were quite clustered, although none of them touched each other. Although it wouldn't have been difficult for Vaylah to launch each arrow into the last, with the somewhat weak drawing strength of the small bow and the slightly dull tips of the training arrows, which were often reused, if she really shot one arrow into the stem of the last, not only would she be wasting and damaging the arrows, there was also a good chance that one, if not both of the arrows would be knocked off the target.

So instead, she made small micro-adjustments so that none of the arrows would land in the same spot. This was rather impressive, as Vaylah essentially wasn't even targeting the eight-centimeter wide bullseye but had essentially aimed for and successfully shot nine one or two-centimeter targets that she had plotted out in her mind inside of the bullseye before nailing each one of them.

Helping Vaylah pluck out the arrows, Ava couldn't help but give a nod of approval. Although this instructor of hers wasn't good with words, diplomacy, teaching, or demeanor, she was indeed an expert archer.

Returning back to the front of the range, Vaylah couldn't help but give Ava a triumphant smile, "Alright, hurry up and shoot your arrows. We'll head in for snacks after."

Giving Vaylah a mysterious smile, Ava shook her head before picking up the small bow and weighing it in her hand. With any luck, this would be the last time she would have to use this friend of hers before moving on to greater and greener pastures. Grabbing ten arrows and inspecting them to ensure that none of them were so banged up that it would majorly affect her aim, Ava centered herself in front of the sixty-meter target and paused for a moment.

Taking a breath and releasing it, Ava shot out her first arrow, which landed in the bullseye.

Then a second, a third, a fourth…

All the way up to the eighth arrow, Ava managed to land a bullseye every time.

Finally, on the ninth arrow, Ava finally made a small mistake, and the arrow landed on the line between nine and ten points. Lightly shaking her head, Ava steadied herself before shooting out her tenth arrow, which once again was a perfect bullseye.

On the side, Vaylah's jaw couldn't help but drop as she watched Ava somehow go from a seventy percent hit rate to a ninety or a hundred percent hit rate. Shaking her head in disbelief, she couldn't help but mummer, "How… just a moment ago you…" Turning to look at Ava, she saw the small grin on the girl's face and couldn't help but exclaim, "You tricked me! Didn't you? You- you- damn it, you wily little brat."

Although she said this, Vaylah didn't take any action against Ava and instead buried her face into her hands and muttered, "Oh God, I lost an archery contest to a nine-year-old. What in the world…"

Suddenly shaking herself out of it, Vaylah quickly remembered that Ava had landed an arrow on the line. Although this was still higher than the eight points she had scored herself, for the purpose of the bet, it didn't make a difference, as the objective was simply how many bullseyes they could hit. Although she said it hit the line, they were too far away to see. Clearly, there was always a chance that it had landed in the nine-point area.

Reinvigorated and clinging onto this last bit of hope, Vaylah quickly said, "Let's go clean up and count." Before running off to go check the board.

Placing the bow to the side, Ava couldn't help but chuckle before following afterward. To be honest, she hadn't exactly tricked Vaylah, as her accuracy earlier was indeed around seventy to eighty percent, but that was also because she was trying to shoot fast and because she was drawing the bow to almost full for every shot. And, of course, she had been swapping the bow between her hands every shot, which wasn't a huge deal-breaker for Ava anymore, but the constant swaps made it so that she had to re-aim every time, which resulted in an additional error.

At the sixty-meter range, there was no reason for her to do so. The additional strength expenditure had only made it so that the arrow pierced a bit further into the target and made her exhausted quicker, resulting in her wearing out by the last few shots.

For this little bet, on the other hand, she had only swapped hands after shooting the first five arrows and had been much lighter on the bow, shooting only for accuracy, so naturally, her ratio had gone up.

Catching up to Vaylah, she saw the girl half kneeled on the ground as she stared at the ninth arrow, which was cleanly on the line, and would typically be counted as the higher point score.

Waiting patiently, Ava didn't say a word and stood, waiting for Vaylah to recover.

After a little while, Vaylah finally shook herself out of it. In reality, looking at the target, her shots had indeed been neater than Ava's, which were all clustered together, and even her first shot had only been off because she wasn't familiar with the bow. But in the end, those were all excuses, and she could only applaud Ava for managing to reach such a terrifying consistency after just over a week of training.

Getting up, she looked at Ava with a glare but didn't end up doing anything and only waved her hand before heading back to the front of the range, "Alright, you've got chops. I'll give it to you, you can start using a longbow, but I'm telling you, it's not suited for your size, and the strain is going to hurt. You'll have to take breaks when I tell you to, okay?"

Softly chuckling, Ava called out, "Okay."

"I don't care if you think- wait, did you say okay?" Turning around, Vaylah looked at Ava with a startled expression. When had this little jinx become so obedient?

With a bright smile, Ava nodded at Vaylah.