Chapter 16 -Unparalleled In Archery

Acheron had found himself near the Archery facility, he looked upon this building that was more long than tall. A forest seemed to wrap around the building from behind and he wondered if the forest was also part of the facility.

Acheron loved archery, one of humanity's oldest forms of combat, "Ahh~ archery, an old friend"

Acheron was feeling a little nostalgic, it has been almost 18 years since he had last picked up the bow, not since the war in Iraq had started.

He walked in and like almost all buildings, there was a front desk lady. He walked up to her hoping to join this club, he had decided this will be his first club.

Seeing Acheron, the front desk lady named Susan, greeted him with a very professional attitude,

"How can I help you today?"

"I would like to join this club, is there any requirements?" Acheron asked.

"We only require your student ID card for the registration process" Susan said with a smile.

Acheron seemed confused, "ID card? Did I get one?"

She gave him a weird look before returning to her professional smile "All students have an ID card, if you have lost it, please find one of your teachers, so that they can get you a new one"

"Wait a second! I think I did receive something like that in the mail" Acheron started to pat himself looking for it, he finally found it in his jacket's inside breast pocket.

He handed it to her, hoping that was the correct one. "Is this it? I haven't needed a reason to use it yet, so I forgot about it"

Receiving the card from Acheron, she swiped it on the computer and began the sign-up process,

"This will only take just a second…. There! It is all done, you are now a member of this club and have full access to the archery facilities"

"Thank you, do you mind if I ask a couple of questions?" Acheron asked with a smile.

"Not at all, what questions do you have?" Susan said.

"The forest behind the building, am I able to use it?" Acheron asked.

Susan smiled at his question, "Of course, but students hardly use it on their own time. It is mainly used for competitions and challenges between members. There is also a time limit if you want to use the forest area, 1 hour is the maximum time that each student is allowed there.

Once you go upstairs to the changing rooms, you will see a panel where you order the kind of bow you want, number of quivers and arrows. They will be sent to your reserved area, so there's no need to walk around the building carrying your equipment.

Once you are done, leave all the equipment in the cart you found it in and press the red button near the cart or on a panel, and someone will know to come pick it up."

Acheron was impressed at the luxury and efficiency of the facility. "Thank you for the explanation, you basically answered all my questions"

"It wasn't any trouble, have a good day Belau-san" she bowed as Acheron left towards the elevator.

Acheron reached the 2nd floor and found himself an empty dressing room. He noticed hardly anyone was around, students must already be training.

He noticed a panel and looked through the kind of bows they had, he decided on a long bow made of yew wood, a classic bow. He looked through the quivers and chose 10, ones that held up to 50 arrows and in turn he ordered 500 arrows.

Once he had put in his order, he sat down, reached inside his bag and pulled out a metal box, similar in size to a thick book. When he opened the box, he pulled out a Vantablack cloak and hanged it on a hook. He took off his clothes and put the cloak on, the mantle was very thin, but not enough to be transparent.

It seemed too big for Acheron, even with how tall he was, it was still baggy. The cloak seemed to absorb the light around Acheron, giving him a deathly aura. Acheron reached behind his head and put on the hood in which covered almost his whole face.

If anyone was near, they would had noticed that the moment he dawned the hood, his presence disappeared. He had now looked a grim reaper, those depicted in the western myths, the personification of Death itself. As he walked the halls, he seemed to glide like a ghost.

Somehow no one noticed him on his way to his destination, soon he reached the foot of the forest where all the equipment he ordered was waiting on a cart. He picked up the bow,

"Nothing like a good bow made of yew wood" his voice was raspy and cold, like a breeze during a blizzard, it wasn't his normal voice, almost as if he was possessed.

He grabbed the bow and equipped 3 quivers on himself, the rest he hanged up on some trees near entrance of the forest. He took noticed of all the surveillance equipment throughout the forest, cameras with mics and speakers, he guessed it was for safety reasons and to let the students know when time was up.

He pressed the green button to start the time and he disappeared into the wind.

An hour later, Acheron had exited the forest, he put the bow down along with the empty quivers and headed towards his locker room. He took the cloak off and put his suit back on, just as silently he arrived, he had left.

Back inside, a couple seconds after Acheron had left the building, a building wide announcement was made.

Students were training on their archery lanes along side their classmates and friends when voice came over the intercom. "Attention all archers! attention all archers! A new record has been established!"

Students slowly stopped what they were doing and started to pay attention at the announcement. They were curious, is has been a long time since a record has been broken, most of them were held by the elite of the club.

They wondered if one of those elite students had broken their own record or something. "The previous record in the forest was held by student Amazoness, with the score of 253 and with 215 arrows used in the period of one hour. Now, the high score is held by student Acheron Belau, with 500 arrows used in one hour and total score of…."

Both staff and students were shocked at the number of arrows. The student named Amazoness was the top archer in the club and already used a sky-high number of arrows to reach the previous record score.

To think an unknown student had used over twice as many arrows as her… now, everyone was listening attentively to words of the announcer, they were curious of the score.

"The total score is…. 887 points!" silence permeated the entire building, they almost couldn't believe their ears, if it wasn't for the fact that the number was shown on all the TV monitors throughout the building they would had thought they were going deaf.

"887 points!?!"

"Are you fucking joking?!?!"

"What the Fuck! How can anybody get score that high?!? And with 500 arrows?!?"

Some had called this Acheron a cheater, but they knew the truth, every arrow is tracked by microchip and the scoring system will not allow for arrows to count once the arrow has stopped moving the first time, so it was impossible to reuse arrows once they left the bow.

Also, they forest is littered with cameras and if the score is true, we will know tomorrow after being reviewed by the Archery instructors. They were wondering who this guy was and lamenting his luck, for they knew that Amazoness hated to be challenged by anyone, specially a male student, and will look for this guy and break his legs, just like all those previous men that challenged her prestige.