24 - No Cliché
24 - No Cliché
Leo had met a lot of arrogant people, and there were only two ways to deal with arrogant people:
The first way was for you to put your head down and let the person be arrogant like a clown. The consequence of this would be that the person would become even more arrogant and treat you as someone inferior to them.
The second way would be to be more arrogant than the other person and make them realize that the world does not revolve around them. The consequence of that would be that the person would have to try to show that they are more amazing than you, but after the person realizes that they are inferior to you, either they would be ashamed and leave, or they would recognize you and treat you like someone who was superior to themselves.
Leo had already read some books where the protagonist of the book dealt with this kind of situation by offending everyone, making the antagonist hate him to the point of using the strength of his own family to end his life over a petty fight. But this wasn't a book Leo had read; this was real life. In a militarized world, fighting between army officers was bad for both sides. No one would win by having a fight with someone else, so most of the time those fights ended up with both sides becoming friends, or at least getting to know each other better.
That's why Leo wasn't afraid to provoke Eric, as he knew that as much as they fought, Eric was the one who started it and in the end he would have to solve it in the most logical way. Of course, if Leo didn't have the strength to deal with it, none of this would be worth it. After all, friendship only works between two equal sides.
After looking at Eric with a smile, Leo brought his mouth to Liza's ear and whispered. "It's okay. Do you think that with me by your side something bad will happen?"
Hearing Leo's confidence, Liza was even less worried. During class she had talked to Chris and found out that Leo went with him alone in the forest to hunt Bronze 2 Star monsters to help Chris to become an Awakened. Someone who could hunt Bronze 2 Star monsters alone while being an Awakened Bronze 2 Star really had a right to have that confidence. Not only for his current strength, but the unlimited future he had, hardly anyone would want to be on Leo's bad side for long.
Right after she was relaxed, Liza felt Leo's hot breath brush against her ear and the hairs on her arms stood on end; even an icy feeling rose between her legs. After all, Leo was very attractive, both his personality and his looks.
Leo noticed goose bumps on her arm and smiled. "What's going on? You're all shivering. Are you cold?"
When Leo finished saying that, his hand that was on her shoulder went down to her waist and pulled her closer to him. As he pulled her, Leo felt a very comfortable fat above her rib.
As for Liza, when she felt Leo's hand touch her breast a little, her face turned red with embarrassment as she looked around to see if anyone had noticed anything. Seeing that no one was looking, Liza turned to Leo with an angry expression and used one hand to pinch him while speaking quietly, "Stop doing that. This place is full of people!"
Hearing this, Leo smiled once more before reaching close to her ear and whispering, "So if there wasn't anyone else, we wouldn't have a problem?"
When Liza heard this she didn't know what to say, as that's pretty much what she had said. Luckily for Liza, before she could answer, Anna came back and sat beside her. Noting Leo's hand on Liza's waist, Anna raised an eyebrow and said, "So you're already at that level? Now I understand why Liza isn't acting so cold with you."
Liza was embarrassed to see that Anna had noticed Leo's hand on her waist, but Leo just smiled and acted as if it had nothing to do with him. When Anna came over, Charles also came with Eric.
Charles only raised an eyebrow when he saw Leo's hand on Liza's waist, but Eric was very angry at the sight of it.
"Why didn't you guys go shoot?" Anna asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I'm not feeling very well," Liza replied a little uncomfortably.
Eric's gazing at her was making her uncomfortable. Luckily Leo's hand, as much as it made her a little embarrassed, it also made her feel safer.
"And you, Leo?" Anna asked.
Leo looked at the shooting targets and saw that most showed very poor marksmanship. Most people didn't even have a 50% rate of hitting the bull's-eye, let alone having any fun for him.
"That doesn't sound very challenging to me," Leo answered honestly.
But while Leo gave an honest answer, the others took it as arrogance.
"Are you good at shooting?" Anna asked in surprise, since they never talked about guns when they were at the mall.
"I'm not bad," Leo answered honestly again, as with the Aim-Bot he was definitely not bad.
"How about a competition?" Eric saw the opportunity and took advantage of it to compete with Leo.
Leo raised an eyebrow and asked, "Which of those targets is yours?"
"Number 47," Eric answered confidently.
Leo saw several paper targets from afar, but soon was able to pick out number 47. "Hmm, an 80% fire rate at the center of the target? Sounds like fun."
Leo finally got interested. He hadn't seen Eric's target and figured there really wasn't anyone proficient here. But when he saw that Eric had an 80% hit rate at the center of the target at 10 meters, it got interesting. Of course, Leo would have a 100% hit rate up to 50 meters, but if he were to wait for someone better than this to come along for him to play, he could never play with anyone.
With a smile, Leo got up and went to get a gun from the closet. Anna and Charles were confused to see how Leo was acting. Initially they thought he wasn't very good at shooting so he took the opportunity to spend time flirting with Liza, but from the way he acted, it really looked like he's good at it.
Considering that some Awakened use firearms to hunt, having a good aim meant that the person was also a good hunter. After all, if you shoot well, you can kill monsters well. But when Leo came back from the closet, he was holding a bow!
Anna, Charles, and Eric were confused to see this as they didn't even remember seeing a bow there, and even more confused that Leo had decided to use a bow! Liza knew that Leo liked to use a bow to hunt, so she wasn't surprised.
Leo had taken this bow from his inventory, so they didn't really see this bow stored there before he came in, but there were still some arrows, which Leo took and slung around his waist inside the quiver. He could have taken a firearm to shoot, but as he was already used to using the bow, Leo preferred to use the bow himself. After all, with a firearm he might lose all the fun, right?
"Are you going to use a bow?" Eric asked with some uncertainty, seeing Leo leaving the gun rack with the bow.
Leo's bow was very beautiful, to the point that the other Awakened were fascinated by the bow's appearance, but knowing that Leo took it from the locker, they figured it wasn't a deadly weapon, as the shooting club wouldn't put out a Bronze Rank weapon for people to train with, unless people paid more.
Leo held the bow confidently and smiled, "Yes, I'm used to using the bow."
Hearing this, Eric just nodded, then went to a booth while Leo went to the next one over.
Knowing that a competition was going to happen, the other kids stopped shooting and made room for Eric and Leo, wanting to just watch the mess.
Eric set up the targets and explained to Leo, "I'm going to set it up so that it has three rows of targets: 4 meters, 6 meters and 10 meters away. The movement of targets will be random, and the target will fall to the ground when a shot hits the center of the target. After 60 seconds, we can go there and count how many targets we hit. How about it?"
Hearing this, Leo thought it was a cool way to challenge someone and nodded in agreement. This was also why he had chosen a bow: If Leo had an M4 machine gun that fired at a rate of 750-900 rounds per minute, with the Aim-Bot there probably wouldn't even be enough targets for him to shoot.
With the bow he would already have the limitation of taking much longer to shoot, so even if his aim was better, Leo would still have a chance of losing by taking longer to fire. Of course, to make up for this, Leo already had a plan in mind, something he did constantly while hunting.
"Let's start?" Eric asked.
"Ready," Leo replied.
5
4
3
2
1
…
Go!
The sound box started the confrontation and the targets began to move.
Bang, Bang, Bang!
Eric didn't even think and started shooting at the targets that were closer.
Swoosh, Swoosh!
Leo was also very fast and shot two arrows at the same time.
Seeing Leo using two arrows on the bow at the same time made the spectators shocked, especially after seeing that the two arrows hit the center of their respective targets, the same amount as Eric, who had fired 3 shots and hit the center of 2 targets.
Even Liza was surprised to see Leo shooting two arrows and hitting perfectly, since at school she only saw Leo using one arrow at a time!
Bang, Bang, Bang!
Swoosh, Swoosh!
The noise of a single gun firing and arrows flying were the only noises in the place; nobody could pay attention to anything else. While Leo hit all the targets he shot, Eric hit 4 out of every 6 shots. After all, shooting with a limited time against another person against moving targets didn't allow him to have the same accuracy he had had when he was shooting alone when the targets were stationary. (Not to mention that seeing Leo hitting all the targets with his arrows was making Eric even more nervous!)
At one point, Leo noticed a change in his arrows. When Leo shot an arrow, a strange force caused the arrow to change direction mid-flight, but Leo was quick to correct this and used the Aim-Bot once more.
Swoosh, Swoosh, Swoosh!
With three arrows, two were heading towards a target while another was heading towards the arrow which was deflected by the invisible force. One arrow hit the other and caused the two to change direction and hit the center of two different targets.
Seeing this, even Eric's mindset broke. Charles, who was watching from afar, was also surprised at Leo's control when using the bow, mainly because he knew why Eric had such a high hit rate.
After a few seconds time ran out. 60 seconds had passed, but neither Leo nor Eric bothered to go count the targets. It was clear that Leo was superior and had hit all the targets, while Eric only hit two thirds of his own.
When the match was over, it was just as Leo had assumed: Eric's once disdainful and angry attitude changed to admiration. Strong people tend to look up to strong guys, and seeing how good Leo was at shooting, Eric couldn't deny that he was inferior. Luckily he wasn't like the spoiled kids Leo had beaten when he was younger, where the kids got embarrassed and walked away trying to act like nothing had happened.
"Your shooting skills are very good! You even managed to correct the trajectory of that interference!" Eric said as he reached for Leo without even hiding that he was the one who had gotten in the way of Leo's arrow.
Leo wondered what Eric's Quirk was, since his arrows had a metal tip, but since it wasn't something relevant, Leo shook Eric's hand and smiled.
"The bow has already become an extension of me," Leo replied while smiling.
After the competition, other young people came to talk to Leo and he talked with everyone. Eric stopped trying to get close to Liza, as he didn't feel he was better than Leo, while Charles spent the rest of the night unable to get a head start on Anna, who always showed disinterest.
'Bald people suffer,' Leo thought to himself.
Leo took advantage of it later when the other young people went off to talk with each other to flirt once again with Liza. After they left, Leo returned home to distribute some more of his Experience points.
The days passed quickly, and soon it was Sunday. Leo had hunted every day as much as possible to level up his skills, and today he finally intended to hunt Vulpi.
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