Henry placed an arrow on the outer side of the bow and pushed it forward between his gripping fingers. A moment later, his head and eyes were swivelling along to the music, their movements quick and jerky as the turnings of a cockroach. Each twist of his vision noted down the threats in his surroundings.

The nearest player was a blue-haired teen reading a novel by the player-author Silver Wolf.

The trainer was watching.

His donkey was trying to chew through the rope he'd tied to a post.

Henry drew the string with his back muscles, bringing it to an anchor point where his hand touched his jaw. As the singer sang in the music in his head announced another number, he unpinched his fingers and released.

Immediately, he nocked another arrow.

A player also watching since he’d picked up the bow was tracking the arrow trajectory.

The meatheads were meatheading around.

When Henry glanced up to check the shot, the arrow flew past the target, bouncing off the wire of a fence 15 metres behind.

'You fucking myopic mole-rat!' he heard the old monk scream in his ears. 'Do it again!'

Well, it was hard to aim while shaking your head and he hadn't warmed up yet.

The player watching smirked.

The trainer shuddered.

Henry’s next arrow was slightly more accurate, hitting the target’s wooden leg.

After that, the next four shots all hit somewhere on the actual target, so Henry began to steadily increase the tempo of the music, and with it, the pace of his firing and threat checks.

Around shot 8, the meatheads started wrestling.

His 12th shot was a bullseye.

14, a four-man group arrived.

18, the bald trainer stopped watching to speak with the newcomers.

By 20, Henry was up to 10 shots per minute, the maximum firing rate for long-distance spells. From here, he would focus on accuracy.

21, the player watching him went over to grab a bow himself.

22 to 26 were all were within three rings of the bullseye.

28, the trainer glanced over mid-conversation and was surprised by the rapid improvement.

34, another lesson-group of trainees, having finished the first part of their instruction, passed by on their way to the monster killing grounds.

39, the other player, armed with his bow, stood about 15 metres away.

41, a meathead received a painful suplex.

43, the last of the passing group disappeared.

44, the other archer’s arrow struck the third ring, pleasing him.

49, the other archer’s second arrow hit the seventh ring, disappointing him.

Shots 40 through 50 had all been within two rings of the bullseye.

‘You fucking navel-gazing beaver! Stand still much fucking longer and the fucking arse-cunt against you will turn you into a fucking porcupine!’

With the warm-up finished, Henry upped the challenge.

Tiny balance-scale-shaped motes started to swim out of his pupils into his irises. In his vision, nine neon-coloured discs the size of manhole covers were scattered around the ground, ranging from 20 to 60 metres from the targets. Each disc had a different hue, along with a random number between one and five.

used. Less than 1 Universal Productivity consumed. 72,588 remaining.

Sprinting to a red disc with a number 2, he drew a curious glance from the other archer. Sliding onto the disc, he fired two arrows at a target which was also glowing red, sinking the first arrow within five rings of the centre, the second within three. Next, he ran to an orange disc with a 1 and fired off a single arrow at an orange-highlighted target.

In this way, he completed a circuit.

After finishing the 9th disc, he replaced the neon discs with a new set and began again.

Outwardly, his movements appeared strange, as the markings were visible only to him.

This ability wasn’t a Scholar skill but instead from another Civilian class, the Peopleworker class, as was indicated by the miniature balance scales in his eyes rather than quills and ink. As the name would suggest, Peopleworkers covered multiple roles relating to people, from diplomacy to managing kingdoms, to judging disputes of law, to organising troops on battlefields. The neon markings helped with that last domain. Visible to allies in a group or army, they could be used by a commander to draw their plans on the hills and creeks of the terrain, highlighting enemy traps, sketching routes for lines of attack.

During Henry's third circuit, the other archer slowed down his firing rate after narrowly missing him.

“Just ignore me," said Henry.

“Are you sure?”

"Yep."

Henry felt the extra threat had been adding much-needed pressure. In fact...

'You fucking mollycoddled kitten! Get off my fucking teet and scram!'

Henry suddenly recalled his last day training at the sect, when he'd been saying farewell to the old monk, the two of them separating due to a difference in philosophy.

As he'd been leaving, his footsteps a little heavy with the sorrows of departure, he'd felt a pressure on his back, before his body went hurtling off the suspension bridge he'd been walking on.

Falling, he'd looked up to see the old monk leaning over the edge, staring back at him. In each of the monk's hands was a stone, which he flicked, making them rocket Henry's way. Henry had managed to twist out of the path of one, block the other with his forearm, while, using his other forearm, he caught an arrow aimed at his ear by one of the monk's apprentices hanging by a rope. A moment before Henry's body had crashed into the ground, he'd caught a glimpse of the monk giving him a small nod of approval.

“Actually," said Henry to the archer, "do me a favour, every third or fourth shot, send one my way. Don’t worry about the Assailant’s Penalty; with my permission, it won’t apply.”

Before the archer could consider refusing the request, Henry stuffed a stack of arrows in their hands. He then ran over to the bald trainer’s armament and grabbed a buckler shield, which he strapped to his bow arm.

A short while later.

A horse-rider with a shirt emblazoned with a lion logo was on his way to the monster killing grounds. Today, he’d been relegated to recruiting for his Village.

“Oh?” he said, stopping suddenly.

In the archery range of one training station, several shirtless, muscular players were jumping around, while other shirtless dudes were throwing stones at them.

Watching their game, the recruiter noticed something even more eye-catching in the middle of them. Amongst the rowdy lot, a smaller, monkey-headed figure was bobbing and weaving from the stone-missiles while shooting arrows at targets. Despite the pressure, the chaotic interference of the surrounding musclefreaks, every one of this figure's shots was gliding smoothly through the air and hitting a target.

The recruiter—glancing at the targets, punctured by arrows scattered in a wide, random distribution—had a passing thought their arrangement might have been intentional, the archer firing them with precise imprecision. That, however, would have been impossible.

"OH!" The recruiter's astonishment doubled.

Without a Martial Class, this monkey-head would not yet have the help of the game system improving his accuracy. This dude had been aiming manually.

What an excellent prize!

The recruiter thrust a gracious finger into the mass of shirtless dudes. “You, dodging with the bow, I'm officially inviting you to The Village of The Golden Lion’s second 6-man arena squad! No audition. You're in.”

Henry, between two arrow shots, groaned with disdain.

What was the point of this nonsense scenario?

He'd stood at the very summit, not once but twice. He'd duelled the best of the best of best of the best. He'd gone beyond humanity, duelling Cosmic Gods and Time Dragons and Abyssal Sleepers.

Then the second time, well...

But to imagine his aspirations would ever be to join one of these ultra-noob Village squads rotting away in this dog-vomit hellhole, how insulting.

“I'm not interested.” He replied, deflecting a stone with his buckler. “Already got a Village."

The recruiter had noticed the armband on the player’s arm, but the logo was unrecognisable. A Village he didn't know was a Village that didn't matter.

The recruiter puffed out his chest to emphasise the logo. “Which Village exactly?”

“Not saying,” Henry, ducking an arrow, refused to answer as he had an unsettling premonition of the shirtless meatheads who'd turned up and started copying his dodging practice following him later on. "Secret." He dove through a dude's ripped legs, firing a shot mid-roll.

The recruiter squinted in suspicion.

A secret...why would he need to keep it secret?

He studied the insignia and the player’s mask, and a name came to mind - Shadow Monkey Village.

Had he stumbled upon a plot by those sneaky rivals of theirs? Had they hired a pro to reroll and carry their team?

The recruiter puffed his chest out further. “I don’t know how much they’re paying you, but The Golden Lion will match your salary and increase it by 30%! We’ll also provide a dedicated team to boost your Personal Slum Points!”

“Nope.” Henry fired off three more shots. "Still not interested, and I'm never going to be interested.” Smacking two stones aside, he was about to insult this recruiter thug, but a softer approach occurred to him. “I'm here to play with friends."

"Friends?” The recruiter smirked. "What's friendship before THE Golden Lion Village? For the past three months, we've not once fallen out of the top 20 of the Slum Points Village Leaderboard!"

The recruiter was about to whip out a promotional brochure, but, at that moment, the bald trainer ran over waving a sword. “Get out of here, you stinking recruiter! Get!”

The recruiter’s horse reared in fright. “Whoa, whoa, settle down, girl. Listen, baldie, I’m trying—”

“The Union rules are clear! No harassing our students during lessons! Get! Scram!"

The recruiter, forced to ride off, called back, “Monkey-head, if you change your mind, stop by The Golden Lion Village anytime!”

Not too long after that baffling incident, a friend of the bald trainer arrived with a wagon loaded with skewered rabbits, a giant cauldron, and a blanket-covered pile smelling of soil and herbs.

The bald trainer blew a horn. "Enough with the game of hopscotch, get over here! We begin.”