King of the Wilderness

She was leaning against a birch tree marked with white spots, gasping for breath, each breath tugging at her empty stomach, sending waves of spasmodic pain.

Her face was as pale as the snow at her feet, her lips cracked and peeling from dehydration and cold, even seeping with traces of blood.

At her feet, slanted in the snow, was that ridiculously crude ”arrow” she had made herself.

It was a straight spruce stick, patiently sharpened with a small knife, and repeatedly charred over a fire in an attempt to increase hardness.

The fletching was made from two feathers from a grouse she had previously hunted, barely glued together with resin scraped from a pine tree and a bit of thread she had pulled from her clothes.

This was the most ”refined” work she could produce.

Just moments ago, ten minutes to be exact, the Goddess of Fortune seemed to smile upon her.

A plump spruce grouse confidently appeared in the bushes less than fifteen meters ahead of her, pecking at something on the ground.

It was the perfect, close-range target!

After two days of running out of supplies, this grouse was definitely a gift from the Goddess of Fortune!

Her heart pounded furiously, her blood rushing to her brain in excitement, making her almost forget the dizziness that hunger brought.

Forcing herself to calm down, using all her willpower to suppress the slight tremors from weakness and excitement.

Then she raised the bow as fast as she could, fitting the ”self-made life-saving arrow” that carried all her hopes.

She aimed, held her breath, and the whole world seemed to disappear, leaving only her, the bow, and that close target. She released her fingers—a textbook release!

However, after casting the bait, the Goddess of Fortune mercilessly pulled it back.

The arrow, after flying less than ten meters, began to wobble and roll uncontrollably, like a drunken man, completely losing aim.

The flight path was no longer a straight line but turned into a struggling parabola.

Finally, it plunged weakly and powerless into the snow a few meters away from the grouse.

The grouse was merely startled by this sudden ”visitor”!

But it seemed unthreatened, tilting its head, curiously observing the stick lodged in the snow with its small black bean-like eyes for a moment.

Then it strode leisurely into the depths of the thick forest. That leisurely gait was a more piercing mockery to Kelly than any words could be.

Failure, another total failure.

This was the third time today.

Kelly could no longer hold herself up, her body went limp, and she leaned against the birch tree behind her. A huge sense of loss and despair engulfed her like an icy tide.

”Why!” She squeezed out these three words through gritted teeth, her voice full of endless anger and frustration, ”Why just doesn’t it work!”

She kept questioning herself, closing her eyes, her mind frantically replaying every detail of the arrow’s flight.

”Center of gravity... it’s still the center of gravity problem this time!” She opened her eyes abruptly, identifying the problem.

”This stick is too light; although the metal arrowhead provides enough head weight, the overall center of gravity of the arrow is too front-heavy, so as soon as it leaves the bowstring, the resistance from the fletching doesn’t match the inertia from the head, causing it to tumble!”

Kelly, like a mad engineer, analyzed every failed parameter in her mind.

These were things she only needed to know in the past because perfect industrial equipment solved everything for her.

Now, every imbalance of parameters had become a death sentence for her.

She regretted why she wasn’t more cautious after missing the last few shots, why she wasted precious arrows on opportunities that weren’t guaranteed!

”Fool! Kelly, you’re just a fool!” She pressed her forehead against the cold tree trunk, silently cursing herself.

Looking at the recurved bow that had once filled her with pride, she glanced at the arrow slanted in the snow, and finally at her quiver, which only held two bear hunting arrows remaining.

The ten high-quality carbon fiber arrows she had brought were completely expended in more than twenty days of hunting and accidents. Only the two bear hunting arrows had to be kept as ace up her sleeve and could not be used.

Two of them were lost in the boundless deep snow due to miscalculating the distance and wind drift.

Another two, after penetrating prey, were deeply embedded in the frozen ground or rock crevices, the arrowheads damaged, the shafts broken.

The last four, though they brought her valuable prey, also developed fine cracks and deformations due to repeated use and impact.

Without arrows, she, a skilled archer, became a complete joke. The top-notch recurved bow in her hand was now just like a fire stick.

So she fashioned an arrow yesterday, thinking she had solved the biggest problem when she dismantled an old arrow, carefully attaching the arrowhead to a spruce stick.

She didn’t recklessly rush into hunting but instead piled up a snowdrift as a target near the shelter and conducted a few cautious test shots.

As she feared, the flight path was unstable; the homemade shaft was too soft for her powerful recurved bow, causing it to sway like a fishtail after being fired, greatly affecting accuracy.