The dragon's harem

While being accurate at extremely long ranges, what most archers need to excel at is the firing rate. In most armies, their role would be to drown the enemy in a rain of arrows from atop walls or from behind cover. This means that an army would rather have a thousand archers who can fire multiple arrows a second and only have a range of a hundred meters than a couple of snipers who excel at long ranges.

The second contest is only about sheer volume and sundering firepower.

The archer’s target was a ten-by-ten-meter wall that was two hundred meters away.

The archers’ goal is to fill it with as many arrows as they can in ten seconds, with bonus points for those who manage to destroy the wall.

A hundred walls were formed in different directions so multiple archers could be tested at the same time, and the champions of the first round were left for last to keep the crowd on their seats.

The result varied from those who didn’t even manage to touch the wall to those who riddled it with over fifty arrows in those ten seconds they were given.

It was quite the show to see an archer’s muscles contract and pull the bow’s string back five times a second, skillfully knocking one arrow after another like a machine. There were even some nutcases who fired two arrows at the same time.

Some people even expected the champions of the first round to fail at this second round, probably guessing they were specialized in precise aim and not rapid fire.

Ohh, how wrong they were.

The nine archers who stood at the top, including Arad and Aella, were literally monsters when it came to ranged weaponry.

When their turn came, each of them was given a chance to fire alone so they could elongate the time of the second round. Get the crowd something fun to watch for longer.

When the ninth-ranked one approached, Arad could immediately smell trouble when he heard Mira gasp in the VIP room.

A flying, blond, beautiful half-angel with a Gatling-gun-like crossbow that fires heavy steel bolts enchanted with explosive magic and magical storage for those bolts. All she needed to do was spin that thing and feed it with her mana, releasing a shower of bolts that reduced the wall into rubble.

The magic counter registered 1036 bolts fired in ten seconds, which blew the last record of 50 out of the water.

It seemed that the angel wasn’t here to show her archery skill, but to advertise her weapon. She was a weapon maker. Right after destroying the wall, she started explaining the models she had made and what their prices were.

The eighth and seventh-ranked ones were traditional archers who used normal bows and had now managed to show an impressive fire rate of a hundred arrows in ten seconds, which still put them far below the Gatling-gun-crossbow woman.

That half-angel couldn’t stop laughing. She had made that crossbow with the sole purpose of replacing the need for skilled archers on the battlefields, and now she was going to prove it by defeating everyone.

To defeat her weapon, the other archers had to be able to fire at least a hundred arrows a second, which was utterly insane unless someone was a really powerful ranger or a fighter.

One after another, all of the top archers failed to beat her weapon, and the generals of the half-angel army and nobles were already standing in like to have a conversation with her.

In fact, Arad knew that even if the other top archers all managed to beat her crossbow, the army and nobles would still fight to buy it. It didn’t need any skill or training, point, spin, and shoot. The mana cost can always be paid through mana crystals, which seemed to be a bonus design that someone needs to pay extra for.

Soon, it was up to the top four archers, Arad, Aella, and two half-angels, a man and a woman.

The man was ranked fourth, and he approached his post, set his bow on the ground, and threw his upper clothes away, revealing his muscular back and olive skin. The muscles rolled, and he started shooting at a harrowing speed that his hands turned into a blur.

After ten seconds, and with sweat pouring down his arms as if he had a bucket of water poured on his head, the counter declared that he had managed to fire an inhumane 1120 arrows at the wall, turning it into dust.

He threw a glance at the Gatling gun half-angel and smirked, “See that? I can beat your piece of junk.”

She laughed, “At what cost, muscle brain! You’re so exhausted that you can barely stand.” She slapped her crossbow, “This baby, on the other hand, can still keep going after just a few seconds to cool down.” She looked back at the nobles and the army generals with her eyes sparkling like gold, “Of course, an integrated ice-magic cooling system can be added at a small cost…” and she went on to sell it to them.

The third-ranked woman looked at her with a dark face. She gulped, knowing that she wasn’t that good at rapid fire. That man had shown a spectacular display of power. She probably wouldn’t be able to match him.

She pulled her bowstring and did her best, but when it was all done, the counter declared that she managed to fire 846 arrows in those ten seconds.

That was also a ridiculously high display of power, one that would’ve caused the other archers to brush it as mere fantasy and would’ve sent the crowd into a frenzy, only if the man earlier didn’t show a greater display.

Those who want a single elite archer are going to fight over him, leaving her as a secondary option, a mere lesser archer they have to settle for if they can’t afford him. No, would anyone even need her? With that crossbow, normal soldiers would outperform her in actual combat.

It was Aella’s turn, and she approached the referee with a weird question. “Can I get a bigger wall to blast? That tiny thing would crumble with just one shot.”

The referee looked at her for a second and then sighed, “No, we’ll just use that wall. But, you can fire one shot first so we can see how much damage it can do, then you’ll have to fire as many arrows as you can in ten seconds.”

“Got it!” She smiled and started putting on ear protection. That sent a shiver down everyone’s spine.