Translator: Henyee Translations  Editor: Henyee Translations

Even though it was only three arrows, in fact, it had a great influence on the outcome of the battle.

One side was undamaged and shooting from a distance, while the other side was being worn out.

One-on-one and two-on-one battles were completely different.

The so-called art of war is the use of various methods to create a situation where less is used to fight more, which results in superior utilization of military strength.

Also, flying squirrels were still living beings and they had a sense of survival. After Aupin killed the flying squirrel leader, the remaining flying squirrels immediately began to flee.

They did not need to shoot a ton of arrows.

If they increased the number of arrows shot, it would greatly deplete their stamina. They were all laymen archers, so their physical stamina should be allocated more to melee combat. Otherwise the losses would outweigh the gains.

As for the task of adjusting the bow, Aupin handed it over to Whitesprout.

Yellowteres and Blueteres only had a small amount of leadership ability, at most they could lead a small team to charge a deck of a seaship.

Aupin did not know how to adjust bows, neither did Violette or Palebeard.

Whitesprout, the son of hunters, was of ordinary strength. If he hadn’t come to this island, he would definitely be an average joe. But in this situation, he could rely on his own talents to stand out from the crowd.

For him, this island was full of danger, but it also had great opportunities.

After all, my subordinates have too few talents. Even the slightly talented ones, like Whitesprout, can stand out, Aupin thought as he sighed.

Whitesprout led several people to adjust the bows, and soon the rest also got to work.

Yellowteres continued to hunt. The main goal was not to obtain food, but to target wild birds and harvest their feathers.

Blueteres continued to investigate the flying squirrel community.

Wooden shields and hunting traps were all made by people one after another.

There were also hemp ropes made from tree bark. The short ones were used for bowstrings and the long ones were used for binding, such as making shields. Their hemp rope supply continued to increase. These supplies seemed inconspicuous, but were very practical.

No one knew how long they would stay on this island, so they stored as much hemp rope as possible.

According to Palebeard’s description, hemp rope had a wide range of applications.

In addition to its own functions, hemp rope could also be woven into a net. The net could be used to carry things, could be used as clothing, and could be woven into straw shoes.

Palebeard was also involved in this process, he provided an extremely simple loom.

This loom used a dozen small wooden stakes inserted in the soil and the small wooden stakes were arranged in two rows. The row of small wooden stakes were spaced out while a horizontal wooden stick was used to fix them in place.

The small wooden stakes were wound with thread, forming dozens of vertical parallel lines. By lifting half the wooden stakes, the other half of the vertical threads become tilted.

Then by inserting the only horizontal thread along the tilted angle, and putting down the vertical threads again, one horizontal thread and a dozen vertical threads became entangled together, completing the basic action of weaving.

By repeating this action dozens of times or hundreds of times, a piece of cloth would slowly be made.

This kind of loom was extremely primitive. Its efficiency was incomparable to the looms in the Empire. A person spending half a day’s work could only make a small piece of cloth.

But it did save huge manpower and material resources, and the efficiency was much higher than that of simple labor.

The exploration team members working with these looms praised Palebeard’s profound knowledge. But Palebeard told them that he learned about this loom when he researched the information of the Orc race.

Compared to the human Empire, although the orcs occupied the Wilderness Continent, they generally existed in the form of tribes, so their living standards and productivity were low. This kind of loom was widespread among the orcs.

As for Violette, she was mainly responsible for making poison. Aupin told her that a certain kind of poison was needed, one that could dissipate naturally, or disappear through boiling or baking. And one that was only effective against flying squirrels and did not cause much harm to the human body.

After all, hunting flying squirrels was for food. If the poison was too strong, even if it killed these flying squirrels, the meat of the flying squirrels could not be eaten. The losses would outweigh the gains.

The conditions at the moment were extremely crude, Violette could only reluctantly try her best, but she also needed to do live experimentation on flying squirrels.

Aupin left to investigate the flying squirrel community with Blueteres.

Palebeard stayed in the campsite to command and dispatch personnel.

After adjusting the bows, Whitesprout led everyone for test shootings.

In the evening, the leaders met again and exchanged their findings with each other.

Aupin and Blueteres caught three live flying squirrels and gave them to Violette.

Yellowteres did not catch any prey, as hunting ability was not based on combat power. He also lost some iron arrows, arrows that were very precious.

But they were not without progress. Yellowteres’ group failed to hunt, so they had to step farther and try their luck. They unexpectedly found a small bamboo forest.

Bamboo was a good resource, as it was a natural water storage container. Bamboo could make rafts, and sharpened bamboo could make traps.

The third day.

“Shoot!” Yellowteres gave out an order and several arrows flew out in the air.

A dozen simple archery targets were standing at a distance of 120 steps away.

Concentric circles were drawn on the target with charcoal, but only a few arrows landed on the target at all.

The ring on the target was rather small, similar to the size of a flying squirrel. But in a real battle, everyone was going to shoot flying squirrels, and these flying squirrels could move.

So this kind of accuracy was unacceptable.

“Your posture is wrong.”

“Back straight, arms straight.”

“Stable, stable. Why are you shaking!?”

Yellowteres served as an instructor.

His eyebrows frowned and there was a tremendous pressure in his heart.

In comparison, the number one arrow shooter in the entire team was of course Aupin.

The second was Whitesprout. The young man’s arrow shooting skills were still a step higher than that of Yellowteres and the rest. After all, this was a craft he relied on to feed himself.

Hunters did not hunt for pleasure, this was just a way of life for them. In addition to hunting dogs, hunters used traps the most, but they also used bows and arrows. A good hunter would choose to stop or give up when he encountered a large beast that he could not capture.

Yellowteres and Blueteres were good at close combat, and when shooting from a distance, they used crossbows more than bows. They lived on boats, so they deliberately practiced shooting skills.

Yellowteres’ hunt ended in a mess yesterday, so today he was arranged by Aupin to become a temporary instructor.

In order to save his face, Yellowteres worked very hard.

Yellowteres was more reliable training other people. Although his shooting skills were a little worse than Whitesprout.

Whitesprout’s archery skills relied more on feeling and pure emotion.

Yellowteres had gone through training before and knew the key to archery.

“First, we must carry out personal training, then begin firing volleys of arrows. With the archery skills right now, even the most basic volley can’t be achieved.” Aupin looked at the training and observed the situation. His heart was quite anxious, but he didn’t show any signs on the surface.

Today, Whitesprout replaced Yellowteres and was responsible for hunting. The main target was still wild birds, as the exploration team needed more feathers to make arrows.

No one expected him to hunt enough food.

The risk of individual hunting was high, and the efficiency was actually low. It was mainly sitting around and hoping to get lucky.

The life of hunters in the Empire was actually very difficult.

Like the saying goes, hunting is inferior to grazing, and grazing is inferior to farming.

Under normal circumstances, hunters were often starving. Compared with hunters and herders, farmers had the most stable source of food and the highest quality of life.

Hunters seemed to have a source of meat, but in fact, most of the mountains and forests were owned by nobles. Hunters who poached without permission would be severely punished if caught.

But in this situation, the exploration team could only rely on large-scale hunting to meet their own food consumption.

The training went from morning to night. After eating, the exploration team members had no intention of chatting and laughing, but they all fell asleep in their tents.

Inside Aupin’s tent, Palebeard had a solemn expression as he reported on the grim situation.

“Aupin, we don’t have much food, our consumption rate is high. If we continue like this, we won’t last long.”

Aupin’s expression was calm and his mood was stable.

He himself felt strange about this. Over these two days, his originally anxious mood gradually calmed down.

He adapted to the pressure. He comforted Palebeard, “Archery skills must be trained. We cannot rush this matter. We can only clench our jaws! Without basic archery skills, there is no point in hunting. This kind of hard training consumes physical strength, thereby increasing the consumption of food. However, if we consume food and improve our archery skills, we will reduce the number of injuries during hunting. This is cost-effective.”

“I understand now, sir.” Palebeard nodded. “It’s just that, our food is being consumed quickly. Everyone knows this and the members are very worried.”

Aupin smiled. “Then tell them clearly how many food rations we have left. If necessary, let each of them see our food reserves with their own eyes.”

Palebeard’s expression changed slightly, he said in a deep voice, “I understand, sir.”

The fourth day on the shooting range…

Despite the sore arms and even obvious swelling, the exploration team members practiced hard and seriously.

They were all aware of the food reserves in the team and had a clear understanding of their own situation: they were desperate. If the hunt failed, what awaited them was starvation!

Under this pressure, everyone worked hard and tried their best to practice archery.

Although the results of the previous training were poor, after everyone got used to the equipment, the situation improved greatly.

Arrows that hit the bullseye were rare, but most arrows did hit the target.

Seeing that the archery performance had stabilized, Yellowteres immediately removed the fixed targets and replaced them with moving targets.

These moving targets were short wooden stakes with hemp rope tied to them. The other end of the rope was hung from a tall tree branch. After being raised in the air and let go, the stake swayed under the tree.

Yellowteres asked the team members to shoot arrows at the stakes.

The results immediately dropped and were worse than before!

No one complained. Everyone knew that in actual combat, flying squirrels moved faster than wooden stakes, and their directions changed more often.

Practice, practice, practice.

Every second was precious.

While eating lunch, the team members were silent and the atmosphere was solemn.

Many people subconsciously frowned, constantly pondering and reflecting on what they should do to improve their arrow shooting skills.

When they were resting in the tent, they also practiced their shooting posture, even though they didn’t have a bow in their hands.

After training, the players massaged each other’s arms.

Many people couldn’t lift their arms and most of them had swollen hands.

Fortunately, they had the potions made by Violette.

These potions were made recently. The potions were originally used for the supernatural, but they were now diluted and used on ordinary people. The potions contained a powerful recovery effect.

These potions were both used externally on the skin and internally by ingestion to cooperate with each other. After a night’s rest, their arms basically recovered!

During dinner time, everyone were greeted with rather tasteless food.

The random mix of wild plants looked like inedible decorations.

The people’s faces changed, but they did not say anything.

Everyone understood the severity of the situation.

“Palebeard, come out for a second,” Aupin’s voice came from afar.

“Why is dinner like this?” Aupin questioned Palebeard.

“Sir, there is not enough food. We have to do this!” Palebeard replied to Aupin.

Aupin retorted, “But I remember, there are still some reserves. It’s not this bad!”

“Sir, there are only remaining dry rations, left for you and Violette.”

“Bring them out.”

“Sir?”

“Bring them all out! How can they have the strength to train and fight if they don’t have enough food?”

This conversation made the hearts of everyone warm and people had emotional looks on their faces.

“Sir, please let us attack.” Some team members took the initiative to find Aupin and asked to attack.

But Aupin refused this request. “Training. You still need more training!”

The fifth day.

Training, training, and more training!

In the evening, after Aupin checked the results of the training, he was pleased to find that five arrows out of ten could reach the target.

The moving target was relatively large, much larger than a real flying squirrel. But this kind of result had reached Aupin’s standards.

He had never expected to train each team member into a sharpshooter, as it was impossible to do so in a short period of time. Everyone’s bow shooting skills were also limited by their background.

But the arrow volley could make up for the lack of accuracy.

This level of shooting skill could form an arrow volley attack.

In the afternoon, Palebeard also came to persuade Aupin, “It’s time to hunt, sir.”

“Wait a bit longer,” Aupin said with certainty.

Even Aupin was surprised at his own confidence.