For high elves, time was their least valuable resource. With their long lifespans, they could squander it as freely as they pleased.
But Charlemagne, a transmigrator who knew the future well, certainly would not waste his life like an ordinary high elf. After Alleria left, he still went to the Ranger-General's quarters to train every day without fail.
He had his bow drawn, his sharp gaze fixed on the target five hundred meters away, which looked very small at that distance. Drawing a sudden breath, he released three arrows so quickly that his hands seemed to leave afterimages.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
"Whew..."
As the three arrows struck the bull's-eye one after another, Charlemagne wiped the sweat from his forehead.
On Earth, someone who could shoot a bow to a range of around two hundred meters was already considered a master archer, but things were clearly different in this world of magic.
Like other classes, rangers had their own energy system. It was said that the first Ranger-General, Talanas, had personally taken part in designing this energy.
He had combined mages' mana with the energy used by scouts and rogues to create a form of energy unique to rangers-Focus.
Of course, this Focus was not as ridiculous as it was in the game, where firing an energy-consuming Arcane Shot could actually restore it.
A ranger's total Focus also determined their upper limits to some extent. As he was now, Charlemagne would enter a brief downtime after firing three Aimed Shots at once, needing a short recovery before he could use them again.
Arcane Shot, Multi-Shot, and other such abilities also consumed Focus. If an enemy closed in while a ranger was short on Focus, they could only rely on traps and the melee weapons they carried to hold the enemy off for a while.
After trying many weapons, Charlemagne had finally settled on a pair of short blades for close combat.
Dual blades could serve both offense and defense. As long as he avoided meeting an enemy's strength head-on, combining them with a ranger's wide variety of traps would at least keep him from being overwhelmed in a short time.
I keep feeling... like I've seen this fighting style somewhere before. Am I imagining things?
Thinking of his longbow and short blades, Charlemagne scratched his head in puzzlement, but then shook it. This was not the time to think about that.
Neither his bow nor his blades were exceptional weapons. The bow's body had been made from a branch taken from an older tree in Eversong Woods, and its string was made from the sinew of one of the magical lynxes that lived there.
The short blades were also just ordinary steel weapons. There was no helping it; he could not afford precious materials like mithril or thorium, let alone Northrend's titansteel.
Still, he had made both himself, as his mentor Lireesa had advised.
"You need to make and maintain your own weapons. Only you can truly understand your own needs, don't you think?"
Although Charlemagne, who had been thinking of all sorts of artifacts at the time, had subtly curled his lip, the sharp-eyed Lireesa had still noticed.
After giving him a reproachful tap on the head, Lireesa had asked Charlemagne what he really thought.
"Mentor, if that's what you're saying, then what about artifacts? Take Thas'dorah, which has been passed down through the Windrunner family for generations. You didn't make that yourself either, did you?"
Lireesa glanced at Thas'dorah hanging on the wall and shook her head.
"You know only half the story."
"Artifacts have spirits. They actively adjust themselves to their owners' habits, making slight changes to their forms to better suit their owners."
"Thas'dorah is no exception. By the time this bow reached my hands, it was already very different from the Thas'dorah our ancestor Talanas first wielded."
"After thousands of years of nourishment from the Sunwell, this artifact has grown ever more powerful. Here in Eversong Woods, where the sacred tree Thas'alah stands, the bow's power is enhanced even further."
At this point, Lireesa took a sip of tea to moisten her throat.
"As long as it's used within Eversong Woods, this bow is practically invincible. After thousands of years of battle, trolls now lose some of their nerve at the mere sight of it. Aside from the artifact kept by the royal family-Thori'dal, the Stars' Fury-no bow can compare to it!"
Thori'dal, the Stars' Fury, was the legendary weapon dropped by Kil'jaeden, the final boss of The Burning Crusade expansion in his previous life.
Blizz had never explained the bow's origins in detail, leaving it a legendary weapon of unknown provenance with the sorriest backstory.
But through Lireesa's explanation, Charlemagne learned that this longbow had been passed down since the days of the Highborne. It had originally been intended as a gift for Tyrande, a priestess of the Moon, but the rebellion of the lower-class commoners had naturally killed that proposal before it could come to fruition.
When Dath'Remar crossed east to Eversong Woods, he had also taken this longbow, which had long been immersed in the Well of Eternity. Afterward, it had remained in the Sunwell, absorbing magic and being nourished by it.
When Talanas Windrunner rose to prominence, Dath'Remar had originally intended to bestow this bow upon him. In the end, however, Talanas had decided to make an artifact longbow himself from a branch of the sacred tree, and thus Thas'dorah had been born.
Seeing the hopeful expression on her student's face, how could Lireesa not know what he was thinking?
She chuckled and patted Charlemagne on the shoulder. "All right, come back to your senses. If you want Thori'dal, earn it through military merit."
"Over the millennia, it has been bestowed upon several heroes of the high elves. After their deaths, the royal family reclaimed it and returned it to the Sunwell to be nourished. No one in this generation has yet qualified to receive it. Work hard, boy!"
After all, the high elves had fought no major wars since the Troll Wars. Without merit, there could naturally be no reward. Since its previous owner's death, the bow had already spent a thousand years in the Sunwell.
After finishing his morning training, Charlemagne did not give himself any extra work. He went to Lireesa's private workshop and began maintaining his longbow and blades.
After checking the bowstring's tension, sharpening his blades, and sheathing them with satisfaction, Charlemagne gazed out the window at Lor'themar, Vereesa, and Lirath, who were still training, and fell into a daze.
"Tomorrow, huh..."
Nine days had flown by since Alleria's departure. Tomorrow would be the day they marched to war.
During this time, hoping to train her successor, Lireesa had kept her second daughter Sylvanas leading the ranger troops and the Farstriders in guerrilla warfare against the trolls in the forest. But with their numerical disadvantage, the situation did not look promising.
After this large-scale recruitment, the high elves would muster their main ranger force at the Sanctum of the Sun, aiming to drive the trolls back into Zul'Aman once again.
During their major offensive against Zul'Aman ten years earlier, the high elves had suffered badly after carelessly falling into an ambush.
Not only had they lost the previous Ranger-General, but their elite rangers had also suffered devastating casualties. This was what gave the trolls the confidence to march brazenly out of Zul'Aman this time.
Before heading home, Charlemagne looked at the entire military camp, now fully mobilized, and steeled his resolve.
Trolls... Even setting aside Azeroth's tradition of eating, sleeping, and beating up trolls, I'll make you pay in blood just to avenge my father in this life!
(End of chapter)