NOVEL WEB Chapter 21: Proof of skill
Eugene stood there, frozen, staring at the two corpses sprawled on the asphalt—Roc, the half-beast thug with feathers still twitching in death, and the towering man who had pummeled his father into unconsciousness.
"He really did it!" Eugene exclaimed silently.
Both died in a simple way.
Both pierced cleanly through with a single arrow.
The fletching shimmered faintly under the dim overhead lights, the shafts embedded with precision so brutal and beautiful that it left Eugene breathless.
One arrow had skewered Roc right between the eyes, the other lodged in the tall man's throat, severing something vital. Not a drop of blood had splattered on the surroundings.
It was a clean surgical kill! An expert archer can do it! Holy moly, don't tell me—" he looked at Vonjo again.
He remembered Vonjo saying he had hit them earlier, but Eugene hadn't believed him at the time. Now, seeing the evidence, Eugene couldn't help but feel how absurd this was.
Vonjo watched Eugene's face carefully, his lips tugging upward in a slow, crooked grin, relishing the boy's mix of shock, awe, and disbelief. "Didn't you say it was impossible earlier?" Vonjo drawled, his voice unhurried, deliberately nonchalant.
The bullet comments erupted like fireworks.
[DemonBowGod69]: BROOOOOO!? NO WAY!?
[CrossbowCultist420]: That's the Roc!? That beast gave Eugene's dad a coma!!!
[ArrowVortex]: THE ARROWS. THE ARROWS. THEY'RE REAL.
[NotVonjoFan92]: Bro I thought he was bluffing the whole time and now, he bodybagged them??
[Archery4Life]:Wait wait wait... wasn't he lying about being an Archer?!
[GachaBrokeSoul]: I'm still reeling from the blood refinement but THIS?! THIS?!
[FairyWaifu17]: MY BODY IS NOT READY.
[DoubtfulDarla]: Maybe they're just sleeping 😭
[WhoNeedsEugene]: Vonjo best character confirmed.
[DeadAimSniperElite]: Vonjo's arrows make Hawkeye look like a child with a slingshot.
[StreamerClipItNow]: We need a replay, zoom in, pan to the arrow—enhance!
[SweatyPalms69]: Those are MY arrows! I crafted that same build in the game!
And then, the denial wave hit like a tide.
[PlotTwistEnjoyer]: Maybe… maybe Vonjo didn't do it.
[HaterNater98]: LMAO imagine if someone else did it. Like a sniper off-screen or somethin'.
[IReadTheWIKI]: Wait… Vonjo never released the arrow ON SCREEN!
[GrownTumor88]: He did shot a lot of them though.
[LowFPS_Larry]: I refuse, bro's probably taking credit. I call fake.
[ArrowLogic101]: That arrow looks too elite. Even for Vonjo.
[HalfElvenHope]: We never saw him shoot. We just SAW the arrows. HMMM 🤨
Vonjo's eyelid twitched.
He turned slowly to Eugene, who was still processing the sight, his knuckles pale as his grip tightened around the van's doorframe.
"So, kid," Vonjo said coolly, pretending not to notice the barrage of comments, "still think it's impossible?"
Eugene's throat felt like sand. The image of the bodies didn't fade—it burned into his mind, even stronger than the dozens of failed quests he had suffered in his RPG bloodline ability.
That cursed game he had brought nothing but agony.
The memory of endlessly dying on repeat, respawning with debt, barely progressing.
Archery had been his chosen class—one of the hardest—and yet his shots never landed where he aimed. Boss monsters laughed at his pitiful range. Quests failed repeatedly. Gear degraded. His reputation plummeted. And worse, he'd gone so deep into debt that he still owed real-world currency.
He remembered nights spent crying into his keyboard, the trembling of his fingers after thousands of arrow shots, only for none of them to matter.
Arrows were precise. Arrows were honest.
They either hit, or they didn't. No lucky crits. No broken abilities. Just skill. And his skill had been lacking.
But Vonjo… Vonjo just casually did it.
Like flicking dust from a sleeve.
The comments were now going wild again.
[ForeshadowedAllAlong]: Wait. WAIT. What if Vonjo is Eugene's future teacher?!
[AdaptationApologist]: I think the adaptation changed the teacher arc!
[SystemTheoryGoBrr]: Maybe the novel writer put Vonjo in place to help Eugene not forget the Archery like in the novel.
[WhyVonjoWhy]: If he teaches him… Eugene might actually be useful 😭
[PlotArmorDetective]: This better not be the author pandering. The readers wanted a bow god so bad…
[RPGVeteran54]: Don't forget the forum leak said an Archery God was going to appear.
[ScriptLeakSupreme]: Called it. Vonjo is the NPC that was meant to be cut but made it to the adaptation!
[VisualNovelist21]: If Vonjo trains Eugene, I WILL cry.
Vonjo chuckled quietly to himself.
These fools.
They thought he'd just take anyone under his wing? No. He was not some generous mentor passing wisdom freely. He played by his own rules, and if he were to take on a student, it'd be for a damn good reason—one that benefited him. He wasn't going to babysit some protagonist-cursed kid unless there was something in it.
But then the crowd of bullet comments suddenly pivoted again, a storm of doubt catching fire in seconds.
[ThirdEyeOpen]: We never saw the shot…
[DoubtItStill]: What if someone else killed them?
[FletchingExpert]: That arrow… didn't Eugene give Vonjo those earlier? What if Vonjo's just using them?
[SniperBeast21]: Maybe someone set him up for the win.
[ArcherySkeptic01]: LOOK AT THE ANGLE. It's impossible from where Vonjo stood!
Vonjo's face twitched again.
He didn't like being doubted.
He turned his head slightly, speaking with a casual tone that didn't quite mask the steel behind it. "You can check if the arrows are yours, Eugene. Go on."
Eugene blinked. That tone… he recognized it. If he refused, Vonjo wouldn't ask twice.
His throat bobbed as he swallowed, hard. From this distance, he already knew. The arrow style—the custom blackwood fletching, the exact groove in the shaft—it was unmistakably his. The arrows he lent Vonjo earlier.
Still, Eugene walked forward, each step heavy like marching through a dream. Or a nightmare. The blood hadn't even dried yet. He knelt beside the corpses, heart thudding, breath shallow. The arrows were pristine. Not chipped. Not bent. Perfect.
He nodded, pretending to inspect further, then returned to Vonjo, hiding the tremble in his fingers.
"S-Sir… you're amazing, these are indeed my arrow," Eugene stammered. "How did you… how did you train your archery?"
Vonjo grinned and immediately began his tale with a straight face. "Well, it all started when I was eleven. In a hidden village, high in the frost cliffs. There, we hunted lightning eagles using bows made of obsidian string and wind-bent yew. Every morning, we'd be forced to shoot apples off the backs of leaping goats while standing on frozen lakes. Miss once? No food for the day. Miss twice? The ice broke and you swam home."
Eugene stared.
Vonjo didn't blink.
The bullet comments collapsed into chaos.
[LiarLevelMAX]: WHAT THE HELL IS HE EVEN SAYING!? YOU'RE FROM SUTTERFOUSE, THOSE MUST BE A LIE!
[FrozenGoatSniper]: Apples on leaping goats?! This man's insane!!!
[ColdLakeCult]: Not the swimming ice punishment LMAOOOO
[ArrowCap32]: He's deadass just making this up
[BullshitBeast99]: I LOVE HIM. I HATE HIM. I LOVE HIM.
[TruthSeeker]:HOW IS HE THIS CONFIDENT IN LYING?!?!
[GoatApocalypse07]: Man's so shameless he turned archery into mythos.
Eugene almost laughed—almost. But he kept it in. The man in front of him was absurd, yes. But effective. And Eugene could tell already—it would be a monumental struggle to make Vonjo agree to tell him anything.
Vonjo clapped his hands once and turned toward the van, brushing invisible dust from his sleeve. "Let's get out of here, kid."
His tone was light. Unbothered.
As though two bodies weren't lying lifeless just a few meters behind him.
As though the air wasn't thick with questions.
As though he hadn't just changed the trajectory of Eugene's life forever.