The entry fee for the contest is one copper coin, and this almost non-existent, purely symbolic threshold is not a pressure for even the most strapped new land-giver participants, ensuring that the contestants are not too few to make the competition unsuccessful, and Iger will not be stumped by wanting to be a good shooter.

The downside of this is that the level of the contestants is outrageously uneven.

The match was shot from a distance of more than 70 meters, which is a "normal but slightly challenging" distance for a normal shooter – but this is judged by the standard of the average Seven Nations shooter. And the fact is that many of the new land-givers from outside the fortress use their own bows and arrows, and they can't even tell how far they can shoot outside the fortress without standard weights and measures. Maybe some of them are indeed some of the best in their own village or tribe, but a small target more than seventy meters away?

There is no snow in Houguan Town today, but the cold wind is blowing as usual. In this kind of open-air environment, it is normal for the level to be insufficient, resulting in a very low target rate or even missing an arrow, and the most comical thing is that there are no players who can't even reach the target because they are still young, lack of strength or the bow is too poor...... After firing a few arrows, they were confused, and either left the venue in embarrassment or temporarily replaced with the night watchman's bow and arrow provided by the organizer. You can imagine it: if you use the guy you touch for the first time to play directly without practice, you can play beautifully.

All sorts of unexpected circumstances certainly added excitement and drama to the game, but even if they did, no one would cause trouble under the nose of the Commander-in-Chief of the Night's Watch because of the entry fee for a copper plate. In stark contrast to these foils were the most serious shooters, who quickly stood out from the crowd of competitors: Theon and "Marksman" Angey, of course, easily advanced with a perfect score, while the latter's partner ...... As a nobleman, it is not surprising that Dondelion is good at archery, but what Iger didn't expect was that Soros was clearly a red god priest who could also use a bow. The three good players sent by Castle Black all passed the second round, and in addition, it was not surprising that Ygritte became one of the few new landgivers to make the cut, and Iger was a little helpless: as his own descendant and henchman, the promotion ratio of soldiers in the logistics department was somewhat unsatisfactory.

There is no way, although the scientific system, advanced theories and diligent training have made this team composed of civilians as the main body quite good in terms of discipline and overall combat ability, but the disadvantage of personal martial arts is that it is impossible to catch up with those warriors and nobles who can touch the bow since they were young by hard training in just one or two years.

However, if it is not satisfactory, Egger is now not only the owner of the Night's Watch industry and the head of the logistics department, but also the commander-in-chief of the Night's Watch...... As long as a few of the men in black who are brothers in vows can hold up, he has nothing to be embarrassed about.

The only thing that made Egg a little uneasy was that Arya actually led several Winterfell guards into the next round - she had expected her to be eliminated early because she couldn't pull the bow, and it seemed that this girl had more strength than she thought. The Seven Gods: If Miss Stark really breaks into the top ten, should you take her on the front line to deal with the strangers in the final battle?

......

Worry only flashed through his mind, and he breathed a sigh of relief after learning about Arya's promotion results: halfway to the target: Houguan Town and the Night's Watch Legion were not full of talent, but they were far from enough to allow such a little girl to enter the final round. It wasn't as easy as it seemed, and after two more rounds, she would definitely not be able to lift her arms.

Taking advantage of the gap between the matches, Messila whispered again: "Lord Egger, your attitude towards Miss Greyjoy is too ...... It's hard to be a bang. ”

"No way. Egger glanced at Asha's back a few meters away, sighed helplessly, and explained in the same whisper, "There are always some women in the world who feel that they have a bit of a posture, and men should revolve around her or look at them differently." If I don't make sure to let her understand my attitude, she will only mistakenly think that I am interested in her, and she will feel more and more that I can use meat...... Something to get for 'some price'. Speaking of this, he suddenly remembered that he was just a girl across from him, and it was a little inappropriate to discuss this topic with her, so he could only skip part of the content quickly, "If you don't take a tough attitude, you will only add more trouble to yourself." ”

"I'm not saying...... You should accept the deal with her. "Messila is also a woman, it can even be said that she dares to take the initiative to approach Iger for support and help, and subconsciously has some confidence in her appearance to dare to do so, hearing this, a blush suddenly appeared on her little face, "I know, for the sake of Lord Theon's face, you have to give his sister some preferential treatment, but I don't want to entangle him too much...... But have you forgotten that she and Arya 'swordsmanship' before, this time she didn't hurt Arya's brain, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. You later told Arya not to do it again, and maybe she'll listen to you...... But think about it: although the swordsmanship competition has stopped, as a 'friend', when Asha met Arya in Houguan Town, she called her and wanted to say a few 'whispers between girls' with her, with Arya's personality and temper, would she pretend not to hear it and ignore it?"

Eger raised her eyebrows, and Myrthella pointed out a blind spot in her previous thinking: a sturdy warrior like Asha doesn't have to be a threat to people when she is fighting with people on the school grounds, if she wants to do something...... Indeed, it is not a foolproof solution to just forbid Arya to practice swords with her.

"Oh, it's a mess, you don't hear it, my lord, I'll reorganize the language. "My suggestion is that you can't just ignore her to expect her to calm down, figure it out, and be a prisoner in peace. Not everyone is as calm and never emotional as you are, and if you keep being so negative and cold - people who don't see any hope can do crazy things. You're either going to keep her in full prison, or you're going to give her a little hope and make two verbal promises, like asking the Stark family for her and thinking about something to do with her. There's no need to rush to cash in, but there's hope—at least you'll see the hint when she's about to go crazy. ”

To be honest, Messira's proposal this time is not as sharp and eye-catching as the previous ones, and it can only be regarded as somewhat reasonable. Egger thought about it, and didn't want to slap the little princess's kindness, so he could only nod: "Okay, I'll take the time to talk to her at lunch and appease my prisoner." At least make sure she ...... Don't make any more moths before this big war. ”

Messira nodded quickly...... If she continues to talk about it, she will be so weak that her cheeks will be hot, and the clues will be revealed.

She forcibly found a topic to speak for Asha, of course, not because she liked her, but largely with selfish intentions, and she wanted to test Egger. If he is really a selfless man who only wants to be a competent commander-in-chief of the Night's Watch, then his hope of using him to change his fate will only be frustrated, and he can give up early. On the contrary, he is willing to talk to Asha today, and he is willing to do someone a small favor tomorrow...... In this way, I have been accustomed to stretching my feet and wiping the edges of my responsibilities and authority again and again...... It is possible to be considered in the future when he pleads with him to "deliver".

＊＊＊

Iger didn't know what Misella was thinking, and even if he did, he would probably just laugh and touch her head. The game continued, and by the end of the morning, the top 30 had all been decided, and Arya had been eliminated from the tournament as Iger had hoped, finally saving him the trouble of not letting her go to war.

At noon, after briefly talking to Asha and promising her that she would "help find out the way Stark is talking" after the war, Iger faced a small problem: because this not very formal archery competition adopts a "flowing style" in which multiple people shoot at the target at the same time, and finally calculate the number of arrows on the target to decide where to stay, rather than the modern sports competition: after one person shoots, the camera focuses on the next one before shooting, so the pace of the game is a little too fast to control. If this comparison continues, in the afternoon at most, another hour, and the competition will be over.

For a rare event, you have to arrange a whole day and other activities in the evening. Iger touched his chin and quickly had an idea: before the afternoon contest began, plug in an improvised program - a simple catapult accuracy competition.

In the case that the real artillery could not be fired, as the main "heavy firepower" along Houguan Town and the Great Wall, Iger equipped each fortress with a large number of small and medium-sized stone throwers that could throw wildfire incendiary bombs and dragon crystal bombs, and required these "artillerymen" to put accuracy first in training. The results of the training have been privately examined by him, and they are not bad...... At this moment, it acts as an emergency activity to make up the number and show your face in front of the spectators, which can not only kill time, but also further let the military and civilians of Houguan Town understand the defense capability of this fortress and increase their confidence, killing two birds with one stone.

Ten "artillery teams" were named to participate in this exhibition competition, and from a distance of 150 meters, they carried out precise strikes on the large circle drawn on the ground (the size of this circle is roughly drawn according to the killing range of the dragon crystal bomb), and the rules were the same as the archery competition: the one who could hit the target more times with a stone bullet as heavy as the dragon crystal bomb was the winner.

A small number of spectators who were anxious to see the results of the archery competition expressed their indifference to the catuldroid competition, but most watched the whole event with great interest. After spending more than an hour at the end of the episode, the last leg of the archery competition also started as scheduled, and in order to increase the spectacle, the organizers appropriately reduced the number of people who played at the same time. However, up to this point, the people who are still in the field are basically all good players, not only do accidents rarely happen, but often one or two missed arrows can quickly decide to eliminate or advance, there are fewer and fewer people on the field, and there are more and more spectators on the sidelines, in this warm atmosphere, the top 20 and the top 10 are finally decided one by one.

The tenth and eighth places were taken by a new landgiver and a hill clan warrior whom Iger didn't know, respectively, Berry Dondelion, the Earl of Black Harbor, who was known for being blessed by the Red God for his immortality, was surprisingly good at archery and ended up taking the ninth, the sixth was the famous "Fire Kiss", the only woman in the top ten, Ygritte, the fifth was a soldier of Winterfell, who wondered if Catelyn should keep him if he returned to Winterfell now to redeem the reward of "Bringing the Lightbringer to the Decisive Battle"; The fourth and third are both from the Castle Black Rangers, and are Egger's former colleagues, the first of which is none other than Jeremy Lake, the current Chief Ranger......

In the end, only the competition between the champions and runners-up remained: Angay, the archery champion of the King's Landing Tournament and nicknamed "The Marksman", did not expect that he had defeated the best players of the Seven Kingdoms, but he would meet a fierce rival in the cold and remote place of Houguan Town-Theon Greyjoy is less old and experienced than him, but he has the advantage of being in the north for ten years and is familiar with the temperature, humidity and cold winds of the north. The two men didn't miss a single shot from the moment they stepped into the ring until they eliminated all the other competitors – and in a match where the odds were above and not the number of rings, at least for now, no matter what their true strength is, it's still a tie for now!

After Yam ran to the audience and asked Iger what to do, the two sides played an extra round.

After five arrows, both sides are still on target!

Iger was a little interested, and announced the new rules on the spot: "Three arrows in one round, and both sides shoot in turn." At the end of each round, if the score is still equal, the target position is moved back 30 feet...... And so on until the winner is decided. ”

Unlike hot weapons, arrows, which are cold weapons, almost all of the kinetic energy fired come from the muscles of the person who draws the bow, which is already consumed, and will only increase as the distance from the target increases...... With such a fast-paced range extension, even if the archery skills of both sides are unparalleled in the world, sooner or later someone will be defeated due to the disadvantage of endurance!

Since most of the land-granting residents have never seen the world, the atmosphere in the stadium is gradually boiling - the emotions of the spectators who were already waiting for the end of the stadium are mobilized again, just like a football game enters the penalty shootout stage, with only two people left on the field, and the rules are adjusted simply and crudely, even if the spectators are not supporters of either team...... Even if you're not a fan, you might stop by and take a look out of curiosity!

Three arrows are all hit, plus thirty feet.

All three arrows hit x2, plus thirty feet.

All three arrows hit x3, plus thirty feet!

After three additions of thirty feet, the distance between the target and the shooter reached an astonishing nearly 100 meters, and a large number of spectators grew in the mountains or outside the fortress...... The latter, in particular, had already widened their eyes and showed an expression of disbelief: it was not that they could not shoot arrows, and Ygritte and another new landgiver player in the top 10 were also extremely talented, and the reason why they failed to achieve better results early was because they suffered from the poor performance of their homemade bows. 100 meters...... Ygritte's fish beam wood short bow is difficult to shoot even this distance, but the two players in the field still maintain a perfect score!

One arrow, both hit the target!

Two arrows, both hit the target!

Three arrows, both hit the target!

Still a draw.

......

At this moment, everyone forgot the differences in each other's culture and beliefs, forgot that they had hated and made enemies of each other, and the roars, cheers and discussions around the arena were like boiling water, and the hustle and bustle almost tore apart the clouds in the sky, and the gloomy atmosphere of preparation for the past few days in Houguan Town was swept away!

Ahead, the staff rushed into the field with great energy to move the target, and in the shooter position, Hou Guanzhen archery instructor turned helplessly towards the main stand and shrugged his shoulders.

＊＊＊

Theon Greyjoy's bow was a fine purple wood longbow from his adoptive father, Duke Eddard Stark, when he was sixteen years old. Not to mention a hundred meters, he dared to give it a try at one hundred and fifty meters. However, it's one thing to dare to give it a try under normal circumstances, and now ...... After firing dozens of arrows in a row, he felt a sour feeling on his shoulders and back, and the last arrow was already trembling.

On the other hand, the "marksman" Angai, who appeared out of nowhere and didn't even have a surname, had a relaxed face and could shoot another hundred arrows. Even though he knew that he might be bluffing, it still dealt a huge blow to Theon's confidence due to his lack of experience and experience.

Seeing the Commander-in-Chief nod encouragingly at him, Theon turned around and gritted his teeth to look into the field. The staff who moved the target ran out of the danger range, while An Gai on the other side took the arrow and bent the bow, as if he did not need to adapt to the changing distance and wind speed, "took a random aim", and released the arrow.

The arrow flew in a beautiful arc over a distance of 100 meters, and under the crosswind, it deviated from the direction of the shot a few degrees, but it was as if it was being held by an invisible hand - and it was aimed at the target instead.

With an inaudible crash, the arrow hits the target!

The mountains roared and the tsunami cheered.

Theon gritted his teeth and felt the arrow on the bow, put on a stance, and made a final attempt with his shoulders and back.

His posture was a little out of shape, and the correct thing to do was to relax his arms and exert his back muscles, but the reality was that he couldn't pull the bow far enough to shoot without the strength of his upper arms.

Holding his breath, adjusting his aim to the direction and speed of the wind, and maintaining a drawn bow posture were extremely laborious, and he had to get out of his hands as soon as possible.

But at the moment when Theon fired the arrow, a trumpet and an alarm bell suddenly sounded in the direction of the watchtower in Houguan Town.

——