As soon as the Longshot Arrow pierced through the zephyrtail’s body, it pinned it against the trunk of a nearby tree. With a reassured smirk, Idris dashed towards the bird in order to retrieve it, then brought it back to Clint just to prove to him that the shot had indeed landed true. Even now, as Idris was holding the white-feathered bird within the palm of his hand, pink particles of light were continuously emitted from the wound where the arrow punctured through the bird.

  “That…that was incredible,” Clint said with befuddled awe as he saw the zephyrtail swift presented right in front of him. “You have somehow managed to land a hit on a zephyrtail? From that far away?”

  “That is the level of skill that separates an amateur like you from a master like me,” Idris remarked with a suave smirk. Grabbing the swift with one hand and the arrow with the other, he yanked the arrow out, killing off the bird in a burst of pink particles and converting it into four star runes that materialized into his hand. “Well, I guess now it’s time to finish you off.”

  “Wait! You currently have four star runes in your possession! You don’t actually need all four of them to pass the trial!” Clint urged. “Why not give one of them to me? I can help you along with the rest of the trials.”

  “You? Helping me? No thanks,” Idris declined. “With your level of skill, I highly doubt you’ll be much help anyway. Plus, I tend to work alone anyway. Maybe take a few years to practice your hunting skills some more. Then, maybe I’ll reconsider. Farewell. Oh, and be sure to tell your friends about me.”

  “Wait—” Clint tried to object but was interrupted when Idris drove the Longshot arrow held in his hand straight through the side of Clint’s neck, causing him to emit pink particles from that wound. In a few seconds, Clint had faux-died, his body disintegrating into a mass of pink particles before returning to the elimination area, where he was reunited with his other archer friends. “Aww, goddamn it!”

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  Meanwhile, Idris looked down at the four star runes in his hand. He technically only needed one to get through the barrier and pass the first trial, meaning the other three might as well be redundant. After taking one of the star runes and pocketing it, he tossed the other three star runes to the ground.

  He’s fairly certain that some of the contestants wandering around would come around to pick them up. Usually, in a Scavenger Hunt like this, the most prominent strategy was to simply hunt down the runes from monsters or finding them through riddles. However, another less common strategy was to simply wait for other contestants to hunt down their runes and scavenge the runes that were left over.

  While it was generally ideal to fight against a monster with a star level that matched exactly to the number of members on your team, sometimes you might not always encounter that exact ideal scenario.

  For example, maybe you have a team of three but you’ve encountered a 4-star monster, after which you’ve defeated and had one star rune left over. With no need for that extra star rune, it would subsequently be discarded, allowing any contestant who happened to be wandering nearby to snatch it up. That way, a contestant could technically obtain a star rune without ever fighting a monster or solving a riddle. Though the chances of that happening were random and unpredictable, it was nonetheless a viable strategy.

  At first, Idris considered giving those extra runes to Miri and Anne on the off-chance that they might not be able to acquire a star rune by the end of the time limit. However, he ultimately decided against it, feeling that those two women were probably competent enough to not require his charity. In fact, given their personalities, they would probably reject his offer out of pride anyway. If they couldn’t acquire star runes through their own abilities, they might as well have admitted defeat.

  As Idris traversed through the forest to get to the edge of the barrier, he wondered how Miri and Anne were doing with their own quest to acquire star runes at this very moment.