Young, bold, and overflowing with confidence. The young man who walked to the dais fit the word majestic to a tee.
His gait, his demeanor, his walk, everything about him exuded such confidence that you would immediately begin to root for him. He seemed to have everything within his sights.
As he reached the table in front of him, he gave the audience a wave before picking up the object laid on the table.
A revolver modeled after the classical colt revolvers. It did not have any labels on it, just a rough reconstruction from the ruins and relics they were able to collect about the ancient humans.
The gun was fully loaded, and for his test, he had to shoot six shots, one practice round, and five shots at a target.
Warai, the young man from the Crimson Adventure team, smiled confidently as he raised the gun. Taking on the shooting position, he held the gun with both hands and began to shoot.
The target was a bull's eye placed 50 meters from the shooter. This was double the handgun's most effective range. At this distance, one was testing the capability of the marksman.
The bull's eye had ten rings marked with red and white colors alternatingly. The outermost ring being one and the innermost being ten.
The valuation was done depending on where the bullet landed.
Twa! Twa! Twa! Twa! Twa! Twa!
Each shot landed on target. Furthermore, apart from the first shot, which didn't count, none of the shots fired were outside of number 10 ring.
Seeing this, everyone cheered wholeheartedly.
The would-be competitors shivered nervously. Fortunately, there were more guns available.
One after another, eleven shooters took to the stage. There were many good shooters, and some pretty horrible ones too. Many failed to hit the target, some almost shooting the audience.
However, as the stakes stood, Jamie was the surprising dark horse among the shooters with a total of 41 shots. Her first shot had hit a six, but after that, her next shot hit a nine. The others landed on the eight rings. Since the first was a practice shot, she had one nine-score-mark and four eight-mark as her score.
Keshi had a glum look, for she had a low 26. While she was happy for Jamie, she couldn't help feeling jealous of her.
"Let's see how he performs," Jamie said as she watched Njeru take the stage. All Keshi could do was a grunt. For once, Jamie was the talkative one in this dynamic.
Njeru had to admit he was nervous. This whole time, he had been watching the shooters, intentionally placing himself last in the line. He wanted to observe how each and every shooter did their thing, this way, he would know the right and wrong thing to do.
Standing on stage, Njeru picked up the small handgun. This whole time, he had been doing various calculations in his head, but all this time it had been theoretical.
Now with the gun in hand, he could factor in the weight of the gun and the weight of the bullet.
"Interesting stance from your boy," Nangi said as he turned to Chege. Both of them were adventure team leaders, the former being the Commander of the Crimson Adventurer Team.
"He knows what he's doing," Chege bragged as he watched Njeru take the stance. What he didn't know was that this was a copy of the stance Warai had taken previously, albeit with minor improvements.
When everyone took to the stage, Njeru had taken time to observe how everyone would interact with the gun, and their performance on the target.
From observing Warai alone, he wouldn't have been as good. However, once he had Warai as the template, he analysed those that came afterward. He used their performance to compare with the initial template, correcting for any errors.
He realized the second hand was meant to help the shooting hand absorb the recoil force, and those that did not account for it ended up missing their subsequent shots.
Moreover, one leg was placed behind the other to offer more support to the shooter.
While shooting, Njeru had noticed that due to the distance, those that managed to shoot close to the number ten ring aimed upwards at the bull's eye.
Not until that moment you have cocked the hammer and pulled the trigger, no one can prepare you for the sound of a gun firing, or the recoil that comes after.
The initial shock out of the way, Njeru proceeded to send five bullets downrange. He then put the gun back on the table and got off the stage.
Silence.
Absolute silence.
Someone had outdone even Warai?
Each shot was so well placed that one would think he had only fired once. Each shot was right on the money, at the very center of the number ten ring.
The initial silence was followed by thunderous cheering.
What a splendid performance.