Meanwhile, back in the Leonardo Estate, Hannah just finished doing paperwork in the family head study.
With work settled, Hannah decided to do something more private.
Now that her husband was out in the battlefield and Evelyn was seemingly busy preparing for yet another expedition, Hannah felt it was high time for her to visit the chapel and pray for her family.
Just as the baroness walked to the door, Giselle stopped her.
"Madam, there is someone who wishes to see you."
"A guest? Who is it, Giselle? Do we know them, by any chance?"
Giselle was a bit hesitant to answer which made Hannah wondered who the guest was.
"Baroness Leonardo, it's been a while!" a gentle voice came from the room next door. It was one that was familiar to Hannah.
The guest walked out from the room and showed themselves to the baroness.
It was a middle-aged man wearing a brown suit, neat pants and shoes. He had a majestic-looking long hair and a cleanly shaven handsome face. His whole appearance was the picture of a charming gentleman.
"You!" called Hannah.
Her gaze was stuck on the man. She couldn't take her eyes away from him due to how shocked she was from seeing him.
"You've returned!"
Baroness Leonardo stood frozen at her doorway in front of the gentleman whom made an unannounced visit to the Leonardo Estate.
"HIYAH!"
Back in the forest, the Leonardo soldiers galloped with their horses deeper into the woods to give chase to the fleeing fake gargoyles.
The soldiers pointed their crossbows toward the air as they closed their distance to their targets.
Once they were close enough, they pulled the trigger of their crossbows, launching the arrows away.
"GOT YOU!"
As if having eyes on the back of their head, the gargoyles evaded their arrows with ease.
The soldiers tried again anyway.
They hurried their horses toward the flying gargoyles ahead. Once they closed enough distance with the targets, they raised their crossbows to the air and shot their arrows again.
Missed. The gargoyles dodged the projectiles the second time.
The knights and squires were disgruntled by this result. They had been trying to shoot down the targets but not a single arrow managed to hit a gargoyle.
Crash. Thud. Crash. Thud.
The soldiers looked to their side and saw multiple gargoyles crashing to the ground.
They all snorted once they saw the arrows that downed the gargoyles. It was deep orange, Hilda's.
Team 1 to 9 turned their heads around to locate their captain.
"OVER THERE!" pointed one of the squires.
It turned out Hilda was riding her horse through a hill that stretched along the forest.
"THE HIGH GROUND IS THE ARCHER'S DWELLING!" shouted Hilda to the rest of the teams. "FIND SOMEWHERE ELEVATED WHERE YOU COULD GET A CLEAR VIEW OF YOUR TARGET! ALSO, GETTING TOO CLOSE TO THEM WILL LET THEM HEAR YOUR CROSSBOW AND ALLERTING THEM OF YOUR ATTACKS!"
The soldiers grunted to Hilda's advice.
It hurt their pride as they wanted to get rid of her from the captain's position.
But now, Hilda was helping them to perform better while also performing better than the rest of them.
They swallowed their pride and decided to just focus on the training. They took Hilda's advice and started to distant themselves from the target and find a high ground from where they could hit the gargoyles.
Crash. Thud.
"I DID IT!" shouted a squire from team 4. He just downed a gargoyle for his group.
Crash. Thud. Crash. Thud.
"Two down!" shouted a knight from team 7. He and his comrade gained two points for his team.
The other participants followed suit.
Meanwhile, Evelyn was galloping through the forest. Her gaze was wandering around the environment as if in search of something.
The lady sighed as she stopped her horse at a clearing.
"(No. This is not it.)" thought Evelyn. "(This place is not suitable for the ritual.)"
Whatever the Einsof's Chosen One was wondering, it occupied a great space in her mind and caused her quite a dillemma.
More gargoyles began to fall down from the sky. More teams started to score points.
The Leonardo soldiers galloped through the woods, each with a crossbow in their hand. They spent their time there hunting down the enchanted gargoyle replicas their commander created.
A while later, just after the sun went down and the forest turned dark, the last gargoyle was shot to the ground.
{Bara Arts, Silent Voice]
"THE TEST IS OVER! ALL TEAMS, GATHER AROUND!"
So was Evelyn announced to her soldiers.
All ten teams returned to Evelyn with anticipating look. They were wondering how the result turned out to be.
Seeing how anxious they all were, Evelyn stomped the Lucerna to the ground. That action summoned all the gargoyle replicas back to her. Right in front of the teams.
Evelyn used her magic to extract the arrows that landed on the gargoyles' eye and hovered the arrows to their corresponding team based on the color of the arrow.
The Leonardo noble then tallied up the score of each team.
The following was the number of gargoyles each team shot down.
TEAM ONE: 8
TEAM TWO: 6
TEAM THREE: 10
TEAM FOUR: 9
TEAM FIVE: 10
TEAM SIX: 7
TEAM SEVEN: 11
TEAM EIGHT: 8
TEAM NINE: 10
TEAM TEN (HILDA REICH): 21