Chapter 346: Intercontinental Archery Championship finals part-3

Heavy rain continued to pour down from the sky.

With the roof covering the upper half of the seats, everyone changed the seats. Thankfully, the capacity of the stadium exceeded twice that of the current number of spectators. So, everyone managed to find seats under the roof.

Watching the heavy rain, Silver commented, "It looks like the rain isn't going to stop anytime soon…"

"What will happen to the match?" Wil asked with a frown on his face.

When it thundered, while everyone thought Hyori missed her mark because of a sudden shiver in fright, Wil, on the other hand, clearly saw her hand shook for a few seconds after she put down her hand. He realized right away that her hand reached the limit.

He doesn't know why everyone else failed to notice it but Wil saw it clearly. In the second round, after the fifth or sixth arrow, her arm started to become red. By the end of the last arrow, one can easily catch how much stress is on her right hand.

Wil wondered whether it is the injury acting up again.

At present, watching the heavy rain, Wil hoped the third round to be postponed or to be canceled for he knew Hyori's competitive spirit. As he asked Silver about the match, the latter replied, "I will enquire about it, Young Master. You don't need to worry about canceling or the announcement of Ms. Fujimori's win. The sports minister is close to close to us, anyway. You might not remember it but he came to Lord Philip's funeral…"

While Silver is trying to reassure Wil that Hyori will not face unfairness, Wil suddenly turned his attention to his mother upon hearing her words during her conversation with Hyori's mother.

A minute ago;

"Mrs. Lee, I think it's better to hope that rain will go on…" Scarlet was talking to Hyori's parents with her back facing Wil.

"Eh?" Hyori's parents were taken aback in surprise.

Mrs. Lee then said, "At this rate, the match will be canceled or will be declared in Hyori's opponent's favor. How would that be good?"

"You misunderstood my intentions." Scarlet shook her head and explained, "both of you failed to notice how much your daughter is struggling to pull the bowstring. It looked like something happened to her hand. There are even two small scars on her skin. Those cuts are probably made by a blade."

"Eh? Scars?" Along with the parents, even Jiwon and Hyunjoo were stunned, this time. This particular sentence attracted Wil's attention. He wondered how his mother managed to analyze it so perfectly.

Is it because she spent years with his father in that mafia gang? Or is it just because she's smart enough to figure it out? He can't help but wonder.

Meanwhile, Jiwon chipped in, "But, Auntie, Hyori-unnie has never cooked in her whole life. She never held a knife too."

"I'm not talking about kitchen knife, Jiwon." Scarlet shook her head in a serious tone. 

If not for addressing the serious issue, Scarlet would have smiled due to Jiwon's cheerful personality. Clearly, she liked her.

Oblivious to Wil's gaze from behind, she continued, "It was clear that she was being assaulted by a knife quite recently or it might be self-harm. I'm inclining to the former."

Hyori's parents were instantly terrified upon listening to Scarlet's words. Even the cheerful Jiwon can't help but frown at the moment.

"My daughter is being assaulted? What… What are you… you talking about, Ms. Quilton?" Mr. Lee stuttered as he uttered the words in disbelief.  Even his wife seemed to be in denial, "Maybe, you are mistaken, Mrs. Quilton."

Just then, Wil who was silently listening to their conversation opened his mouth, "A week ago, Hyori was robbed at the airport."

"Huh!" Everyone turned towards him.

Upon revealing the truth, Hyori's parents didn't ask him why he hasn't informed them about it. Instead, they thanked him once again for taking care of Hyori. Scarlet also finally realized why Wil accompanied her all the way to this city.

She felt Wil must have been worried about letting her go alone in such a state. It made her suspicions grew further regarding Wil and Hyori's relationship.

If she didn't know that Wil engaged to the girl that he doesn't love, she would have believed it was a concern for a friend but the fact that Wil's engagement was nothing but an indirect business proposal made her think otherwise.

After all, she knew that men in Raven's family fall for women who are good at Archery just like how Philip fell for her at the first sight when she was practicing Archery. She also heard from her ex-husband how Wil's paternal grandmother was also an Archer.

Along with Wil, while everyone from Wil's family and Hyori's family is hoping for the rain to continue, in the waiting room, the person in question was peacefully sleeping in a sitting motion with her head resting on the wall.

The ice pack on her hand was melted long ago and reverted to gel.

A while later, she woke up from her nap. The first thing she did is to raise her hand to check its condition. Rotating her wrists and then, arms, she sighed in relief, "Looks like it's good to go."

Applying a gel ice pack on her hand and with enough time passed, the pain in her hand was temporarily gone.

She then looked at the wall clock and was surprised to realize that more than 90 minutes has been passed. Her eyes then fell on the screens before her. "The rain hasn't been stopped yet?" Hyori began to worry that the third round will be canceled and she will be declared as the runner-up. She started to pray for the rain to stop so that she can resume her duel.

However, as if the god of rains and thunder isn't intending to listen to her prayers, the heavy rainfall continued for the next half an hour with thunder rumbling in the clouds from time to time.

Meanwhile, at one of the rooms in the stadium, a meeting was taking place between the staff.

As the relevant authorities kept requesting the sports minister to annul the finals between Sakura and Hyori, Imada Genichi, slammed the desk in anger. "I know that it's already been more than 2 hours and there's no sign of weather change. You don't need to remind me about it.

But, no matter what, the finals can't be canceled. How would people take it? Fujimori Sakura was leading the game by 2:1. Canceling the finals will bring criticism.

We can cancel the third round for the high school division but canceling the third round and declaring Fujimori Sakura as the winner will also bring criticism from the media.

Let's just wait for one more hour. If the rain didn't stop by then, we can postpone it to tomorrow."

Upon hearing his stance on this matter, the organizing committee's representative spoke, "We have our orders from the President. The finals have to be done by today and can't be postponed."

Remembering how stubborn the Eastern Archery Association's (EAA) president is, Imada Genichi gritted his teeth and said, "fine, then. Let's change the venue. Transfer all the robots to the Gymnasium. The competition will be held there."

"But, the capacity of the Gymnasium isn't big. Barely, a thousand people can fit in there…" The representative voiced his worries.

Genichi shook his head, "only the participants, the robots, and the staff will be present. The audience will watch the finals on their mobile phones. Take care of the preparations."