3180 Heart
**TA. TA.**
The two arrows whizzed into Old Bow's chest. She looked down and shook her head. She had lost. She had truly lost in bow fundamentals to a youth who didn't seem to have even experienced a few hundred years of life.
She couldn't help but feel disappointed.
"Thank you," Leonel said with a smile.
"You don't need to make me feel better," Old Bow said a bit bitterly as she began to fade away.
"I mean it," Leonel said. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
Old Bow's gaze flickered, but she was already disappearing before she could say anything more. Soon, there was nothing but silence once again.
Leonel stood there in silence, resisting the Idol Battlefield's expulsion so he could immerse himself in his thoughts more.
His gaze continuously flickered, his mind feeling like it was breaking free of a cocoon of some sort.
'My greed knows no bounds...'
He understood what Old Bow was referring to. It was the job of an elite archer on a battlefield to take out high-value targets. The stronger the target, the better. The more elite the archer, the stronger the target they would go after... regardless of distance... regardless of risk... regardless of the strength of the target themselves.
"Regardless of distance" didn't need to be explained other than to say that all distances had to be factored in... whether that was much further... or, much closer.
"Regardless of risk" also explained itself. An archer with great feats beneath their belt was bound to be targeted by other elite archers and powerful Generals of the like. The more of their skill they showed, the more likely they would also become one of the very same high-priority targets that they sought after.
And then "regardless of strength"...
But there was something about Old Bow's words that enlightened him to something else.
Why was it that the overly confident version of himself, the lazy man of great talent that ended up sitting at the top of the world all alone, a problem...?
Leonel had always believed that the answer was because he was too selfish. He was too obsessed with winning, so he had neglected everything else.
But when was that ever the case? Didn't that version of himself still love Aina with all his heart? Didn't he still love his mother? His brothers? His friends? His father?
Maybe the real problem with that version of himself wasn't that he was selfish, but rather that he too was selfless.
That confident version of future Leonel always found plans that worked. But the problem with those plans was that they all had a 100% certainty of working out for him. He picked them because he thought it would give him the greatest odds for survival, and he was right.
But what if he was also wrong?
What if instead of picking the plan that had a 100% chance of success every time... he picked a plan with 90% success that could also save the life of someone he cared for should he succeed? What if he picked the plan with an 80% chance of success that might allow two people he cared for to succeed?
What if he picked the plan with a 30% chance of success that would give him everything he wanted in the end?
His future self had ended up losing everything because he continuously made the perfect decision despite knowing that it might lead to some casualties.
But maybe the perfect, robotic decision wasn't what he needed all the time. Maybe he needed to take some risk, maybe he needed to risk bruising his pride...
Not the pride of himself, but rather his Dream Force.
He felt like he understood something he hadn't before. His pride came from his Dream Force, and his Dream Force was what helped him to analyze all of these plans. How could it sit idly by as he chose a path that was less ideal for selfish reasons?
But why always rely on his mind when sometimes the heart was more worth following?
A Valiant Heart.