Although it was a bit difficult, he still managed to fully draw the bow.
Feeling the immense tension from the bowstring, Hughes's confidence instantly exploded: "The penetration power of this bow is absolutely amazing. Let alone rabbits or goats, even killing a wild boar wouldn't be a problem."
"If you can hit the vital parts, even an elephant wouldn't be a problem," Barton added indifferently.
"Don't worry." Hughes's girlfriend, Anne, immediately chimed in, her face full of pride. "Hughes won the gold medal in the 70-meter target at the Olympics the year before last. His accuracy is World-class. As long as a Beast dares to appear, it will be our dinner."
A 70-meter target Olympic gold medal!
This title carried too much weight.
The crowd's originally suspended hearts completely settled down, and they began to look forward to the upcoming barbecue feast.
In their view, with a marksman and a divine weapon, wouldn't this island hunt be as simple as going to the supermarket to buy groceries?
"Great, let's set off immediately."
"I can't wait to eat meat."
"I'll go too, I can be responsible for carrying the prey."
Watching many people, spurred on by the blonde Hughes and Anne, getting restless and rubbing their hands, eager to rush into the jungle and start a massacre, Alice's brows furrowed tighter and tighter.
These people had no idea what they were facing.
Olympic archery is shooting at fixed targets in a comfortable environment with measurable wind speed.
But jungle hunting involves facing cunning, vicious, and extremely fast Beasts, possibly even prehistoric dinosaurs.
The difference between this and that is even greater than the difference between playing a CS game and going to a real battlefield.
Without any preparation, no reconnaissance, no backup, rushing into the primeval forest like this—that's not called hunting, that's called delivering takeout.
"Wait!"
Alice jumped down from the rock, stood in front of the crowd, and spread her arms to block their path.
"Shouldn't we carefully consider the matter of hunting?" she said loudly, her voice crisp but serious.
The blonde Hughes, who was immersed in a hero's dream, was stunned for a moment. Before he could speak, his girlfriend Anne was already unhappy, rolled her eyes, and asked: "Why consider it? We have weapons, we have a marksman, what else are we missing?"
"The island is dangerous," Alice stared into Hughes's eyes and said seriously, "ten thousand times more dangerous than you imagine."
"Dangerous? Ha!"
Anne sneered, pointing to the calm woods around them.
"Are you referring to the many Beasts on the island, little sister? But why haven't I seen even one? And I believe no Beast can escape from Hughes's bow and arrow; he is an Olympic champion."
The blonde Hughes, at the right moment, revealed a reserved smile of a lonely master, holding that black lethal bow, striking a handsome pose, exuding an air of dominance as if with a bow in hand, the World was his.
"Little girl, don't be afraid," Hughes said in a tone like an older brother coaxing a child. "I will protect everyone. As long as I don't fall, no Beast can hurt you."
"Exactly, don't boost others' morale and destroy your own."
"Kids are just cowardly."
The people around also began to whisper, feeling that Alice was making a fuss over nothing.
Alice took a deep breath, suppressing the anger in her heart.
She knew these people had been blinded by the survival of the plane crash, creating an illusion of survivor bias.
She had to make them sober up.
"The reason you don't see Beasts now is that predators generally don't appear in open areas like the beach; they like to ambush. Also, the noise from the plane crash just now was too loud; the explosions and vibrations scared away any Beasts that might have appeared, and they won't dare to show their heads for a while, they are all watching."
Alice paused and dropped a bombshell.
"Actually, I didn't fall from this plane."
This sentence was a bit abrupt, and the crowd didn't react for a moment.
"What do you mean?" Anne spread her hands. "So what?"
Alice looked at her and said calmly: "A month ago, the yacht I was on was capsized by a storm, and then I was carried to this island by the waves. In other words, I have already survived here for a full thirty days."
The whole place was dead silent for two seconds.
"So we aren't companions from the same plane after all." Strange suddenly realized, the question that had been bothering him finally solved.
Why this girl looked dirty but was still so energetic.
The curly-haired Banner also nodded with a shocked expression: "No wonder, I was just saying how you were so skilled at finding water."
"You mean you lived alone on this island for a month?" Anne looked Alice up and down with a Strange expression, her eyes full of suspicion.
"Yes," Alice nodded.
She had thought this fact would make everyone realize that her warning was based on experience and carried weight.
However, the logic of human nature is sometimes just that Strange and absurd.
Annie pursed her lips and suddenly laughed, "If a delicate little girl like you can survive on this island for a whole month, then it means this island isn't so scary after all, right everyone?"
This sentence was like lighting the fuse of a powder keg.
"Yeah, why didn't I think of that?"
"If a little girl can survive for a month, what do we have to fear with so many grown men, plus an Olympic champion?"
"Looks like the Beasts on this island are just rabbit-level."
The crowd burst into laughter.
In their eyes, Alice was just a physically weak, fifteen-year-old girl who couldn't even truss a chicken.
Hughes, on the other hand, was one meter eighty-five tall, muscular, and held a lethal weapon.
No matter how you looked at it or compared them, their strength was not in the same dimension.
Alice surviving proved that this island was just a beginner's zone.
"But there really are many prehistoric Beasts on the island."
Alice explained again; she had seen a T-Rex eating a buffet with her own eyes and had seen a wild boar even sturdier than Hughes smash through large trees.
But everyone only believed in what they could see, and they didn't believe a teenage girl.
A deep sense of powerlessness welled up in Alice's heart.
At this moment, she really wanted to give up on persuading them, and even wanted to watch these idiots go to their deaths just to teach them what it meant to fear nature.
But turning her head, she saw the weak Barton lying on the ground, the honest and worried-looking Banner, and Strange, who was snarky but had saved people.
Her inner conscience made her unwilling to watch everyone be wiped out.
Even if Hughes was a master archer, could he compare to those killing machines that had evolved for hundreds of millions of years?
She didn't think Hughes could survive three seconds under the fangs of that terrifying wild boar that even a Sabretooth was no match for.
Not to mention the prehistoric nightmares on this island that didn't even have names.
Alice took a deep breath and changed her strategy.
"But if it's just to satisfy our hunger for now and solve the problem of tonight's dinner, we don't actually have to risk hunting."
"Not hunt?" Hughes frowned. "We need to eat."
"Can you conjure up food?" Strange asked curiously. "Or are you going to take us to dig for earthworms to eat?"
"I don't know magic, and I don't eat earthworms. But there is something edible nearby, and there's plenty of it."
Alice pointed to the depression behind the beach.
"Follow me."