I took a stroll around the main base during the evening when the shogi boards were put out and the competitions started. Elrand recently defeated our nine-year-old shogi genius; the match was extremely intense but entertaining.

The prizes were still mostly items, but once a week, I would make the award a small bar of gold. It is so they can start earning some wealth.

Anyways, while I was on my walk, I saw someone was using the shooting range with a bow and arrow. It was the death stare elf girl from before, but recently she had stopped doing it, which makes me happy. Her name was Elora.

"Hey, what's up?"

"Eeeek!"

My unexpected greeting must have scared her as Elora suddenly jumped, dropping her bow and her quiver of arrows.

"Oops, sorry about that."

"Eh, no, don't worry about it!" she suddenly blurts.

"Well, what's going on, training your shooting skills?"

"Umm, yeah, I guess," she says, barely audible; I noticed that something was bothering her.

"You seem troubled; what's wrong?"

"..."

"It's fine, but if you ever want someone to talk to, I'm always available," I said, but before I could turn around, she grabbed my wrist.

"Wait, fine, I'll tell you."

Surprisingly, she finally opened up to me and told me her story. Before being kidnapped by the minotaurs, she lived with her older sister. Her older sister had looked after her for as long as she could remember.

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However, when the Minotaur attacked, both of them were taken by the Minotaur. Apparently, just before the day we came and saved them, her older sister was taken as a sacrifice to the Giant Minotaur.

She felt angry because if we had noticed and saved them the day before, her sister would've still lived. But over time, she began to realise that it was not our fault that she died, but that it was her who was too weak to protect her sister.

Now that the Giant Minotaur had been killed, and the dead had been avenged, her feeling had changed. Now she wants to get stronger, so she doesn't lose anyone.

I admired her resolve to get stronger and protect those close to her. But I couldn't share the same feeling; I didn't really have anyone that I could really call family in this world. The closest thing to family was the units, and I like to think our allies were my friends, like Roland and Aidan.

Whenever we were free, I would hang out with them, play shogi, or try new food that Roland's talented wife made. She was highly gifted as a chef; despite being the wife of a lord, she still cooked. I felt really envious of Roland, who gets to eat incredible food every day.

Watching them interact lovingly with each other made me want to start my own family. But maybe in the future, there was still a war going on.

Anyways back on track. I continued to watch Elora shoot her bow, her accuracy was outstanding, but the arrows lacked power behind them, as most of them bounced off the target. I thought of a solution to help her.

"Try these," I said as I bought out a whole range of sniper rifles.

From what I have seen, the elves can be trusted. All they want is to protect each other and survive. I also wanted to see how good these archers can do using a sniper.

Elora looks at me with confusion. Wait, of course, she has no idea how these work and neither do I, so I called a sniper unit over.

"Supreme Commander, I am Sniper Unit 5."

"Thanks for coming over; I would like you to teach, Elora here, how to use a sniper rifle. I have put out different types of rifles here but have her shoot a few to see which one she likes."

"Understood."

I gave the order to the sniper unit and turned back to Elora.

"I can see that you have great accuracy, but it lacks power." I pointed out the problem, and Elora goes slightly red, "These guns require little power to use, but they are extremely accurate. Try them out and see which one you like. This unit is here to teach you."

"Why are you doing this?"

"I don't know; I just want to help, I guess."

"Thank you..."

"Yeah, no problem..."

It kind of got a bit awkward, so I quickly left. Later I learnt that Elora had chosen the Remington 700 sniper rifle, and from the unit's report, her skills with the sniper would improve with time.

Maybe I should create an elite squad of elven snipers?