*Swoosh*

In the absolute silence, only the sound of the arrow shooting through the air at a high speed was heard.

With this first arrow leaving the bowstring, Yvonne St. Claire's second trial had officially begun.

The spectators who were observing the little girl from a distance watched the arrow as it traveled towards the target.

With bated breath, they waited to see what the outcome of the first arrow shot by the little girl would be.

Yvonne stood still as her eyes were fixed on the arrow that was shooting towards the target.

'I should be able to land it.' She remarked with confidence at her level of archery skill.

Damien's eyes narrowed when he saw her smug look from the corner of his eyes before he averted his gaze towards the arrow.

Within a moment, the arrow had reached the target that had the large colorful sheet pasted on it.

However, the arrow shot ahead and kept moving as it moved past the target, missing it by a long shot.

Captain Desmo let out a little grunt in dismay when the arrow hit the tree trunk which was at a distance behind the target.

"Hit the target, not the trees!" He sneered at her without restraint.

His angry words brought the silence pervading the air to an abrupt end as they turned to look at the seething Captain.

Any other person would have tried to console the little girl and encourage her to do better the next time around but that person would not be the man known as 'Neo's spawn' by his recruits in the Red Scorpions Knight Squad.

"Captain!" Taylor grumbled when his words of support had been cut off by the mean man's angry words.

One glance at the Duke's son made the boy stop talking as he looked away from the Captain's menacing glare.

Raylene also wished to console his daughter with soothing words but her husband held her hand to indicate that she need not speak anything.

'Let Des do his work, Ray." Rutherford whispered into her ear.

The wife glared at her husband who patted her back as he tried to reassure her that everything would be alright.

The servants had seen the Captain's strict way of dealing with their young miss for the first time which caused them all to have sour faces as they looked away.

They could not express their anger on a man from a noble family so all they could do was lower their heads and grit their teeth in bitterness.

This was especially true for Mrs. Jacinth who was clenching her fists as her eyes remained on the back of the little girl who was her lovely young miss.

'You can do this!' She cheered for her miss when no one else had attempted to do so.

Once Taylor had been glared at, none of the other boys dared to interfere in the matter between the trainer and pupil.

"Have you forgotten everything I have taught you in just one day?" Captain Desmo sneered once again without bothering about the dampened atmosphere around them.

He did not care about what people thought about him as long as his pupil learns what was the right method and follows it successfully.

'I get it already!' Yvonne glowered with her back still towards the crowd.

She was already used to listening to his mean and sarcastic words each day without a single break for the last month.

Therefore, she was not as affected by his crude way of speech when compared to the others who had witnessed it for the first time today.

This was one of the reasons why he had forbidden anyone from interfering during their classes and had even instructed them to not be around when they were training.

'I knew that Rutherford would object when he saw his precious daughter being forced to work beyond her capacity.' He recalled why he had proposed such a strange condition to teach her.

He had given this matter a lot of thought and the conclusion he had come to was to be alone when they trained every day.

Thanks to his forethought, he and the child were not disturbed by such nosy busybodies like they were right now.

Yvonne knew of his temper and his language and had done a great job with tolerating and flourishing under his teachings.

However, right now she needed to prove that what they had been doing for the past one month was more than shooting arrows through thin air.

"You shoot another blank and you will get punished." He spat out in fury at her weak efforts with the first arrow.

Just like her, Grandpa Leo would do, Captain Desmo would punish her every time she messed things up.

Either it was running laps around the grounds, carrying bales of hay across the field, repeating the same routine in the swords training, or shooting arrows until she hit the bullseye.

These were some of the punishments she faced whenever she could not complete the task he would assign her.

Hence, he used the same method now to instill fear in her even when he knew that it would not give the expected results.

'This weird girl likes it when she is punished…' He snorted when he recalled her masochistic tendencies.

This was because the little girl knew that even in those punishments, he had sneaked in methods to train her body and build her stamina.

Thus she enjoyed the punishments just as much as she enjoyed her training.

'Fine!' Yvonne nodded as she glanced at the maid who rushed to hand her another arrow.

As much as she loved to increase her stamina and endurance by using the punishment as a ruse, she was not willing to be put to shame when so many people were around.

She did not want to become a laughing stock before the outsiders who had come over to watch her assessment.

Captain Desmo's leering sight which was fixed on her arm and her posture made her stand ramrod straight as she drew the arrow through the bowstring.

'Him staring is only making me sweat and nothing else!' The girl shunned his attempt to scare her into performing better than the first try.

*Swoosh*

The second arrow shot through the air but unfortunately, it suffered the same fate as its predecessor.

The arrow which landed on a tree's branch had missed the target once again.

'She only has one arrow left for this target.' Rutherford remembered and his eyes fell on the tray that was in the first maid's hand.

A lonely arrow laid on the tray which might soon suffer the same fate of clinging to a tree rather than shining on a target sheet.

After Yvonne's second attempt failed as well, a series of hushed sounds of disappointment was heard from the crowd.

Howard was staring at his sister's aim which seemed off but the power she had used in pulling the bowstring to shoot the arrows was higher than what he had expected her to be capable of.

'Those trees are further away from the target, almost 50m away.' He estimated the distance between the target and the tree.

This made it clear that Yvonne's problem was not the power she used but the aim which was still away from the target.

"Did you forget that you have eyes? Those amethysts are not jewels set in your eyes so make use of them!" Captain Desmo's loud shouts brought them back to their senses.