A week passed since the First Advanced Scouts tried the twentieth floor.
As I hoped, Sigyn did not immediately scout the Quintal Trial again.
They used the week following the failed attempt preparing.
During that time, I had been spending half of my days doing mock battles with Sigyn.
The other half I spent by dealing with Sigyn's orders for the lobby. Both regarding the climb effort and the scouting's aftermath.
The loss of the four Reserve parties in the twentieth floor had affected our combatant trainees in the first and the second floor of the lobby.
The trainees had now realized the truerole of the Reserve Forces.
Seeing Master would only sacrifice the Reserve raiders in the Quintal Trial, a lot of the trainees became discouraged and did not find any point to join the Raid Team.
Many of them had been trying to transfer to supporter roles in the lobby.
They would frequent the Weekday Dungeons, doing chores in the kitchen, helping the administrators with paperwork, even taking up crafting or potion-making.
The newcomers on the first floor would also be trying hard on learning supportive skills instead of focusing on their Basic Training as raider candidates.
The Chief Administrator fortunately warned me of this occurrence before we lost many competent raiders.
So far, Master and I mitigated the situation by limiting the roles in the support stations and raising the hiring standards.
But we would need to come up with better solutions later on.
If only I had the time to take care of that matter.
Sigyn had relayed to me what they discovered so far regarding the twentieth floor.
As expected of a Quintal Trial, the scouting intel was extensive and complex.
There were dozens of battle formations Sigyn had been showing me. And dozens more formations which Sigyn proposed to counter them.
It would actually be easy if all I had to do was memorizing them all.
But I also had to interpret each formation and predict how they would play out in the actual mission.
I fortunately managed to draw one conclusion after doing many mock battles with Sigyn this past week.
From the patterns I had been seeing so far, I had become certain that the vanguard and the rearguard would act separately in the twentieth floor.
Sigyn would always equally divide their forces into two whenever they were acting as the Heroes in our mock battles.
Master would then send one half of their forces fighting the enemies or guarding the fortress. And send the other half claiming the tactical object scattered in the map.
Interestingly, when there were two or three tactical objects on the map, Sigyn would still only divide their forces into two groups and made them act separately, despite how detrimental the strategy would be to Sigyn's faction.
Sigyn would always use that strategy whenever they were acting as the Heroes.
It had become our silent agreement that the Heroes faction would be the medium where Sigyn would display what they wanted us, Master's army, to do in the mission.
I interpreted the equal distribution of forces made by Sigyn as the party distribution in the trial. Both the vanguard and the rearguard each had five members on their party.
While the fact that Sigyn divided their forces into two groups, no matter the circumstances in the mock battles, referred to the vanguard and rearguard parties.
I assumed Sigyn wanted me to know that the rearguard party would not be aiding the vanguard directly in battle.
Otherwise, Sigyn would not have their two forces act separately throughout the match.
The vanguard and rearguard would each be tasked with separate objective in the twentieth floor.
Whatever goal the rearguard was set out to do, the vanguard would have to withstand the challenge they were facing all by themselves.
I had made sure the Second Advanced Scouts aware of that discovery.
[Choosing 'Second Advanced Scouts' for the mission.]
[Proceed with your choice?]
[Yes (selected)/ No]
-
-
[Choosing 'Party 16' as the vanguard.]
[Party Composition - 'Reanne (★★)', 'Gavhie (★★)', 'Dolom (★★)', 'Haul (★★)', 'Venna (★★)']
[Proceed with your choice?]
[Yes (selected)/ No]
The Second Advanced Scouts.
Composed of Party 16 to 20, at least two members in each party had reached level 5 in weapon skill.
That fact alone should put this squad a tier above the First Advanced Scouts.
This new batch of scouts had also been briefed regarding the enemy formations that they might face in the twentieth floor, as well as the formations that Sigyn intended for them to use.
We should have a different result for this scouting attempt.
At the very least, the mission would not be over with only two parties sent into the trial.
Hopefully.
"Victory to the Raiders!"
"Fortune to the Raiders!"
The crowd in the first floor square cheered as Party 16 made their way into the rift.
Alam had already given me the Intervention Points I needed for this scouting attempt.
So I went straight to the mock battle table and began my observation.
[Main Dungeon, the current challenge floor is the 20th Floor.]
[The doors will open after ten seconds. Get ready!]
After analyzing the patterns of my mock battles with Sigyn the past week, I managed to come up with some predictions regarding the twentieth floor's mission.
I already understood that the vanguard and the rearguard parties would be separated in the trial.
But I had discovered that one of the parties will remain in one spot throughout the mission while the other would be covering some distance to reach their objective.
In our mock battles, Master would always make one group of their Heroes' faction remained stationary inside the fortress while the other moving about throughout the map.
Master never bothered to mobilize the group guarding the fortress. Even if they had a good chance of ambushing the enemies and winning the mock battle.
That meant either the vanguard or rearguard party would be forced to hold their ground somewhere in the twentieth floor.
My guess would be the vanguard party. As that would explain the increasing pressure Party 21 received from the enemy forces during their scouting attempt.
['Haul (★★)' has been inflicted with bleeding. His stamina will be reduced for a period of time.]
33 minutes passed in the lobby. Around 11 minutes in the trial.
Only one bleeding notification so far.
In our previous attempt with Party 21, four members had already been injured at this point.
We were making good progress.
The scouting attempt by the Second Advanced Scouts had been proceeding differently. All for the better.
We shall see if the trend would stay this way.