金瓶梅第2部

Deep within the forest, the Throned Giant roved around a large clearing. The leaders of the various Brazen Guard tent groups collected at its opening to discuss strategy.

Tycondrius found the large clearing, free from trees, most peculiar. As a cursory inspection, he swept aside the snow underneath his boots to find hard-packed ice. They stood upon a tributary leading to a small lake, both of their surfaces frozen solid.

Moving shadows drifted about in the depths of the waters, each dwarfing the humans idling unaware. The creatures below were almost certainly more products of the Icingdeath Dungeon. They would not be able to thrive to such proportions, otherwise.

Tycon stood far away from the general populace, upon what he judged to be thicker, denser ice.

"A few things to note about this fight..." Tanamar carved a map into the ice with the blade of his holy lance as he explained. "There is one 'Boss', the Throned Giant in the clearing... and there are two types of 'adds.'

"During the fight, the three groups will be stationed at three different seals. Now, pay attention: the first group will rotate to the fourth seal after theirs is completed. Defend the Tactician, provide support against the Lake Eels, and the mages of those groups will be reactivating each of the seals.

"If not assigned to those three groups, the strikers will be arranged to protect the squishies, with their priority being defense first and creature-clear second..."

An Archer with dark rings underneath his eyes spoke up in a loud, high-pitched voice, "Hold on a second! What about the Flamescarred ghosts? The ghosts are going to wipe us all out!"

Tanamar closed his eyes and took a deep breath... "I was getting to that."

"This Flame-taken forest is haunted as shite!" The Archer argued.

Tanamar took yet another deep, aggravated breath, rubbing the bridge of his nose, "You wanna explain the fight? How about you come up to where I am?"

The Archer remained quiet, feeling the burning stares of his surrounding peers... "N-no, I'm good."

"You sure? It sounds like you know what's best for everyone," Tanamar gestured, looking bored.

"All of you's guys save your questions for the end," Bannok ordered, "Keep talkin', Hero."

"Right," Tanamar nodded. "The non-caster ranged classes will be arranged here and... here. Your primary focus will be attacking ghosts. If the pressure lets up, provide fire support against the Lake Eels."

Going more into detail about everyone's various roles, Tanamar went on to explain what he expected each creature was capable of. Then finally, he reiterated everyone's positioning, based on his drawn map.

At a certain point of the explanation, Tanamar's speech slowed and he began overly enunciating his words.

"--and just to make it easy, I have a bunch of flags. Each flag has a symbol. When you hear the horn signalling to focus on the ghosts or the eels, you will move from one flag to your corresponding flag... both denoted on the drawn map and seen on the field. On the field, you will *literally* be able to see which flag you're supposed to run to."

Each group only had to memorize two flags: their own, and that of their attached group. It seemed easy enough. Tycon didn't quite understand why Tanamar's explanations were becoming redundant.

Hunter Felinus handed Tanamar a bundled pack of poles, each with a colorful flag attached.

"Listen up!" Tanamar raised his voice, "Bannok's group will engage the boss, represented by this skull flag. The Brightstars gets a four-pointed star...

"...--The Stormbrands will be this double circle."

"Pff..." A laugh came out of the crowd.

⟬ Tancred Mors, Iron-Rank Human Reaver. Guild Stormbrand. ⟭

"It looks like a nipple!" The Reaver laughed so hard, he wheezed.

Tanamar sighed again, seemingly too fatigued to argue with his twin brother... "Stationed at this point will be... nipple group. Now, does anyone have any questions?"

"Yeah, I got a question," A Warrior raised her hand. "Which flags are mine, again?"

Another slew of questions rang up nearly simultaneously.

"Hey! Did you say where Team Destiny was supposed to be?"

"Mister Tanamar, I'm so sorry, but which flag is for the Brightstars?"

"Was I supposed to be on the Lake Eels or the ghosts?"

"Can my team be part of the nipple group?"

Tanamar looked like he wanted to cry.

Tycon would not have blamed him if he did.

...

After another half-bell of Tanamar's clarifications, each group was finally ready to take their positions. Tanamar had foregone physical flags. With the help of one of Ariadne's Creation Mages, he fired holy lances topped with colorful, glowing magic flags that he stuck onto various points of the battlefield.

That it did not alert the enemy was odd... but as aggravated as Tanamar was, the action wasn't particularly hostile.

Explaining strategies to a large group of people was... troublesome. The experience reminded Tycon of why he preferred to operate with only a small number of elite adventurers. If he had to explain complex monster-hunting strategies so many times, he'd have likely murdered all of his troops in frustration.

Anyroad, he trained together with Sol Invictus' members so often that it was often easy to deviate in plans. It was comforting being able to rely on synergistic teamwork to complete various objectives.

It was a strange phenomenon that an individual human could be so rational and intelligent. With a group of them... it was a wonder how they could remember to blink and breathe.

The noncombatants, the still-injured, and the less-experienced remained behind at the collection of camps, which included Athena and Victorius. Even with their numbers more than halved, those that were participating in the fight numbered nearly seventy.

...That left over sixty different persons with varying levels of skill and professionalism that Tycon did not trust.

If the fight went poorly, he would have Bannok call for an immediate withdrawal. Tycon could not see how to reduce the risk of failure any further, other than calling off the fight altogether.