“Looks clear, no problem with our deployment this time,” Luon said as he evaluated the surroundings.
After the speech, the group got on board the ship, and within an hour they were transported to the battlefield using the teleportation device.
Suddenly, a pink paint bullet flew only a few centimeters away from his head, if he had taken a step forward, he would have been eliminated. He turned to look at the source and found Gizmo who was tossing all of the weapons and tools out of the box. With a crooked grin, only after realizing what had just happened did Gizmo say, “Ah, sorry it looks like the safety was off on that one.”
A hand smacked his head, Belle lectured Gizmo, “You idiot. Don’t just toss them out like that. Take them out carefully, I don’t want any accidents in the first minute of the match.”
Gizmo can only laugh it off lightly before he resumed his work at a slower pace.
Belle nodded before turning on her BMPU as a holographic projection appeared revealing their current location on the map. She couldn’t help but frown as their team was situated between the center and the corners of the island.
The objective of the test was to eliminate other teams while defending one’s flag on while obtaining a total of 100 points if they could accomplish this they are guaranteed to pass. Belle contemplated on her options, and the best ones that she could come up with is to either play defensive and slowly expand their influence or to secure the perimeter and send out a small assault squad to take care of their enemies.
The main problem with the first option was lack of staffing to do so. Usually, this type of maneuver requires the assistance of multiple people. However, her unit only has 7 people. She was also reluctant to do the second option as there was a possibility that the enemy would stack all of their forces on defense or offense leaving one of their teams outnumbered.
By the time she decided to go with the second choice because she believed her team would be able to overcome the flaw, the weapons were already distributed to each of their members. Besides Gizmo who was armed with a sniper rifle because he had the best accuracy, everyone else was armed with a standard rifle.
“Alright, we’ll going to split our team into two, one for defending our flag and the other team is for an offensive maneuver against the other teams. For the defensive team, Bendan and Opo will hold th-”
As Belle was stating her orders, Bendan and Opo couldn’t help but groan and complain. Bendan asks, “Why are we on defense? We should be going out and attack the enemies. They say that the best defense is a good offense after all.”
Bendan was dissatisfied since he always placed in the defensive role. Knowing this Gizmo began to laugh at his remark causing Bendan to snap at him and said, “What? Did I say something wrong?”
Gizmo who regained his posture a minute later said, “The reason why she had you and Opo sit back is that the two of you stick out like a sore thumb and you both aren’t that good with rifles. In other words, in this activity your dead weight. If you want to be productive, it’s better for you two to be on the defense.”
“Oh,” Bendan and Opo said. Bendan felt a little dissatisfied, but Gizmo’s words were logical. There was no way for him to refute it.
Belle gave a light cough as she said, “It’s exactly what he said. As for the other members for our defensive team, we will have Kiri and me. I’ll be commanding and monitoring the map layout for the offensive team while Kiri will patrol the perimeter. Kiri you can go off now, just don’t go beyond 2 kilometers away from the flag.”
“Yes ma’am,” Kiri obediently received the orders and vanished. Since they weren’t able to use items all they can use is their magic and skills, and Kiri’s invisibility is a tremendous asset on the defensive team. However, at the same time this limited Luon’s pool of tricks, besides some magic skills all of his other abilities only give him a physical and sensory boost.
“As for the rest of you, you’ll go on the offensive tell me your position based on the distance and direction from this spot,” Belle said.
“Can’t we just give you a simple longitude and latitude of our area?” Gizmo asked.
Belle shook her head as she said, “Although that would work on this occasion, in space would you be able to do the same? We may map the 3 Dimensional regions based on some fixed values of 3 different components, but that would mean your map will be the exact same as mine. Which isn’t entirely guaranteed. Especially if your ship warp jumps for several regions away. It’s easier to state a vector and direction from the base point and relay it back. The system takes these inputs rather easily, and it changes the values to be the same. This is also the same as using North as a direction, in space which way will be Nor-”
“Alright, alright, I get it. Anyways the BMPU will do all the calculation for us, and all I have to do is send you the information right?” Gizmo said.
“That’s right, but you should still learn how it works. Sometimes you won’t have access to the Alliance’s database connection. Especially in the deeper parts of space that we have yet to explore. Alright, enough said. Angela, I’ll leave you in charge of our offensive team,” Belle said.
“Okay, come on guys. Let’s go,” Angela said as she started walking towards a direction.
Luon and Gizmo looked at each other. It was their first time being led by Angela, let alone even talk to her in the first place. Luon was looking forward to how Angela would command the group seeing how confident she was with everything.
The three of departed for a few minutes before Angela stopped in front of them and turned around. Facing the two she said, “From this point on we will be moving in a formation Gizmo will be at the back, approximately 500 meters away, while the two of us will be equally spaced out in front of him. Try to maintain a 100-meter distance away from me.”
“How do we determine the direction if we’re equally spaced like this?” Luon asks as he imagines the formation to be like an isosceles triangle.
“Every time we change directions I’ll iterate it on team chat where Belle can record our pathing at the same time. Just for your information the only time that you guys need to say something on the team chat is when you spot an enemy. Make your report swift and accurate. You need to state the direction and number of enemies. Anything else you guys need to know?” Angela said.
The two of them shook their heads, the instructions were rather straightforward. Seeing their response, Angela nodded and said, “Good, then let’s depart as for the area we’re going to start with, we’ll circle around the island while staying a fixed direction from the center and slowly work inwards. No matter what unless I say stop moving, keep moving.”
Gizmo frowned as he said, “What if I need to make a shot?”
“Shoot while you move, unless you’re not confident that you could do it?” Angela taunted Gizmo.
“Of course I could do it… so unreasonable, shooting while moving with a sniper rifle? How do you expect it to be any good?” Gizmo responded before he silently muttered to Luon at how illogical it was.
“You can use the stabilizer to help you out while you move,” Luon quietly replied back.
“It’s okay. I won’t have that many problems with shooting like this. I’m just worried that this sniper rifle is too loud and it’ll expose my location,” Gizmo said.
“Are you guys done talking yet?” Angela asked as she waited for the two who were whispering.
The two nodded, and the three of them got into formation before leaving the vicinity. For the first few minutes, they traveled at a steady walking pace while being careful to make as little noise as possible.
Everyone once in awhile Luon would send a difficult to detect a magical pulse that would identify people that were 600 meters away from him. Doing this helped him maintain the formation while searching for the enemy.
His efforts weren’t wasted. He soon detected an enemy and tagged them on using his BMPU. The strike was focused in his position, there were 5 enemies in an equally spaced out formation of several meters.
At this moment, Angela said, “Okay stop there Luon. Keep their position updated in real-time and when they reach about 40 meters start to retreat to the center of the triangle while attacking them. Gizmo moves 200 meters closer to Luon and attacks them when I say so.”
“What about you?” Luon asked.
“Just focus on the task at hand, Belle do you have a reading on our position and our enemies?” Angela asked.
“Yes, I have the positions recorded,” Belle said over the chat system.
“Okay, keep track of their movement speed, and backtrack their headquarters based on the speed and time they take. After we take them out we can go for their flag after this,” said Angela.
“To use the information that the enemy provided to determine the enemies base, this person is quite experience Luon,” Thanatos words echoed in Luon’s head.
Luon wasn’t experienced in tracking like this. For the simulated wars, all he had to do was send drones to scout after all. But the real world wasn’t like that, predictions are one of many factors one needed to know to create intuitive approaches when attacking the enemy. Angela’s strategy taught him this first hand.
Sure enough, Belle managed to get a gist of the general area where the enemy base may be before the enemy forces had neared their position.
At this point in time, Luon had no idea where Angela was since she broke the formation and his magical detection method didn’t manage to find her.
When the enemy was about 100 meters away from him, Angela said, “Gizmo shoot one of them out and rotate your position using Luon as an axis. Luon ambushes them when at your will and move to the designated position.”
Hearing her orders, Gizmo smiled and said to himself, “One? I’m confident I could score two from this range.”
He let loose two shots, however, to his dismay only one of them had hit their target. Paintballs weren’t like rifle rounds they were slightly slower in speed and one of the targets he was aiming for managed to dodge it in time.
With his position jeopardized Gizmo retreated just as he was told too and Luon began to engage with the enemy. He managed to ambush one when Gizmo had distracted them, with their attention turned, while they were being careful of the sniper the three of them suppressed Luon down.
This assault didn’t last long as all of the sudden Angela appeared from behind the enemy lines and wiped two of them out in one swift motion. Being pinned by three people, the last one fell with ease.
Luon, Gizmo, and Angela all regrouped after eliminating the five players. Once they were shot, they were forced out of the map due to a teleportation matrix that was equipped on each player before the start of the test.
As they were securing the perimeter and going back into formation Luon couldn’t help but ask Angela, “By the way, do you also have an invisibility skill? I wasn’t able to detect you earlier.”
Angela looked at Luon who gazed at her with curiosity, she gave a short sigh as she said, “Hmm, I guess it’s important to know what each of us is capable of doing to strategize properly. I know what extent the two of you could do from observing from the side so I’ll briefly touch on what I can do. You can think of me as a scout, I can use light magic which can heal and also reflect light, this can make me go invisible. Also, I have enhanced senses, besides the normal means of sensing that humans have, I am sensitive to mana so everytime you send a pulse out I can feel your location. Be careful while using it because if you were against me, I would be able to spot you easily.”
“Then how do you find people without using it?” Luon asks.
“Simple, just increase your natural senses more than relying on something superficial as mana for a mean of detection. Smell, taste, sound, touch, and vision, don’t just boost one of them but enhance all of them by training and practicing mana manipulation and you’ll reach the next stage,” Angela said.
‘Is it that easy to improve a person’s natural capabilities?’ Luon thought.
“Of course it is. The stronger you’ve gotten, the more your senses increase. I think it’s about time you stop over-relying on mana and focus on training your sensory abilities. The excursion is the perfect place to try it out,” Thanatos lectured Luon.
Seeing how Luon became deep in thought, Angela got the squad to move again. They headed towards the area Belle indicated and as they did Luon took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Following Thanatos’s instruction by the time he reopened them, he realized that his view of the world became several times larger.
