55 Buzzer

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"What!!? That's--"

The moment that Sylphie heard the message through her comms, she was quickly caught in a dilemma.

By the time the report regarding the situation within the building had gotten to her, she was already well on her way towards the halfway line with Irvine, Derrick, and Naomi close to her.

Right now, she had finally come to realize the reason as to why none of Ravenville's advance group in front of her were even trying to go back to their first tower even after knowing their Second Fielder and Solver were going there.

'All their Guards are stationed in that place!!'

She had thought that she was the one keeping the three players occupied while the fact of the matter was that it's the other way around.

The dilemma that she was facing right now, was whether or not she should try to go back towards Ravenville's side and reinforce their manpower over there?

By now, she had fully understood the reason that she could so smoothly 'push back' the three from Ravenville away from the building.

All of it was most likely because the three enemies that're facing her right now were silently planning to reach ever so slowly towards Magnolia's tower too!

However, if they just sprinted away towards Magnolia's side from the start of the resumed match, that would ignite Sylphie's suspicions too early.

Irvine and the rest of the advance group's had the task to misdirect and lure Sylphie away for as far and long as possible.

But now that Sylphie had received the report as to what's going on, they didn't need to do that anymore.

And hence, their target would also quickly switch to the place where Magnolia's front tower was located!

'If I go back and reinforce the group now, that would mean I have to leave our entire defense to the Front Guard alone...!'

Sylphie was torn between containing Irvine and Derrick from running off and going back herself towards Ravenville's front tower to back her Solver up.

When she relayed the likely intention of Ravenville's advance group to her Ranger and ask for an opinion, a reply came almost right after.

[Return first.] Was the words that had been blurted out through her speakers.

"...The situation's that bad, huh?" Sylphie grimaced under her helmet.

Her Ranger wouldn't have advised her to back them up if there's a good chance for their Second Fielder and Solver to retreat from Ravenville's building.

After all, if the two could escape safely from there, her being here and keeping a close watch on Naomi, Derrick, and Irvine would be more ideal than going back there and letting the three go.

The only reason that she could think of for such a decision was because the Magnolia's players there, including the Ranger, had a hard time getting themselves out of the situation.

And her assumption was on point, because another reply immediately arrived to give her the confirmation,

[Yes. our Solver's HP has already dropped below-- *STAB*]

[--Damn!]

"Hey!!" The sound of piercing and of wind being cut stopped the Ranger's words midway through.

[...And the opposition's Ranger has located me as well. Either way, come here if possible!]

The current situation was very dire for Magnolia.

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As Medea released her arrow towards the other party's Ranger and managed to graze the side of him, the battle on the halfway line too was still ongoing.

The whole conversation that Sylphie had had with her Ranger had been held amidst her fight with Derrick and Irvine.

The two Ravenville players had synchronized their movements to seemingly trying to contain Sylphie while constantly taking some steps back a couple at a time, luring her away.

Seeing the distracted movements of his opponent, it didn't take long for Irvine to realize that Sylphie had at least received the report on her Solver's situation now.

Even though the exosuit was soundproof, it wasn't hard to recognize a distracted player from the change in their movement's sharpness.

With enough training, any good players should be able to pick up on when their opponents were having some prolonged communication while fighting.

And for Irvine, this fact was especially obvious on college players.

Most of them hadn't been taught on how to not let remote conversations affect their actions. Although this was a small thing, it's one of those most essential skills for pros.

Noticing the time had come, Irvine quickly took the initiative!

He left his original position of standing beside Derrick and made a sidestepping move to encircle the Magnolia's Captain and pincer her from both sides.

'!'

This, of course, alerted Sylphie who had JUST finished talking with her Ranger and made the decision to go back towards Ravenville's side of the field.

'How does he know I'm planning to retreat?? No, more importantly--'

Sylphie had long analyzed Irvine's skills through this continuous bouts. And she had found out that the man in front of her was always so fast when responding to situations!

That is not to say that he had superior reflexes or fast speed. It was more that he had always seemed to know the BEST course of action after any developments in a fight.

This was true when she had just got out from Derrick's hold and he had chosen the most appropriate timing to ambush her,

Or when he'd dodged her attempt to grab him by moving towards his teammate's position so the subsequent development would go to his advantage.

Irvine's every movement was made with clear purpose rather than counting on pure reflexes.

These things were less of a combat talent or instinct and more like cultivated experience.

It was the smallest and most negligible moves and positionings that bent the flow of the match to his whims.

This time too, just after she'd made up her mind to distance herself, Irvine had suddenly decided to encircle her and close out her route towards her teammates.

*tsk*

'Truly a weird 1st year Starseed...!' She grimaced.

Sylphie was really baffled on how he could guess her decision to go back.

Even if he happened to deduce that she was having a contact with her teammate, he shouldn't be able to hear the content of it! And the more surprising thing was...

'Isn't their plan to attack our tower the moment I go to reinforce my teammates? Then why do they prevent me from leaving?'

In the end, she couldn't grasp Irvine and the rest's intention.

But that didn't change anything! She still had to get her teammates out from getting cornered and outnumbered!

Sylphie tried to turn her body towards Irvine on her back and also the Ravenville's half of the field, taking the stance to prepare her charge.

But before she could even bend her leg and lower her stance, the moment she pivoted, she saw Irvine was already halfway through stomping his leg on the ground!

'What is he--'

Irvine imbued the bottom of his foot with the most condensed form of air compression he could muster, and then stomped it down to the ground while controlling the explosion's direction to spread equally and go everywhere but up!

*stomp* *BOOM!*

The moment Sylphie was about to finish her turn and put her other foot down after pivoting, the shaking and trembling ground caused her momentary balance to crumble.

The tremor caused by the explosion wouldn't have been as bad had anyone close to it firmly planted their feet to the ground and prepare.

But any movement that changes one's positions would require one to lift up their legs, and Irvine had made use of such timing to execute this move.

[Blast Quake]

It was just a simple application of [Blast] that allowed him to cause a temporary tremor on the small radius of hard ground around him.

But with proper timing and usage, this effect could disrupt any big enough motions that was made by the people in his immediate surrounding and caused their balance to shake for a moment.

Just like his [Joint Blast], this was a simple move that focused more on delicate precision of timing and allocation of the force for it to achieve its maximum efficiency.

Either way, at least for that split second of vulnerability, Sylphie was once again in no condition to receive Irvine's follow-up attack.

Another kick to the knee before she could find a proper foothold amplified the effect of the broken balance and caused Sylphie to stumble down.

Yet, having now been wary of the offensive nature of Irvine as a player, Sylphie forced herself to regain the control of her body without allowing herself to fall.

As she was about to touch the ground, she made use of the gravitational force from falling to push her other leg against the earth hard and jump away with a kick!

The force from that kick, along with just a little bit of her propelling [Blast], allowed the almost falling Sylphie to somersaulted beautifully into the air, landing a couple paces away from her original position.

She was just about to retaliate against the next attack and turned back when she immediately noticed--

Irvine, Derrick, and Naomi were already sprinting at full speed towards her front tower!

Her initial guess was actually correct! The moment that Sylphie had realized the 3 Guards on 1 tower, no matter her decision, all three of them would rush towards Magnolia's side of the field.

But Irvine and Derrick didn't want to try their luck with Sylphie's fast reaction should she chose to keep engaging them and not go help her teammates,

So Irvine directed another attack first to put her on a defensive stance and gave them enough time and momentum to escape her range.

But it just so happened that the initial encirclement position that Irvine made for his attack had confused Sylphie enough to make her think that the three of them were not letting her go back.

"Ravenville's advance group's on the move!" Realizing this, Sylphie didn't waste much time to report to her Ranger.

[Let them go for now. I've instructed our Mid Guard and Rear Guard to move up a tower too. They're not the only one who can make use of this tactic.]

"...Alright. I'm on my way."

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With Sylphie's charging speed, it would take less time for her to reach Ravenville's tower than for Irvine and the others to reach Magnolia's. Currently, this had become their only ray of hope for the rest of the match.

However, Magnolia's Ranger had made one crucial mistake with this command of his.

And this mistake was more apparent for the scouts and coaches that're presently watching the game outside.

"Uh oh." John commented with a smile seeing the match had gone smoother for his school team.

Even Rex and Rory could only exhale with looks that seemed to shout out their disagreement of such a move.

Magnolia was moving their Guards one position up in an attempt to employ the same tactic as Ravenville and stop Irvine and Derrick's offense.

Meaning that their home turf would now have 2 Guards for their front tower and 1 Guard for their second one while leaving the last one empty.

But they had not accounted the fact that Ravenville had long since discovered 2 of their towers!

From the start, Irvine, Derrick, and Naomi hadn't even planned on attacking the front tower that had only the lower section left.

After leaving Sylphie behind, they went straight to their enemy's second tower instead!

Even if they hadn't reshuffled the Guards, going for the second tower would be better for the element of surprise.

In an open terrain, skipping towers were less likely to work because it would imply going deeper into enemy territory right in front of their eyes.

But here, all the players' eyes were covered with walls and concretes everywhere!

"...Urban setting truly is a whole different game." Rory who had watched all this taking place from start to end could only conclude everything with this words in the end.

From start to finish, Ravenville's edge and early lead had come from them realizing this fact earlier and utilizing it correctly to their advantage.

"Well, at least they have shown us the way earlier. Right?" Rex nodded and replied to Rory's comment while looking at John in the back.

John didn't say anything to that, which prompted Rory to also probe more,

"But with this, don't you think that you guys would now have a harder time doing the same thing to other schools?"

At least Verdante and Eastern Zeta would now analyze this Ruined City Block terrain more carefully than ever before and be ready for this kind of match when going against Ravenville later.

However, at Rory's question, John didn't seem the least bit bothered and only smiled silently, keeping his eyes to the game.

This, in turn, caused both Rex and Rory to become more cautious on what Ravenville's Head Coach had planned by showing a match like this to the other scouters.

Surely someone like him would've anticipated that this practice match would have several other schools' scouts present.

'Truly... Even with each of his tricks revealed, one would end up getting more on-guard when thinking about Coach Lark's plan...' As a fellow coach, even Rex couldn't help but feel intimidated at him.

In fact, even John didn't know what his boss, a.k.a the Head Coach of Ravenville was planning to do to circumvent their loss in showing these terrain-specific tactics earlier to the world. And in a practice match no less.

However, he remembered what the guy had said to him when he asked if it would be a good idea to have these tactics get analyzed by others even before the Warrior Crown began.

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(Haha, just like you said most of these are all one-time use tricks that won't work a second time after using them once during tournaments.)

(So then, why--)

(Because they're one-time use tricks.)

(Hm?)

(Things like these can't be used as trump cards, trump cards are something you can always count on in dire needs. If one team's trump cards are this brittle, then they weren't much of a team in the first place.)

(Hmm, but I still think we shouldn't waste something we can use later on in a practice match...)

(Tactics and tricks can still be recycled even after it was revealed. You just need to know your enemy. And plus...) Lark continued,

(If these little things can keep those scouts' minds off our new players, then it's a big enough win for me. Heheh.)

John believed that the Head Coach had more reasons than he himself could guess as to why he revealed these tactics earlier to the world.

'Otherwise Ravenville wouldn't have survived this far under him...'

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Not long after, as many had speculated, Magnolia lost another of its initiatives against Ravenville even after they've barely managed to escape Baron and the other Guards.

The Ranger quickly realized the hole in his command when he'd received the report by one of their Guards that Irvine, Derrick, and Naomi had arrived on their second tower first.

By the time it took for their closest reinforcement from their front tower to arrive, the combined formation of the three from Ravenville had rushed in and out of the place with another point on their hands.

3-1.

It was inevitable.

Although the Guard on their second tower was a 4th year college player with far higher Physical State and Muscle Strength, the combination of Derrick and Irvine easily stopped him from getting anywhere close to Naomi as she solved.

And whenever the guy was grappled by Derrick, Irvine always took the opportunity to help Naomi dismantle the tower faster.

The presence of Irvine was like a direct buff in a video game.

Whenever Derrick was about to get the slightest disadvantage, he would be there. And whenever his presence was not required, he would be at the tower helping to solve.

But Ravenville's rush hadn't stopped there!

With them outnumbering the second tower's Guard 3-to-1, after getting one more point, they even had the time to hide before the closest reinforcement, which was the Guards from the front tower arrived.

But with THAT reinforcement arriving, their front tower had then become the one with the least amount of protection!

The match had quickly turned into a game of cat and mouse where Irvine and his group were always one step ahead!

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Eventually, the time limit of the match arrived for all the struggling players on the field.

The timer hit zero and the buzzer was sounded,

*BEEEEEEP*

[MATCH END]

As the robotic voice announced the closing of the spar, the active players of the two sides gathered together on the field, but it was clear that the moods separated by the two rows of players carried a clear contrast from one another.

And the reason for it could clearly be seen from the largest numbers displayed on the main monitor.

[Ravenville 4 - 1 Magnolia]