54 Nearing the End of the Match

When Sylphie had finally regained her focus back, she quickly realized that she had been successfully ambushed by Irvine, who's supposed to be a Solver of the team.

'I got caught off-guard... I need to remember that Irvine Lang was someone who's passed the License Exam as a Fielder.' She strictly reminded herself,

'But that won't work a second time! My role now is to contain them here as long as possible!'

Unlike the first half where she had only been required to catch the enemies' attention for a little while until her Solver's gone to the front. Magnolia's plan for having her play this time was completely different.

With Ravenville already expecting the same tactic from them, their plan this time was to instead let their Solver go with their new Second Fielder towards the tower while making Sylphie be the bait!

With the performance she'd shown in the first half, everyone from Ravenville should be seeing her as the core of their plan, not counting the Solver as a threat without her support.

In the first half, they had deliberately made use of their starting Second Fielder as a smoke screen for Ravenville to dismiss. Making them think that they had no more threatening Fielder aside from her.

But right this moment, the Second Fielder that Magnolia had put in was their 'actual' starting player!

He had been arranged to be their main driving force whenever the Captain, Sylphie Hunter's stamina had been depleted in a match.

While the eyes of the opposing team's players were focused on her, she would then become the ultimate bait!

This was another form of Magnolia's quick counter-attack.

'Ravenville's not the only one with trick plays...!' She firmed herself to her role with a smile.

As Sylphie was about to stand up, she noticed the slight distracted postures of both Irvine and Derrick.

She immediately pieced it together that the other team's Ranger had more than likely discovered the fact that their Second Fielder was currently taking their Solver forward.

'These two'll want to reinforce their tower now, I can't let them go that quickly.'

Her current task was the exact opposite from her first half's.

Her role now was to be the one to contain the enemies from moving away.

Taking the chance from the brief moment of distraction that ran through Irvine and Derrick's mind, Sylphie repositioned herself to stand up and pull Irvine back by the neck.

She needed to get them as far away from their tower as possible.

Her movement was fast.

But as her arm was about to reach towards the exosuit-covered neck of Irvine, the other person suddenly ducked forward and dodged her with a spin move, heading towards Derrick's direction to her back!

'Eh...?'

What was out of Sylphie's calculation was not the fact that Irvine could dodge her attempt, but the direction that he was dodging towards.

She had been quite sure that the distracted gestures her two enemies had shown earlier were related to the approaching duo of Solver and Fielder from Magnolia.

If that was the case, the two should be focusing their effort to get closer to their tower's building next to them instead of away from it.

It was a strange choice, but she was not about to let go of the chance of having her targets getting farther away from their defensive objective.

She would even gladly help them!

As Irvine arrived directly to the back of her after his maneuver, without turning back, Sylphie compressed a ball of air on the back of her left elbow and struck the general direction behind her with it!

*BOOM!*

Not having the time to react to that, the explosion blown Irvine another couple paces back, getting him closer to Derrick who had also been maintaining his stance after Sylphie had gotten back up.

'Damn, what fast reaction...!' Irvine himself finally got a clearer picture at his opponent's level as he fought in a near zero distance against her.

With the three people once again facing each other right across and 2 against 1, Derrick, Irvine, and Sylphie dashed simultaneously towards each other in another combat attempt!

On the other side, Naomi Fletcher was carefully positioning herself behind the three. Getting herself ready to run forward whenever the advance group decided to charge ahead for offensive.

Normal Solvers wouldn't choose to actively take part in a defensive initiative. Their HPs were vital and the best they could do was to not be a burden until the team eventually shifted to offense once more.

Even Renee Morgan wouldn't engage any opponents that'd be able to consistently decrease her HP.

Of course, the type of Solver position that Irvine had been planning to introduce earlier to the world was not included in this category.

And at this time, many people who're currently watching the match had all started to have an inkling on it.

.

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"This is..."

"They are continuously outsmarting one another... As to be expected of a high level match between two top schools of their respective cities." On the seats, Rex watched on with an appreciative smile on his face.

"Indeed, even I didn't expect this." John replied with a nod.

The three of them, including Rory, had watched the entire development of the resuming match from outside the field.

From their expressions, it was clear that none of them would be complaining even if they had to pay to see such a match.

When Sylphie sent away her new Solver, even they were thinking it would be the same tactics until they unexpectedly saw Magnolia's Second Fielder receiving the Solver almost out of nowhere.

And then, when they'd thought that Irvine, Derrick, and Naomi would try to retreat after such a revelation, they had instead chosen to continue with engaging Sylphie Hunter in battle!

Of course, from their standpoint, these professional scouts and one assistant Head Coach had known of the reasons for this as well.

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On the field, Magnolia's Second Fielder and its Solver were climbing the stairs of the building that contained Ravenville's front tower in it.

The Second Fielder was carrying two gladius-shaped short swords on both his hands as he ran.

But as they reached the floor with the tower on it, the two's expressions quickly sank at the scene in front of them.

In front of the tower that already had its upper section safely dissassembled was not just one, not two, but three people present!

All three were wearing the familiar black and grey exosuit with helmets that signified their Guards position.

At this moment, the three Guards of Ravenville were all present inside a single tower zone!

As soon as the pair arrived and saw this, they'd realized that their initial plan wouldn't work now that it had come to this.

'But why would they do this?? This would leave their other two towers unatten--'

Before he could finish his line of thought, the Second Fielder immediately realized the crux of the matter.

Ravenville's current formation wouldn't have been a viable option with any other terrains because the enemies would have already long located the rest of their towers' locations by now if they were in an open space.

But the current landscape was filled with desolate buildings all around!

Not only were the two of them boxed inside this cramped space, limiting their escape route to the stairs, their Ranger hadn't reported anymore tower findings ever since the first one was discovered.

The reason for this was mostly because they'd been kept busy by both Clint and the fierce battles on the first half!

Even Clint himself hadn't managed to find Magnolia's third and final tower after his initial finding at the beginning of the match.

And there was one more mystery in this entire situation from his point of view.

'How did their other Guards managed to reach here so fast without getting witnessed by the Ranger?'

But with the situation becoming so much more dire for them getting outnumbered 3 to 2 while his only other teammate was the Solver, the Second Fielder hadn't the luxury to speculate further.

He quickly opened his comms channel to his Ranger and shouted out, "We need support! all their Guards are here!!"

[...Huh?] Even the coming voice needed to take sometime to adjust to such a report.

"Quickly!"

[I'm close! Hold on!!]

But Baron who had located them as well didn't let the two guests that had arrived to easily have their way.

An almost two-and-a-half meters exosuit dashed forward from the tower's position towards the stairs!

And before either the Solver and Second Fielder could react, an index finger arrived and stopped in front of the Solver's helmet pointing straight at the forehead area.

'Oh no! It's Ravenville's Baron--' Before the Second Fielder could even turn around to interrupt the entire event, a sound very similar to a gunshot resounded close to his ear.

*BANG!*

With that sound, the Solver was pushed back down the stairs they'd come from.

Dents and cracks on the usually sturdy exosuit appeared right at the center area of the Solver's helmet.

This was Baron's signature move.

His [Blast] had reached a level of control where not only could he compress the air into the size of a fingernail, he could also shape the direction of the explosion into an almost pipe-like output.

[Air Pistol]

It could be said that Baron had on each of his fingers a short range firearm along with the corresponding level of damage that it carried.

With that one shot alone, 10% had been shaved off of the Solver's HP!

The damage was even close to Sylphie's full-power charge attack though it was still lacking a bit in comparison.

This was one of [Blast] applications that Irvine had been thinking of learning at one point in time because of its usefulness.

The first time he'd seen Baron used it during practice, he even almost approached the guy to watch him execute it closely and learn from him.

But because at the time he was still focusing on his defensive [Impact Armor], he had curbed such intention for later.

He needed to prioritize on what kind of arsenal he should have at the ready first before the Warrior Crown started.

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"The result's pretty much decided now." Rory immediately gave his judgement.

Even with Baron alone, the two members of Magnolia advance group would be hard-pressed to catch their second point.

And with Greg Clayton and another Rear Guard on the scene, it would be almost impossible for them, especially with their Ranger currently not present to support them.

'Even if their Ranger caught up in time, it's hard to believe Medea Dormer who's already long in position would simply stand-by without doing anything.' He thought.

"Hoho, Head Coach Lark is still as stingy as always I see..." Rex suddenly voiced out his own comment while turning to John.

"Oh, whatever do you mean?"

"I assume with this kind of tactic, that he's planning to conclude the match as quickly as possible without showing too much of the new players' skills while still giving them the experience in going against Magnolia first-hand..."

"Essentially building their confidence right?" Rory also added after catching on to what the middle-aged Rex was pointing towards.

"Haha, I wouldn't know now, would I?" On the other hand, John simply shrugged the accusations away without confirming nor denying anything.

Rex didn't pursue it anymore since it was only natural for a coach to not want to show their cards as much as they could. But he still spoke out his own thoughts once more,

"Mister Lark might want to end it earlier, but I'd think that the youngsters down there might have a different opinion."

"Mm?"

"If the match ended without another point in from Ravenville, they would think that they're still inferior to the old players now wouldn't they?"

"..."

Rex continued, "I would bet that the new players would feel more pressure the closer they are to the time. They'll want to show their all in the end for a chance to get some results or another."

John turned silent at Rex's observation while looking towards Irvine, Derrick, and Fletcher that were now engaging with Sylphie but were slowly getting pushed to the halfway line.

'No, they're not getting pushed... They're luring her who still hadn't realized the situation inside the building away to prepare for offensive.'

He understood the plan when seeing Irvine occasionally taking unnecessary steps back towards the halfway line's direction.

While watching this, even Rory and Rex each also had their own thoughts regarding Irvine.

'So that's how he's playing his Solver...'

'A 2 Solvers formation with one of them actively fighting, this...'

The two had to let the information slowly sink in because there're too many possibilities tied to this kind of new playing style.

Without analyzing it further and just thinking about it, they wouldn't come to any conclusions regarding its pros and cons so they just decided to take notes of it for now.

After this, they would have to report the findings to each of their schools.

Meanwhile on the field, the ongoing match was finally nearing its end phase...