Earlier that day...
After shepherding every monster in the vicinity into the forest toward the western stronghold, I returned to the ruins with about an hour to spare before the fifth scenario would commence.
“So, what’s this ‘secret plan’ of yours then, Allen?” Vesta asked.
I proceeded to explain everything to my eagerly (or perhaps nervously) awaiting classmates—how I’d decided to respond to their cold abandonment of me by going off the rails, how I’d subsequently abandoned my post to kill time by foraging, and finally, about the monster-strength sedatives and sleeping medicine I’d whipped up.
“I see... Hmm. This is interesting. I don’t think Master Godolphen would have expected you to abandon your post at all, given the risk, which means he won’t have predicted you making those medicines either...” Vesta replied thoughtfully. “But volume-wise, you couldn’t have produced all that much in such a short amount of time, right? Do you really think you’ll be able to make a difference with a few sleeping potions?”
Honestly, I wasn’t really thinking about any of that. I was just trying to kill time... Oh well. No point explaining that now.
“It all depends on how we use them. The key target is Godolphen, of course. Oh, and Tim too,” I replied, only for my classmates to frown in unison.
“So you think the two of them will be participating in the battle, then? Not just giving orders?”
I shrugged. “Well, I did warn them that they’d have to come at us with everything they had, right from the start... I don’t think they’ll join in straightaway, though. They’ll test the waters a bit, and wait to see whether or not we’re holding our own. If we’re on the verge of losing right from the get-go, there’d be no reason for them to join in, you know? Especially Tim, because he’s only meant to be here as an observer. But when things start looking dire—and they will—the geezer will come face us himself, and he’ll definitely drag Tim into it too. That’s exactly what we want. Remember, we’re aiming for a crushing victory here, which means defeating every last one of their forces...not that I really care about our score or anything though.”
Leo nodded. “I understand your thinking, and I don’t disagree with the idea itself. But how are you actually planning to take them down? Tim and Master Godolphen aren’t ordinary soldiers, and they’re both incredibly talented mages in their own right, which means they’ll have a pretty high resistance to poison—which is basically what you’re trying to give them.”
In this world, one’s mana core—the organ that produced and stored mana, as the name suggested—also played an important role in processing any foreign matter one consumed, such as alcohol or poison. If you were a powerful mage (or a heavy drinker) you’d naturally have a higher resistance to poisons or drugs.
If we could lure Godolphen out of the northern stronghold, I’d have a decent shot of taking Tim out with my chemical warfare. That was the key to victory, especially given the layout of Vesta’s (awesome) fortress compound. Once Tim was dealt with, the odds would be heavily in our favor. It would leave Godolphen alone to attempt to break through our defenses, rather than having to face a pincer attack from the pair of them.
The odds of my plan succeeding dropped drastically if I had to face the two of them together though, which was why we had to lure the geezer away first. I had no trouble admitting that Godolphen was a formidable foe. His situational awareness, breadth of knowledge, and swift decision-making—in other words, his overall adaptability—made him an absolute pain in the ass to deal with. If we couldn’t first shuffle the old man along, my surprise attack would almost definitely end in failure.
Heh heh heh... We’ll send Godolphen off on a wild-goose chase while we deal with all his friends, and then he’ll get to experience what true loneliness feels like...
Incidentally, the prisoner-taking aspect of the plan wasn’t one of my own suggestions. It was one of the cards Vesta had already planned to play depending on how the battle unfolded. Knowing Godolphen, it was pretty safe to assume he’d take it upon himself to rescue the prisoners.
Once my explanation was over, Vesta immediately began adjusting our battle strategy to account for my secret plan. Originally, his plan had been to abandon the southern stronghold and head north as a group the moment Godolphen appeared to rescue the prisoners. Leo then demanded to be allowed to face Godolphen himself, so we adjusted the plan to accommodate his death wish too, factoring in his likely demise (and the time we’d gain from it) in a way that benefited us.
“I need to hide inside the range of the anti-Scouting device here. Obviously, hiding behind a rock or something is just too dangerous, so I’ll build myself a little underground lair instead. I’m thinking we dig out a nice hole right about here and get Dolph to reinforce the dirt magically—just to avoid any unexpected cave-ins—and I’ll lie low until Godolphen’s gone. Like Leo said, the pair of them probably have a pretty high tolerance, so it’s too risky to put my plan into action if they’re both around. If Tim went down first, Godolphen would still have plenty of time to escape, and vice versa.”
“But you still haven’t explained how you’re going to get him to ingest it, Allen,” Coco countered. “You’re a great archer, but there’s no way you’ll be able to catch a scout like Tim off guard, which means...you’ll be using wind magic to do it? But you’ve used dramant mushrooms and capineweed in the sleeping potion, right? The medicinal properties of those only work if they’re ingested. If you can’t inject him with it or force him to drink it, the only way it would have any effect is if you vaporized it somehow. You can’t just leave a bottle open in the room or something. The ingredients in your sedative are the same. Unless you can heat them up first, it’s pointless—and you surely can’t be thinking of starting a fire in your ‘underground lair.’ It’ll need air holes, and the smell and the smoke will give you away immediately.”
Great questions, Coco. You’re always on the ball.
“You’re not wrong. In fact, I spent most of yesterday thinking about how I was going to get them to ingest it. In the end, the only method I could come up with was exactly what you said—using wind magic to get them to breathe it in without realizing it. Obviously, I also got stumped by the same roadblock about how I was gonna heat it up first. I discovered a solution, though. All I needed to do was slightly adapt a certain spell I’ve been working on lately.”
Honestly, it wasn’t a discovery at all—just something I suddenly remembered. The memory wasn’t one from this lifetime, however.
I gave my classmates a rundown of the method, as well as a summary of my experiments on Zetz and his friends (and subsequently on a variety of monsters, after the spies had stopped responding). I chose to take their expressions—which, despite their refined upbringings, seemed to say something along the lines of, Are you freaking kidding me?—as reactions of amazement rather than horror.