The Martial Unity

Author's Note: Please clear your cache and reread the last chapter as I incidentally posted the second chapter of the day as the first. Apologies for the mistake

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Deacon Industries immediately began aggressively clearing the Shionel Dungeon as fast as it possibly could. It ceased all other exploratory endeavors and gathered as much Martial capital as it possibly could to the fourteenth floor. More than a hundred Martial Squires were cutting down the branches at any given moment, allowing them to make progress at a rate that was quite impressive to Rui.

('As expected, Kane and I could never hold a candle to this kind of progress,') Rui sighed.

In fact, in hindsight, he found that it was a good thing that Rui decisively made the choice to avoid trying to clear the dungeon floor all by themselves. If they made too much progress before deciding to reveal its existence to Chairman Deacon, then the exploratory teams clearing the dungeon would have noticed the progress and would have reported it to Chairman Deacon, who would most likely make some realizations.

Progress made by a lone adventurer who did not bother trying to reveal the evidence of the floor to the Shionel Adventurer Guild, but also tried clearing it on his own before Deacon Industries happened to stumble upon the floor clearly reminded everybody of a particular adventurer; the Voider.

However, this way, they did not suspect anything and truly were of the belief that Deacon Industries were the first to discover the fourteenth floor. That was what Rui was counting on to get them to drop their guard at the crucial moments.

"Still, they sure are working hard and smart," Rui admitted as he observed them from the edge of the fourteenth floor. He had to admit that their efficiency and effectiveness were worthy of a company that stood at the top of dungeon exploration success rates prior to the arrival of Rui and Kane to the Shionel Dungeon.

Deacon Industries had chosen to focus their Martial capital as much as possible in one particular direction and portion of the perimeter of the tree's striking range. Rather than distributing all of their Martial Squires across the circle, they were able to make deeper and quicker progress to the center of the dungeon floor.

Close-range defensive and offensive Martial Squires formed the first line of interception and defended against and destroyed them as much as they could. The long-range Martial Squires from behind launched volleys of long-range attacks that also destroyed and weakened the branch attacks. This way, the entire squad was able to make decently-paced progress steadily without faltering even once.

The branch attacks were harder to defend the closer they got to the core of the gigantic tree, as the number of branches also increased as they entered the trigger range of a new set of branches with every step that they took towards the trunk of the titanic tree. This would make it quite strenuous for the Martial Squires during the later stages of the dungeon clearance.

('It should take them no more than a week at most at this rate,') Rui sighed. Although he and Kane made up for their lack of quantity with their highly effective strategies and techniques, there was a limit to that.

Quantity had a quality of its own that no number of tricks could substitute or compensate for. That was a hard reality that Rui was faced with. After all, this whole plan emerged from the fact that it was too impractical for two Martial Squires to solo clear the fourteenth floor.

If not for this plan, Rui might even have thrown his hands up and moved onto another floor rather than wasting time on this floor. That was a much more practical and even more interesting outcome.

However, what if there were other floors that required a large number of Martial Squires to clear them as well? Was Rui going to spend his time redoing the same strategy over and over again? Let others do all the hard work and steal it from them just when they were about to claim the fruits of their effort?

That did not sit well with Rui, even though it could potentially be interesting as a challenge. He had come to the Shionel Confederation for a sense of adventure, freedom, and earnest challenge, not to be a highly effective and notorious thief.

('Forget it, I have no idea what the rest of the floors are like, they could be cleared by us two alone or they may not,') He sighed. ('That doesn't matter for now.')

He spent a close eye on the clearing team of Deacon Industries over the span of the week. Because the number of Martial Squires piercing through the volley of branches at any given time was constant, the Martial Squires were in rotations of contributing to the attack and getting off work.

This meant that Rui could not truly stay away from the fourteenth floor for extended periods of time, if he was even slightly wrong, then he would miss a lot of crucial moments. He did not want to steal the ore deposit after Deacon Industries had secured it and transported it away. That was just plain theft and robbery.

"We're going to have to take shifts, Kane," Rui sighed, informing his partner and best friend. "Thankfully, both of us possess the means to observe them well."

Rui could simply stay perched at a safe distance and observe everything with Riemannian Echo, while Kane could go a lot closer without being detected.

"I already figured as much," Kane replied, yawning. "We need to make sure that we're prepped for whenever we estimate that they'll be done at least an hour ahead of time."

"True," Rui nodded. "Not to mention, we need to make sure that the other parts of the plan are also in place. Specifically our escape routes. Because things might get ugly if that is also compromised somehow."

The two of them had already analyzed efficient ways to escape. Kane's high affinity for evasion, as well as his experience with covert missions that required infiltration and escape, meant that his insights were just as valuable as Rui's.