Vol. 10 - Ch. 508 - Breaking! The tumultuous happening in guild battle ranking!

“«Temple Saber» fell to C-rank?”I parroted back the information Aegis, standing before me, told, and looked at her in confusion. I thought my ears were ringing. S~eaʀᴄh the ηovelFire.ηet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

“Yes. Dias-senpai of «White Saber» contacted me to inform me about it. It’s already the hot topic of the moment in the news.”

With a composed expression, Aegis somberly nodded at my doubt.

——«Temple Saber».

A former A-rank guild, and one the foremost force in this academy. The guild used to have that record. At its peak, it was brimming with students of «Knight Baron» category—prominent among them were the job «Knight» and «Squire». They’re every bit envious—cough, I mean strong.

Also, they’re the parent guild of Aegis’s formed guild «White Saber».

With their former experience as A-rank guild, along with the 11 advanced job holders, they were supposed to be in the park with B-rank guild «Muscles are the strongest» guild.

But as the summer vacation ended, so did the ban on «Ranking Battle».

«Ranking Battle» typically had one month buffer time before another they were made to/choose to fight others. Though with summer vacation in between, the buffer time was as good as non-existence.

I heard that this season last year had been much more chaotic. Guild battles or parties worked on their internal cooperative spirit, but what if due to home visit and other activities, students missed each other spirit? The other guilds had often targeted this weak point to get a raise in ranking.

‘Hey-hey, isn’t this move quite dastardly?’ must have been everyone;s thought, but the ranking were often overturned after one month—or more like, put them back to how they should be.

Anyway, the mayhem should be running deep everywhere today due to the upliftment of the ban, then teachers even dropped another huge news; the class ranking battle.

Given the situation, it should have further spurred the tension between students. I presume we would be challenging for C-rank only after the class ranking battle.

Either way, the situation should have been no different from past years; someone had challenged the «Temple Saber» as soon as the ban was lifted, and «Temple Saber» lost.

“How did they lose? More importantly, to whom do they lose?”

“A picture is worth a thousand words, ain’t it? So look at it~.”

“Oh, Misato.”

Misato had suddenly appeared beside us—I didn’t even notice when she arrived—and extended the screen of her «Smartphone» my way to check out.

It was displaying today’s news— «Temple Saber» and «Brain Achiever» fought in a «Ranking Battle» today, with the match ending in «Brain Achiever» favor.

“Ohh, «Brain Achiever» huh.”

“Yup, the guild of brain cliques. Their leader, Cain, has an advanced job «Brainiac», seemingly with the same trait as Rina-chan's job.”

“Well, that explains… «Brainiac» huh.”

«Brainiac» was the high-low ranking job among the advanced jobs; a support job specializing in leadership, and standing almost in comparison with «Master-Planner Princess». …Albeit, once Rina also got her job’s advanced version, «Brainiac» was as good as a low-ranking job in comparison. But otherwise, it was actually a good job for the no category holders.

“According to what I have heard, he was having a low-ranking job before summer vacation, however he managed to acquire the ticket during summer vacation.”

“And that’s what pushed him to go for B-rank? I did get that advanced jobs are strong, but had he won in the virtue of this alone? I can’t imagine how they had managed to surpass the wall of 11 advanced job members.”

“Yea, well, what happened was the «Brain Achiever» guild had a huge internal restructure in the meantime. They managed to get their hand on 9 of the advanced job members from other associations etc. Including all the changes, they’re one of the top B-rank guilds now, just in line with other rapidly advancing guilds.”

“......Ah, now that’s indeed possible. The power dynamics saw a transformation during summer vacation huh. —I should have expected the situation to change in reality.”

I keenly nodded to Misato’s explanation.

The news also wrote a breakdown of the events in its post as well. The «Brain Achiever» was a C-rank guild before summer vacation, and their best achievement had been to clear a «Rank 4» Int-high dungeon.

However once their leader acquired the advanced job, this triggered a wave of transformation in them, like striking deals etc with other advanced job students and band together to challenge impossible.

“I am pretty sure they’re using your guild battle as reference, Zephyr-kun..”

“Ah, you thought so too?”

«Master-Planner Princes» should have surfaced only once, however it seems like others have already researched its ability to some extent. Though I wouldn’t put it past them to have «Dragon’s Miniature Garden», I do believe they might have gotten similar, albeit low tier version, map items.

Either way, they’re strong. Their leader had unhesitatingly used the ticket for support job, instead of opting for a combat one, then strengthened the guild by bringing in like-minded members, challenged the former A-rank guild undauntingly, and even surpassed them. It was a quality impossible to find in everyone.

“And this is how their guild battle went huh.”

Aegis, I, and Misato looked at the scream as Misato scrolled up. …It’s a bit cramp.

“A «Trapper» for setting traps, «Dark Priest» for debuffs, «Sonar Man» for search, and «Trickster» as a covert member. Oh, so that’s how they played huh. They knew it would be a futile war head-on, so they opted to exploit their weakness and crush their opponent’s member one by one. Impressive.”

“«Temple Saber»’s tactic had always been to break through the obstacles with their overwhelming status. Normally, they should have been having the invincible knight circle, while long-distance healing covering for any mishap, alas……”

Aegis said, a lamentable expression on her face.

Well, that plan was down the drain, yeah. An opponent specialized only on brute-force, without any support, was no different than a sitting duck. Against opponents like them, you only need to tip the scale a bit, and they would themselves show their weakness amidst the chaos.

In the lack of enough healing means, the other guild kept «Temple Saber» at their toes, making sure they never recover fully, then split them up, before eliminating them one by one.

“«Beast King Galtiger» had outwitted the knights with their speed, raided their base, and crushed their healer. And when «Temple Saber» members had fallen into confusion, they easily swatted their ranks. Right?”

“Well, this is the con of having no healer. Again, «Temple Saber» kicked the bucket in guild battle, unable to showcase their true strength.”

After all, they had been hardwired to act freely—or, brute forcing, if I may say so—their way through every obstacle due to the presence of long-range healing. Summarizing the news in a few words—the enemy had managed to trick «Temple Saber» with little effort, and when «Temple Saber» had the chance, they tripped in organizing their ranks. They basically failed in quite a textbook exemplary way.

“But on the other hand, «Brain Achiever» deserves the praise here.”

With how easily «Temple Saber» fell into their opponent’s palm, I bet all my money that «Brain Achiever» had researched everything about them, down to their minor weakness. It wasn’t a victory out of fluke, so the spotlight was there at the moment.

And as was the rule of «Ranking Battle», «Temple Saber» lose their rank to «Brain Achiever» and fall down to C-rank.

“«Temple Saber» has a D-rank sub-guild, so they can handle situations to some extent, but the fall of two ranks consecutively is still a shocker. It’s not going to be easy for them.”

You could have up to 40 members at A-rank guild, but that shaved down to half at C-rank. With their sorry plight, they must kick out half of their members. The sub-guild, which was usually the fail-safe method for this situation, had 18 members last I heard. Whether it’s from right or left, they would have to expel some.

Seemingly reading my concern, Aegis shook her head.

“They will be fine, I believe so. «White Saber» still has Dias-senpai after all.”

“True enough. That guild members have a good head on their shoulders.”

They’re more competent than their counterparts. Just like Aegis, I believe their leader should have arranged things for other members too. There’s no way that man would fail here when he had the sheer will to lie in wait for me for the whole day.

Anyway, we sorted out the discussion then, and split up in teams there. Our agenda for today had been to continue proficiency training in the advanced job again back at the Int-high dungeon.