Reincarnated in the game world ~ A gamer's beginning to [Dungeon job hunting recommendation]-Chapter 654Vol. 11 - - The Unexpected Advantage of Temple Saber

With all the Big Castles captured, the match entered the midgame.

Scoreboard: «White - 8,900P» vs. «Red - 5,260P» (Point Difference: 3,640P)

Captured Big Castles: White 4 — Red 2

Time Remaining: 47:33

Players Remaining: «White - 15» — «Red - 14»

Just as we'd planned, Eden had claimed the most Big Castles in the opening phase.

Eden controlled the Northwest, Northeast, Southeast, and Central East Big Castles, while Red Team Temple Saber held the Southwest and Central West.

The «12-star Field» design made it easier to encounter opponents. We already had faced some skirmishes during the early phase, and that ended in Team Red losing one of their members. In addition, there was no revival rule in this duel battle.

The middle phase of the match shifted to scrambling for small castles. This phase was crucial to build a point advantage, and measuring the distance for a decisive strike later on.

«Temple Saber» grabbed an advantage here. Well, every participating member of Temple Saber were knights, saving healers. They'd the advantage of riding mounts since «Riding» was a basic skill of their jobs.

It was a great skill. It came at an expense of two accessory slots, and in exchange, it allowed them to ride their mount.

By occupying two accessory slots, a player could ride a mount. While the effects varied depending on the mount, horses significantly boosted movement speed.

The varied amount of mounts offered varying agility, but as general consensus, «Horses» were considered considerably great.

Knights already boasted excellent strength, and the mounts fill up the gap they fall short in, their agility. They fully exploited their advantage, with everyone being on their mounts. The result reflected their strategy success, and they managed to score far more small castles than Eden.

High offense, strong defense—and now speed as well. That was the hallmark of a category-class job.

Temple Saber fully exploited the Riding skill. With every knight mounted, they gained a decisive edge in tile acquisition—an enormous advantage in a speed-driven guild battle.

In other words, when it came to securing Small Castle tiles, Temple Saber was faster than Eden, giving them a slight but tangible advantage. And yet, Temple Saber themselves were surprised at their outcome.

"Woah... I wasn't entirely sure we would score an advantage here..."

"What's our next step, Renandal?"

Luce, the female knight accompanying Renandal in their two-person team inquired.

She was essentially asking whether they should challenge Eden, or continue focusing on capturing Small Castle.

As a fact, they didn't have much experience—no, it was their first match where they had been scrambling for minor advantages like racing for small castles.

In all other matches, once the prelude had ended, they'd ignored any such steps, and straight jumped at the throat of their opponent. They believed they could always bridge the gap by whittling their opponent's number.

That mindset had defined Temple Saber’s playstyle until now.

Besides, the scrambling also had a cooldown—protection period. Because of that, Temple Saber’s traditional approach had been to deliberately avoid capturing tiles and push straight through instead. Over time, this reduced the number of squares the enemy could shield with protection, eventually forcing them into direct confrontation.

By ignoring small castles, they'd managed to target their opponent at their unguarded state. For the record, PvP didn’t require adjacent friendly squares, you could initiate it regardless.

However, learning from the failures of the previous two matches, Temple Saber had abandoned their old headlong charge tactics. For the first time, they had truly grasped the real value of having every knight mounted.

Even Temple Saber wasn’t all brawn and no brains. (Probably)

They had gathered at least some intelligence on Eden.

According to that information, Eden was famous for never surrendering a Small Castle advantage. Their guild battles might only be of lower scale, but they heard even the veteran D-rank examiner guild «Blooming Flowers» had failed to secure Small Castle advantage against them.

They're facing the same Eden. Given that, was it really wise to abandon the detour and give up that advantage? That was the decision Luce had put to the guild master.

“...We continue. We’ll maintain our advantage. We couldn't keep a hold on Big Castles, but if we still count an advantage with small castles, we may still have good chances to turn the tables."

“I think that’s the right call.”

Renandal chooses to scramble for tiny advantages.

In Capture the Castle, the small castles were just as important strategically.

Because the number of Big Castles was even, matches were often decided by Small Castle points. Big Castles were few in numbers, so one's grasp on Small Castles often determined the winning line.

Even the top guilds—«King Absolute» or «Thousand Swords Freckel»—placed heavy emphasis on them. While Temple Saber was down a player, their overwhelming speed more than made up for it. They committed to continuing their Small Castle sweep.

They just had one problem.

Since they'd never put up a fight for small castles, they, unsurprisingly, lacked any concrete strategy to turn that advantage into a sure-fire checkmate.

Up until now, Temple Saber had always centered their strategy on PvP, barely engaging in the finer point exchanges between Small Castles and Big Castles.

Wiping sweat from his brow, Renandal turned to Luce.

“What do you think we should do next?”

“Yes?”

Luce blinked, genuinely wondering if she’d misheard.

Renandal, their guildmaster himself, had been one of the contributing factors that caused alienation of Tabasa. He rarely sought input from his members. But, here they are now. In a match they absolutely couldn't throw away, the same guildmaster was now showing a change.

“I’m sorry. I don’t have much experience with this kind of strategy. I want to talk it through—how we actually turn this into a win.”

“……”

Luce blinked several times. It was clear how befuddling Renandal's change had come out to her.

“Luce?”

“No—I mean, yes. I’m listening.”

“Alright. Do you have any suggestions on which Big Castle should we target? What timing is best? It’s hard for me to judge, so I want your opinion.”

“……”

This could also be taken as his weakness. But Luce strangely saw it as a more warm, welcoming gesture, that he was taking his chance to talk it through, and her thoughts began to race.

Of course, they couldn’t afford to stop capturing Small Castles.

"We should continue our edge on small castles at minimum. Eden is quite strong to take a heavy-handed approach. It's unthinkable to see that from a freshmen guild, and they also appeared to have assumed to have multiple advanced jobs from inter-class competition. On top of that, they’ve been watching our moves closely. Charging at them would only slow us down." 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

"I share the same thoughts. However, then it would render our regular tactic useless... What about their base? Should we target it?"

If they could bring down their opponent, all Big Castles in their possession would also become theirs. In desperate times, it was a do-or-die gamble.

But, their opponent should be keenly aware of this as well. It was quite common for each side to leave behind members to guard their base, always being cautious about it. The Bases of either team were the definition of high-risk high-reward.

“I think we should observe and gather information first. Right now, it’s not feasible. But if we can catch a moment when Eden’s members are spread thin, then I believe their base could be taken.”

“So we’d need some kind of decoy to draw them out.”

As Luce suggested, Renandal churns his thoughts while continuing to sweep Small Castles.

“What would we use as bait?”

“Let’s start by taking Big Castles. If we can grasp at least two of them, and by keeping our advantage on Small Castles, we can flip the balance.”

“But if we stop to capture Big Castles, won’t we risk losing our Small Castle advantage in the meantime?”

“Not necessarily. As long as we maintain that advantage, Eden also has to commit time to taking Big Castles. They won’t be able to act quickly either.”

“I see… And the timing?”

“How about when there are less than twenty minutes remaining? Until then, I recommend we keep focusing on Small Castles.”

"I see. Then, that shall be what we do. Thank you, really, Luce. I wouldn't have known otherwise."

“—! N-no, not at all.”

“Let’s refine the details a bit more, then share the plan with the others.”

Like a heavy cavalry, Temple Saber gradually, but surely continued to pave their path.

They shifted their objective to the «Eden» base. Their first node in the plan was catching two Big Castles, and then, when their opponent would be scrambling to re-capture them, they would take this opening as a chance to assault their base.

A cliche strategy—but it was a solid, effective counterstrategy.

T/N - Well damn, I thought the chapter was updated. I guess site kinda messed up yesterday.