The room grew silent as everybody understood the appeal of his idea.

"…You're counting on the fact that Miranda will be assuming that you're going to stick with what Mr. Sorwel recommended for each of us," Silian realized. "That's going to make her look for the wrong people in the wrong place."

Cæ nodded. "In particular, it's a blunder that can be greatly exploited if we effectively use Serulia's magic."

He turned towards her, next to him, with a serious expression.

"You will be the crux of our strategy, Serulia."

His words took her by surprise for a moment before she steeled her resolve with a nod. "I will not disappoint."

"If Hyoken and Serulia are going to be on the offense, then who do you intend to have for defense?" Silian folded his arms with serious eyes.

"…Actually, I was thinking it would make perfect sense to have nobody on defense and go all-out on offense." Cæ's tone was devoid of any mirth.

The entire team just stared at him with a stunned expression.

The air grew heavy as they remained shocked into silence.

"Have you…" Silian glared at him with gritted teeth. "Have you lost your goddamn mind?! You want to put everything into offense?! What about our flag then?!"

"It will be a bluff," Cæ remarked. "We will throw everything into offense and overwhelm their entire team in one fell swoop and get their flag before they get our flag."

They simply stared at him with a bewildered astonishment.

"They can just take our flag if we leave it completely defenseless!" Silian glared daggers at Cæ with an expression of anger. "They will definitely get our flag before we get there with this absurd excuse of a strategy."

Cæ raised a hand. "It's a concept of a strategy, I call it the Reverse Bluff Strategy."

"Whatever you want to call it, it's a garbage idea."

"Cæ, as much as I do not want to, I find myself concurring with the scion of the Sylvester Family," Serulia murmured with an uncertain tone. "Even with our greater numbers, nine on three will not be as quick as six on zero. They will get flagged out sooner than we get theirs."

Cæ shook his head. "You're not getting the core concept of the plan, so let me explain it."

He raised a finger. "First, you need to place yourself in our opponents' point of view when analyzing what they will do, because that is all they have; their own point of view. Now, we can be extremely confident that they think that Serulia and Hyoken will be on defense, along with a few others. Serulia can create very realistic fake illusions that fool all your physical senses, so what do you think will be the first thought that comes into their mind when they see an unguarded flag right out in the open?"

The room grew silent as Cæ directed a sweeping gaze across his four guests.

"Do you think the first thought will be 'ah, they are so stupid for leaving their flag behind with nobody to guard it, this is an easy win'?" Cæ raised an eyebrow. "Do you think that Miranda will believe that we are that stupid in our strategy? Do you think that it will be the first thought that comes to her mind? That her opponent team, which spent three days preparing a strategy, just abandoned our flag?"

"They'd be the stupid ones if they truly believed that," Hyoken snorted, folding his arms.

"What do you think is the first thought that will come to their mind the moment they see an unguarded flag out in the open with no protection, given that they know that we have Serulia and that they believe she will be on defense?"

"…They'll believe that it is an obvious false flag, literally, and just bait to trick them," Sillian realized what Cæ's plan was.

"Miranda is not stupid," Cæ remarked. "She and Lyarna are going to head the search for our flag using divination. They will simply not accept that this isn't some powerful illusion that Serulia must have prepared an incantation to amplify and fake to a highly convincing extent. Of course…"

Cæ raised his hands. "I'm not saying that they won't realize that it is a fake flag, but they will only realize it after they have scanned our entire half of the territory for the real flag or after we steal their flag by overwhelming them in numbers."

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The members of the team fell into silence as they realized what might have sounded like an absolutely crazy plan now became increasingly viable.

"What makes me most convinced about the veracity of my plan is the fact that Miranda is far too self-conscious about how people view her and has far too much pride," Cæ added. "In her mind, the moment she sees the fake flag, she will not allow herself to become the mockery of the magicademy for falling for 'such obvious bait.'"

Cæ was confident that there was a high likelihood that this would make her extremely paranoid of falling for such a simple bait and decoy, and would instantly have her search for the real flag extremely aggressively.

"The best part is that while she wastes time searching, the offensive team is useless until the flag is found," Cæ remarked. "Meaning we can negate the presence of the offensive trainers that she has on her team until she realizes that the flag that is plainly in front of her is clearly the real flag itself."

That stirred many on the team to actually be attracted to the plan that Cæ had proposed. As crazy as it sounded, if things went as planned, it could lead to a domineering victory where the other side simply wouldn't stand a chance.

"Another thing that I'm counting on is that she has several commoner students on her team," Cæ continued with a serious tone. "I don't believe that she will be able to handle them properly, as someone with the background that she does. People don't like being ordered, and her conduct and words will definitely rub Seol and Dranst the wrong way. In fact, I think there's a good chance that we might see leadership conflicts between Kyrell and Miranda; grouping them together under the excuse of putting this conflict to bed was a good idea on my part."

In comparison, Cæ had dealt with Silian with far greater finesse, so much so that none of the resentment in the previous little episode between them spilled over in the current strategic discussion meeting.

Even Silian had to admit, even if grudgingly and reluctantly, that Cæ had handled it well.

"I'm sure that the very first steps in their strategy are centered around Miranda and Lyarna using their divination and recon to 'locate the real flag' beyond Serulia's illusion," Cæ remarked. "That will make it virtually impossible for them to psychologically accept that the flag that we have simply left unguarded. Their fear and panic will cloud their judgment even more, and it will make them not as keen as they would normally be."

"What about when the nine of us attack their base?" Serulia raised an eyebrow. "Will they not know that they are fighting against nine people, giving them the opportunity to inform Miranda, one way or another, and allow her to realize that I am not defending the flag and that the unguarded flag is the real flag?"

"You will hide Hyoken and the other defenders with your illusion magic at all times," Cæ remarked. "While our offense team handles their defense team, you will invisibly take their flag without them noticing and replace it with an illusion of their flag, making them think that it is a real flag and that they still have it."

"That… makes a lot of sense," she admitted thoughtfully. "But my illusion magic does not have long range under normal conditions. So once I get far enough, the illusion will be dispelled and they will realize that their flag has been taken."

Cæ had already anticipated this problem. "Then we, the attacking team, will turn into defenders and prevent their defenders from reaching you to get their flag. We will hold them back, and we will try our best to prevent them from communicating what has happened to Miranda for as long as possible. While she will realize it eventually, she will not make it in time. Once you get away with the flag far enough, we too can retreat, and our victory will be almost entirely in the bag."

His words were compelling by themselves, but when they considered actually leaving their flag out in the open for anybody to access, they couldn't help but hesitate at what he was actually suggesting that they do.

"…"

The room grew silent as they pondered his strategy with deep severity. The dim light of the frosty morning gently illuminated the living room of his dormitory room as the silent whir of his heater remained the only sound in the room.

Cæ heaved a sigh. "Let me ask you this, let's say Serulia had a way to perfectly replicate our flag with her illusion magic to the point that it was absolutely completely indistinguishable from the real one, no matter what. And let's say she could make herself and the others completely undetectable as well. Do you think you would be convinced of the plan of simply planting a fake illusion flag out in the open with no guards and no protection, hoping that Miranda gets fooled by it and takes it?"

It was a pertinent question with an obvious answer.

"No."

Not a single person had any hesitation.

And of course they didn't. Hoping that Miranda would be fooled by a fake illusion flag, even if absolutely perfect, that had no guards or protection of any kind, was just delusional. Any reasonable person would assume that there was something wrong if the main target was left out in the open so easily for them to find and get to.

"Even if they came to believe that it was the real flag, they would suspect that there were magical booby traps around the flag that would get triggered the moment they set foot near the territory," Silian reasoned with a severe expression. "No reasonable person would just leap at the flag to take it and run away with it."

He heaved a deep breath as he realized that he was making Cæ's case for him.

If it was impossible to believe that Miranda would take a perfect replica of the flag that was left out in the open with no defenses or guards, then it made his argument even stronger.

And yet, they couldn't bring themselves to actually accept the plan outright.

"There's no need to rush," Cæ remarked. "We don't have to make the decision right away. We have yet to memorize all the details of all the participants involved in the match. We can do that today and over the next three days, thoroughly familiarize ourselves with all the details, and see if there is a devil within them that compromises our plan. Until then, let's hear some other ideas for our strategic approach. I'm sure you guys have your own ideas on the matter as well. I do not wish to simply disregard all of your opinions."

In truth, Cæ was quite confident that they would end up going for their plan, but he needed to make the dynamics more inclusive.

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