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Once I headed back to the hall, it was filled with guild members willing to join the second subjugation unit.

Even if there weren’t as many as the first group, they were full of powerful people including ≪Azure Sword≫ and ≪Twin Crimson Blades≫ who finished their rescue commission.

Even the regular customers who were usually dead drunk had tense and solemn expressions now. I wish they were always like that though.

“First, let me thank you for gathering here today.”
“Pii!”

The tension in the hall abated a little when they saw Haku bow its head above the counter like me.

“For this subjugation, we are adopting my humble plan. My apologies but those who have no objections will join the second subjugation unit, but those who wish to adopt independent plans will have to join the third—”
“Don’t say that stuff after all this, Illya.”
“Yeah. Don’t be so reserved now.”

People spoke up here and there. Looking around, everyone was looking at me with similar expressions.

Uhh… I’m not exactly happy with you putting so much trust in me…

I guess I have to suck it up.

“Thank you very much. Then for this plan, you will have to forget about the party groups.”

A lot of them had surprised expressions.

Yes, in this world, though the fellow parties cooperated during battles, they never organized battles where they divided their roles by occupation.

This was the system of the guild that put emphasis on “individuality” that differed from an army, so three groups of 5+6+4 were always 5+6+4, and they never became 8+4+3 or 11+4, let alone 15.

“First, we will have you divided into the roles as listed here.”

The bulletin board that was usually used for the commissions was now moved to the counter and had two papers on it.

The first paper was the composition plan.

People who could use fire magic. People who could use at least mid-grade defensive spells. People who could use shields. People in charge of direct attacks. People with confidence in their speed.

These were assigned ABCDE letters respectively. All the characters converted to those used in this world so that wasn’t a problem.

“I will explain about the roles along with the plan.”

I pointed the teacher’s cane at the simplified drawing of a dragon on the second paper.

“First, you will stand by spreading out at the forefront outside the ice dragon’s attacking range. If you attack with fire spells, not only will it deal effective damage, but the exhausted dragon will land on the ground because it dislikes disrupting the atmospheric currents. And then, you will get closer while maintaining the formation. If you do that, it will most likely try to swipe the area with a Breath attack, but a Breath spread over a wide area will be defendable by mid-grade defensive spells. As such, the B group will be the vanguards of the formation.

As the crowd stirred, someone raised a hand and asked.

“What if an attack other than Breath comes?”
“The formation we’re adopting is to induce a specific attack… or rather, restrict it to one type.

If you spread in every direction, it will attack with Blizzard, and if you group up together it will use Glacier Lances to skewer you.

The former would force everyone to defend and would limit the visibility so it’s a poor move. In the latter’s case, we could adopt a similar plan using high-level spells, but the reason we want it to use the Breath is that it has a bigger delay between attacks.

Blizzard and Glacier Lance are spells that interfere with the natural Factors, so the ice dragon’s body itself can immediately shift to a successive action. But Breath, on the other hand, spews ice by combining the Factors and Magicules inside its body, so it needs to raise its head and recombine them in its body to repeat the attack. A few seconds it may be, but there’s still a delay.

It also needs to fix its posture to move after finishing its Breath attack, and there’s also a delay in switching from internal to external interference to cast spells.

“I want you to make use of that opening.”
“But magic isn’t the only attack method it has.”

I nodded at that comment and continued.

“And that is where groups B and C came into play. While A attacks from a distance, D will attack frontally while B and C support their flanks. Tail sweeps and claw attacks will be defended by B and C members staying on the side that gets attacked, while the rest will attack using that opportunity, and those who can will all aim at its horns. Oh, shielders should focus not on blocking but warding the attacks upward, because otherwise you may get blown away.”

That last comment made some people smile wryly.

It was like the face of shielders to have bad experiences from taking the full brunt of attacks.

Then someone posed another question.

“Horns? Not eyes?”
“Yes. Aiming for the eyes is the basics of subjugation, but you can forget that this time. I will explain the reason later. First, I will explain why you need to aim for the horns. It’s because ice dragons use their horns like wands to cast magic.”

Their purpose was to allow using spells more efficiently and smoothly. And also added more power to them. But every guild member knew that much so I omitted that part.

“If you manage to break both of its horns, you can then break its concentration by incessant attacks and cause significant obstruction to its magical attacks.”
“What about that last group?”
“E’s duty would be disturbance and diversion. Now let me go back to the matter of its eyes. Are you aware of how ice dragons grasp the enemy location inside the blizzards they cause? Well, Bard?”
“Huh?! Wh-, uhh… by smell, maybe?”
“You got it wrong.”

He looked frustrated. Thanks for giving the answer I expected.

I knew you’d remember the advice I gave about the boars before.

“However, fundamentally it doesn’t differ so much from boar-type monsters that sense the enemy by smell. The reason ice dragons can sense the enemy in bad visibility is that they can perceive their heat. Thus, the E group will use fire crystals as dummies to restrain or guide its movements.”

They would place dummy heat sources where they wanted it to attack and make them easier to block or dodge, or throw them at it to distract it.

They weren’t amateurs that needed me to spell everything out, so I shouldn’t need to explain all that…

“I wish to take a look at the numbers of each division first and then decide on the formations for both the case where you fail to break its horns and for the case, its horns are broken. With all that in mind, please forget your roles in your own parties and split into roles that you are best at. If there’s anyone who isn’t sure, I will assign them myself.”

I finished and bowed.

With that as a signal, everyone moved into action.

“Pii…”

I picked up Haku who liked my hand and patted its head in appreciation.

It’s okay, I won’t regret this. And I will definitely protect you.

I used my Eyes of God to check the statuses and skills of people who approached me for consultation and divided them accordingly. If we had time, I would’ve split them based on their latent aptitudes and made them train to improve their skills, but we aren’t an army.

Then, after deciding on the overall commander and the individual squad leaders for when its horns were broken and I had everyone’s consent, I registered them for the commission.

“Then, I’m returning your registration cards. ≪Pastoral Wheel≫ will accompany you for the transportation of goods when you depart, so please meet up with them at the northern gate… May fortunes of war be with you.”
“Let’s goo!”
“““““ YEAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! ”””””

And thus, the second subjugation unit departed.

I didn’t want them to get careless so I didn’t tell them about the ice dragon’s exhausted state and that its eye and arm were wounded, which I found out with my Clairvoyance. I’m not sure if that bore fruit, but they headed to the battle with just the right sense of tension and managed to accomplish the commission.

The battle itself went more or less according to the strategy I made. Another force that arrived from a different city threw things into chaos midway through the battle, but it didn’t change the overall situation.

I mean, the reason the plan succeeded wasn’t strange because Fadele, who I appointed as the commander, had the Leadership skill, so I should be happy.

But I felt pretty depressed that if something like this happened again they would push it at me as before.

“Pii…?”
“No, it’s nothing.”
“Pii!”

Right. Whining will get me nowhere.

I decided on this.

This is pretty selfish to say… but if I folded here I wouldn’t even be qualified to face the ice dragon’s grudge.

“Illya, I’m thinking of accepting this commission.”
“Understood. Please present your registration card.”

Today, as always, I continued to do my receptionist work.