Chapter 339: Tracking.
After Ana stowed the box in her luggage, she turned to continue her explanation of our mission, but this movement was nothing more than a distraction and the black box continued to release sound waves that covered the entire group. It seems that even though Ana said that she no longer believes that a traitor enters us or an idiot victim who is unwittingly carrying a bug, she still kept the black box working by preventing anyone from recording our conversations.
Maybe this is just another military protocol to keep us from becoming sources of information for our enemies, being too careful is hardly rum. Being too sloppy brings much more danger to us.
"Our mission is to eliminate the garbage from the north as you already know, I have already explained our targets and basic strategy on how we will fight them, but now I have to focus on the next step so that we can fulfill this mission. Does anyone know what that step is?"
This time silence didn't overwhelm the group, even before I could look at my companions, End or knight, I think we should call him by his codename now since we're going to put on our masks, he raised his hand as if he were still at school and answered the question."
"We should head to the last location the bandits attacked or spotted so the team's tracker can look for their tracks."
Ana made a surprised face at End's answer, but from the hint of amusement and pity in her eyes I think she's surprised by End's answer for a different reason than he thinks.
"Well, you're not completely wrong about your statement, I didn't think anyone would give a straight answer like that because I thought it was obvious that my question wasn't about the next step of going after the thieves but what we owe now, End."
"But it seems you didn't understand that, so you went to explain it as if you were explaining it to a five-year-old since you made a point of raising your hand as if you were in a classroom learning to write or read again. The next step is to lose anyone who is following us, End, even if we are not able to see someone following us, it doesn't mean we are not being stalked."
"There are many ways to deceive our pursuers, I particularly love making false trails using my earth element. We're heading in a different direction than our objective is, this is achieved with two simple moves, but which are a little tricky to execute against good trackers."
"The first step is to go in a random direction or one that might lead your pursuers to speculate that your destination is an obvious location, but to make them think you're following a true trail you have to make it difficult for the enemy tracker. I use my earth element to cover a lot of our tracks and I make the tracks harder to follow as time goes on."
"The second part is even more obvious which is to change your route to a direction closer to your true destination, but to avoid being followed you must completely hide your trail from your party this time. You can achieve this in two ways, one is for someone else who is more skilled or with different methods of hiding your tracks to start helping to cover your tracks, the second way is simply to do a better job of hiding your tracks from that point forward."
"My strategy may seem obvious and it is, but executing it is not so easy. I have several years of experience and was taught by an elemental mage quite proficient in hiding tracks, because of this I have the skill and confidence to deceive my enemies with this simple strategy, many who use magical tools to cover their tracks is not this It's bad, especially when you don't have someone as skilled as I am, but you should always remember that a magical tool isn't perfect no matter how new it's improved."
"Using magic tools in war is always a race between the realms of whoever has the best and newest version, during war I wouldn't be surprised if a magic tool was updated multiple times. Remember that trusting a magic tool is better than trusting someone incompetent, but the magic tool can never overcome a competent person."
"Now I want you to pay close attention to how I cover our tracks, especially you Terra, because if I am not with the group, it will be your obligation to do so, and very well having already put on your mask most of the others still are. waiting like idiots to put them on."
"During the way I will also explain various ways to cover your tracks in different terrains than we are now, in an open grassy plain not much mystery, but within a forest there are many ways to deceive your enemies. The more ways you have the greater your chance of surviving this war or during your entire life, there will always be reasons for someone to chase you and someone who is tracking you will never do it for fun, they obviously want to kill you or rob you after kill them."
Ana led the team as she released a wave of earth element energy that restored soil that was damaged by horses, an impressive demonstration of her ability to control and use her earth element. Mages have a hard time doing this and leader Ana is doing this when the horse we ride maintains its maximum travel speed, and she is also controlling how much of the trail is fixed.
Her elemental control level is so high that it's ridiculous and a little demotivating how much higher her elemental skill is compared to mine, I was expecting this but I didn't think it would be that great. I expected her to be able to show a lot more attributes or forms by using her elemental energy, high level moves, but she is using her elemental energy in a simple and basic form and the task is quite difficult.
During the very complicated path that I detoured the route several times before we actually started traveling to our destination, Ana gave a lecture about hiding tracks and that ended up also helping everyone know how to chase enemy tracks if they ever find themselves in a situation where it would be useful.
I already knew a lot of cool things Ana taught from my classes about tracking and the basics I learned from my mother when I was a child, but there was a tactic that Ana mentioned that I didn't know anymore I will use in the future because she suits me a lot.
The first is to use my fire element to dry the ground or vegetation, this is used to create a false trail on a wet path or mine from rain. This type of phenomenon can happen when a strong fire elemental warrior runs quickly under these circumstances or several fire elemental warriors pass through the same path.
Many people focus on the shape and consistency of the earth, but forget that fighters with elemental energy do not always specialize in mastering their elemental energy. It is normal for them to make the elemental energy of their body and in a time of stress or physical prowess it is normal for the elemental energy emitted by them to be greater.
Planting a rune bomb in mine from a false trail should also be a great way to deter people from following you. I wouldn't normally do this because any minimally skilled tracker would be able to sense the mana and elemental energy that a rune bomb would store, but hiding it under an elemental trail is a great undo to trick a tracker who's in too much of a hurry to notice that a part of the clear trail he's following at high speed is slightly different.
It is a pity that I never vary this spectacular scene happening, even if it succeeds, I would still be far from the place.
Before the first day of the trip was over Ana had spent her time teaching the group a few more gimmicks like regulations, reflecting the strange communicative attitude I realized why she acted the way she did these past few days.
She avoided talking before in town not for safety reasons but to avoid taking the time we would have had to say goodbye to our families and friends on our last day. As the trip would be long and tedious especially this first safe part of it, this would be the moment for Ana to explain what she has to explain to us before this mission is over.
As it is very unlikely that we are being observed on such a simple and random mission like this, it made this a good time for classes and Ana or what should I call it now as a shield since we are on mine for a mission.
More rules and protocols than I expected, I already expected there to be bureaucracy to being a soldier especially one that works on a team like ours, but I didn't think we would have to do separate reports of each mission and interaction with merchants, criminals and other members of the army or guard.
I hate doing reports now, even though I haven't done any of them yet.
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