“Apprentice Rui Quarrier.” A woman sitting at a desk said. “We have gone over your request and have accepted it, as we informed you. The items you requested will arrive soon enough.”
Rui merely nodded on the other side. “Thank you.”
It had been a week since he had accepted the Shaia Plains nested mission. He had filed a request to the commission department of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment for certain items when he had finally come up with a plan to tackle the beast.
Normally, requesting the client for help was considered unprofessional. However, the ministry was not an ordinary client, but much more of a collaborator. This was thanks to the Kandrian Martial Convenant that specified the terms of cooperation between the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and the Martial Union and its Martial Artists.
Thus, he was able to request aid from the ministry without any compunctions. Thankfully, his request was accepted. That was the reason he had visited the closest branch of the ministry; to receive the items he had requested.
“May I know what the evaluation of the intelligence that I documented was?” Rui inquired. “It would be quite helpful to understand what actual experts think of the data I documented and the hypothesis I provided.”
“It was quite surprising for us to find such a nuanced take and analysis in your personal statement, considering you’re not an expert on the field.” She replied with an intrigued expression. “Yet your analysis was quite valid and sound although rough around the edges, the evidence is well documented and supportive of the overall narrative.”
Rui nodded. As long as the Ministry of Ecology and Environment was receptive of the hypothesis, then he likely hadn’t made any glaring errors when formulating it. Now the only thing he had left to do was execute his plan.
“We’re quite interested in the outcome of your strategy, it is a rather novel way of going about reconnaissance.” She said. “We wish you good luck.”
“Thank you.” Rui stated as he collected the items he had requested. “Well, I’ll take my leave.”
He left the office of the ministry official as he set out to return to the Shaia Plains. He was feeling pretty good about this plan in his gut and couldn’t wait to try it out this night.
He glanced at the bag, holding it carefully, wary of what were inside.
Explosives.
This was his ingenious plan. Within the big box in has arms were a large number of timed explosives that he had requested from the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, around thirty small-grade explsoives.
How these explosives worked? Rui didn’t know, and frankly didn’t care. He only cared about how he could use this to his advantage.
When thinking about how good the target of his mission was at evading him, he realized that he might be able to use this to his advantage. He recalled that just force from his running alone had caused enough seismic radiation to scare the beast off immediately.
This had been an incredible curse at this point, now he intended to turn into a blessing, by exploiting this trait to fulfill his objectives.
The idea was simple; If intense seismic radiation made the beast stay away, then he could use this fact to restrict its hunting locations and targets. He could use this to manipulate it into going after the hunting target that Rui wanted it to go towards.
He could do this by rigging these explosives in different locations across the Shaia Plains and timing them to explode one-by-one just as dusk came.
The positioning was what mattered the most. Rui would have to place them cross the Shaia Plain in such a manner that all hunting locations except for the one he would be waiting in ambush for would have explosives embedded in the land.
Just as the hunting time period of the target of his mission was likely to begin, the explosives would all detonate in rapid fashion. This would create immense seismic radiation from a lot of directions. However, the beast wouldn’t be able to know the seismic radiation was caused by explosives. It was extremely likely that the beast would interpret the heavy seismic radiation as the presence of other predators, that had occupied all locations except one.
The only hunting location without a single explosive was the location Rui would be waiting at. To the beast’s seismic sense, this would be the only location with herds of herbivores grazing on grass that didn’t have a single predator in the area.
Given its tendency to avoid competition, Rui was quite certain, that if his hypothesis was true, the beast was sure to travel there to hunt for deer and gazelles.
Rui was quite confident in this plan. Even if it didn’t work, it would concretely give him new information by disproving his theory regarding the target of his mission. However, Rui found it quite incomprehensible that the plan would be an utter failure. He predicted that a partial success at the very least was guaranteed.
He had intended to run around the Shaia Plains, burying the explosives about a meter deep. He couldn’t bury it too shallow, otherwise far too much energy of the explosives would be wasted into the air. He couldn’t bury it too deep otherwise the beast’s seismic sense would easily detect that the source of the seismic radiation wasn’t from a predator above ground.
One meter felt just deep enough to retain enough energy to alarm the beast while still shallow enough for other predators to not be ruled out as a cause. Of course, Rui had just estimated this intuitively, but he didn’t think it was far off from the optimal height.
Just as he pondered about the chinks of his plan, he had already arrived at the Shaia Plains. He gazed at the beautiful expanse of the plains as they extended over the horizon.
“This time…” His eyes narrowed. “This time I’ll get you.”