High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 533: Chapter 202: Tactical Choices under Siege Mode_1

There’s a soul

That loves sunshine and chase

Every brilliant day

It screams

Screams into the sky over the hunting ground

...

Above the first hunting ground, the ageless classic hunting song of the wizard world, ”Hunt Demons under the Sun”, echoed through the air. Young wizards in various attire. Everywhere the eye can see, they harmonise this hunting song, under the unique rhythm of their respective academies, as if to compete with the intensity and spirit of their voices.

Zheng Qing sat in his seat, one hand holding a telescope, squinting at the battle between the hunting teams and packs of demons in the hunting grounds, while his other hand held a liquorice ball lollipop, eagerly enjoying it. This was a snack that Lin Guo had found in his little book bag. As the boss of the Absolution hunting team, the young scholarship student graciously accepted this tribute.

”Even though I understand, I still find it a bit strange.” Zheng Qing smacked his lips, watching Queen Qiong in the hunting field swinging her long sword relentlessly, he clicked his tongue in wonder, ”You say, how can a girl with such gentle eyes act so brutally when she starts?”

”From a whole world apart, can you tell if her eyes are gentle or not?” Xin Fat Man lamented breathlessly from the side. Unlike Zheng Qing, he didn’t accept the lollipop offered by Lin Guo with positive intentions, but instead chose a small basket of stir-fried clams from his watch, breaking them with a crunch.

”Disposition, do you understand disposition?” Zheng Qing scornfully gave him a glance, and asked Xiao Xiao, ”Tell me, where’s their Law book? The group of small mongoose demons that the queen encountered just now, if she had used a Binding Spell, it would certainly be safer than her hacking with a knife, wouldn’t it...”

Xiao Xiao had not yet spoken when Fat Xin began to prattle on incessantly from one side.

”Aura, do you understand aura?” The Fat man flicked open a clam with a finger, lecturing, ”It looks like she’s charging towards the Sheep Monster Group in the south... so all the way, she’s been whetting her sword, stoking her battle spirit and aura with the blood of those small demons...”

Zheng Qing listened to this abstruse argument, shrugged his shoulders, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, but looked at the doctor once again.

As expected, Xiao Xiao had not disappointed him.

”One reason is speed...killing a small demon is faster than capturing it alive.”

Unlike the others, Xiao Xiao maintained his focus on the hunt through his brass telescope as he continued, ”The other reason may be to conserve spells and magical power...Under normal circumstances, each hunter on the hunting grounds is only allowed to carry one Law book. Considering the demand for hunting, they can’t use an exceptionally heavy Law book... so we can infer that the number of spells they can store is very limited.”

Zheng Qing, with the lollipop in his mouth, nodded seriously. He seemed to agree completely.

The hunting competition uses a ’Siege Hunting’ mode.

Compared to the ’Pursuit Hunting’ mode which is performative in nature and used in the opening ceremony, ’Siege Hunting’ mode is closer to real combat, with more complicated rules and requirements.

For example, in terms of the different stages, ’Siege Hunting’ includes ’Hunting Stage’, ’Siege Stage’, and ’Hunting Fight Stage’, roughly corresponding to the knockout stage, final, and extra time of a normal competition.

The ’Hunting Stage’ is the beginning of the hunting competition.

All the hunting teams participating in this competition will enter the hunting ground at the same time under the arrangement of the Hunting Committee. The organisers will release a slightly larger number of wild demon groups than the number of hunting teams, along with a variable number of lone wild demons. The competition generally takes place from nine in the morning until noon. During this time, all teams can freely attack any group of wild demons, and in the end, the quality and quantity of the game acquired determines the winner.

Usually, the top 10-20% of the teams in each event have the chance to advance to the next round.

In the ’hunting ring’ phase, there will only be one large monster horde in the hunting ground. However, unlike the previous phase, the number and strength of the wild demons in the ’hunting ring’ phase will far exceed the limit that a single hunting team can endure. Therefore, during this phase, different teams will need to learn to discard their prejudices, collaborate with each other and hunt the demon horde as quickly as possible.

To ensure the independent fairness of the phase, the teams that achieved the ’hunting ring’ qualification will still enter the field at the same time. The team that gets the most demon hearts, or the team that captures the heart of the Wild Demon King, will be the champion of this hunt.

Most of the time, the hunting competition ends here.

But there are inevitably unexpected situations—the most common being one team slaying the Wild Demon King, while another team hunts the most wild demons.

In these cases, the competition will automatically proceed to overtime, during the hunting phase.

Unlike the last two phases, in the hunting phase, the two teams do not enter at the same time—according to the points of the previous two phases, the team with higher points gets to go ahead.

It’s still the same field, still one monster horde, the team that ultimately hunts the Wild Demon King, becomes the final champion.

Looking at the whole ’hunting ring mode’, it can be said without exaggeration that time is the guarantee of victory. Hunting teams that can kill their prey in the shortest time always have an advantage.

At this moment, several teams in the No. 1 hunting ground, in the Mini World, are undergoing the ’hunting phase’.

Xiao Xiao continued nonchalantly while holding his notebook:

”In the hunting phase, rhythm is of the utmost importance.”

”Generally during this phase, only 1-2 times the number of hunting teams will be deployed in the wild demon horde. I just counted, today the ratio of monster horde to hunting teams in the field is about one to one and a half...this means time is very tight.”

”Under these circumstances, most hunting teams only have time to hunt one complete demon horde.”

”So the number and quality of the demon hordes become the key to winning.”

”I don’t think it’s quite right.” With the brass telescope in hand, Zheng Qing looked around skeptically while also doubting, ”If a hunting team spends most of the day hunting a strong demon horde, another hunting team takes this opportunity to hunt two slightly weaker demon hordes, it seems that the hunting team that hunted two demon hordes will have an advantage when the final tally comes.”

”This involves different hunting team styles and choices made by the Hunting Team Leader,” Xiao Xiao acknowledged with a nod, adjusting his glasses and adding, ”Like the Queen Qiong you’ve been keeping an eye on, she clearly hopes to deal with a slightly more powerful demon horde in the shortest possible time, rather than wasting time on the road, going around the slightly weaker demon horde.”

After listening to the two discuss for a while, Zhang Ji Xin finally could no longer bear it and interjected with a conclusion:

”So, on the hunting grounds, we need to quickly select an appropriate wild demon horde and finish our first fight in the most efficient way possible to guarantee certain earnings.”

”What an eloquently useless remark,” Xin Fat Man retorted, his mouth stuffed full of clam meat that made his speech slightly airy, but it did not in any way affect his mocking tone.

Zhang Ji Xin, unruffled, continued, ”...Different tactics are needed for different wild demon hordes. If the Hunting Team Leader is powerful enough, they could try to forcibly attack the Wild Demon King, aim for a one-hit kill so the wild demons will be easier to hunt after their king’s death.”

”If the demon horde they are facing is formidable, then the hunting team needs to hold steady, first get rid of the wild Demon King’s wings, thoroughly hunt the Small Demons around it, then aim all the team’s forces at the Wild Demon King...after all, most wild Demon Kings have many quirky abilities that catch you off guard.”

Finally, Red Face clenched his fists, made a forceful encircling gesture, and ended his passionately eloquent summary.

Meanwhile, Zheng Qing and Lin Guo raised their hands and clapped to give an encouraging applaud to their lead hunter, Absolution.