While Zelandia's recruits were undergoing a wilderness survival trial in the Griffon Mountains, a group of higher-ups stealing a moment from their busy schedules were immersed in a revelry of their own inside the great tent of the temporary camp near the mountains' outskirts.
"Quick, quick, quick! Place your bets, no take-backs! Anyone else betting?"
Clad in a full suit of heavy tin-can armor, yet carrying a basin filled with dozens of pounds of coins and weaving through the crowd with the agility of a rogue, was none other than Skard, the shield warrior who still retained some of his adventurer habits.
Those officers in the great tent who shared that habit had already placed their bets.
Even those without that vice would give Skard some face, more or less, in hopes of currying favor with their superiors.
But gambling was the sort of thing where nine out of ten bets ended in losses.
Sure enough, the trial had not been underway for long before the entire tent was filled with wails of misery.
The air was full of shouts like, "Why the fuck did I pick such an idiot back then?" "Run! Just run already! You useless trash!" and "Are you fucking blind? There's a pile of bear shit right outside the cave, and you still dared crawl in?!"
Nearly everyone had their eyes fixed on the several hundred crystal balls hanging along one wall of the tent. Almost every crystal ball showed the scene of a small squad, footage transmitted back by those Slimes serving as "observers."
Yet most people still thought it was merely some magical effect of their Boss's, or perhaps some new contraption developed by the great Igg.
After all, Igg was a genuine descendant of Netheril. In the past, he had only been an