"I wonder... what angle I should start from..."
Though the process had been a little bumpy, Lin Xiaolu's Team 629 had at least managed to assemble. Seeing that there was still some time before the assessment officially began, the three of them left the most crowded area and stopped on an empty patch of grass nearby. Then the Magical Girl codenamed Mint began explaining what had happened earlier:
"I think it'd be more efficient to start with the conclusion, so I'll get straight to the point. It's perfectly normal that you sensed my position constantly changing through the number tag, because I really was continually moving. But I wasn't doing it to mess with you or anything. I was scouting out the competition."
"Scouting out the competition?" Lin Xiaolu wore an expression that said, "Go on, I'm listening to your story," while Bai Jingxuan beside her showed no sign of trust whatsoever.
"Yeah, don't rush me. Let me explain. More precisely, I was examining the lineups of our competitors."
Mint understood their attitude. "Aren't you curious? What kind of teams did the Magical Girls at the top of the Carry Ranking end up forming? Were they assigned weak teammates, or did they join forces with powerful candidates? If we run into them during the upcoming assessment, knowing their team's strength distribution in advance would give us an intelligence advantage in the competition, wouldn't it?"
"...That does make some sense."
Lin Xiaolu reluctantly nodded, acknowledging her point. She had joined several candidate discussion groups over the past few days, so naturally she knew about the Carry Ranking. At first, she had even mocked its creator for being narrow-minded when Larkspur was not included on the list, only to be quickly scolded afterward.
The practical assessment's scoring criteria did not only look