Episode 10 Confusion

A bit long as I wanted to include all the context and I am sticking strictly to what has been shown in the anime up to this point.

The plan is twofold and has two traps. This plan hinges on the fact that the organization and its members are unaware of Ivy/Sora bad guy detecting combo. This allows Flaming Sword, Thunder Kings, and the guard captain to not only know who is an enemy and who is an ally, it also gives them an opening to funnel known traitors into said traps.

The plan itself is very risky. Two small teams have to incapacitate large groups of people with as notice and damage as possible. Not the best idea to have a chunk of the town destroyed while trying to capture traitors. They also don't want to tip their hand too much or let anyone escape, prevent the organization from getting crucial information or time to mount a counterattack.

The first trap is the mansion from Episode 9. The place with the organization's gold, ledgers, and other documents that are very incriminating. The org really wants control of that place back and in a hurry. This is why Ivy suspects Meela and friends are decoys/throw away pawns. Meela's team creates an incident that not only draws attention away from the mansion, but also cause doubt amongst the guard and adventurers. If everyone suspects everyone else of being a traitor, that paralyzes the whole town and prevents a proper investigation and cooperation between teams/people for fear of being betrayed/killed. Even if Meela's team is captured, they probably don't know much of importance and helps draw more eyes away from the mansion.

The second trap is the fake monster nest in a random cave outside of town. Idea here to make the organization think they are getting full control of the mansion back and to lure a large group of traitor adventurers and guard away from the town. The captain takes a large force of guards, namely a good chunk of the loyal guards guarding the mansion, with him to help "kill" the fake monsters while also taking a large chunk of traitors with him as well. By luring a chunk of the traitors away from the town, they can attempt to surprise the traitors and capture a lot all at ounce. If anyone does start to get away or cause a fuss, it doesn't impact the town or cause any more damage than needed as they are away from the town.

The trap in the mansion is simple. The scene at the end between the guard captain's team and Shiffal/Nuga was the setup for both traps. Shiffal and Nuga lead the captain to place a traitor in charge of choosing who stays behind to guard the mansion while the rest of the guards and a group of adventurers goes out to hunt the fake monster nest. For the mansion traitors, Shiffal is setting up a lot of sleep bomb magic items inside the mansion as a trap. When the trap springs, everyone in the mansion will be forced to sleep. No bloodshed, no causalities, big haul of traitors. This all hinges on the traitors thinking that they are safe to raid the mansion while the guards are out hunting for the monster nest.

The trap for the group that is going out into the forest hasn't been explained yet. We just know Shiffal thought a magic item used for large/strong monsters would be ideal. We can assume it is non-lethal as they expected some friendly fire. We shall see what that trap holds next episode.

For Ivy's part, we are not quite sure what her role as a diversion/bait will play just yet. For now, it seems like her role is to keep the organization from catching onto their plans. Make it seem like their diversion of having Ivy kidnapped by an obvious throw away pawn (Meela) is going smoothly. We will see if there is anything else to Ivy's role next episode.

It should be noted that, as Ivy and others state, this is a very risky plan that has a lot of failure points. But, it is also a great opportunity as this is the first time in 7 years they've had the initiative. It also relies on acting fast. This is basically a blitzkrieg maneuver. Hit hard and fast when the enemy isn't expecting it on as many fronts as possible. Hence why the captain was so very confused during the later scene with Shiffal and Nuga, he did not know what the hell was going on either.