Six Crescent-Moon people on horses :
Three level-capped, experienced players, and three more of presumably lower level and experience, no healer.
Even if they do not get lost in the woods due to the lack of mini-map explained in episode 1, they’ll still have a twenty-one days, 425kms trip accross the wilderness ahead of them, without roads or safe harbour in the middle, fending off monsters and crossing at least one subterranean dungeon and a sea channel along the way (which I have no idea how they’d do, by the way... building boats? ^^’). And if any of them “dies”, he gets teleported all the way back to starting zone, so there is no place for mistake.
Also, as it’s already been made very clear, they’ll need either bringing enough food to sustain six people for three weeks, or scavenge along the way. First option probably means they simply won’t be able to carry everything on them in addition to their equipment, which means bringing some kind of cart or investing in magical bags or something... That is, if carts and/or magical bags actually exist in that universe. And as there probably isn’t any road out there, the cart option probably wouldn’t be all that envisageable either way. As for scavenging, I can only guess they’d need special skills to do so, and even if they do have said skills in the party, they’ll still lose precious time scavenging every day.
I have no idea how health recovery and equipment damage are treated in this universe, so the following part isn’t necessarily true... But if health doesn’t refill itself after the fighting is over, they’ll also need to bring carts of health potions/scrolls/whatever. Same goes if equipment can actually be damaged over time: with all the fighting they have ahead of them, they’d need to bring spare items and/or someone with the skill needed to repair stuff on the fly. And that holds true for whatever other needs they may have on the way, really.
Whatsmore, even if they do manage to reach their goal in the planned time and without losing anyone on the way, they’ll still have to carry out the rescue mission itself, which most certainly implies fighting against PKs whith a team whose members have little to no experience in PvP. Oh, and there is absolutely no way to know just how much the situation will have changed in Susukino in the course of those three weeks: there may be nothing left to rescue by then.
Lastly, three of the six members of that team would basically consist of Crescent Moon’s Leader, Secretary and General (or whatever you wish to name that guy in charge of the defense). Sending them away from their guild for a whole month doesn’t exactly feels like a good idea.
Three members of the Shiroe Team on flying mounts:
Three level capped, very experienced players, two of them once part of a legendary group, the third one acknowledged by the other two.
That means a one-week trip, bypassing most of the difficulties aside from the dungeon thanks to the flying mount, with very little chances to get lost/killed by monster/drowned in the channel/out of food/whatever.
Then on to the rescue mission itself. Much less time would have passed than in the previous plan, meaning more chances for Serara to still be fine when they arrive. Also, the members of the party are, as it was already stated, much more well-prepared for fighting against other human beings (we saw them humiliating a six-men strong PK party in this very episode). If there are concerns to be had, it’s obviously their low numbers: they are only three, so taking on that whole guild just isn’t realistic. But then again, I doubt three more people would do much of a difference: in both cases, if they end up fighting the whole town by themselves, I’d say it’s over.
So, yeah. As far as I’m concerned, our MC’s plan clearly has more of a chance of success.
Then again, the anime isn’t as in-your-face as I just was. Shiroe states that they’d need to fight monsters on a 425 kms trip, and would need 21 days on horse even if everything goes right, and then goes “it’s better if we go”. And that’s it. The rest, about the food, the map, and their ability to fight PKs, was already hinted at beforehand, but isn’t brought up again. And the flying mounts aren’t even mentioned until their actual appearance. So, if it was posted spontaneously, just after watching the episode, I can somewhat understand where your comment was coming from, Adramelech. But taking some time to think things over should bring you to another conclusion, I think: our MC’s plan may not be ideal, but it’s definitely a huge improvement over the only other option.
Also, I think I read somewhere they could have brought someone else with them, as they have two mounts with two seats each... And I actually thought just that myself, until I realized: they are on a rescue mission, so I’d suppose they fully expect they’ll need that last seat to make the trip back home with Serara. |