Rin's lips drew tight. "I'm simply stating what I've deduced based on your actions. If you don't like it, think a bit more before you act."
Both Diego and Kite rubbed their foreheads, informing Faust that this behaviour was normal. He forced his smile under control and made a frown.
"Me too. So far in my ten minutes back, I've deduced that this village is unable to properly defend itself because of poor planning. You're all probably decorated members of some military on earth—"
"Yeah."
"Yep."
They all said in unison, some glaring at him. He, an eighteen-year old, had just called their plans bad in kind terms. He had more scathing words to use, but in a military game you had to make allies not enemies.
"I respect that. The best of the best is in the room giving us a fighting chance. But what Mr. Rin just said is your problem."
Rin bristled at his mention. "Go on, lecture professionals on how to do our job. What did I say that was wrong? Real facts please, not feelings."
"'Because this seems to be a game to them,'" Faust repeated. He looked everyone in the eyes one by one, pausing to gather their attention.
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is a game. Chests and Monsters spawn in fields, they follow set patterns. There are hidden quests and events. We level up. No matter how you cut it, it's a game. And you're trying to fight it with real world logic."
"Actually, we do have a gamer here," Diego interjected, pointing at a bespectacled white man that reminded Faust of an accountant.
"Roland," the man said. "I'm old school, but this is an mmo at the end of the day."
"And did you tell them to expect Mages and Assassins among the goblins."
Roland scratched his head. "We didn't even know monsters had mages."
Faust had to give that to them. He only learnt this in the Mind's Forest. But it was still common game logic.
"Look. The system has set a siege game for us. It won't just send troops to get slaughtered on the ground. It will have mages to weaken the walls and shadows to kill important figures. Let me guess a Goblin Assassin came for Diego's head?"
They all flinched in the room at his accuracy. The man in question rubbed the short beard on his chin.
"So what you're saying is we need to treat this like a Siege game?"
"Yes. I completed a hidden quest in the Mind's Forest. It was designed exactly like an Assassin game. The mobs followed specific routines, hidden dangers had to be spotted before the run and I had to complete a set of objectives to get the rewards."
Some people gave him respectful nods. Some of them had challenged the Slime Field and then Hunter's Dream. They knew how hard it could be facing the monsters even with groups. To complete a quest that made you fight a certain way by yourself must have been hard.
Roland hummed. "I've played some siege games. Will the monsters come with actual siege machines?"
"It's likely," Faust answered. "Goblins have middling intelligence. I also met kobolds that knew how to make poor weapons. And it won't just be Siege machines. Flying enemies for bombing, monsters burrowing underground, enemies made specially to hunt mages or break walls."
Each of his words made the people in the room turn pale paler. Diego kept his calm, but his eyes grew distant with thought. Rin glared stubbornly, unwilling to back down.
"But we aren't completely lost," Faust announced with a louder voice, drawing hopeful gazes. "The enemy will have patterns of movement that we can gleam to strike where they are weak. There will be recurring cycles that we can expect and get ahead of. And there will be hidden conditions for us to get greater rewards with each wave."
Kite blinked. "That's true. I got no notifications about my kills."
Diego checked a really worn out watch on his wrist. "Still twenty minutes before we start getting rewards."
"They'll be shit for most people. This wave was a fiasco," Faust announced.
"And how do you know that?" Rin shot back immediately. "We had minimal losses. Below expected ranges, right, Roland?"
"Uh, yes, sir," The bespectacled man agreed.
"But we played passively," Faust said, shaking his head, "hid in our walls and didn't strike at the enemy at all. If we want to maximise our rewards and grow stronger faster—"
He punctuated each word by banging on the table. "We. Have. To. Be. Proactive"
Rin rubbed his head like Faust was be annoying and saying obvious things "We have been—"
Diego slammed his fist against the table. "Enough! He's right. We'll draw up new plans. We know where the enemy is coming from and we're already building forward positions around it."
Rin muttered something about how he already said that before.
Then why are you arguing?! Faust spat internally. "Very good. But what's with our numbers? I could have sworn we had more people—"
Everyone groaned. New arguments started almost immediately, leaving Faust wondering what he had done wrong.
"We only got around 20% percent of the Village to participate," Diego muttered.
Faust's face fell. For a second he said nothing, but the more he thought about it the worse the look of incredulity on his face grew.
"Do they seriously think when the monsters tear us apart they ignore the people in the flimsy wooden houses?"
Laughter filled the room immediately from some parties that seemed sympathetic to him, so he pushed further.
"I heard something about food when you entered… don't tell me—"
"Yes," the Asian woman at the end of the table said with cold indifference at first.
"Hi! I'm Tiffany." Her change of tone came so fast Faust felt whiplash. "'Yes, we're feeding the people that don't want to fight."
"With your own basic rations?" Faust asked in actual astonishment. "What happened to their's?"
"No, of course not," Rin spat, rolling his eyes. "The town hall generates food and materials every eight hours. Where did you think we got the concrete? Magic?"
Faust shrugged. "You might be slow. We are all using magic recently."
Stifled laughter filled the large room. Rin glared from each of the lowered heads and then back to Faust with actual malice.
But before the pointless argument could continue, Faust said,
"So I'm guessing it's just barely enough. And you've all eaten three times today?"
They all looked away realising that Faust had survived on the basic rations for the whole twenty hours.
You know a couple of you could use a day of two without eating, Faust joked internally. These people were such bad company they'd take that as an insult.
But he understood the general situation now.
"I'm going to jump to the conclusion that you don't want to use food to get people to fight for moral reasons."