The Duke's Worthless Daughter Awakens an SSS+ Guide Core

The five-minute planning period began immediately following the official announcement of the phase parameters.

The enormous central battlefield projection split apart smoothly into hundreds of smaller, individual holographic terminals that drifted downward across the plaza.

One localized terminal descended silently before each remaining candidate, displaying the exact same ruined city from an overhead commander’s perspective.

Merianah stood completely motionless before her floating display, her posture relaxed yet deeply attentive. Unlike the anxious applicants surrounding her, she made no immediate move to touch the glowing controls or type out opening configurations.

Instead, she simply observed the intricate layout of the virtual city as it slowly rotated in the air before her eyes. She committed every prominent geological and structural feature to memory as the digital terrain spun on its axis.

She noted the collapsed highways blocking the northern sector, the heavily destroyed apartment districts in the center, and the thick smoke drifting steadily toward the east. Her eyes lingered longest on a deep, wide river that cut directly through the southern perimeter, dividing the urban grid in half.

Around her, the other candidates had already begun issuing frantic, loud commands to their respective virtual interfaces. They tapped the glass panels rapidly, trying to gain an immediate advantage over the unfolding simulation.

"Deploy everyone toward the civilian district right now," one noble applicant ordered his digital lieutenant, his face flushed with urgency.

"Split the platoon into two separate squads to cover more ground," another student argued with himself, shaking his head as he reviewed the map.

"No, make it three squads, and we need to secure the main suspension bridge first before the enemy cuts us off completely," a third voice yelled from across the testing zone.

Voices rose steadily throughout the massive arena as the applicants openly debated their own strategies while trying to reorganize imaginary soldiers.

The vast majority of the class believed that sheer speed alone would guarantee a successful rescue operation. They poured their digital resources onto the primary roads, eager to reach the civilian markers as quickly as possible.

Merianah remained perfectly still in the middle of her platform, completely unaffected by the rising noise and chaos of the room. She was not actively planning her troop movements, nor was she configuring her opening defensive lines. She was patiently waiting for the simulation to reveal its true nature.

Many years ago, on a completely different dying world, her experienced commanding officer had once taught her a valuable lesson that she never forgot. He had told her that the very first battle plan conceived in safety is almost always entirely wrong.

This universal truth existed because no commander on the ground ever possessed absolute, complete information about the enemy’s disposition at the start of an engagement.

If she committed her limited forces too early in the game, she would inevitably become trapped by the weight of her own initial assumptions. She preferred to let the battlefield reveal its hidden complexities before risking a single soldier’s life.

Exactly thirty seconds passed in absolute silence on her platform as the timer ticked down. Then, without any warning, the holographic map suddenly glitched and changed its entire internal layout.

Several major buildings along the main avenue collapsed into piles of rubble, blocking the primary roads completely.

The southern suspension bridge disappeared beneath the digital river as a simulated explosion tore through its foundation, while the enemy patrol routes shifted dramatically.

Gasps of shock and panic immediately spread across the arena floor as the candidates watched their initial strategies crumble.

"What is happening?" one student cried out, watching his virtual platoon get cut off by the falling debris.

"The entire map just changed on us!" another noble applicant yelled, fruitlessly hammering the interface controls.

"My entire rescue route has been completely wiped out!" a third candidate groaned, his score dropping instantly as the simulation punished his lack of foresight.

Applicants hurried to completely rewrite their strategies from scratch, their hands shaking as the countdown pressure increased.

Some panicked individuals abandoned the civilian rescue operations entirely, choosing instead to focus on basic survival maneuvers.

Others desperately searched for alternative paths through the side streets, though most of these routes were heavily guarded by red markers.

Merianah simply nodded to herself, her suspicions about the academy’s testing methods thoroughly confirmed by the sudden shift. The battlefield before her was a living, evolving entity rather than a static puzzle from a textbook.

It would undoubtedly continue to adapt and evolve until the final second of the exercise concluded. She finally raised her right hand toward the flickering display, her movements smooth and deliberate.

"Simulation controls activated," she stated clearly, her voice triggering the terminal’s main command functions.

The calm, synthesized mechanical voice of the computer acknowledged her command with a soft chime. A miniature command interface appeared before her, offering a wide array of strategic tools and options.

She bypassed the offensive and defensive deployment menus entirely, selecting the advanced reconnaissance option first. She refused to order a troop movement or initiate an attack until she had mapped out the entire grid.

Several nearby candidates glanced sideways at her screen, their expressions filled with confusion and open amusement.

"Why is she wasting precious time on basic scanning?" one noble whispered to his teammate, pointing at her terminal.

"We only have a few minutes left before the combat phase begins," another applicant noted, shaking his head.

"She hasn’t deployed a single soldier onto the field yet, so she’s going to get overwhelmed instantly."

Merianah ignored their whispered criticisms completely, keeping her absolute focus locked on the data pouring into her console. A commander who moved troops before fully understanding the terrain merely led those soldiers toward a swift, meaningless death.

She slowly expanded the boundaries of the map, zooming outward past the city limits to view the larger geographical picture. The surrounding mountain ranges appeared on the fringes of the projection, along with communication towers, hidden supply depots, and major energy substations.

Then, her eyes caught a minor structural anomaly buried beneath the western industrial district. She noticed a narrow, unmarked maintenance tunnel that directly connected the industrial factories to the western residential zone.

The path was not marked as an official road on the primary map, meaning most candidates had overlooked it entirely because it could not accommodate standard military vehicles. Her crimson eyes narrowed slightly as she calculated the dimensions of the subterranean passage.

"This route is highly restrictive," she thought, a cold smile forming on her lips. "Only light infantry can pass through there in single file."

Thirty-eight soldiers might be able to move through the maintenance tunnel without creating a serious bottleneck. The passage was narrow but still preferable to marching into the enemy’s prepared defenses. She continued searching the map for further discrepancies, refusing to believe the initial placement of the enemy forces.

Within a few moments, another crucial discovery appeared on her scanner near the western sector. The heavy enemy patrols surrounding the residential area were not positioned to contain or defend the civilian populations.

They were actually protecting something else entirely. The telemetry showed massive fuel reserves buried directly beneath the enemy’s defensive lines. This critical resource explained why their troop density remained unusually high in a sector that lacked strategic value on paper.

This intelligence meant that the civilians were probably not trapped where everyone else assumed them to be. They had likely fled toward a sector that the enemy commander considered completely unimportant to the war effort.

Merianah quietly smiled as the true layout of the historical battle finally became clear to her. The correct answer was never hidden by the simulation. It had simply been buried beneath the lazy assumptions of the other applicants.

High above the chaotic arena floor, Colonel Serena watched Candidate Twenty-Seven’s terminal screen with rapidly growing interest. Every other applicant in the room had already begun moving their virtual troops across the city, creating massive skirmishes on the main roads.

Only one single candidate had yet to issue a deployment order to her platoon. Yet Serena noticed something extraordinary about the way Merianah was interacting with the software.

The silver-haired young woman was not wasting her energy searching for the fastest physical route to the objective markers.

She was systematically analyzing the logistical patterns to pinpoint the location of the enemy commander. Serena knew that a leader who understood the opponent’s mind usually won the war long before the actual battle even began.