The four members of ICE were in shocked and confused, their perfect victory now slipping through their fingers. Meanwhile, all 21 members of the WATER team were grinning, their smiles spreading wide in satisfaction.
Toping, still trying to piece things together, asked, "How did you know we were going to use this place as our base and not the Boulder? The Boulder was the obvious choice for everyone to thing."
Sam answered calmly, "Because you had July Boy on your team."
Sam smirked, leaning back slightly. "Right… the mastermind of the ICE team."
The ICE team was stunned. Not only were they shocked, but the WATER team, too, was left in confusion. "Why July Boy?" they asked.
July Boy was surprised, but he remained calm, keeping his usual cool.
Toping, now visibly rattled, snapped, "What are you talking about? I was the mastermind!"
Sam's eyes narrowed as he responded, "Oh really? Then answer me this: What is 550 ÷ 2?"
Toping quickly shot back, "225."
Sam raised an eyebrow. "How can someone who makes a mistake on a simple math problem like 550 ÷ 2 be the mastermind?"
Toping hesitated, trying to correct himself, "Isn't it 225? 500 divided by 2 is 250, and 50 divided by 2 is 25, so… is 250 and 25…"
Shon, cut in sharply, "It's 275, you idiot."
Toping's face flushed with embarrassment as he stumbled over his words. "Oh… right. Right, it's 275…"
Sam turned to Toping, continuing, "That's right. But you're still not getting it, are you? You're asking how I knew you'd choose this as your base, right?"
Toping, still struggling to understand, said, "Yes, I want to know."
Sam smiled knowingly. "It's simple. Remember the frog? I mean, the toad? While I was chasing it, I lost track and happened to see July Boy from a distance.
He was sleeping in the car earlier, while everyone was at CAMP2. I noticed he was trying to find us, but had no idea where everyone else was.
Due to which, Instead of going straight, he was searching along a different route — the same one that leads to the Boulder."
When I followed him, I noticed the route was leaving footprints, but there was only one set — July Boy's.
He was walking ahead of me, unaware that I was behind him. As I followed, the trail eventually led to the Boulder near CAMP2 and he found you guys there.
Now, if I was the ICE why would take the frozen to the Boulder knowing there are literally three ways the WATERs can ambush, from the front, from the CAMP1 side and from the hidden route?
The answer is the Boulder was never the base to begin with because, He thought only he knew about the route, since there were no other footprints, just his."
Sam paused, letting his words sink in before delivering the final blow. "That became his Trump card in the game, but he didn't knen that I, too, knew about this route. And I knew he'd end up using it."
Sam chuckled softly."I figured that, even though he's lazy, his mastermind ego would push him to try and catch more prey without actually putting in effort. And how would he do that...?"
Shon nodded. "By waiting in CAMP2."
Sam said exactly. "And if July Boy was there at CAMP2 and the Boulder is just a decoy, then the next best option for a base was CAMP1, which connects through the Boulder."
"And to make the Boulder believable as the fake base, someone must be guarding it all the time. Which was Hori," Sam added.
"That leaves only Toping and Tsunami playing as the main roles. If both of them chase after us, then there will be no one to guard the frozen in CAMP1 after they bring them in."
Sam looked at them all, his confidence growing. "And so, they would be doing both the chasing and guarding alternately, and I was correct about all of it."
He paused, glancing over at Shon and OH NO. "This is exactly what I told Shon and OH NO earlier while making my plan. I told OH NO to stay in CAMP1, where we made our plan.
I told her to sit here, and either one of the ICE — Toping or Tsunami — would be escorting Sung and the others. And if she stayed here without letting the ICE know, and when the other ICE comes back with more frozen, she could quietly go and sit with the already frozen."
Sam's gaze turned to Toping. "And the new ICE wouldn't even know she wasn't frozen, because the New ICE will think the other ICE caught her, She would have been right there all along, unnoticed."
"And when the ICE brought in new captives, she would silently tap them and unfreeze them, secretly letting them know what was really happening."
The four members of ICE stood frozen, unable to comprehend how Sam had turned the game on them with his brilliant plan. Meanwhile, the WATER team stood victorious, knowing that their clever strategist had outsmarted their opponents at every turn.