I can practically guarantee that Nemona will be walking out of the second Field Exercise with three badges at a minimum.
There is, theoretically, room for her to be walking out of that Field Exercise with four.
It's really funny to me to see people thinking about which is more efficient in terms of action costs, etc. I posted a good while ago about how people are going to have to really dig in and accept sacrifices if they want to keep up with Nemona when people were hesitant just on spending money on Advanced Battle, but it goes much, much farther than just that.
Here's a question; at any point in the quest, has Nemona been depicted as doing anything that doesn't relate back to battling?
All of her social encounters have involved either encountering her out on the training fields, or encountering her watching high-level people battling. She's explicitly called out that she gets ideas for insane techniques like a first-badge Chimchar learning how to fly using fire by watching those same high-level battles, too.
Don't take this as me arguing that Mary should go all-in; but even as people discuss the merits of whether to go for the badge during the Field Exercise or after, I'm calling it that either option will have Mary falling substantially behind Nemona.
