Steampunk Era: Mad Abield
Chapter 799: Section 538: The Woods are a Hut Without a Roof (Part 1)_2

Chapter 799: Section 538: The Woods are a Hut Without a Roof (Part 1)_2

His words made Link nod continuously with a smile: "Yes, exactly, my grandfather used to say the same thing. He said that none of us kids died, so the battle report must be true."

"What are you talking about, young fellas?" The commander came over: "This time we only had seven casualties. I can hardly believe we were dealing with Chaos. But the gunfire from the east is intense, our enemies must have moved there."

"So, commander, do I need to take a squad there for support?" Link Svenson asked.

"Trying to show off?" The bald commander sized up Link, just when Sudel thought that Link might be scolded, the commander actually started laughing: "Really, it reminds me of my youth, always eager to earn military glory. Back then, we were fighting zombies and the savage tribes from the North. Svenson lad, if you want to go, take your personal troops along with my two platoons and have a look. If the situation is alright, let my men come back."

"No problem, your excellency! Can I bring him along?" Link Svenson was overjoyed, then he made a new request.

Sudel thought this guy was really bold. Wasn’t he afraid that the commander might scold them in anger?

"He’s a soldier under Lord Malin. If you take him, you’re responsible for his safety. If something happens, I believe Lord Malin will definitely flay you." Although the commander didn’t seem to refuse, Judge then happily returned to his defense line, calling up his two hundred private troops, and the two platoons from the commander’s side also arrived.

Sudel had Carter take charge of the team, then brought along his cousin Rhodes.

...

To say they were heading east, actually, the defensive line here had already been completely constructed. Sudel, leading Rhodes and Link, walked at the forefront. This stretch of trench, buried underground and originally used as a hiding bunker, was meant to save soldiers from freezing to death during the coldest nights of winter.

Now, wounded soldiers were everywhere, indicating that the battle in the east was extremely fierce. Upon hearing that a reinforcement force from a nearby defense line of their 500-man troop had been redirected, the gendarmerie opened up the passage.

"Colonel Link, you are the first fool to pass through here this week," a gendarmerie said, smiling in salute as Link crossed.

Link returned the gesture: "Then you’ll see more than five hundred more fools soon." He replied with a laugh.

The entire corridor was filled with the laughter of soldiers, even the wounded laughed, and a wounded soldier threw his liquor flask to the soldiers: "Take a sip to warm up, but leave me some."

"Why are all the wounded so happy?" Rhodes asked, puzzled, as he walked through the passage with his cousin.

"Because the wounded see many others like them. In the battle with Chaos, the more wounded there are in the hospital, the more it indicates the battle is favoring us. Otherwise, you wouldn’t see so many wounded," Sudel replied, taking a small sip from the flask on his belt.

"... You make a good point. If we had failed, there would be no wounded," said Rhodes, turning to look back at the corridor: "All this... thanks to Lord Malin."

"Yes, long live Lord Malin!" a soldier following them said.

"Indeed! Long live Lord Malin!" more soldiers excitedly echoed. One soldier from the military platoon added, "I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I did find that today’s bread has less sawdust mixed in, and one in every three slices is actually whole grain."

"Dammit, you must be one of the lucky seven the cook was talking about, lucky guy!" His platoon leader laughed, patting the young soldier’s head.

"Did you hear about the incident a few days ago? Several guys from logistics were taken away for target practice. Those guys deserved it, may they eat sand in hell," another solder remarked. As an insider with good information, Rhodes grinned—apparently, Lord Malin had intervened in the soldiers’ logistics issues. He personally took several marshals to eat the frontline soldiers’ rations. Marshal Constantine even chipped a tooth on a tiny rock in the bread.

That incident finally caused a mess in the logistics department.

"Soldiers, you should thank Lord Malin. Otherwise, you’d be eating bread with rocks every day," said Lord Link, his tone somewhat sarcastic, but Rhodes thought he was spot-on. Soldiers are human too, not expendable commodities.

"I think the logistics department is still using the methods from the last Tide of the Dead to deal with this one," Sudel chimed in thoughtfully. Because Sudel spoke sensibly and justifiably, not only Rhodes, his cousin, but also Judge Link and many others were listening to him speak.

"Young man, what do you mean by that?" the company commander asked.

"Based on my understanding, during the last Tide of the Dead, the average survival time for rank-and-file soldiers was five days, and for junior officers, it was two days longer. Now, we are facing an invasion by the Nagoth war gangs. I think our logistics superiors have miscalculated our survival time, so they comfortably feed us this trash as food, since the dead can neither lie nor complain." Svenson’s cousin’s statement immediately received affirmation from Lord Link: "Exactly, they even made judgments about my life cycle. After I arrived at the front line, they actually mixed a lot of sawdust into my bread."

"Even the high-ranking officers are treated this way, no wonder we found sand in our bread these past few days," a soldier remarked.

"Thanks to Lord Malin for helping us and prolonging our lives," Lord Link’s adjutant finally spoke up.

The soldiers unanimously agreed that if it weren’t for Lord Malin, their lot would merely be to eat stones.

The team was filled with a cheerful atmosphere of self-mockery, and even the sentinels along the way were a bit surprised, but quickly they accepted the bread handed out from the logistics company loaded with lots of food.

"Your bread isn’t bad today either," the sentinels unanimously shared the same sentiment.

This made Rhodes curious, he looked at his cousin, "I heard that the price of flour in Copenhagen has almost skyrocketed, how did our logistics department manage to get so much flour?"

"Didn’t you hear yesterday? Ah, I forgot, you were in the toilet when this was mentioned yesterday. It was provided by Lord Malin, supposedly hundreds of tons, who knows where he got it, perhaps from the South?" Svenson’s cousin answered like this.

"Hundreds of tons?! Have the profiteering merchants not all hanged themselves yet?" Rhodes exclaimed in surprise.

His remark drew quite a bit of attention, and Svenson pat Rhodes on the back of his head, "Why do you care so much about that?"

Rhodes was also a bit scared—after all, he sympathized with Northern ideology, and ’profiteering’ was a term beloved by the Northerners. In the military here, Northern sympathizers didn’t seem very well-regarded, let alone considering that Lord Link’s family, the Svensons, was a major Noble family.

However, Rhodes seems to have overthought it, as Lord Link just smiled, "Although I do not endorse the cowardice of committing suicide when unable to cope, I must say, the profiteers indeed have it coming. They always say that the poor who can’t afford even flour or potatoes might as well starve to death. So, I think when they can’t cope, they might as well also find a rope and settle it amongst themselves."

With the Noble making such a statement, the soldiers immediately agreed, and the company commander even started rambling about ensuring his family was taken care of.

Rhodes glanced at his cousin, and Svenson shook his head.

As the sounds of intense gunfire grew louder, turning around the trench corner and descending the slope, Rhodes saw the distant battle line at the top of the trench.

"Even the giant zombies have been deployed; Chaos’s war gang is really going all out," Lord Link recognized the slowly approaching giant corpses from afar.

In Rhodes’s eyes, those massive bodies appeared severely bloated, the exposed organs were horrifying, and even hundreds of yards away, one could feel the plague and corruption within them.

"How are we supposed to fight against these monstrous things?" Rhodes, an Apprentice who had never seen nor read about such creatures in battles before, asked.

As he questioned, a purple ray shot out from the defenses up front, and as it hit one of the largest wandering corpses, under everyone’s gaze, that body eventually completely disintegrated.

"Just like that?" Rhodes looked at his cousin.

"Yes, just like that," Svenson answered matter-of-factly.

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