Infinite Ebullience
Chapter 464 - 22: The Killing Begins

Chapter 464: Chapter 22: The Killing Begins

Over a thousand new scouts received their weapons from the armory before setting off — almost refurbished chainsaw guns and three ammo clips.

"This gun is so shabby, it might break if used as an iron rod to smash someone." A newbie in the same truck complained as he accidentally knocked the chainsaw gun against the truck wall and a large amount of iron shavings fell off. The barrel made a creaking sound which worried him. When he picked it up again, he bumped it once more, and this time the barrel dropped onto the truck floor with a clatter.

"They’re simply treating us as cannon fodder." Zhang Hongtao had an extra component in his hand and was helplessly comparing it with his firearm. "Could anyone help me to put this back? I don’t have much knowledge about the layout of this thing."

"I advise you to just give up. Once disassembled, definitely we will be unable to reassemble it." Gao Wei, having nothing to do, emptied the bullets from the clip, only to find that more than two-thirds of the sixty-round clip was empty. "Are you kidding me, even this is rigged?"

"With this beat-up gun, bullets wouldn’t fire even if they were loaded." Tang Zheng had already noticed that the weight of the clip was off, but seeing the bad state of the firearm, he couldn’t be bothered to uncover these tricks. Anyway, he had a way to get a new gun.

Although the journey was only ten kilometers, their progress was slowed down by numerous roadblocks. About ten minutes later, the truck carrying the rookies arrived at the defense line.

Looking at the steel and concrete fortifications rising from the ground like earthworms, the new soldiers seemed at a loss. Unlike the soldiers in Tuokey Town, the soldiers here were serious, their uniforms soiled by gunpowder and dust. They patrolled back and forth clenching their rifles. In their spare time, they took shelter and rested every second they could.

In front of the defense line was a cleared forest, only bare wood stumps remained after sweeping the firing ranges. Advancing further for about thirty kilometers, there was a wide open space with numerous small forts roughly three meters high.

"Your task is to garrison those small forts. In case of a beastman attack, you should resist and report the battle conditions at the same time so that we can respond immediately." A man with the rank of captain came in front of these rookies and gave them simple instructions. Then he called over a group of old soldiers to guide them.

"Five of you, follow me." Some of the old soldiers didn’t bother to pick and choose—they considered all newbies as cannon fodder. Their task was to block the beastmen and buy time for the old soldiers to retreat back to the defense line. Resist? Only fools would do that.

That had already become an unspoken rule that all the garrison troops on the defense line were aware of.

There were also old soldiers picking people. However, instead of choosing strong teammates, they chose dull and stupid ones. They didn’t want any cunning ones.

Tang Zheng and several other physically strong rookies were also singled out. The old soldiers didn’t need subordinates who could outrun them—who else would serve as targets for the beastmen?

The lieutenant furrowed his brows. On ordinary occasions, he would train these strong soldiers and use them as a reserve team, but not this time. He thought of the orders the superior officer had privately given him—to send all these newbies to the absolute frontline. The superior officer didn’t say it explicitly, but the lieutenant understood—he wanted these fresh recruits to die as soon as possible.

"Ugly struggles from the military department again." The lieutenant spit out some saliva, pointing at those old soldiers, "Go, each of you bring one more, lead them away. What’s the point of leaving them here? To bring shame?"

"All of you must take turns to defend the fort before 3 o’clock in the afternoon." The lieutenant’s tone was as if he was scolding a dog. After cursing, he turned around and left. He was going to enjoy his afternoon tea.

Under the leadership of the old soldier, Tang Zheng and his group embarked on their journey again. Transport equipment? The logistics office had no spare energy for these big-headed soldiers to consume.

"Hey you rookies, pick someone to help me carry the backpack," a black old soldier with a full face of beard scanned his six newbie underlings and tossed the 40L backpack over. According to past experiences, naturally he wanted to provoke the relationship between these newbies first. He couldn’t let them conspire against him.

The rookies looked at each other, none of them reaching out. The backpack looked heavy from a glance. They didn’t want to waste their energy.

"You useless rookies, are you not satisfied with something?" The black old soldier was angry, kicking towards the kneecap of the weakest man among them. "If you don’t obey, don’t expect to learn from me how to survive on the battlefield."

The unlucky rookie knelt on the ground, gritted his teeth, burning with rage inside, but didn’t dare to retaliate.

"Are you angry? Hmph. I was also trained like this by old soldiers, learn something. Quickly pick someone to carry my backpack." The old soldier roared at these rookies, beginning to throw his weight around. The gears of the new subordinates all shifted away, which he was quite satisfied with. But when he looked at Tang Zheng, he saw the young man was staring at him coldly without expression. The old soldier’s heart pounded, and he instinctively tightened his grip on the rifle. After evaluating Tang Zheng’s physique and power, the old soldier wisely chose not to provoke him.

"Hurry up, you’re lagging behind," The old soldier took the lead, not forgetting to shout back, "Don’t drop my backpack. There are fragile items inside."

Tang Zheng didn’t bother with the others, he just followed suit. Naturally, the unlucky fellow who had been kicked by the old soldier had to carry the backpack.

There was a Vietnamese in the group. He kept an eye on Tang Zheng. There were also two Southeast Asians, nationality unknown, and the remaining two were Europeans. Judging by their clothing and behavior, Tang Zheng could tell that three of them belonged to other Trojan Squads.

"What a complex squad we have. When might they attack me?" Tang Zheng analyzed the situation from their perspective. Consider peace over aggression? Whoever thought like that would definitely be the first to go down.

The combat zone was studded with numerous small forts, each about fifty meters apart. The closer to the front, the fewer forts. It was not that humans didn’t want to build more, but because the beasts had uprooted them.

Tang Zheng was not lucky. The veteran he was following seemed to be a coward who only knew how to bully newcomers. His position had moved to the very front, the closest one being about one hundred and fifty meters away. He could only see about twenty forts from his view.

"This has an advantage, at least when it comes to killing and burying corpses without worrying about being seen by others." Tang Zheng extracted the telescope and was unable to observe the terrain. The old soldier went directly into the fort.

"Stop looking. Beastman pioneers usually attack from under the ground. Only when they are frustrated, they will try to attack on the surface, so we are not worried about missile bombings, but underground surprise attacks." The old soldier dusted himself off and checked the items in the fort.

"You three, go down and guard. Shout out if you hear any noise, and don’t press the alarm unless necessary." The old soldier pointed to a device on the table. "I’ve rested for a week, and I didn’t expect this fort to be still standing. Otherwise, I could have stationed a new one."

The small fort was three meters high and three meters in diameter with no skylights, only six shooting holes. Therefore, standing inside felt oppressive, mixed with a smell of blood, sweat, and dust.

The three new soldiers hesitated, looking at the corridor leading to the underground.

"Are you waiting for me to kick you down?" Cursed the old soldier. He threw down a dead man’s clothes on the bed and shouted, "Don’t keep staring, clean the room."

"First, tell us about the attack methods of the Beastman." Tang Zheng stood still, ready to challenge.

The old soldier wisely chose to reply when he saw that the other newcomers also wanted to know the answer.

"They use ground drills to dig an underground tunnel, then organize a surprise attack with suicide bomber slaves and grenadiers. Then they climb out to the surface and attack the human defense line from the rear." He licked his lips and smiled wickedly, "Usually, we can just about manage, but if we face a mad female orc, we are screwed. So, be prepared to die for your country."

The new soldiers fell silent. The three South Asians from the Trojan Squad covertly observed their opponents. They were also on tenterhooks, knowing that if they killed without thought, they would definitely be attacked by others — they did not possess the strength to kill everyone.

"This damn place must be too close to the frontline, and no prostitutes will come to do business this time." The old soldier crashes on the bed. "I will take a nap first, figure out your own dinner."

"How to figure it out?" One of the newbies glanced around and said, "There’s nothing here."

"That’s why I asked you guys to figure it out." The old soldier finished speaking and then put his head under the covers. In no time, he started snoring loudly.

"I’ll go down and take a look." Tang Zheng switched on the light and went down the spiral concrete staircase, which was about seven or eight meters deep. Next to it was a searchlight. When turned on, the entire underground scene came into view.

A dark, deadly silent tunnel came to an end here. The fort was blasted open, probably the doings of a suicide bomber slave.

Footsteps sounded behind him. As Tang Zheng looked back, he saw the Vietnamese man leading the two Southeast Asians down. They were holding their guns, pointing at him.

"Don’t move, drop the chainsaw gun, put your hands on your head and squat down." The Vietnamese shouted for him to obey. He dare not fire a round, fearing to attract attention from the three people above.

"I’ve wanted to smack you across your poker face for a while now, you actually think you can scare me!" One man charged at Tang Zheng, speaking a mouthful of Filipino and attempting to grab his collar.

"Stop." The Vietnamese who had seen Tang Zheng’s skill tried to stop him, but it was too late. Tang Zheng held the impromptu ally’s wrist and broke it in one go. With his other hand, he covered the man’s mouth, preventing his screams from escaping.

It was too late to fix things. The Vietnamese, not caring about the consequences, began to fire. The bullets hit Tang Zheng’s ’meat shield’, then hit him. But the Filipino was already killed by Tang Zheng by breaking his neck, as Tang knew that the Vietnamese would not care about the life or death of the hostage.

Even though killing newbies didn’t give many points, Tang Zheng didn’t want to waste a chance. He charged towards the Vietnamese while holding the corpse and simultaneously pulled out the knife from his thigh holster, throwing it towards the Vietnamese.

The Vietnamese dodged, and the remaining man turned and ran towards the surface. Seeing Tang Zheng nonchalantly breaking someone else’s neck, he, a newbie who hadn’t killed anyone yet, was scared and wanted to run up to seek help from the old soldier. (To be continued. If you like this work, please come to qidian.com to vote for recommendations and monthly votes. Your support is my greatest motivation.)