Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

It wasn't until Winters stuffed the bread into Buba's hand that he snapped back to reality. He still stood there, grinning foolishly. But he didn't move to eat it, just looked at the bread in his hand and then towards Centurion Taylor.

Sergeant Taylor nodded with a stern face.

Only then did Buba, as if he had found a treasure, hurriedly stuff all the white bread into his mouth, chewing with a look of joy on his face.

He was so greedy, he stuffed too much bread into his mouth at once and started coughing, still smiling foolishly even as he coughed.

The coarse bread, which had been sitting for a few days, instantly sucked all the moisture from his mouth. Winters said with a bitter smile, "Is there a spare cup? I need some soup."

"Use mine," said Sergeant Taylor, expressionless as he dug out his cup, wiped it with a clean handkerchief, and filled it with hot soup for Winters.

"I won't drink your soup for free. I'll trade with my side dish." Winters crushed the cooked beef leg meat from another paper bag and added it to the soup.

The other soldiers in the decuple squad stood there, eyes on the pot but not a single one touched the ladle.

Old Taylor sighed and nodded again.

The other soldiers then couldn't wait to scoop up the soup, scrambling for the beef in the pot.

Private First Class Dan, responsible for cooking that night, said to Winters, "I've always felt the rumors were false. I've delivered meals so many times, and aside from you, no officer has ever said 'thank you' to me. You seem so easy to get along with."

Winters initially thought Dan was just brown-nosing, but the more he thought about it, the more something felt off: "Hmm? Wait a minute, what rumors ..."

"Nothing, nothing," Dan laughed sheepishly and beat a hasty retreat.

Buba took a big gulp of the meat soup and said blissfully, "We've got fine bread and meat soup; it's been so long since I've had such a good meal. Montaigne is such a good officer, why did you guys scare me earlier?"

Spotting another breakthrough, Winters immediately pressed Buba, "Scare you with what? Tell me in detail."

"Nothing, nothing," the other soldiers quickly intervened between Winters and Buba, and Old Taylor grabbed a piece of bread and stuffed it into Buba's mouth.

Clearly, it wasn't anything good, but now Winters wanted to hear it even more. He grabbed Sergeant Taylor's arm, "Don't block his mouth, let him talk."

"...Yeah? Why shouldn't I speak?" Everyone was scrambling to cover Buba's mouth, but he was dodging and weaving, determined to speak: "Officer Montaigne... they said you're incredibly brutal, like to chop off heads, they call you 'Headhunter'... and 'Blood Man,' they said you practice black magic of the wizards..."

The other soldiers panicked, desperately covering Buba's mouth with all their might.

Struggling, Buba said, "...and there's more..."

"Enough! Stop!" Winters shouted angrily.

The soldiers from Taylor's decuple squad froze in fear, dared not to move any further.

"Let him finish," Winters looked at Buba, "What else did they say? Tell me everything."

Buba said with a foolish smile, "They said you fight recklessly, that your last century ended with only four survivors... They all think I'm dumb, but I can tell who's good and who's bad.

You're so nice, how could it be?"

Winters felt a tightness in his chest and took more than a dozen seconds to calm down. He didn't bother to explain, nor did he want to explain to these people.

"Captain, we didn't mean it like that..." Old Taylor quickly tried to smooth things over.

Winters looked at Sergeant Taylor, then at the other soldiers, and said calmly, "The rumors are indeed all true. Only four people from my century survived, I've chopped off the enemy's heads, and I do know the wizards' black magic."

The atmosphere plummeted to freezing point.

"How could that be? I don't believe it." Buba said naively, "You're a good person."
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"Maybe I am, maybe I'm not. War only needs soldiers who obey orders, whether they're good or bad doesn't matter." Winters felt a touch of melancholy, but quickly regained his usual demeanor, "Continue eating, the soup will get cold."

Everyone silently returned to their seats to eat.

After finishing this "main meal," Winters arranged the night patrol shifts for the decuple squad and left the post to go to another decuple squad's location.

But Winters thought it best to check the alert system set up in front of the gun positions before heading over.

Dozens of meters to the east, occasional flashes of firelight were visible, that was "West-One" artillery group conducting night firing.

In the darkness straight ahead, the walls of Tachi were faintly discernible.

Walking under the night sky, watching the myriad of stars, Winters felt light-footed. The cool breeze, which carried away the day's heat, was the first hint of comfort he had felt since landing on Red Sulfur Island.

The first thought that crossed his mind was, "I wonder what Anna is doing now? Is she looking at the same starry sky as I am? What are Cosha and Ella doing?"

The alert system was set up not far in front of the gun positions, and Winters quickly reached it.

Calling it an alert system was a bit grandiose; it was just a simple trap of thin wires and bells. Simple, but effective; any careless touch would make a sound.

However, Winters searched in vain for the tripwire, almost thinking he had gone to the wrong place. But after comparing landmarks, he confirmed he was in the right spot.

Winters began to breathe faster, uncontrollably.

Crouching down, he took out a bronze rod and concentrated his mind, using the rod as a material to cast a Luminosity Spell. He didn't cast with full force, maintaining the smallest amount of magic without breaking the flow.

A faint green glow emanated from the rod, and with the dim light, Winters carefully searched for any trace.

Finally, he found the tripwire—already severed.

Following that were the second, and third cut tripwires.

Winters methodically put away the rod and drew his sidearm.