Chapter 200 (1/2)

Chapter 200 Hunters and Prey

“Freckle!” Someone shouted, “He’s injured!”

“Do not move him!” Brian roared, “I’ll go and take a look at his injury, you continue shooting.”

He put his rifle in the hands of the recruit at his side, the one who was responsible for loading, and lowered his waist to approach the injured soldier. The wounded, who still hadn’t lost his consciousness, asked in a trembling voice, “Captain, I… am I going to die?”

The short spear had pierced him at the lower pit of the stomach, it was unclear if it had gone through, however, seeing that his breath still seemed to be flowing freely, the spear must not have punctured his lung. During culture class, His Royal Highness had briefly described the various organs of the human body and which measures were to be taken in the case of an injury. The best solution Brian could think of at the moment, was to remain here and wait until the end of the fight, then allow for Miss Nana to come over and treat him.

“Does it hurt?” Brian asked.

Freckles nodded with difficulty.

“Since you can still feel pain it means you won’t die,” to reassure the Knight, he put his hand on Freckle’s forehead. “You should know about Miss Nana ‘s ability, right?”

“Uhhn,” With difficulty, Freckles was able to show a smile. “During times of peace, everyone… wants to go see her, putting it that way, I… I, I can finally see her, now.”

“That’s right! Therefore you have to persevere.”

When Brian returned to his shooting window, the recruit turned towards him and asked concerned. “Why didn’t you pull the spear out?”

“By pulling it out it is likely that instead of helping, it could cause massive bleeding, later in class you will also learn about this, and then everything will become clear,” he paused. “The best we can now do for him, is to defeat the enemy as quickly as possible.”

…

Standing on his heightened stage, Roland could clearly see the enemy rushing like a tide towards the town.

The moment they crossed the first row of bunkers, their speed slowed down a lot, by the time they reached the third row of bunkers, the enemy’s flanks were fully exposed to riflemen’s crossfire.

Echo’s task was quite obvious, even though the enemy’s force was stretched into a long line, most of them still acted in accordance with her unceasingly issued “concentrated charge” command, rushing along the road.

Every moment there were a lot of their people falling, and they couldn’t do anything about it. Having to face up against a fortification they couldn’t destroy with their spears and swords, Timothy’s militia force could do nothing except endure the casualties they faced and continue pushing forward.

After they passed the third row of bunkers, they crossed the 300 meters mark, which meant that now the cannons would now be loaded with canister shells. Among the gunner’s, stepping into this area was also known as entering into the death zone.

In the sky, Lightning had replaced her flag with one in bright red.

The angle of the 20 cannons were lying flat, their front spit out flames and thick smoke. Roland had roughly estimated, that the most skilled artillery group would be able to release one shrapnel shot every twenty seconds, while the slowest would needed around 30 seconds. At first glance, it seemed that they came close to the rate of fire of the best artillery groups during the American Civil War, but the latter’s three shots per minute were performed with solid shells, for which they had to clean the cannon repeatedly and aim it at the target once more. However, canister shells could be fired without aiming, and the cannon also didn’t need to be wiped, so it was only natural that the rate of fire would be fast.

For the enemy, such a rate of fire was terrible news. Furthermore, the canister shells’ kill and injure-rate without even aiming was especially astonishing, almost every iron bullet would penetrate two to three people. Although after taking the pill they could withstand a great deal of pain, the pills couldn’t also suppress fear.

When seeing how the people around them were slaughtered one after another, even if they were totally excited and thirsted after massacre, they were unable to suppress their body’s instinctual fear of death. Even more, they originally hadn’t been a iron-willed force, without their pills, these people were just a group of untrained, civilians lacking in true practical combat experience. When half of their force laid out on the road, the enemy began to flee.

Like a plague the fear quickly spread, what began with one person was soon followed by a second then a third, until the forefront eventually completely stopped with its assault, and instead wholly started to turn around and flee. Once again the artillery regiment changed their ammunition to solid bullets, aiming at the center of the road, while the whole time the bunkers had never ceased in their shooting.

Creating a pile of corpses laid on top of the road.