chsdbacks Page 93
Page 93
Payne said with some self-reproach, but when he looked up at Ella, he noticed that she had a look of shock on her face.
"...Were you apologizing just now?" she asked, as if she were talking to herself.
Payne was a little puzzled, but still answered, "Yes, although neither of us made any major mistakes this time, sometimes a small mistake on the battlefield can be fatal, so we must reflect on our actions when necessary."
Ella stared at him intently, as if she had discovered a new continent, without saying a word.
Finally, Payne got a little embarrassed by the stares and turned around, saying, "Alright, alright, if there's nothing else, you can go now."
So the one man and six beasts ran a few steps, caught up with the B Company which was gradually moving away, and returned to the ranks.
After the shelling, the recruits seemed to finally realize where they were going, and the atmosphere suddenly became somewhat heavy.
As usual, the veterans also started a new round of battlefield mini-classes, hoping to improve the new recruits' exam pass rate through this method.
After struggling to listen with her injured ear for a while, Ella suddenly turned her head and said, "Master! Please teach me more about the battlefield!"
Payne paused for a moment, then smiled. "Yes, yes, you still have a lot to learn."
Compared to those beasts that have been tortured to the point of numbness and dare not do anything without orders, as long as Ella still has the thought of taking the initiative to do something, everything will be easier.
Chapter 146 CXLV. Ella continues her studies.
A muffled explosion came from afar. Payne raised his head slightly to look behind him, and after a while, he saw several plumes of smoke rising from behind the trees.
The French have finished their antics; now it's the Germans' turn.
"Ella, get ready to get to work."
"Yes!"
Payne got up and started walking through the trench, with six beasts lined up behind him. The big golden retriever with its tail wagging was the closest, its eyes full of energy and confidence.
After arriving at a machine gun position, Payne exchanged a few words with the soldiers stationed there, then quietly peeked out through binoculars to check the French positions on the other side. Only after confirming that there was no movement from the French positions did he call Elie forward.
Payne handed her a deactivated grenade and stepped aside. "Same as before, let's begin."
Since arriving at the front-line trenches, neither side had made any moves, so Payne took the opportunity to have Ella practice throwing grenades.
"Yes!"
Golden Retriever's answer was firm and powerful, and she executed all the techniques that Pine had taught her perfectly, throwing the grenade flawlessly.
Above the no-man's-land, a contraption of wood and steel traced a graceful parabola before landing in the French trenches.
Payne picked up the binoculars again and looked. Although the grenade had only landed in the crater in front of the trench, it still caused a small commotion. Several helmets and gun barrels flashed past on the trench's breastwork, and judging from their direction, they seemed to be retreating to the left or right.
Payne picked up another grenade and handed it to Ella, solemnly instructing her, "From today onwards, you will be training with real grenades."
"But you don't need to be nervous, just do everything as usual. Besides, even if something goes wrong, I'm here for you, so just throw it away without hesitation."
Prior to this, Pine had been training with Ella using stones and disarming grenades.
After she threw the projectiles a few times and scared away most of the French soldiers on the other side, he would have Alpha and Stephen, who had already undergone this training, conduct live-fire throwing training so as not to kill the French soldiers on the other side.
Although they were hostile to the people in the opposite trench, and although they had almost been hit by French artillery fire before, Payne did not want to provoke trouble at the moment.
According to reports from the rear, the French artillery fire has been increasingly off course these past two days, almost entirely landing in uninhabited areas. This clearly indicates that they have no intention of launching an attack, and at the same time, they are sending the message, "I don't want to provoke trouble, so don't mess with me."
Payne felt this was the first time he had truly noticed the war's signs of fatigue.
Ultimately, although the animosity between France and Germany runs deep and even affects public opinion, as the only two superpowers on the planet, their vast territories mean that most Dexterians never see a Fasforoans in their lifetime, and vice versa.
Therefore, under the fear of death, that vague and illusory hatred is easily dispelled.
When orders like "Station at a certain location and harass the enemy" are issued, astute officers and soldiers can easily recognize the vast room for maneuver within them:
Harassment requires ammunition, right? After I attack, the enemy will definitely retaliate, so it's hard to confirm the results, right? In that case, why don't I just fire a couple of shots into the air? Why risk my life for a few hundred yuan a month?
Fortunately, neither side's command had decided whether to fight this battle, and both sides' soldiers were aware of this, which led to the unusual scene of tacit cooperation on the front lines.
As for Payne, in addition to deciding to abide by the tacit understanding between the two parties, he also had another consideration:
Only a beast girl with superhuman strength could throw a grenade across a no-man's land.
If the beast girl's harassment causes casualties to the opponent, it will not bring any benefit other than stacking up their rage value.
The beast girls did so much hard labor in their birthplace, Dexter, yet they were still treated so brutally. So it's even less likely that the Fasforos people, who have no feelings for the beast girls, would treat them as human beings.
When Payne handed her a real grenade, Ella didn't seem afraid at all.
She seemed completely unaware that she was holding a deadly grenade in her hand, and simply carried out all the actions perfectly with a calm mind, throwing the real grenade out.
A moderate explosion was heard, and Payne raised his binoculars again to take a look. "About 80 or 90 meters, which is pretty good for you now."
"Yes!" Ella's reply was full of energy.
“But…” Payne said, turning back, “aren’t you scared at all?”
"Hmm? What are you afraid of?" Ella tilted her head.
"So, as you saw, the grenade you just threw was going to explode."
"But Master said that as long as I do as you say, there won't be any problems."
Payne blinked and smiled. "You trust me that much?"
"Yes! I believe my master is truly good to me!"
Like a child not yet in their teens, Ella happily raised her hand, but quickly lowered it again. "Oh right, you can't stick your body out of the trench."
Even if both sides are fighting in tacit agreement, blatantly sticking one's body out of the trench is still somewhat disrespectful to the other side and might provoke retaliation from a petty sniper.
Payne was completely at ease with Ella's obedience.
However, this brings another serious problem.
After instructing Alpha and Stephen to practice live-fire throwing, Payne gently persuaded Ella: "Ella, haven't you ever thought about the possibility of an accident?"
"The weather has been alright these past two days. What if it rains in a couple of days and you accidentally slip while throwing a grenade because of the rain?"
"Ah... yeah... you're right?" Ella nodded belatedly. "Then what should we do?"
Seeing her adorably silly appearance, Payne couldn't resist raising his hand to tap her on the head, but when he saw her instinctively raise her arm to shield herself, he gave up.
"How did I teach you? What should you do when shells and grenades come at you? Hmm? Should you lie down?"
“Yes…yes.”
"Then why did you ask 'What should I do?'"
"Ahaha... yeah... that's true..." Ella chuckled awkwardly. "Thank you... thank you, Master..."
Seeing that the golden retriever didn't seem to fully understand, Payne continued to teach earnestly: "I'm telling you these things to tell you that simply obeying my orders is not enough, understand?"
"Like the grenade I just mentioned, there are countless similar situations on the battlefield. You must use your brain a lot and consider things as comprehensively as possible. Do you understand?"
"Yes! I understand!" Ella nodded emphatically with a happy expression.
However, Payne could tell from her silly, grinning face that she knew absolutely nothing. "You know nothing. Come here, there's a lot more I need to teach you today."
"Yes!~"
Chapter 147 CXLVI. Shawn's Diverging Device
While having Ella throw a few more grenades, Payne explained more knowledge points that might be on the test at some point. Payne was once again amazed by the beast girl's regenerative abilities.
Judging from the freshness of her wounds, it is very likely that she was being abused by those scumbags the day before she was sent to the front lines.
But Payne only used iodoform to ensure her wound didn't get infected, and then applied some of the medicine that Alpha had left over. Even in the harsh environment of the front-line trenches, her wound had almost completely healed.
However, with Payne, there are many factors that promote wound healing:
For example, they will no longer be abused, they have enough food, they are in a good mood, and it has not rained for the past few days, the air is dry, and the hygiene is good.
Although worried that the enemy or our command might suddenly have a flash of inspiration and issue an attack order, Payne didn't dare let her rest. He kept her in class and training her non-stop, but it didn't seem to affect her recovery speed much.
She can walk with a slight limp now.
Although her grenade throwing distance was less than 100 meters, even less than Xiao En's, it was because her wounds would still ache slightly when she exercised, preventing her from exerting her full strength, and because she had not yet fully mastered the techniques.
Payne believed that, given time, her grades would at least surpass those of Lacey Alpha and the others, if not surpass them, and certainly surpass Shawn's.
The canine beastmen are incredibly strong. Even though her injuries haven't fully healed, Payne has been completely powerless against her when they've been playing tug-of-war with her these past two days.
To avoid raising questions from logistics staff about how they used so many grenades, Payne pondered for a moment and decided to have them throw them horizontally, so that the stones and training grenades could be reused.
Therefore, he specifically asked his comrades to hide in trenches or bomb craters during training.
At first, he felt a little embarrassed to trouble his comrades like this, and was even prepared to spend money.
However, the veterans said this was a good opportunity to train new recruits to evade attacks and that they should make good use of it.
The new recruits also found this activity much more interesting than listening to the veterans give them dry lectures. At the same time, they were surprised and skeptical that the beast girl could throw grenades so far, and wanted to see it for themselves, so they didn't have any resistance.
The beast girls got more training opportunities, the veterans taught them battlefield survival skills, the new recruits learned knowledge and satisfied their curiosity, Payne saved a lot of operating funds, and the Frenchmen didn't have to be bombed. Such a win-win situation is hard to find.
Judging from the current situation, there doesn't seem to be anything to worry about for the time being, but Payne gradually became aware of something amiss.
Previously, his attention was entirely focused on Ella, so he only realized today that Xiao En seemed to be a bit overwhelmed these days.
Perhaps spurred on by Ella, Xiao En has been working exceptionally hard lately, practicing more throws than Paine always asks.
Although the sheep's strength and stamina were not as good as the other beast girls in the squad, Payne found from the data in the notebook that Xiao En's grenade throwing distance had been hovering around 100 meters recently, which was significantly worse than before.
Not only that, her condition has been getting worse and worse after each grenade throwing training session these past few days. At first, she was just panting heavily, then she was covered in sweat, and today, before the training was even finished, she collapsed to the ground as if she had collapsed from exhaustion.
You look so unwell, could you be sick?
Since the training had become unsustainable, but Xiao En was unwilling to just sit idly by, she moved to sit next to the golden retriever and occasionally shared her combat experiences with the big black dog and white horse next to her.
Xiao En is also a veteran beast soldier.
To this day, Payne still doesn't really feel the impact of it.
In his memory, Xiao En was still the timid little lamb who always bleated and clung to him when he first went to the battlefield.
Unexpectedly, in the blink of an eye, she has become a mature sheep who has fought in battles, treated the wounded, and can even teach new recruits.
There's always a strange sense of satisfaction in raising a daughter.
However, despite experiencing this strange emotion, Payne still hadn't resolved the previous problem:
Xiao En was not only inexplicably exhausted, but he also noticed that the sheep would occasionally glance at him while instructing the two dogs and the horse.