The reconn company was utterly convinced now.
From feeling suspicious at the beginning to having some skepticism afterwards, they no longer had any doubts now. Ren Xiaosu only took a few hours to change their fundamental worldview.
“Sir, where are we heading now?” T40219 asked earnestly.
“The barbarians who came this time were only here to investigate.” Ren Xiaosu said, “But I’m afraid that we’ll have to face some of their main forces next.”
T40219 was stunned. “Then should we retreat?”
“Retreat?” Ren Xiaosu thought for a moment and said, “This is such a good opportunity, so of course we would have to kill more of them.”
In the command center, P5092 fell silent. His adjutant next to him suddenly said, “Did he forget about the mission you assigned him?”
The mission objective P5092 set for Ren Xiaosu was to scout out the deployment of the barbarians’ emplacements in the forest and locate the weapons they had taken from Stronghold 176. However, there was no need for them to engage in a head-on battle.
However, what Ren Xiaosu was doing now seemed to have nothing to do with that mission. Ever since that guy entered the forest, he had been engaging in guerrilla warfare with the barbarians and did not even carry out any investigations, to say nothing of scouting out the emplacement locations.
If they continued fighting like this, this scouting mission would have been for nothing.
Even though Ren Xiaosu had already killed about 300 barbarians so far, it should still be considered very fortunate that a 100-strong recon company was able to win the battles without suffering any casualties at all.
But for the war effort, obtaining intelligence of where the barbarians had deployed their emplacements in the forest was much more important.
After all, the recon company could not possibly defeat a group of the barbarians’ main forces no matter how elite they were. At that point, a battalion or even a regiment might be going after them.
The adjutant continued, “When the main forces of the expeditionary army arrive, they’ll have no choice but to retreat. Then our feint to conceal the investigations will have failed this time. The final outcome would only be the deaths of several hundred barbarians.”
The adjutant was implying that it was not that killing the enemy was not desirable, but that they had more important things to focus on.
P5092 shook his head. “Let’s wait and see. He might have a plan.”
At this moment, T40219’s voice crackled on the radio, “Sir, do you have a plan?”
Ren Xiaosu replied, “A plan? What plan?”
The command center fell into a strange silence. Suddenly, P5092 could feel his face hurting.
If not for the fact they did not have sufficient ammunition, he might have ordered his men to bombard the forest right away.
Ren Xiaosu said as he advanced, “We’ve been using guerrilla warfare all this while. But from here on out, I’ll be leading y’all into a tough battle.”
“A tough battle?” T40219 wondered, “Sir, don’t tell me you’re thinking of fighting against the barbarians’ main forces?”
“Is there anything wrong with that?” Ren Xiaosu replied calmly, “The enemy has arrived on our doorstep. If we retreat at the sight of some barbarians, that would be such cowardly behavior!”
In the command center, the staff officers looked over at the adjutant again. At some point, the adjutant wondered if that guy had heard their conversation. But they had not pressed the push-to-talk button at the command center!
Right after that, Ren Xiaosu led the troops back into the forest. However, T40219 realized Ren Xiaosu’s “tough battle” was to take them on a stroll through the forest. No one knew what he was looking for.
The scope of their activities was very large. Since the recon company did not know what Ren Xiaosu was up to, they could only follow him around. It wasn’t until two hours later that Ren Xiaosu suddenly stopped by a river. “Did you bring the TNT?”
“Yes, four satchels!” T40219 perked up at the thought of having something to do.
Portable heavy firepower like remote-controlled TNT was standard issue for the recon company. It was used to destroy enemy defensive fortifications and deal large amounts of effective damage to them.
Ren Xiaosu pointed to the river and said, “Bury a satchel of TNT here. Act quickly.”
With that, someone in the recon company took the entrenching tool from his back and skillfully buried a TNT demolition charge under a patch of wild grass before cleanly covering up the excavated area.
“C’mon, let’s move to the next location,” Ren Xiaosu said.
T40219 finally understood. So it turned out Ren Xiaosu was looking for spots to bury the TNT after wandering around for two hours.
Following that, Ren Xiaosu led them on another huge detour. It was only after they had completely buried all the TNT that they withdrew from the blast radii.
T40219 took out a remote detonator and said, “Button 1 is for the TNT buried in the river, button 2 is for the west side of the forest, and buttons 3 and 4 are for the north side of the forest.”
Ren Xiaosu nodded and took the remote detonator. “Alright, we just have to wait here now.”
“Hang on, shouldn’t we wait closer to the TNT locations?” T40219 was stunned. He thought Ren Xiaosu was going to detonate the bombs when the barbarians passed by. But they were so far away from the bombs and could not even see them, so how could they know if the barbarians passed by?
However, Ren Xiaosu said in a serious tone, “There’ll be heaps of enemies coming, so it’ll be very dangerous if we’re too close.”
“Then when are we detonating them?” T40219 asked.
“Now,” Ren Xiaosu said matter-of-factly before triggering bomb number one.
A loud explosion burst in the distance. T40219 thought to himself, ‘Aren’t you being too hasty?!‘
“Keep quiet.” Ren Xiaosu leaned against a tree with his eyes closed. He seemed to be muttering like he was chanting an incantation.
Ten minutes later, Ren Xiaosu pressed button 2 and another loud explosion boomed.
Another five minutes later, Ren Xiaosu pressed down buttons 3 and 4 at the same time. Then he said to T40219, “C’mon, let’s go and finish off the remaining enemies on the battlefield.”
T40219 was confused. ‘What’s this about finishing off the remaining enemies? What on earth happened? Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing?‘
But he still braced himself and followed Ren Xiaosu back to the site of the explosions. He was shocked to find there were barbarians wailing in agony on the ground!
And many more of the barbarians had been blown to pieces by the explosions.
Ren Xiaosu felt a little bit of regret. Just how many axes were there! It was a pity he could not collect the axes and put them away in his storage space with the Pyro Company’s soldiers here.
At this moment, everyone present and those in the command center looked at one another. T40219 had even forgotten about finishing off the remaining enemies. Just about everyone was only thinking one thing. How did Ren Xiaosu know which route the barbarians would take?
A battalion of barbarians was destroyed just like that?
A sense of absurdity erupted in everyone’s minds. They had never fought such a bizarre battle before!
All this while, everyone’s impression of the barbarian troops was that they were the best at hunting in complex terrain. As they were cunning and powerful, it caused the Pyro Company and the Wang Consortium a great headache.
But now, everything had changed.
20 minutes later, on the other side.
Valentin was still sitting next to the fire pit when a barbarian came back to relay some military intelligence to him.
Valentin asked calmly, “Have Alexei and the others taken out the decoy on the right flank yet?”
The barbarian who came back to relay the information said with difficulty, “Alexei and the others were taken out by the decoy….”
