Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

Chapter 343: Chapter 24 Lieutenant Mason

After Castor’s “unexpected visit,” Winters followed the agreement and headed to Blackwater Town to meet with Bard and Andre.

Since they had been dispersed and deployed, this was the first time the three of them gathered together. After a long absence, their reunion was especially warm, with endless topics to talk about.

Bard clicked his tongue in wonder as he circled Redmane, examining the horse, even lifting its hooves one by one for inspection, and gave his verdict, “This is a good horse.”

“Like you needed to say it?” Andre retorted with a laugh.

Without spending the night in Blackwater Town, Winters and Bard changed to the horses Andre had borrowed from Dusa Village in Blackwater Town, and the three immediately set out to meet the “senior” Bard had mentioned.

“Which class of senior is it?” During a pause on the road, Andre couldn’t help but ask Bard, “Do we know him?”

“You two definitely don’t know him, nor do I. He’s my squad leader’s squad leader.”

The smallest organizational unit in the Alliance Land Academy’s Officer Academy is a “squad,” in which officer cadets from the first, second, and third years are simultaneously assigned.

Thus, an officer cadet in the academy could be exposed to peers from two classes above and below his own.

Wolf Town and Blackwater Town were so remote that a horseback trip to the county seat city of Revodan and back would take more than four days. And since Revodan itself is a frontier city, Winters and Andre had hardly any visitors.

However, Bard’s station at Saint Christopher Town, hereafter referred to as Saint Town, was different. Saint Town was located on a thoroughfare between two counties, with very convenient transportation.

The hardened Guzhi Road ran through the town, and troops often passed through Saint Town when being deployed.

Some of the seniors from Paratu whom Bard knew well had heard that their junior was assigned to Paratu and visited him several times, either making a special trip or passing through.

Therefore, Bard was somewhat more informed than Winters and Andre; Lieutenant Montaigne and Lieutenant Cherini were truly unfamiliar with the place, completely in the dark.

Bard learned from the “squad leader” who was responsible for guiding him when he was a new cadet: Apart from the officers stationed in Revodan city, there were only four Land Academy graduates in the entire county.

There was no need to mention who the three unlucky ones were. The other one was a senior whose station was just south of the county seat, about forty kilometers away from Blackwater Town.

According to what Bard’s squad leader said, that person was a squad leader’s squad leader. Meaning, he was four classes senior to Winters, Bard, and Andre and had been serving in Paratu for five years.

Out of courtesy, Bard felt they should also pay a visit to this senior alumnus. Not to mention, isolated in their closed-off environments for so long, the lieutenants were thirsty for news from the outside world.

So Bard sent word to his two friends, arranging a time to go together.

After leaving Blackwater Town, they galloped on dirt roads through forests and wilderness. As they had to return with the same horse, they occasionally had to stop and rest the horse.

In the sparsely populated Newly Reclaimed Land, they’d often go a long time before seeing a village or scattered farmhouses. With no one in sight ahead or behind, they subsisted only on the dry food and water carried with the horses.

But the three friends, rarely able to gather, did not mind the hardship.

The journey was uneventful, but the closer they got to their destination, the stranger Winters and Andre felt. It seemed they weren’t heading to a town but rather in the direction of even less populous areas.

“You sure we’re not lost?” during another break to rest the horses, Andre couldn’t help asking Bard, “There’s not even a place to stay in sight, and we didn’t bring tents. It’s going to be a problem if we made a mistake.”

Andre had been estimating the distance and direction all along, and he realized that their destination should be within a few kilometers. But the surroundings looked even more desolate than before, not at all like the outskirts of a town.

“It should be right, there weren’t any forks on the road.” Bard pulled out a scroll of paper from his saddlebag, on which was a crudely drawn map and description provided by the senior: “The key is I don’t have a detailed map of the areas near Revodan.”

“We should’ve brought a guide,” Winters regretted, “I forgot this is Paratu.”

The three studied the map in their hands and carefully recalled the road they had taken, confirming they hadn’t gone the wrong way. They had no choice but to grit their teeth and continue onward.

About half an hour later, wooden fences began to appear alongside the road. The signs of human activity gave the three lieutenants a boost in confidence.

To their surprise, at the end of the dirt road was a town that looked even more rudimentary and dilapidated than Wolf Town.

Although small, Wolf Town at least had one horizontal and one vertical street as well as a church, and it was vibrant with life.

But this town in front of them consisted only of a row of low wooden barracks along the road.

They were called “barracks” because the wooden houses resembled the plank houses in military camps and looked quite different from ordinary homes on farms.

Although farmers’ houses were generally similar in materials and structure, they were filled with the living breath of the inhabitants in their details.

The wooden houses before them, however, were uniform as if cast from the same mold, giving off a templated aura.

A row of wooden houses stood abruptly on the land, surrounded by desolate meadows on all sides, appearing very lonely.@@novelbin@@

The strangest thing was — Winters pondered for a while before realizing — there were no women or children in this little town.

“Is this the place?” Winters asked Bard.

Bard was also quite puzzled, “It should be here, but it looks a bit off.”

People outside the wooden houses noticed the three officers by the road. A man who appeared to be a guard, carrying a bow and arrows, came over and asked lazily, “Gentlemen, who are you looking for?”

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