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But due to the influence of the splitter, she clearly had little appetite.
Today's lunch was noodle soup, and she ate it by slurping it down one strand at a time, as if she was just going through the motions.
Seeing her indifferent reaction, Payne couldn't help but raise an eyebrow.
I was wondering what unreasonable demands she'd make, but it turns out she just wanted this small reward? I feel a bit guilty for taking advantage of her...
However, since none of the animals involved had any objections, Payne temporarily set the matter aside and instead told the company commander about the origin of the case of liquor, finally asking:
"So, is our supply line in trouble, or are we surrounded?"
The company commander, still basking in the glory of Ruby's clever use of the inventory to retrieve a case of wine, instinctively replied, "It's just a shortage of transport capacity..."
"Really? How strained must the delivery capacity be for them to be unable to deliver even food?" Payne expressed his skepticism.
The company commander seemed to realize he had said too much, so he leaned closer and lowered his voice to say:
"I'll have to do some odd jobs later. You'll find out what happens when I get there. But don't go around telling everyone what you see there."
“…Ah, so you’re going to work.” Payne couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed.
He turned to look at Ruby, and the little squirrel, after her initial surprise, quickly wilted, even her little ears and big tail drooping.
The poor little guy can't even have such a small wish fulfilled.
Chapter 46 XLVI. The Poisoned Wounded Soldier
"What kind of work are we going to do? Is there anything I need to prepare?" Payne asked after finishing the meal.
"It's just some moving work. Call all your orcs, we'll be leaving in five minutes," the company commander replied.
He was somewhat puzzled: "Moving? Is it moving ammunition again? We can all guess that the higher-ups haven't given up on the attack plan, but is it necessary to be so secretive?"
The company commander gave him a shove with a serious expression, "Don't ask anymore, you'll know when you get there."
"Ah...okay."
But just as he was about to call the other beast girls over, he saw that the company's Hail and the others were chatting and laughing as they dispersed, seemingly not intending to regroup.
"Aren't they going?" he couldn't help but ask.
"No, only a few company commanders, animal trainers, and beastmen are going," the company commander replied.
"...?"
Payne was now full of questions, but he knew he really couldn't ask any more.
By having the beast girls do the work and minimizing the number of humans present, they were taking advantage of the fact that the beast girls rarely interact with humans and were trying to keep it a secret as much as possible.
What exactly happened? ...
Thinking this, Payne anxiously called over the dogs, cattle, and sheep. The two men and four animals left the village and walked along the forest path.
On the way, the company commander kept talking to him, seemingly trying to discourage him from asking too many questions:
"The supply line is really fine, you don't need to worry, it will be restored soon."
"But Ruby's ability to draw maps and mark the places where there are wild vegetables and mushrooms is excellent."
"Having an extra backup plan means having an extra layer of security. If possible, we could also have her scout out the area for any wild animals..."
Payne thought about it seriously for a moment: "Actually... this job is more suitable for Lacey."
Lacey (cheerfully): "Woof~"
Ruby (squinting): "..."
Soon, the group of people and their beasts encountered a roadblock set up by soldiers.
"This way... seems to be the direction to the church?" Payne vaguely recalled something.
There were a few days when the work wasn't so heavy, and he went quite far while walking Lacey, so he came here.
"Yes, sir," the company commander replied simply.
As they got closer to their destination, Payne heard the sound of a car engine and people talking, and the ears of all four beast girls perked up.
The trees blocking his way were becoming sparser, and Payne could now see a stone building and a large number of stretchers placed in the small square in front of it.
Using churches as makeshift hospitals during wartime is quite common; what's there to hide?
Payne pondered this in confusion until he stood at the entrance to the small square.
people.
stretcher.
The wounded lying on a stretcher.
The small square was filled with wounded soldiers whose skin was abnormally red and swollen, whose limbs were curled up, and whose whole bodies were trembling. There were at least a hundred of them.
Many doctors and nurses in white coats moved among the stretchers, checking the wounded, wiping the sweat from their foreheads, and giving them injections.
The wounded soldiers' skin was so red and swollen that it looked like balloons filled with blood. Whenever he saw the nurses giving injections, Payne always worried that the balloons would burst...
A dozen or so soldiers stood sparsely around the small square, and trucks with white backgrounds and red scepters painted on them kept driving in, with more than thirty beast girls of various species carrying one stretcher after another onto the trucks.
The number of beast girls in the current army is still very small; on average, a company may not even be assigned one beast girl.
Did they bring all the beast girls from the front lines over here?
"Let's get to work," the company commander said.
The four beast girls were about to go forward to work, but they didn't hear any instructions from Payne, so they turned to look at him with some confusion.
After a few seconds, Payne suddenly seemed to come to his senses, shook his head, and led the way forward, saying, "Let's begin."
But the company commander grabbed his arm. "Let the orcs go. You come here."
Standing with the company commander at the edge of the small square, watching the four beasts with uneasy expressions lift the stretcher, Payne asked with some concern, "What happened to these wounded? Are they in danger?"
"There shouldn't be any danger, but just to be on the safe side, let the orcs do it." The company commander sighed. "Remember the gas cylinder that Lacey found?"
"I remember, it's related to that?"
"Hmm. According to the information I've gathered, the enemy has probably invented a new poison gas, and that cylinder is just part of the plan."
"Whether it was the contents of the gas cylinder or the things they fired at us with artillery shells, they were all colorless, odorless, and non-toxic, or only very toxic. So none of us noticed anything unusual at first."
"When Lacey dug out the cylinder, it was already leaking, or rather, the enemy deliberately made it leak. Even the backfilling didn't have much of an effect. Over the past few days, the gas has gradually spread throughout the entire front."
"The physical and chemical properties of that thing are very abnormal. It will only adhere to human skin when the concentration reaches a certain level, and it is not easy to rub off. At low concentrations, it will only float in the air and will not stick to the surface of other objects."
"Our initial hypothesis is that some substance in the sweat reacted with the sweat, causing it to stick to the skin."
"However, the enemy doesn't need this gas to be in very high concentrations."
"They only need to wait for the gas to diffuse before firing a shell containing another non-toxic gas, allowing the two gases to mix and react, thus generating a highly toxic gas."
Payne continued, "...because the toxicity was so weak, all the small flying insects in the air have disappeared during this time, but neither people nor animals have experienced any discomfort."
"Because they only attach to people when in high concentrations, only Lessie and I are free of fleas;
"Because they don't attach to the surfaces of other objects, non-flying fleas are fine."
"The red gas spread so quickly not because of the strong wind, but because the two gases reacted very quickly."
"In that case, it's fortunate that I took Lacey and the others to take a bath beforehand, otherwise it would have been terrible if the stuff stuck to their skin reacted and produced toxic substances..."
At this point, Payne let out a trembling breath.
Fortunately, he was cautious enough to survive an enemy gas attack; otherwise, he would be one of these wounded soldiers now.
He also shared his concerns with many people around him, so those who went to look for the gas cylinders took showers, and soldiers from B Company and surrounding units became more vigilant, allowing them to put on gas masks when the red gas rapidly approached.
"...So, these wounded soldiers are just unlucky guys who didn't have time to put on their gas masks?" Payne asked.
"Yes." The company commander nodded. "According to preliminary assessment, this poison gas not only damages the nervous system, but also causes capillaries to rupture, which is why the patient is in this state of being red all over and trembling in his limbs."
"By the way, you're a college student, do you know what kind of poisonous gas this is? How should we protect ourselves?"
Faced with the company commander's question, Payne racked his brains, trying to draw upon all the chemical knowledge he had accumulated over his two lifetimes, but in the end, he could only shake his head:
"Sorry, my major is related to animals and beastmen, and I don't know much about chemistry."
"It's alright, it's not your fault." The company commander patted his shoulder reassuringly. "Now you know why this had to be kept secret, right?"
Payne nodded somewhat reluctantly.
If the soldiers found out that the enemy had used such terrifying poison gas, and that they lacked protective measures, with the protection time of the previously issued filter canisters being greatly reduced, who knows what kind of chaos it would cause...
Chapter 47 XLVII. Mistake
However, while Payne understood the reasons for the confidentiality requirement, it did not mean he agreed with it.
Because he was a common soldier on the front lines, not a general sitting in a safe office in the rear.
"Shouldn't we... have the most basic right to know?"
He said with some dissatisfaction, "If they're going to hide the horror of this poison gas, then they can also hide the possibility that the toxic substances on the wounded might contaminate other people..."
The company commander interrupted him: "Don't worry about that. I've already asked the doctors and nurses here. They've been working here for several days, and no one has had any health problems."
But he still looked worried: "Who can guarantee that the toxicity of this gas won't take a few days to take effect?"
The company commander was speechless for a moment: "Uh... delaying the effective date is just too unreasonable..."
"When the concentration is low, it floats around in the air; when the concentration is high, it sticks to people and isn't easy to rub off. It also doesn't stick to other surfaces. Is that reasonable?"
At this point, he sighed deeply, "Ah, if the rain had lasted a little longer those days, would the concentration of the poison gas have decreased?...
"If I tell more people about this, will I be able to save more lives?..."
"Alright, alright, it's not your fault. You've already saved a lot of people," the company commander comforted him, patting his shoulder.
Although Payne was lucky enough to avoid being exposed to the poison gas, he didn't have to experience what kind of pain it was.
But seeing the wounded soldiers with their bodies all red and their limbs trembling, and hearing the company commander say that it was because of ruptured capillaries and damage to the nervous system, I imagined that they must be in extreme pain.
This gas is really bizarre—Pine has never heard of any gas that can cause nerve damage while also rupturing capillaries throughout a patient's body.
It's probably because the physical laws of the two worlds are different; otherwise, the Dexter Empire wouldn't have created beast girls when its overall technological level was still at the level of World War I.
It seems we can't use Earth's experience as a reference for everything.