The Steam Age: Gears and Bones

Chapter 40

After the food problem was solved using alchemy, the anxiety and unease that had been carried over from the fortress in the group subsided considerably.

Although no one cheered when the soldiers received their issued black bread, their steps were much stronger as they marched while munching on the bread. Several young soldiers even took the initiative to ask the experienced veterans under the flag captain during breaks how to chop firewood into finer pieces and how to make the smoke from the smokeless stove spread more evenly.

Perfit observed all this, leaned against the carriage canopy pillar and thought for a moment. He then instructed the flag captain to rearrange the marching formation, mixing the remnants of the Ninth Border Division with the routed soldiers who could still understand bugle calls into four squads.

Each squad is assigned a sergeant major, who maintains a fixed position during marches and a fixed area when setting up camp. Everyone must remain within the boundaries of their squad.

The disciplinary rules don't need to be too complicated; a few basic principles are enough to manage this hastily assembled team—no unauthorized departures, no lighting fires at night, no loud noises, and if an infected person is encountered, the sergeant must obey the orders of the sergeant major; violators will have their rations halved the next day.

These regulations are not complicated, but they are enforced extremely strictly.

After discipline was tightened, the team's marching speed increased significantly.

Previously, the scattered soldiers walked around the front and back of the carriage. Some of them would squat down to rest when they got tired, while others would try to go around the ruins of abandoned farms to search for things. Cherzov had to send people back and forth to drive them away, like herding a flock of sheep that refused to return to their fold.

But now each squad has its own position when marching, and the sergeant major walks on the outside of the column, so he can count the number of people at any time. No one falls behind anymore, and no one leaves the column without permission.

When they set up camp that evening, the flag leader, after counting the number of people, only said one sentence to Perfit: "We're almost an hour earlier than yesterday."

Then he added, with a hint of approval in his tone, "If these people had guns, they would already be considered qualified soldiers."

After hearing this, Perfitt remained silent for a moment, then had someone summon Chernzov.

"Your Excellency Lieutenant General, how many of your former men are still proficient in using flintlock muskets? I mean, from loading to aiming to firing volleys, they don't need to be perfect, but at least they should be able to deliver effective firepower on the battlefield."

Cherzov answered her without hesitation—the remnants of the Ninth Frontier Division, almost all of them could.

Even if these veterans are starving and skin and bones, they can reload in a few dozen seconds with their eyes closed, but the problem is that they have no ammunition.

Many of the defeated soldiers who retreated from the capital didn't even have guns. Although the veterans of the Ninth Division had ammunition before, they had used some of it in the fortress, and now most of them didn't even have gunpowder in their guns. The empty guns they held were even without gunpowder rods.

"If we could replenish their ammunition, even if it was only ten or so rounds per person, these four squads could be quickly deployed and clear out any infected individuals of the same or fewer number."

Perfico nodded and had someone call Allen over so he could draw a transmutation circle on the ground again.

This time it's not an organic matter conversion array, but the decomposition and recombination of inorganic matter—the raw materials are scrap iron, empty bullet casings and gravel picked up on the road, and the output is pre-loaded lead bullets and black powder.

One alchemy array produces both projectiles and propellant, while another alchemy array transforms scrap metal and gravel into standard-sized lead bullets suitable for loading into flintlock muskets.

While Allen was drawing the array, Perfit stood beside him, occasionally tapping the array with his finger to ask him to adjust the connection order of a certain node.

After drawing the two transmutation arrays, she used her cane to tap the key points of the arrays.

The red light shone again in the camp. The scrap iron, empty shell casings, and rubble piled on the ground rapidly decomposed in the red light and then reassembled at the other end of the magic circle into a pile of lead bullets and paper-wrapped fixed black powder packets.

When distributing ammunition, Chertzov instructed Rahman to call over the sergeants of the four squads one by one to collect the ammunition.

When the veterans received their ammunition, they didn't cheer. Instead, they quickly counted the number of pre-loaded bullets in the paper packets, then opened the ammunition boxes on their waists that had been empty for a long time and carefully placed the bullets inside one by one.

Their movements were swift and precise, yet there was an indescribable feeling about them, as if their courage and confidence had returned.

That evening, after distributing the ammunition, Perfit climbed back into the wagon, lay down, and never got up again.

Having activated two large-scale transmutation arrays in succession, coupled with the fact that her mental energy, previously depleted from sealing the divine abomination, had not yet fully recovered, she fell into a deep sleep almost as soon as her head touched the blanket.

For the next few days, she spent most of her time in the carriage in a half-asleep state. Occasionally, she would wake up, take a sip of water from the jug that Allen handed her, ask where they were, and then fall back into a deep sleep.

Cherzov has completely reorganized the entire team over the past few days.

The remnants of the 9th Border Division served as the backbone, with each squad led by a sergeant major from the 9th Division, and the remaining soldiers were selected from ordinary deserters who were relatively strong and disciplined to make up the numbers.

He even picked two agile young men from the defeated soldiers to serve as messengers. One was tall and thin, and the other was short and stocky. Both of them were fast runners and quick-witted.

Every morning when breaking camp, Chertzov would tell the two messengers the marching order and rest stops for the day, and they would run back and forth along the column, whispering the instructions to the sergeants of each squad.

Those scattered soldiers, who originally couldn't even coordinate their commands, gradually got used to following the messenger's instructions to line up, stop, and start again.

Although they couldn't be as disciplined as a regular army, at least no one fell behind, and no one squatted by the roadside when they shouldn't have been resting.

On the evening of the third day after leaving the fortress, the team encountered a small group of infected people.

The infected emerged from behind a patch of withered bushes; they were few in number, but very close, and there was no way to avoid them. Cherzov did not send his knights to engage them, but instead ordered the second shift squad to form ranks on the spot and fire a volley of flintlock muskets.

Gunshots rang out three times. The first volley only felled a few people, the second volley felled most of the infected, and the third volley cleared the area.

The whole process lasted a very short time. The sergeant stood on the flank of the formation and shouted commands the whole time. By the time Perfitt was awakened by the gunfire and poked his head out of the carriage, the battle was already over.

No one got infected, and no one wasted ammunition, which reassured her more than anything else.

On the fifth day, they unexpectedly discovered a half-collapsed barn while passing through an abandoned farm.

Half of the barn roof collapsed, but the collapsed part just happened to cover the grain stored inside. Thick snow poured in through the hole and formed a layer of ice on the grain pile, which actually served to seal and preserve it.

Chertzov had the barn cleared out and dozens of bags of edible oats and rye were taken out.

When they set up camp that night, everyone had an extra spoonful of thick oatmeal porridge in their dinner. Perfit also got a bowl. She leaned against the wagon and sipped her porridge, noticing that the defeated soldiers, who were eating proper food for the first time in months, did not fight over it, but lined up one after another to get their porridge. They even spontaneously offered to leave a hot pot for the person on night watch.

After traveling for another two days, man-made defensive fortifications finally appeared on the horizon ahead.

Cherksov stood at the front of the column, peered through his binoculars for a moment, then turned to Perfit and said, "Ahead lies the Hippol Pass. The border between Ross and Holy Romulus."

He lowered his binoculars, his voice revealing a calm born of great restraint: "We can see defensive positions on both sides of the pass, but not the garrison's flags. There's barbed wire around the pass outpost, and some roughly stacked sandbags—probably built by the original garrison."

But there was no smoke rising from the outpost, nor were there any patrols.

Perfit sat up from the carriage and looked in the direction Chertzov had pointed.

On the hillsides on both sides of the pass, you can indeed see man-made trenches and several rows of wooden fences, but there is no one on the fences.

It's not the kind of place where people have hidden in bunkers and are simply unseen; it's the kind of place where no one has stood guard for a long time, a place of deathly silence.

Ludwig walked to her carriage, gripping and releasing his sword hilt repeatedly without uttering a word, but Perfit could sense that he was more tense than during any of the previous days' battles.

She followed his gaze to the other side of the pass—the land of Holy Romulus.

His father is somewhere over there, besieged, cut off from all communication, his fate unknown.

"Send scouts before entering the pass," Perfit said. "Don't make a mistake at the last step."