Batches of wounded Demon-kin were carried down from the front. Duke Eugene sat on his horse on a gentle slope, his gaze passing over those groaning soldiers and landing on the horizon in the distance, which still exploded from time to time.
An adjutant rode over: "My Lord, the casualty statistics of the vanguard have been tallied. Not many have died, but quite a few have been injured to the point of disability, mostly caused by sneak attacks from those Puchis playing dead. I'm afraid they want to..."
"Want to use the wounded to slow down our pace," Eugene voiced the adjutant's guess.
Injured soldiers required potions and people to care for them. Whether transporting them back to the rear or bringing them along with the march, the drag on the grand army was greater than simply having a soldier die.
And if Eugene ordered the wounded and sick to be left to fend for themselves, the officers and soldiers under his command would inevitably all fear fighting and getting injured from then on.
However, this wasn't considered a very innovative tactic. The Empire frequently used similar tricks when dealing with humans.
Therefore, Eugene also had his own countermeasure.
"Pass down the order, bring that batch of slaves out. The vanguard will be responsible for supervising them."
...
"You lot, come here!"
A ferocious Horned Demon overseer shoved Evan and the other slaves, bringing them to the front of the army.
Although Evan was wrapped in a relatively thick piece of clothing, the biting wind of the Northern Territory still chilled him to the bone.
His body was no longer as robust as it was when he was a soldier. After being captured, he was like a piece of cargo, resold time and time again.
Demon-kin merchants, mining area overseers, manor stewards, finally ending up in the supply train of this northern expeditionary army.
A year of slave life had squeezed his body down to a mere skeleton. His ribs protruded one by one, and his skin hung loosely on them like an ill-fitting old garment.
Unlike the other numb and ignorant slaves, he knew what the Empire army brought so many slaves along to do; he had seen it before.
Back then, he was still wearing the armor of the Kingdom's army, standing behind the battlements, obeying orders from above to fire arrows at those captives and slaves pushed to the front.
Those people cried, cursed, and were forced to charge forward by the swords of the Demon-kin behind them, only to fall in droves beneath the city walls.
And now, it was his turn to be down there.
The slaves were each distributed a shovel; besides that, there was nothing else.
Evan took the shovel, the iron handle burning cold.
They were broken up and distributed into different Demon-kin squads.
Evan was pushed by the shoulder by a Lizardman soldier and brought before a sloping ground riddled with holes.
Those holes were pitch-black, filled with mycelium inside.
"Smash those holes," the Lizardman gestured with his chin toward the holes. "Fill them flat."
Evan gripped his shovel and glanced back.
Three Demon-kin stood not far behind him, the explosive crossbows in their hands constantly aimed at his back.
Boom!
Not far away, the sound of an explosion rang out.
That was another slave encountering a Puchi drilling out while filling a hole.
And the Demon-kin responsible for supervising his work didn't hesitate for a moment, using their explosive crossbows to blow him up together with the Puchi.
"As expected..." His guess confirmed, Evan recognized the fact that he was already on a path to death.
Fear, humiliation, and then anger!
Why didn't I die in that war?
Since I'm going to die anyway, why must I still use my flesh and blood to clear the way for the Demon-kin I hate so much?
Evan gripped his shovel tightly and whipped around, wanting to fight to the death.
However, seeing him like this, the three vanguard overseers instead put away their crossbows.
A Horned Demon soldier stepped forward, drew his blade, and struck the shovel out of his hands with one blow. The emaciated Evan simply didn't have the strength to resist and could only watch helplessly as that foul-faced Horned Demon brought down a second slash head-on.
"What the hell is logistics doing? Shoving in improperly trained goods like this!"
"Alright, alright, the mission is important. Let's hurry back and get two more to use."
No one took another look at Evan lying in the snow, even though he was still breathing.
Fresh blood carried life out of his body. In the final moments of his life, Evan seemed to see his daughter walking toward him.
"Bi... anca..."
"His daughter" walked over puchi puchi, then extended her tentacles, casually shoved his spilled intestines back in, sprinkled a little spore powder, and then dragged him into a relatively large hole nearby...
By the time the three Demon-kin returned with two more slaves, the Horned Demon frowned and looked around: "Strange, where is that human?"
"Probably hid or got carried away by a Puchi," another Demon-kin guessed, but didn't care at all. "Forget it, after taking that slash of yours, could he still survive?"
"True." The Horned Demon nodded upon hearing this, then immediately drew his blade, viciously threatening the two slaves to start working.
Similar scenes occurred in every corner.
After the Empire began using slaves to fill the holes, although the Puchi harassment continued, the attack method quickly changed from self-destruction to tentacle thrusts or hallucinogenic spores.
Among them, most of the slaves who died weren't killed by Puchis, but by the explosive crossbows of the Demon-kin.
As for those injured and abandoned, they were quietly picked up by the Puchis.
For Lin Jun, these slaves were all high-quality population that was extremely easy to convert into the Mushroom Fortress's ranks.
Much easier to reform than those captured Empire soldiers!
In Lin Jun's view, Eugene using these slaves to clear the holes was no different from paying a toll.
Since he had already paid, Lin Jun temporarily didn't play any more tricks on his grand army, focusing on absorbing the population.
During this period, Bador did launch a surprise attack. Taking advantage of the Empire army's attention being focused on the front, he led a small group of elites to sneak attack the rear of the grand army, aiming straight for the supplies.
Unfortunately, even with the use of various concealment methods, they were still discovered in advance by a Demon-kin.
Ultimately, they could only rush in for a brief assault, causing some casualties, and then retreated before being surrounded.
Having failed the first time, Bador didn't try a second time.
Eugene was now on guard; if things went wrong, he would instead fall into danger.
Bador was brave, but not stupid.
Although annoyed that the surprise attack failed, after this, he honestly stayed in the dwarven camp, waiting for the Empire army's arrival.
On the other side, apart from filling holes, the Empire army also cleared the hallucinogenic mushroom forest, the petrified mushroom forest, the corrosive mushroom forest... along the way.
Because one could tell something was wrong with these mushroom forests from afar, they didn't cause too many casualties, but they practically dragged down the pace of the Empire army.
A journey of less than a week was forcibly dragged out to nearly half a month before they arrived at the Luo River.
Two adjutants looked at the defensive camp on the opposite bank from afar. One of them snorted coldly: "Do they think they can drag us down just by stalling?"
His tone was full of disdain, but the reason he complained was actually because he had been thoroughly irritated by the endless emergence of various mushrooms along the way.
The other adjutant, however, exhaled a breath of air with some confusion: "Say, do you feel like the weather is starting to get cold again?"
"Because the further north we go, the colder it gets! What, are you frozen stupid?"
"True..."
(Book Recommendation skipped)
(End of Chapter)
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