Chapter 756.1: The Frontline

The fierce battle north of Lai Peak lasted through the night. The coalition's first offensive onto the Torch Church's homeland ended in a draw.

At a position halfway up Lai Peak, Jennings of the newly reinforced Army of Glory pulled out his binoculars and looked down the mountain.

It was already the 13th time he had done so that morning, and it wasn't even noon yet. He had only arrived at the front a few days ago, having traveled over 10,000 kilometers from the West Coast. Unfortunately, he had ultimately missed the decisive battle on the Guardian Manor Plains.

He had heard that the 10-man squad he had been assigned to had been wiped out to the last man, with only their centurion, Oliver, surviving.

The man bore a deep scar across his face, supposedly left behind during a fight with a hulking mutant back when Oliver had still been a squad leader.

As expected, there was no place where promotions came faster than the battlefield. Glancing at Oliver standing not far away, admiration filled Jennings's eyes. Ever since hearing about the officer's exploits, he had become one of his genuine admirers. That had been a monster capable of growing back its severed head, and their centurion had actually killed one of those things. The man was an absolute beast!

"There probably won't be any major battles for the next few days." Standing beside Jennings, a comrade from the same recruit camp spoke in a bored tone.

"What makes you say that?" Jennings asked curiously.

"Isn't it obvious?" The man shrugged and tossed a piece of chewing gum into his mouth. "The Enterprise and the New Alliance got smacked yesterday. Even if they're not willing to swallow that humiliation, they'll probably have to figure out a new plan before making another move."

"They're just a bunch of Ideal City wimps and their wimp friends. Lose a couple of people and they can't take it anymore."

"Hahaha!"

The group of recruits laughed and joked, clearly not taking either the Enterprise or the New Alliance seriously. Some of the veterans who had spent longer on the front merely smiled without bothering to explain.

They, too, looked down on the Enterprise and the New Alliance. In their eyes, the Army's ground forces were the strongest military on the wasteland.

That said, these rookies were seriously underestimating their opponents. If the enemy really were that incompetent, then what did that make them, after spending months locked in battle with them out in the desert?

Although Jennings was also a rookie, his background as a graduate of the officers' academy gave him a different perspective.

The situation in Ocean Edge Province was indeed highly unusual.

Their enemies didn't even maintain a fixed frontline and even he couldn't think of a better solution to deal with them.

Especially now, with the roads and railways crossing the Ten Peaks Mountain still under construction, delivering supplies to the front remained difficult. It was understandable that the offensive had temporarily stalled.

Hearing the discussion among the recruits under his command, Oliver, who was inspecting the front lines, merely curled his lips into a faint smile as though listening to children tell jokes. "You're underestimating those people."

He had been at Guardian Manor Peak that night and had seen firsthand what the New Alliance's true elites were like. Compared to someone like himself, who had barely survived, those soldiers wearing heavy exoskeletons and wielding large-caliber shotguns were the real monsters.

The Mutant Humans had been nothing more than helpless chicks before them, slaughtered one after another inside the caves with movements so practiced it was as though they had repeated them thousands upon thousands of times.

It was impossible to imagine the kind of hellish training those men had to have gone through.

Yes, he had killed one hulking green Mutant Human himself, but the total number his entire squad had eliminated didn't even amount to a fraction of what the man who had dragged him out of that cave had killed alone.

Come to think of it, he really owed that man his life. Even now, he clearly remembered how, not long after being pulled out of the corpse-filled tunnel, over a dozen Mutant Humans had charged into the very section where he had been fighting, clashing with the soldiers carrying those massive shields.

It was only afterward that he learned that while he had been trapped in the tunnels with nowhere to advance or retreat, those Mutant Humans had pursued the main force behind him all the way down the mountain and had nearly recaptured the Black Cloud Peak...

Hearing Oliver join the conversation, one of the recruits stood at attention and asked with a grin, "Sir, do you think they'll attack again today?"

Seeing all the young men looking at him, Oliver smiled calmly. "Based on what I know about them, yesterday's attack was nothing more than a probing strike. If nothing unexpected happens, they've already figured out what they're up against."

After a brief pause, he continued simply, "Stay on the frontlines for a few more days and you'll understand."

However, even Oliver himself hadn't expected that not long after he finished speaking, activity would already begin below the mountain. A group of soldiers clad in jet-black exoskeleton appeared, each carrying a supply crate taller than themselves as they steadily made their way along the rugged mountain trail.

As luck would have it, judging from the insignia on their shoulders, they were none other than the New Alliance's Storm Corps.

Behind the soldiers lumbered an enormous creature with countless tentacles instead of legs. It looked rather ferocious at first glance, though after staring at its round, bulbous head for a while, it somehow became oddly adorable.

If he remembered correctly, that thing resembled the Incubators produced by the Clearspring City Hive before it had been destroyed. Once fully deployed, it could convert organic matter for its new sub-entities.

According to intelligence released by the coalition, the New Alliance had already neutralized the Hive in Clearspring City.

If that was true, the creature they were lugging around should also be safe. The Crunchers and Creepers it produced probably wouldn't attack people.

Even so, Oliver was still surprised to see the Storm Corps appear. After all, he hadn't heard anything about the coalition launching an offensive today.

Unable to suppress his curiosity, he called out to them. "Hey, you guys got a mission today?"

Hearing the shout from halfway up the mountain, Kakarot looked up, lifted his helmet's tactical visor, and grinned. "You bet. We've got a big one."

A big one?

Oliver blinked, not understanding what he meant.

Unfortunately for him, the man offered no explanation, simply leading more than 200 of his men straight into the murky wilderness.

Not long after they disappeared, another noisy crowd emerged along the mountain path beneath Oliver's position.

Unlike the Storm Corps, those people weren't wearing exoframes. They carried LD-47 rifles over their shoulders, with some even lugging RPG launchers. The only protective equipment they had was the gas masks already strapped to their faces, making the whole group look as though they were playing at war.

There were roughly 100 of them, all shouting and chatting noisily as they walked.

"Boss, are we really not bringing any protective gear?" one of the players asked while fiddling with the gas mask hanging over his face.

His ID was Spring Born. He had joined during Beta 0.7 and had only been playing for a month. His level had just surpassed LV5. Joining the game alongside him were Summer Born and Winter Born, both at roughly the same level.

The man leading them, the one they were calling their boss, was called Better Relax. He was the commander of the Abstract Corps, a constitution build veteran who had joined during Beta 0.5 and had also led them through the Passing the Torch mission.

Back when he had first started playing, Spring Born had greatly admired the veteran, who was supposedly capable of soloing monsters. That admiration lasted until they had encountered a real monster on the Guardian Manor Plains. It was then that he truly realized just how realistic the game was.

Even a powerhouse who had undergone a second awakening could be sent flying over 10 meters by a single slap from a berserk monster if they got careless.

"What do you mean we're not bringing protective gear? You're making it sound like I'm stingy. Aren't you all wearing gas masks?" Rick rolled his eyes as he defended himself.

His explanation only caused an even bigger uproar.

"What the hell?!"

"This counts as protective gear?"

"These things are literally free!"

During the Endless Mode monster-farming event, gas masks were the only equipment players could obtain free of charge. They were even the same model used by the Alpha Mobile Task Force, manufactured under contract by Dawn City's Industrial District.

Spring Born seriously suspected that if the gas masks hadn't been free, Better Relax probably wouldn't have bothered giving them even those.

Then again, that wasn't entirely unreasonable. Except for constitution build players, with their current constitution stats they could survive three or four days inside the fourth phase Kingdom of Heaven without a gas mask.

Under normal circumstances, however, their combat ability wouldn't allow them to survive anywhere near that long. They'd most likely be torn apart alive by the fungal Mutant Humans roaming the domain long before they ever became infected.

Only the heavily armored veterans wearing exoskeletons could realistically measure their survival time in days.

Watching the noisy newcomers, Better Relax cleared his throat to interrupt them. "Alright, alright. Be grateful you've got free equipment at all. Quit whining! Stop thinking about what the corps owes you and think about what you've contributed to the corps first! Take it from your big brother here, you guys can't handle high-end gear yet. Master the fundamentals first. Build a solid foundation. One day, you'll become a powerhouse just like me."

The entire group responded with synchronized eye-rolls.

Seeing that no one challenged him outright, Better Relax perked up again and shouted to everyone. "Listen up, brothers! In a bit we're sticking close to the Storm Corps veterans! Wherever they plant the flag for their Purification Base, we'll plant ours right behind their asses!"

Summer Born raised a hand. "Wait, Boss. Don't Purification Bases and Purification Stations have to be at least 600 meters apart to count?"

Better Relax answered with a cheeky grin. "Easy. We'll just stay exactly 600 meters away. What, you think I got up this early for nothing?"

The players were all stunned.

Damn. The man was an absolute expert at leeching rewards.

Watching the noisy bunch head into the wilderness, a Wislander soldier crouching in the trench exchanged glances with the comrade beside him and muttered,

"What the hell are they talking about?"

"Who knows..."

"Do you think they'll actually pull it off?"

"Who knows..."

"..."

This time, Oliver didn't join his men's discussion. Instead, he simply watched the ragtag mob with a strange expression.

He was certain every one of them was a rookie. In fact, they were probably even greener than those Ideal City softies.

Sending such inexperienced people onto the battlefield, the odds of even one in ten returning alive were slim.

So this is how the New Alliance trained its soldiers? The method is a little too... rough, isn’t it?

...