Struggle in the Steam Age

After hearing the explosion, those wilderness races who were active in the surrounding area immediately gathered to check what happened here.

However, the jackal team who arrived in advance found nothing but a pile of their own corpses and some traces of the explosion. Only the harpy who came from behind saw something flying away in the air not far away.

A few of the harpies who arrived here first tried to chase Nora, but Nora easily knocked the harpies out of the air with some silver-green balls of light before they could get themselves into range. .

After all, the carrying capacity of these harpies meant that they could not have sufficient defense while carrying weapons, and magic props were not available to everyone. That's why they are so vulnerable to Nora's magic attack.

And after these harpies who were chasing too close were shot down, the remaining harpies suddenly slowed down.

As a result, Nora entered Pine Valley with three survivors of the reconnaissance team under the escort of a dozen harpies from a long distance, and then landed smoothly in the open space inside the Pine Valley Field Hospital.

"Quick, quick!" Because Nora had notified Lawrence that there were serious injuries through soul contact, Lawrence specially dispatched an emergency medical team to wait here.

After the hanging basket fell to the ground, the medical team rushed up to put the wounded on a stretcher, and then carried them into each tent for treatment.

"What happened over there?" In the tent where the minor injuries were being treated, Major Louis and Lawrence led a group of officers and began to ask about the situation of this low-ranking soldier.

"Why did those wilderness races desperately intercept and kill you this time, even though you were able to go out to those areas a few days ago."

"We don't really know what's going on," the noncommissioned officer, who was being bandaged by a medic, told the officers.

"Everything went well at the beginning of the operation. As usual, we successfully broke through the opponent's outermost mobile sentry defensive position. But when we continued to move forward, we unexpectedly discovered that the enemy's patrol team in front of us was getting denser and denser."

"After realizing that the situation was different from usual, we immediately prepared to retreat according to the original plan, but what we didn't expect was that when we retreated halfway, we were suddenly chased by a group of gnolls led by the dark elf."

"The beasts' noses are very sharp. Even if we prepared something to avoid the enemy's detection, we couldn't hide our whereabouts. If we hadn't found that cave later, we might not have been able to support the arrival of support."

"The situation of the other two reconnaissance teams should be similar to theirs, but their luck is not as good as them." After the Master Chief, who is a low-level transcendent, described what they encountered, Nora also reported There is something about what I just discovered during the investigation.

"Near the place where the other two reconnaissance teams disappeared, I found some battle marks left on the tree trunk and the ground, and—and not too much blood."

Having said that, Nora sighed helplessly. The other officers present also bowed their heads. Because they knew that once they were defeated in the face of these wilderness races, especially the wolf man. The opponent will not only take away all the equipment on the body, but even eat the corpse.

So now, the traces of the battles that Nora found and the warheads on the trees or under the ground are basically equal to the last traces of those brave scouts left in this world. That's why after Nora finished speaking, everyone present fell silent.

"It is now certain that those wilderness races are likely to launch a full-scale attack on us after sunset today when the sun disappears."

As a front-line officer who has been working in the headquarters, Major Louis quickly judged the next action target of the wilderness race based on his own experience.

Lawrence and Nora also nodded after hearing this judgment, because Nora also discovered several traces of large-scale mobilization of wilderness races through the method of oblique investigation just now.

The most important thing is that the little puppet was able to rescue those survivors so smoothly just now, probably because the Wilderness race's operation has reached the final stage, so there is no need to continue to block the battlefield as before.

"Urgent telegram, from the headquarters." At this time, a young officer suddenly ran outside the tent and said, then opened the curtain of the tent and walked in and handed the two telegrams to the Lawrence and Major Louis.

After receiving the telegram, Lawrence discovered that the telegram from the headquarters was to inform each defense point that the wilderness race had begun to attack some traffic lines, so all locations were required to enter a state of first-level combat readiness.

"It seems that it has already begun." After reading the telegram, Major Louis and Lawrence immediately exchanged a military salute. Then they each started their own preparations.

Soon, several hand alarms in Pine Valley sounded. Then the troops stationed there quickly started to move.

Just as Lawrence commanded the entire field hospital to fully move, he suddenly heard a bang bang bang bang bang bang bang from outside the tent.

Then, through Nora's line of sight, he saw two steam puppets coming in from outside emitting white smoke. Each puppets were equipped with steam machine guns and heavy mortars.

"What's going on here?" After dealing with the matters at hand, Lawrence went out and asked Lieutenant Colonel Chen, the supreme commander of combat engineers who was also stationed near the field hospital as the general reserve during the war. "Why are we assigned two steam puppets here?"

"Because the field hospital is in the center of Pine Tree Valley, if these steam puppets who are good at short-range high-speed bombardment and our reserve team are placed here, then we will be able to attack as quickly as possible after the surrounding defense forces have problems. Reinforce those places quickly." Lieutenant Colonel Chen explained.

"That's right." After being told by Lieutenant Colonel Chen, Lawrence immediately understood the layout here.

If we say that in the war within a civilized race, it may also be necessary to consider the rules of engagement such as the fact that areas such as hospitals cannot be armed. Then in the war with the wilderness race, both sides are going all out, leaving no one behind.

Since the wilderness will not abide by the principles of war such as not attacking medical facilities in wars between civilized races, the civilized races will naturally choose to arm all key areas, including medical institutions, in order to ensure These core areas will not be damaged in a war.

Also because of this tendency towards all-out war, Lawrence, in addition to arranging various treatment preparations, also asked the officers of the subordinate guards to arm all the wounded who could move as a reserve team.

Fortunately, because Lawrence asked Nora to deliver a large amount of extra weapons and ammunition, there are now enough weapons to provide these temporarily armed wounded and sick.

"Because a group of cured people just returned to the team in the morning, we don't have many wounded here now." A Tauren lieutenant reported to Lawrence after completing the formation inside the hospital: "There are wounded who can be armed. 172 people, and the rest are more than 100 seriously injured who are temporarily unable to move."

"That's enough." Lawrence nodded in satisfaction after listening to the lieutenant's report.

In his opinion, the field hospital he was in was located in the middle of the Pine Valley camp, so it should be regarded as the safest place in Pine Valley. Theoretically speaking, no matter how fierce the battle is, it will not be affected.

As for Lawrence preparing weapons for the wounded, it was only out of a precautionary idea, so he didn't think there was anything wrong with the fact that the number of people who could be armed was relatively small.