War Among Scouts

"Everyone, report your findings."

Guan Shan returned to camp with a dark expression and looked at Deng Li and the other instructors as they came back one after another.

Seeing Guan Shan's grim face, Deng Li and the others felt a foreboding rise in their hearts.

"I only found the corpses of many Demonic Beasts, most of them around the fifth or sixth rank of one star. Nothing else seemed unusual."

"It was the same on my end. Nothing unusual. Any Martial Artist could have made these traces, so we can't be sure they were left by enemy spies."

The instructors' reports were all much the same.

Yet as he listened to them, Guan Shan's brows remained knitted tightly together.

Anyone present could kill a group of one-star Demonic Beasts. There was nothing remarkable about that.

But no one had so little to do that they would go out of their way to slaughter those weak Demonic Beasts, then leave their corpses behind.

If enemy spies had really done it, leaving such a mess would be like begging them to notice.

No spy from any country would be that stupid.

But since it had happened in every direction, he couldn't help but take it seriously.

At last, only Deng Li hadn't spoken. Guan Shan turned to him and asked,

"Old Deng, how about your end?"

"It was about the same for me."

As he spoke, Deng Li suddenly changed tack and took several things from his storage bag that looked like bone fragments.

"But I found these in the woods."

Guan Shan and the others quickly looked over. One of them even stepped forward, picked up a fragment, and examined it.

"Is this... a Sword-toothed Boar's tusk?"

Deng Li nodded, confirming the man's guess.

"I pieced these broken tusks together as best I could. Even with the missing section, they must have been at least two chi long!"

"Hiss!"

Hearing Deng Li, the instructors all drew in a sharp breath.

The system of measurement in this world differed somewhat from the one Gu Han had known before crossing over, but not by much.

Two chi and more meant tusks over half a meter long.

A Sword-toothed Boar with tusks that long had to be at least a two-star Demonic Beast!

"Old Deng, where did you find them?"

If they'd been found at the border, it wouldn't have been unusual for the occasional two-star Sword-toothed Boar to cross over.

Deng Li thought for a moment, then said,

"That place should be about ten kilometers from the border."

Guan Shan's brows furrowed. That wasn't particularly close, but it wasn't so far that the appearance of a Sword-toothed Boar would be strange.

"The key point is that someone managed to smash the tusks of a two-star Sword-toothed Boar to pieces."

Deng Li continued,

"We can all do that, but it's clear that none of us did."

Guan Shan immediately understood what Deng Li meant and asked,

"Are you saying that besides us and the Sword-toothed Country spies who may be here, there could be a third group?"

Deng Li nodded.

"Exactly."

Guan Shan's face clouded with worry.

If there really was a third group lurking in the shadows, this would be hard to resolve.

At the very least, they had to figure out which side that third group was on.

"Whatever the case, we have to find the third group and the spies who've infiltrated here as soon as possible!"

Deng Li and the others nodded, then quickly dispersed.

Gu Han had no idea that killing those two Sword-toothed Boars had put both the Running Wolf Nation's border troops and the Sword-toothed Country's border troops on edge.

The two sides' secret clashes had sent waves surging beneath the border's once-calm surface.

That day, the War Soldiers' training was temporarily suspended due to special circumstances.

The War Soldiers grumbled a little, but under the instructors' strict orders, they had no choice but to return to camp and resume their regular training.

Day after day went by.

The border troops of the Running Wolf Nation and the Sword-toothed Country clashed fiercely in secret, leaving many corpses at the mountain range where their territories met.

Most of those bodies had to be left in the forest, where they became food for the Demonic Beasts.

Gu Han, meanwhile, hunted Demonic Beasts with his heart in his throat while also hunting down Sword-toothed Country border troops.

After all, he was a citizen of the Running Wolf Nation. Naturally, he wouldn't spare Sword-toothed Country spies he ran into.

When he came across those he couldn't afford to provoke, Gu Han hid in the grass and patiently waited for them to leave.

Over the past half month, Gu Han estimated how many Sword-toothed Country spies had died at his hands.

Even if it wasn't fifty, it was at least thirty.

And Gu Han's strength had finally reached the Martial Artist level!

Little Wolf's bloodline was also just a handful of Demonic Beast cores away from advancing.

Two-star Demonic Beasts were already hard to find in the area, and not every two-star Demonic Beast dropped a Demonic Beast core.

That had greatly slowed Little Wolf's bloodline advancement.

"We have to pick up the pace and help Little Wolf advance its bloodline today."

The Tenth Battalion Grand Competition was only a day away. Gu Han wasn't a War Soldier, but he still wanted to hurry back and cheer on his elder brothers.

The generals guarding the borders of the two countries had also been overwhelmed by the secret clashes along the frontier these past few days.

The General's Mansion in Mushan City.

A burly man with a square face and muscles like cast iron swung a Cold Beauty Saw in the courtyard.

"Third Brother, how have the scouts been faring lately?"

Guan Shan sat casually on a stone stool nearby, drinking tea as he answered,

"Thirty-three of our scouts have died. We scouted out seven hidden posts belonging to the Sword-toothed Country and found the corpses of fifty-seven of their scouts in our territory."

"Hmm?"

General Guan Zhen stopped swinging the Cold Beauty Saw and looked at Guan Shan in delight.

"We killed that many enemy scouts? Not bad. Double the rewards for every scout, and give them ten Blood Tempering Pills as an additional reward."

Scouts risked their lives every time they went out on a mission!

When danger struck, it was either their lives or the enemy's.

Without generous rewards, faith alone wouldn't be enough to recruit capable scouts.

And they'd already found fifty-seven enemy scouts. Once the ones they hadn't found were counted, there were probably even more.

The scouts deserved praise for this battle!

Guan Shan nodded. He understood that perfectly well.

"Don't worry about it, Big Brother. I'll make the arrangements."

"But no one has come to claim the bodies of many of the enemy scouts we killed."

The Running Wolf Nation was strict in rewarding and punishing its people. It wouldn't casually credit someone else with a deed.

Every claim had to be investigated and verified before it could be accepted.

That was why cases of people claiming someone else's military achievements were rare.

Guan Zhen answered solemnly, his expression stern.

"Some scouts have already died in battle. These achievements may belong to them, and no one will ever come to claim them."

"They were all heroes of the Running Wolf Nation!"

"If no one comes to claim them after three days, then those achievements belong to the heroes who died in battle!"

Guan Zhen wasn't trying to swallow up the achievements and pocket the rewards that should have been given out.

He truly meant to return the credit to those heroes.

Once the claim period passed without anyone coming forward, the achievements would be sealed away. Only then would they truly become unclaimed.

By crediting the dead scouts with those achievements, he could let their families claim the rewards even though the scouts themselves were gone.

Their families could also receive protection from the local county office and avoid being bullied.

That was what Guan Zhen wanted: to make sure every soldier could fight without worrying about what they'd left behind!

After all, he could never have imagined that those achievements really did have an owner.

And that owner was a Logistics Soldier!