Aside from not letting everyone make one last reckless charge, the battle had gone perfectly, almost as if it had been a dream. For a while, the ragtag guardsmen from Outpost 12 all felt as though they were dreaming. After all, in the past three days, they had fought four battles against unknown insectoid monsters, suffered heavy losses, been exhausted to the point of collapse, watched even their commander die, and been forced to abandon their base. While they were sunk in self-doubt, they had merely followed the "Lunarian's" orders mechanically.
And then, they had suffered zero casualties... If their opponents had still been those Sandfolk savages armed with primitive weapons, that would not have been surprising. But the key point was that the other side had upgraded their weapons—and even had tanks!
The soldiers were thrilled and held Yu Lian in even greater awe, but he himself did not seem happy in the slightest. With an expressionless face, he ordered everyone to clean up the battlefield.
So cool! Now that was a real man! Miss Belinda gazed dreamily at Yu Lian, who was sitting there with an expressionless face, lost in thought and silence. It was only after Dr. Banks gave her a shove and told her to get to work that she ran off with her face flushed crimson. If she had not been so plain-looking and so average in figure, this might even have been the start of a side story.
Yu Lian genuinely did not think there was anything worth celebrating. Even if savages got their hands on tanks, they still could not become a modern army. Otherwise, the princelings from his hometown, with their pirate planes and rabbit armored vehicles, would not have been beaten senseless by guerrillas. Besides, the Sandfolk had never been a particularly bright species. They had strong bodies and keen senses, but their intelligence was correspondingly mediocre. That was the balance of life, after all. More importantly, without the accumulation of history and civilization, they were destined never to become very clever.
Compared with killing dozens of Sandfolk and their mounts, it was the spoils that interested Yu Lian more. After all, this battle had once again depleted their already meager ammunition reserves. Those crudely made biological batteries were unusable too; a few more minutes of use would certainly have burned the vehicles out.
Now, though, if necessary, they could just remove the batteries from these stitched-together monstrosity tanks and install them. Vehicle power packs were not necessarily compatible, of course, but he had already used crudely made biological batteries. Why should he worry about this? Back in the day—no, in the future—he had even taken part in a massive construction project that converted a luxury liner into a battlecruiser.
The sergeant major soon returned, her face filled with delight. It was also the first time Yu Lian had ever seen her smile. He had to admit that although this girl went for the beautiful-boy look—or, to put it more harshly, was a tomboy—she was still very pretty and feminine when she smiled.
"We captured twenty Type 67 White Raven rifles and fifteen crystal battle-axes and swords. We—"
"Throw them all away," Yu Lian said.
The White Raven rifle had been designed by the Empire's Skyfire Design Bureau more than seventy years ago. It could be considered the most widely issued famous rifle in the entire universe. Its advantages were a simple, sturdy, durable design, extremely low cost, and ease of manufacture. Its disadvantages were insufficient kinetic energy, mediocre stopping power, and barely acceptable accuracy. The Empire no longer issued it even to local defense forces. Yet this famous rifle was still widely used by second- and third-rate nations, as well as all kinds of black-market organizations, and its origins were impossible to trace.
In short, it was a pile of generic, mass-produced junk rifles for cannon fodder—an even more cannon-fodder-grade weapon than the C10 rifles everyone was using now.
"Collect their ammunition," Yu Lian added. If there was anything valuable about them, it was that the White Raven also used 9mm steel-spike rounds, which were barely compatible with the C10.
Ina nodded, then said, "The tanks are badly damaged, but Uncle Carl said the power packs can be removed and used in our Panther. Also, the last tank can still move after some repairs."
See? He did not even need to do anything himself. There was a skilled tech specialist among his companions after all. And they had captured a tank too. It was a stitched-together product of countless manufacturers, but that ion cannon was certainly genuine.
"Oh, don't throw away my knockoff battery after removing it! It'll be useful later."
"Mm, we won't. I want to study its internal structure too. I feel like adding a little more material could turn it into a bomb."
So you were already interested in all sorts of crudely made, highly questionable devices?
"There are also twelve prisoners."
"Oh?" Yu Lian felt a headache coming on. Why hadn't they resisted to the death? Wasn't the saying that Sandfolk would never be slaves?
"I've already had them all executed. I'm sorry, sir. I acted without your orders."
"..." Although he had known that this girl would be such a decisive killer in the "future," Yu Lian still found himself clicking his tongue in surprise.
"Sir, I'm just a nobody in the guard force. My future ends here, and executing prisoners is nothing unusual in this extraterritorial colony. But you're different. You're a Lunarian with a bright future ahead of you. You can't get a stain on your record during a minor internship."
Yu Lian thought that, logically speaking, she was right. But the way she was treating him like an inexperienced little rookie who had never been beaten down by society, with the air of someone who had already been through it all, was subtly infuriating. If he told her about his experiences in his previous life, it would probably scare her to death.
"...Once the battlefield is cleaned up, get ready to leave. We'll cross the canyon. If we find a somewhat open area, we'll stop and rest."
"Don't worry. No one will be pursuing us again for a while," Yu Lian added. He genuinely had no idea what else to say.
The canyon was so narrow that, no matter how she looked at it, there did not seem to be any open ground ahead. Nor was there any guarantee that the Sandfolk would not send a second group of pursuers. Yet for some reason, Ina felt that Yu Lian was utterly certain of himself, and she instinctively believed him.
What she did not know was that, just after everyone drove away in the captured tanks and the Panther with its newly replaced battery, nearly transparent liquid slowly seeped from the solid rock walls at the site littered with corpses and abandoned vehicles. Like army ants acting on a single command, the liquid quickly enveloped the velociraptors, the Sandfolk corpses, and all the abandoned vehicles. Silently, it broke them down, dissolved them into the finest particles, and completely absorbed them.
Before long, the ground had once again returned to its former stillness. The liquid slowly faded back into the rock, leaving not the slightest trace behind.
Ina also did not know that the mountain pass through which everyone had entered—the place corresponding to the mouth of the mountain Yu Lian had called "that mountain that's as fat as a lucky cat"—could no longer be seen clearly after a gentle breeze swept past.
It remained an utterly seamless part of the mountain wall, unchanged since time immemorial.
However, Yu Lian, who was currently leading everyone to chew on dry rations in the open ground at the center of the canyon, knew that all of this had already happened.
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