Spoils

"That question isn't all that important."

On the way back, Gu Hang answered Yan Fangxu's question.

The captain had found him and asked what had been bothering him. Gu Hang gave him an answer:

"What if it is fake? The Navy needs merit, and I need a target. A cult that doesn't believe in the God-Emperor is one of the main reasons Nuxiao Planet has been unable to recover for so long. This merit will satisfy Brigadier General Yelicia, bring me a decent reward, and help me unite the people of this world. So the cult should be real, and that man Vaughan should be a genuine cultist."

After a pause, Gu Hang saw that Yan Fangxu still looked a little uncertain. He smiled and patted the captain on the shoulder. "Besides, it is real. The Primal Owlbear Cult is a cult, and that man called Vaughan really does have ties to the Primal Owlbear."

"How did you figure out that he was a heretic and not an ordinary Psyker?"

Gu Hang pointed to his head and explained, "A Psyker's power comes from within, from our minds. We have enough talent and spiritual sensitivity to draw Psionic Power from the Immaterium—a place that is everywhere, yet impossible to perceive—and shape it into psychic spells. Heretics, on the other hand, draw their power from the filthy gods they worship, not from themselves. The two kinds of power are entirely different. I can tell them apart clearly."

At this point, Gu Hang silently added that the miracles performed by Ecclesiarchy priests worked more or less the same way, but he didn't say it aloud.

Yan Fangxu rubbed his head. "I really didn't know any of that. But if he really is a cultist and a heretic, then there's no problem."

"Don't worry," Gu Hang said. "We're on the right track."

Gu Hang had taken the time to reassure the captain.

Yan Fangxu was one of the few capable people under his command.

He had come to Nuxiao Planet alone, without taking control of the Alliance government. He had no staff to speak of, and the only person he could rely on was Captain Yan.

The people of the Waste Mine Society seemed to have settled down for now, but they were a bunch of illiterates, no good for handling important matters. His young attendant Zhang Chao was trustworthy enough, but he didn't know much either. Maybe he could become a talent after years of training, but he was nowhere near that now.

That left Yan Fangxu.

At least he was a Navy captain, a bona fide Imperial Navy officer.

Gu Hang didn't care that Yan Fangxu was still part of the Navy and not one of his own men. The captain was following his orders only because Yelicia had told him to.

It made little difference. As long as Yan Fangxu was serving him for now, was capable, and could be trusted, that was enough.

Gu Hang turned away from Yan Fangxu and looked over the entire column.

Nearly three hundred people were on the road, heading back to the Governor's Camp with their ox carts.

They had made a fine haul this time.

He had left twenty soldiers from the Waste Mine Company at Mantan Valley Manor to protect the estate and make sure the tenant farmers did their work. The farmers had chosen a man named Slamu to manage them.

The rest of the soldiers—about two hundred in all—and roughly a hundred tenant farmers had set out on the return journey. The farmers were responsible for hauling the reloaded supplies to the Governor's Camp.

The "carts" were ox carts, pulled by livestock called Brute Oxen.

Brute Oxen probably weren't native to Nuxiao Planet. They had been brought in from another world long ago. The species had survived the apocalyptic war and even developed further variants, while retaining its ability to be domesticated.

In the wasteland of the present day, Brute Oxen were vital beasts of burden.

The supplies brought from Revival City had originally been transported by ox cart, and now they all belonged to Gu Hang.

An inventory confirmed that the supplies matched what Gu Hang had requested from Revival City.

They had, in a sense, returned to their rightful owner.

In addition, Gu Hang had captured nearly two hundred sets of infantry weapons and equipment, mostly rifles.

The rifles came in a bewildering variety of models, and their overall quality was nowhere near that of the Assaulter. At least the latter was a standard-issue rifle used by the Imperial Army and the Marines. It might have been meant for cannon fodder, but it still met basic manufacturing and technical standards.

The firearms used by these mercenaries, made locally on Nuxiao Planet, were another matter. Their quality varied wildly, and even the best of them couldn't match the Assaulter.

Still, they were far more reliable than the Pipe Rifles carried by the Prisoner-Dead bandits—the ones Gu Hang hadn't even bothered to take, since he'd considered them scrap metal. At least these counted as military-grade weapons.

Gu Hang planned to put the captured equipment to use as well.

With this batch, he had about a hundred sets of Assaulters and two hundred sets of locally made equipment. That was enough to arm another three hundred soldiers.

Weapons and equipment wouldn't be a problem. He had no shortage of recruits, either.

The Waste Mine Society could provide more people, and he could also draw some from the three thousand slaves he had brought down from the starship.

The slaves hadn't been suitable recruits in the first place. Their physical condition was even worse than the Servitors'. But they couldn't be worse off than the starving people of the Waste Mine Society. Under Gu Hang's system, the people of the Waste Mine Society could be transformed into adequately trained soldiers. The former slaves should be even easier to train.

Their poor recruit quality would limit how far they could advance, at most. With the system's help, getting them to T5 and bringing them up to the level of regular troops would be no problem.

Beyond the supplies that were rightfully his and the captured weapons and ammunition, the biggest reward was the Grace he had received for winning the battle.

[Overwhelming victory! Gained 33 Grace]

[Losses: 20. Eliminated: 116. Captured: 42]

[1st Servitor Light Infantry Battalion (partial): Losses: 16. Eliminated: 43]

[Waste Mine Company: Losses: 4. Eliminated: 21]

[Marine Corps (partial): Losses: 0. Eliminated: 52]

Counting the dead and the prisoners, they had taken 158 people out of the fight, while losing twenty of their own.

A T5 army, supported by thirty T4 Marines, had far greater combat power than those third-rate mercenaries. Even with the defenders' advantage, and even though Gu Hang had ordered his troops to launch a direct assault, the final exchange ratio was still astonishing—nearly one to eight.

Of course, without the Striders piloted by the Marines and without Gu Hang, a Psyker, taking part in the battle, the ratio would have looked worse.

Most of their casualties had been caused by machine guns and rocket launchers. Some had suffered massive blood loss after machine-gun fire severed an artery in the leg; others had been killed outright by rocket blasts at close range. Of the twenty casualties, a few had died on the spot, while many others had been too badly wounded to return to the battlefield.

Those losses were still within what Gu Hang could accept. He couldn't expect to fight a war without losing anyone.

Still, he needed to start thinking about replenishing his forces.

The Waste Mine Company's losses weren't a major problem. The Waste Mine Society could provide replacements. Surely they could spare four more people.

The Servitor soldiers, though, were a different matter. There was nowhere to get replacements for them.

In the future, Gu Hang couldn't rely on Servitors as the mainstay of his army forever. Eventually, he would have to recruit soldiers locally.

That could wait.

For now, he needed to decide what to do with the thirty-three Grace he had just gained.

The chapter order was wrong yesterday. I posted Chapter 23 before Chapter 22, and those two chapters were actually supposed to go up today. I set the wrong dates when scheduling them...

Let's just count it as an extra chapter yesterday!

For those of you who only read Chapter 23 yesterday and missed Chapter 22, you can go back and read it.