Military Fundamentals

After sending Cook away, Zul'ra took some time to clean himself up, wiping the blood from his body. Then he carefully checked his tusks. The roots of both had loosened, and thin threads of blood kept seeping out. Every time the tusks wobbled, they made his temples and cheeks ache. 🐺💲

Zul'ra tried to examine himself internally, tracing the blood vessels from his heart up toward his brain. As expected, some of the tiny vessels from his face to his temples had swollen, clearly as a result of his injuries. Fortunately, his nerves were unharmed. Those tusks really were a nuisance.

Male Trolls' tusks grew from the very back of their upper teeth, emerging between several molars and pushing through their lips. Their tips curved upward or downward to varying degrees. As they aged, the tusks grew longer and more cumbersome. Their weight burdened the skull, and they could also cause inflammation of the lips, making them an easy target.

Trolls had two tusks, four canines, and thirty to thirty-six molars. Besides their tusks, their canines could also grow beyond their lips over time, but it was those two tusks that were truly troublesome. They lay between several upper and lower molars, wearing those teeth down. Once Trolls grew old, those molars were the first to fall out.

"I need to find a way to pull these two teeth." Zul'ra jiggled his loosened tusks, feeling his temples throb. Closing his eyes, he calmed the flow of blood through his body to ease the ache in his temples, and made up his mind.

Pulling them out wasn't something he could rush into. The tusks were connected to his head, after all. First, Zul'ra calmed the blood flow in his face, easing the ache in his temples and the muscles around his face so he could feel more comfortable.

Zul'ra's attention was entirely on his tusks. The wounds on his neck, where his arteries had been cut, had already healed completely. As his vitality grew, his regenerative abilities had become far stronger than those of an ordinary Troll.

"Zul'ra Jin, we've confirmed the battle's results." As Zul'ra meditated, his adjutant Cook suddenly came into the tent and looked at the Witch Doctor sitting with his eyes closed.

"Go ahead!" Zul'ra opened his eyes and glanced at Cook, then closed them again without saying anything.

"Including the five you killed, we eliminated a total of one hundred and one Vilebranch Trolls. We lost four comrades, and another thirty-four were wounded. In the fighting against the Vilebranch, they were injured..." Cook was an utterly loyal follower who treated Zul'ra's words as gospel. He had even investigated exactly where each wounded Troll had been hurt.

"First, your battle report is wrong. I only killed three of them. One died of his wounds, and Chieftain Broken-Tooth killed another. Have the wounded been treated?" Zul'ra listened as Cook carefully went through the report. When he had finished, Zul'ra nodded, corrected him, and asked about the situation.

"Their injuries aren't severe. The lightly wounded should heal in a day or two, and even the badly wounded can still move. Besides, we didn't bring any Witch Doctors. The Smolderthorn Witch Doctors are helping Dakkalai, who's badly hurt. I heard he broke several bones." Cook nodded to show that he understood, then explained.

"Come on. I'll treat them. Also, I want to tell you that your military reports need to be as concise as possible. From now on, we must count our losses after every battle. Besides the soldiers, we also need to keep track of food and armor. The leader of a mature military organization must always know the state of his army." Zul'ra let out a breath, offering Cook advice as he led him off to treat the Trolls' wounds.

"Understood!" Cook wasn't a particularly clever Troll, but he was a very loyal follower. He carefully committed Zul'ra's words to memory and resolved to put them into practice.

As he offered Cook some basic advice on being an officer, Zul'ra reached the barracks. While using his Healing Stick to treat the wounded, he also shared his advice with everyone, and offered the soldiers some of his own opinions.

"We should have won this battle more cleanly, but we didn't. You had eight hundred men. Even if we didn't commit them all at once, we still had three or four hundred. Three or four of you fought each Vilebranch Troll, yet we still had four dead and thirty-four wounded." Some Trolls felt ashamed by Zul'ra's words, while others didn't take them to heart. People died even during hunts in the wild. How could anyone expect to fight a battle without casualties?

"We could have avoided these losses. We can always do better, and win every battle with all the glory we deserve. We have no idea when the next battle will come, so each of us must always be in the best possible condition and do everything we can to prevent unnecessary casualties." Zul'ra picked up on the indifference of some of them, but continued speaking.

"An excellent warrior must learn from both himself and his enemy. He must learn how to surpass himself and understand the enemy. Know the enemy, know yourself, and you can be invincible. In this battle, it wasn't just you who made mistakes. I made them too." As Zul'ra continued speaking, more and more Trolls grew serious.

"When we set out from Zul'Aman, there were no Witch Doctors in our group besides me. When an army has no Witch Doctor, it should bring enough medicine. I overlooked that, and after the battle, our wounded couldn't be treated in time. I owe you an apology."

Zul'ra bowed to several Trolls among the soldiers whose wounds had just healed. They looked caught off guard, but Zul'ra didn't give them much time to respond before continuing.

"This is a grave danger. If we face a major battle and you warriors aren't in good enough shape to fight, causing us to lose a crucial engagement, that would be a mistake I couldn't undo. I would regret this failure for the rest of my life. I admit my fault." The Trolls below had mixed expressions. Some were shocked; others were surprised and confused, thinking that even Zul'ra had made such a serious mistake.

"I was at fault too." Hearing Zul'ra's admission, Cook felt stirred. He didn't like seeing someone he respected in such an awkward position, but there was nothing he could do. After thinking it over, he quickly raised his hand and drew everyone's attention.

"Then tell us what you did wrong, Cook." Zul'ra looked at Cook, who had stepped forward to help him out, and gave a slight nod.

"My mistake was acting rashly during the battle. I was supposed to be a shield-bearer, but I charged to the front, which led to..." Cook hadn't wanted to embarrass his idol, but as he spoke, he realized that he really had been reckless in battle. He had been a shield-bearer, yet he hadn't done his job protecting the others.