Alien world

Chapter 1864, Section 497: The Ranger Legion

As the elite rats in front passed through this woodland, one of the elite rats in the middle of the group suddenly darted around with its scarlet eyes, as if it had sensed something. Its nose twitched, and it was drawn to the scent by raising its head.

Just then, a wild fruit fell from the sky, rolling a few times at its feet. The elite rat's attention was immediately drawn to it, and it picked up the fruit and stuffed it into its mouth.

The sweet and sour taste of the fruit made the elite mouse drool. It looked up, wanting to find more fruit, but only saw a black gun barrel pointing at it.

boom!
Before anyone could react, a gunshot rang out in the woods, startling a large flock of birds that had been silent until now.

The elite rat whose head exploded in a burst of blood fell to the ground. Before the rat swarm could react, four more gunshots rang out, and the heads and necks of four ratmen exploded in a burst of blood!
All of them were fatal wounds; within a 30-meter range, Parker had virtually no chance of missing.

The remaining elite rats finally reacted and charged toward the tree where the attackers were hiding, howling as they charged.

Pike remained unmoved, put away the empty musket, took out another magical musket from his back, and pulled the trigger again.

Bang—bang—crack—

Parker was unlucky; he failed to produce the third shot and encountered a 10% jamming rate on his eighth attempt.

The elite rat had reached the foot of the tree, grabbed the longsword, and used its sharp claws to climb up the trunk, approaching Pyke.

Pike remained completely calm, leaping among the treetops like an elf, constantly slinging the jammed magic musket behind his back, replacing it with the empty one, reloading, and pulling the trigger again.

This elite squad of mice was completely outmaneuvered by Pike, unable to even get close.

Three minutes later, the chaotic woodland returned to tranquility, with only a dozen or so elite rat corpses scattered in the soil.

Parker calmly examined the cause of the jam and found that it was just gunpowder clogging the barrel. He then sat on the tree, took out his repair tools, and cleared the barrel.

He could actually take down this elite rat squad from a distance. He only went close to avoid the effort of chasing down the fleeing ratmen—after all, chasing people in the forest is quite a hassle.

Out of the corner of his eye, Parker noticed something drifting over from the sky. He looked up and saw a reconnaissance airship floating high in the air signaling that there was a swarm of rats at his 10 o'clock position, numbering nearly 10,000, including a large number of brute rats and elite rats.

Slave rat hordes are not dangerous; they are purely a matter of numbers. However, the difficulty increases exponentially when there are brute rats and elite rats, and their numbers are also much greater, five times that of rangers.

Parker thought for a moment, then nailed a conspicuous red strip of cloth to the rat carcass and rushed over to provide support.

Before long, the scouts arrived following the sound of gunfire and saw the red banner, knowing it was the result of "Sharpshooter Parker's" work.

As they helped harvest the rat ears, they murmured, "Sharpshooter Parker must be a sergeant by now, right? He'll probably be a sergeant first class soon..."

They envied Pike's rapid promotion. The military rank system had only been in place for a little over a month, and Pike had already been promoted two ranks, making him the fastest promoted in the entire legion. Even in the Hellfire Legion, only two or three people were promoted faster than him.

Although a promotion in military rank only increases salary, who cares about that? What they care about is honor!

The rat head and blood graffiti on the leather armor are indeed imposing, but you can't wear armor in your daily life, right? Military ranks are different. You can wear them on your shoulders as you please, let everyone see them, let people talk about them, and let noisy children chase after you.

But you can't envy it; it's a talent.

If the Rangers are the elite of guerrilla warfare, then Pike is the elite of the elite.

However, we can be envious of other aspects, such as Pike's Gun Soul.

The political commissar also tried to explain that there was no such thing as a "gun spirit." The so-called principle that "a gun spirit makes the gun less prone to failure and more accurate" is simply that soldiers maintain and clean the guns all day long, keeping them in excellent condition. Of course, this results in fewer malfunctions and more accurate shooting.

However, after discovering that some soldiers' enthusiasm began to wane after he told them this, the political commissar changed his tune and admitted that the spirit of the gun did indeed exist, allowing them to continue to be obsessed with it.

Some things are "white lies"—doing nothing will generate a continuous stream of positive feedback, but doing something can easily backfire. Therefore, once a machine is running stably... don't unnecessarily modify it.

Because you don't know what changes will cause problems.

……

rustling, rustling.

The Ranger squad raised their guns and pointed them at the swaying bushes.

"Who's there!?"

wow-

Pike stepped out and, seeing who it was, the team members lowered their guns: "It's sharpshooter Pike..."

"Just call me Parker."

"Okay, sharpshooter Pike."

The team members looked at their comrade who had made such a splash with curiosity. "Why are you carrying two guns?" one of the team members couldn't help but ask.

Parker said, "A musket can fire five shots at a time, killing five rats. If you carry two, that's ten. The more you carry, the more rats you can kill at once."

However, Pike tried three, which greatly affected his movement. Two were just right, only slightly heavier than a bow and arrows with a full quiver. With an ammo pouch, he could take on an elite rat squad by himself in complex terrain.

"Captain, can we do that too?" a team member asked excitedly.

The captain said irritably, "Do you think you have the ability to shoot while walking like sharpshooter Parker? If Gun Soul knew you were half-hearted, he'd jam the first shot, and then what would you do!"

"No!!"

The captain told the team to quickly go and comfort Gun Soul, and then asked Parker, "What do you need, ammunition or food supplies?"

"No need for that. I want to go to the battlefield with you. Once we get there, I'll leave the team. Is that okay?"

"of course can!"

The Ranger legions, scattered throughout the woodland, had received warnings from the reconnaissance airships high above and were gradually converging on the rat swarm.

From the reconnaissance airship's overhead view, the Ranger soldiers, clad in dark green leather armor and almost blending into the forest, spread out like a large net, enveloping the huddled swarm of rats.

Two thousand versus nearly ten thousand, but the advantage lies with me.

This is the most valuable skill the Rangers learned from the Elven instructors—the Elves have both the Blood Elf Guard, which struck fear into the hearts of all races in the Old Age, and small-scale combat tactics that His Majesty Annan calls "breaking up into smaller units" so that the enemy cannot even see the killer.

Even if the rangers only learn the basics, it will be enough to deal with the ratmen.

From above, the Rangers' front line kept retreating, giving their comrades flanking them time. Then, with the first gunshot, the rat swarm began to stir and surge towards the direction of the gunfire. The second and third shots came from different directions.

Unable to find the direction of the enemy, they followed their instincts, and the originally cohesive swarm of rats was torn apart like cotton in this tug-of-war, scattered all over the woodland.

(End of this chapter)