No Beast Girls on the Western Front

Chapter 113 CXII. To eat or to sleep, that is the question.

It had been dark for who knows how long.

After capturing the last French defensive line, B Company was no longer assigned combat missions and was instead ordered to retreat to the rear along with the wagons transporting the wounded.

However, this does not mean that Company B is safe.

The French army was unwilling to accept that the road to Minston was cut off, and also wanted to rescue its allies who were caught between Minston and the German forces attacking from the flank. Therefore, they launched more than one counterattack.

During the escort of the horse-drawn carriage convoy to the rear, B Company was attacked by heavy artillery several times.

They had to frequently soothe the frightened horses, leading them to hide off the country dirt roads, and then painstakingly pull the wagons back onto the road after the shelling ended.

Although they were fortunate enough to suffer no further losses, several new recruits from B Company, who were students, remained indignant, claiming that this was a serious violation of international humanitarian law and should be condemned.

The veterans refuted this waste of precious energy on idle chatter with just a few words:

"They fired on the convoy carrying the wounded, which is indeed damning, but how can you assume that those shells were originally aimed at us?"

"Even if they came for us, how can you assume they knew it was a convoy transporting wounded soldiers?"

"Even if they know the unit is transporting wounded soldiers, what if they insist they were attacking retreating troops, but there was a possibility of accidentally injuring wounded soldiers?"

"Even if they shamelessly claim that they intend to attack wounded soldiers, I ask you, which law clearly states that it is forbidden to attack wounded soldiers?"

"Even if there really were such a law to care for soldiers, what do you plan to do? Sue them in court?"

The recruits were immediately rendered speechless by this unreasonable response—and they knew in their hearts that the Frenchman on the other side might actually come up with this argument.

Under the technological level of World War I, reconnaissance, communication, and artillery errors were already quite large. Friendly fire could account for up to 5% of total casualties, not to mention accidental bombardment of enemy targets.

Aside from objective force majeure, in this war of full-scale confrontation between two great empires, it was nothing new for non-military targets to be attacked for the purpose of retaliation.

However, both sides are currently constrained by domestic and international public opinion. Officers will restrain the behavior of their soldiers to some extent, and governments will resolutely deny their own mistakes and vehemently accuse the enemy of committing war crimes.

After telling the new recruits to shut up and focus on their journey, the veterans seemed to have exhausted all their strength and didn't say another word, just keeping their heads down and following beside the carriage.

Fortunately, the German troops that joined the battle later were very effective. Although B Company, which was escorting the wounded to safety, was frequently attacked by heavy artillery, all the attacking French troops were stopped in front of the defensive line, and they finally did not have to fight anymore.

The group continued their journey, stopping and starting, until they could no longer hear the battle cries from the front lines, nor did any more shells fall near them.

After a while, even the sound of cannons became fainter and farther away, and even the sky began to lighten with the first light of dawn.

Payne let out a long yawn, wiped away the tears that had welled up in his eyes, and muttered to himself, "Sigh... I've been playing all night, I'm so tired. I'm going to get some sleep when I get back..."

“I think you’ve gone mad from fighting,” Ruby said, looking listless, but still determined to tease Payne. “It’s already the morning of the second day. We’ve been fighting for a day and two nights, okay?”

At this point, Payne's mind seemed to have rusted and was completely unable to function; it took him at least several minutes before he spoke again:

"I don't care how many days and nights they fought, as long as I get back I have to go to sleep immediately, and I need to sleep for a whole week!"

"Damn, I'm definitely not as young as I used to be. I feel like I'm going to die from exhaustion after just over 30 hours of this..."

This remark made Carter and the other middle-aged soldiers laugh. "Is being in your early twenties considered old? Then what about us 40-year-olds? Are we already half-buried in the ground?"

Payne continued, "You age much faster on the battlefield than at other times."

Not only on the battlefield, but if you end up with a boss who is considered ruthless even in this era, you will age very quickly as well—Garden, who walks behind Payne, is the best example.

When Payne first met this man with a full beard and wrinkles, who looked like a weathered man approaching thirty, and heard him say that he was the same age as Paul, Payne found it hard to accept.

Gaden was born into a poor family and had to start working before finishing primary school. He became a fitter's apprentice in a small workshop with a 7-1-6 work schedule.

Here's an explanation: 7 refers to a 7-day work week, and 16 refers to a 16-hour workday.

Even though the work was very hard, the earnings were barely enough to feed himself, and Gaden was the kind of person with a particularly large appetite, so he couldn't save much money for his family.

So when the war broke out and the conscription order was issued to Gaden, who was working in a small workshop, he quit his job without hesitation and enlisted.

According to him, "In the military camp, I not only get to eat my fill, but I also get to rest. It's such a good thing that I got to do this. Even if I don't know when I'll die, this price is not unacceptable."

He had the biggest appetite of all the B Company members; he could often eat the equivalent of two or three people's worth of food by himself.

After he finishes eating, his stomach swells up like a pregnant bedbug, making people worry that he might explode.

The strangest thing is that even though he can eat so much, he is as thin as a bamboo pole, and it is unknown where all the food goes.

Naturally, for Gaden, who had just returned alive from a day and two nights of fighting, his first desire was not to sleep, but to eat.

"I feel so hungry I could eat a whole cow!" he exclaimed.

Grace (though very sleepy, she was still puzzled): "...?"

Then Gaden started talking about his hometown dish, sauerkraut stewed beef, and he even commented on it as he spoke:

He said the best sauerkraut stewed beef he had ever eaten was at a small restaurant in a market. Although the portion of meat was average, the restaurant gave an extra lot of sauerkraut, and the soup was exceptionally fragrant and rich. Other restaurants couldn't compare to theirs, probably because they used different fruit vinegar, and so on.

This speech, delivered entirely out of sheer enthusiasm for food without any eloquence, successfully changed Payne's mind. He patted Lacey, who also believed that eating was more important than sleeping, and said:

"I need to eat my fill before I can sleep peacefully."

Lacey (though very sleepy, but still cheerful): "Woof~"

But Payne soon realized that he had oversimplified the matter.

After transporting the wounded to a field hospital set up in a grove of trees, B Company soldiers moved less than a hundred meters away before collapsing and never getting up again.

Tomato Head quickly and sensibly brought over the kitchen cart. Although today's meal wasn't the sauerkraut stew with beef that Garden had mentioned, a freshly baked loaf of bread, smoked sausage, and hot milk were enough to soothe their stomachs.

When Payne received his portion of food, he realized that finishing it might be a bit difficult:

He would often lose consciousness without warning, and when he woke up, he would either find his mouth full of half-chewed bread or see a piece of sausage that he had bitten off with his teeth but had fallen to the ground.

Paine had to repeatedly pull himself together, convincing his chewing muscles to move quickly, while also looking up to try and find something to clear his head.

Upon closer inspection, he discovered that Lacey's condition was even more serious than his:

The dog sat leaning against a tree trunk, head tilted back and mouth open, clutching a smoked sausage tightly in its hand. Every now and then, it would try to lower its head to pick up the sausage and take a bite, but each time it would only get halfway through before its head would tilt back against the tree again, and its hand holding the smoked sausage would reluctantly droop to the ground.

At this moment, the two most basic desires of living beings—eating and sleeping—are fully embodied in Lacey.

Seeing this, Payne found it incredibly funny for some reason, so he immediately leaned back and laughed twice. However, he leaned back so much that he fell straight to the ground and fell asleep immediately!

Chapter 114 CXIII. After Awakening

Sunlight shines through the eyelids, creating a halo on the photoreceptor cells. The distant sounds of artillery fire and birdsong reach the ears simultaneously, while the air is filled with the fresh scent of grass and the aroma of sizzling meat.

Payne shifted slightly. He felt a furry body pressed tightly against him, and even the slightest rise and fall of its breath was transmitted to him through the military uniform.

"Lessie?"

"I'm here."

It really is a dog.

Payne casually rubbed the dog's head, yawned, and stretched. "What time is it?"

Lacey pulled his wrist, the one with the watch, to look at it. "It's not even nine o'clock yet."

"Haha, good dog, you're much smarter than Grace!"

"Wang~"

"I'm listening to everything."

Grace was the last to speak, and Payne quickly distinguished the crunching sound of chewing grass from the chatter of the people around him; it sounded particularly satisfying.

Feeling very comfortable in the warm sun, Payne lingered in bed a little longer until he got hungry from listening to Grace munching on grass. Only then did he finally sit up and grope around beside her.

"Looks like I'm still in good shape. I only slept for a few hours and I'm already recovered... Wait a minute, where are my bread and sausages?..."

"I think you're still half asleep," came the squirrel's voice from behind. "It's already the morning of the third day. You've slept for a whole day and night, haven't you?"

After Ruby reminded him, fragments of memories from the previous 24 hours returned to Payne's mind.

After he had fallen asleep with a smile, he didn't know how much time had passed when hunger forcibly pulled him back from his slumber. So, in a daze, he ate some cold bread, sausage, and milk, and then went back to sleep.

After another long period of sleep, he seemed to smell the aroma of meat porridge. So, with his eyes closed and relying solely on his sense of smell and touch, he brought his face close to the lunchbox, ate the porridge with a spoon, and then went back to sleep.

And then I slept through that last sleep until now.

In other words, they've only had two proper meals in all this time, no wonder their stomachs are so hungry they're practically digesting themselves.

Rubbing his eyes, Payne finally opened them completely and looked around.

Company B was resting in small groups on the grass, while Tomato Head was busy nearby. Some impatient people were already gathered around the kitchen cart with their lunchboxes in hand.

Unsurprisingly, Gaden was one of them.

Payne smelled the aroma wafting through the air. "Today's breakfast is pancakes, fried eggs, and orange juice."

"Does Master have such a good sense of smell too?" Lacey wagged her tail.

"Tch, what's so great about drinking orange juice?" The picky squirrel scoffed. "This sweet water made with industrial flavorings tastes awful. I'd rather pick some fruit myself."

Payne had no intention of arguing with her; he simply took a serious look at his beast girls.

Lacey lay close to his left side, panting with her tongue slightly sticking out;

Ruby lay there like a deflated balloon, her little hands constantly digging for grass seeds on the ground.

Grace lay flat on her back not far to his right, with her hands behind her head and a blade of grass dangling from her mouth.

Xiao En sat on the ground with a blank expression, sometimes looking up at the sky, sometimes looking down to pick up two blades of grass and stuff them into her mouth;

Stephen was munching on a lush bush not far away, his white ponytail swaying merrily behind him.

This guy is pretty amazing; he's managed to stay so clean after all that roughing and tumbling.

Or perhaps there's a small river nearby, and she secretly went to take a bath there?

Seemingly noticing Pine's gaze, Stephen turned around, waved, and ran over cheerfully.

"Hey! Boss, you're awake!"

His voice was full of energy, not at all like someone who had just fought a fierce battle.

This guy's stamina and recovery ability are really strong.

Payne had only looked up and smiled at her when she appeared before him as if by teleportation, handing him a bright red object.

"Want to try a bite? It's delicious!"

For a moment, Payne almost thought he had traveled back to Earth—because he saw an apple with a round corner missing.