Munitions Empire

To Dos, the man’s attire was somewhat unfamiliar because he had never seen anyone dressed in such equipment before.

The man who had pushed aside the underbrush wore a gray-green soft hat adorned with a wreath-like arrangement of grass and twigs on top. The grass on his head nearly blended him into the surroundings, making him very difficult to distinguish.

Under the man’s ribs were leather ammunition pouches strung through with a belt on both sides. Hanging from his left side was a slim bayonet scabbard, and on the right was a holster for a revolver.

The man’s coat was a bit long, with the hem covering his knees. Below that, he wore a pair of tall leather boots. This outfit made Dos think the man looked quite dashing.

The man stepped up to the fire and used the bayonet in his hand to impale one of the bandits who was still whimpering, silencing the screams in a second. The abrupt cessation of noise frightened Dos into quickly retreating back behind the tree where he was hiding.

That was because he saw the man, while pulling the bayonet out of the body, lift his head to look toward Dos’s hiding place.

He was familiar with that gaze, very, very familiar.

It was the same kind of look he gave to the women curled up in the carriages and to the merchants hiding among the corpses.

He had never felt pity for these prey; he would use the children in the women’s arms to threaten the women into submitting to him and his accomplices. After venting his animalistic lust, he would kill both the women and children without exception.

He would laugh unrestrainedly at the merchants who knelt and begged for mercy, promising to let them go before, after taking the money hidden on their person, piercing their throats with a longsword and watching them writhe in agony on the ground until they lay motionless.

In the past, he relied on killing and cruelty to cover up his inner weakness and fear, using bloody methods to maintain his position among the mountain bandits.

Yet, at this moment, he saw something different in the man who was cleaning up the battlefield. The man was indifferent, calm, as if he were simply clearing away a pile of unwanted rubbish.

Yes, it was now that he felt an unsettling sense of desperation from the other’s calm aura.

He didn’t even have the courage to raise his gun and shoot, knowing that there were some fearful ghosts lurking around this battlefield, watching over it like vindictive spirits.

"29..." Another brush was parted, and a man in similar attire emerged with a gleaming bayonet, speaking in a deep voice, "It’s Dos’s band of bandits for sure."

"There are only 27 bodies here." The man whose bayonet was still dripping with blood, who had made himself known first, said, "Letting these blood-debt laden fellows escape will greatly displease the master."

"Don’t worry! None of the prey within the encirclement will escape," the third man who appeared ghostlike from the underbrush declared, tossing a young bandit back by the fire.

The young bandit begged loudly, his voice tinged with sobs, "Please spare me! Please spare me! I know I was wrong! Yes! Yes! I was forced!

Please spare me!"

While he was pleading, he surreptitiously reached toward the dagger inside his shirt. Despite his youthful appearance, he had already stained his hands with the blood of dozens, a vicious felon.

His forte was feigning pitifulness in front of enemies and, when they let their guard down, would suddenly counterattack, either killing them or taking hostages.

Unfortunately, his plan seemed to falter this time, because as soon as he touched the dagger hidden in his shirt, he heard a terrifying voice coming from above and behind him.

"I’m sorry! You’ve done too much evil, and now you must die here." The man who was finishing the job held up his bayonet and easily pierced the young bandit’s chest, "Go to another world and atone! Go and repent for the old people, children, and women you’ve killed!"

The young bandit, in disbelief, watched the sharp bayonet protrude through his chest, and even as he breathed his last, he couldn’t believe that he had met someone who, like himself, killed without hesitation.

"28!" The man who was clearly the leader had removed his bayonet from the barrel of his gun and with swift and neat movements, reinserted it into its scabbard, securing the loosened buckle.

He turned around, his back perfectly aligning with the place where Dos was hiding. Just then, as Dos peeked out to look for an opportunity to escape, he noticed that these people’s belongings were scattered all over the place.

The leader carried a canvas backpack reinforced with wear-resistant leather at the corners. Fixed to the belt below the backpack were a water flask and a short-handled iron shovel.

In this era, no military would bother to equip its soldiers so thoroughly with miscellaneous gear, let alone that each person was armed with a revolver at their side!

So, Dos could be very sure that these people who had come looking for trouble were not military but a private army of someone!

These terrifyingly armed private troops meticulously checked every corpse on the scene, clearly not wanting to spare a single survivor.

"Ah!" At last, a bandit feigning death could no longer bear the pressure and leaped up, drawing the longsword at his waist, and charged towards the man in the gray-green military uniform closest to him.

The result was that the man, both hands holding guns, took a nimble side-step to avoid the incoming longsword. Then, he lunged forward in a crouch, as quick as lightning he thrust out his rifle, and the bayonet stabbed into the bandit’s stomach.

The bandit struggled to raise the longsword in his hand, but his strength rapidly drained away. Ultimately, he released his hold on the longsword, and after the bayonet was withdrawn, he knelt down, curled up, and collapsed to the ground.

"Damn it!" The blood spurting from the blood groove stained his sleeve, and he cursed, stepping back half a step to avoid the spreading pool of crimson blood on the ground.

"Dos hasn’t been seen... He’s still nearby," remarked a man not far away, who had just finished checking the last bandit corpse and stood up to give a reminder.

"He won’t escape," said the leading man, who was Luff. He carried out Tang Mo’s orders, taking the well-trained Mercenary Squad into the Vicious Forest for live combat training.

They had the most systematic equipment provided by Tang Mo, a complete set more perfect than they had imagined. Each of them had tents, water bottles, lunch boxes, and also special, processed flour-based convenient foods.

These things brought great convenience to their jungle warfare, and also increased their trust in Tang Mo’s designs.

The H-shaped harness, designed sensibly, allowed them to carry more items with ease, including ample ammunition and weapons like bayonets and revolvers.

And speaking of weapons, we have to mention the bullets that Tang Mo had tailored specially for them on this mission!

Though these bullets didn’t differ in design from those provided to Earl Fisello, the core "gunpowder" within had been thoroughly improved.

Tang Mo had crafted smokeless gunpowder into a batch of bullets, specially supplied to his own trusted warriors.

The smokeless gunpowder produced very little smoke, which was even more useful in jungle combat. It could reduce the risk of exposing firing positions and marginally increased the safety of the gunpowder.

Luff and his men, equipped with the K1 Quick Guns and also revolvers, could be said to be exceptionally well-armed.

Dos, seeing this well-equipped and never-before-seen private army with seemingly no intention to search for him, slightly relaxed.

He thought their numbers had to be limited, hence no guts to spread out and look for him, the one that got away. But he was also puzzled about how such a small number of men could fire such a dense volley of bullets.

"Alright! Stop messing around!" Just then, Luff, from a distance, shouted loudly at someone.

Upon hearing this yell, Dos was startled, then he dared not move, thinking that the enemy was trying to deceive him with words; he certainly couldn’t walk into death by himself. As long as he endured until these people lost patience and left, he would be able to reclaim his little life.

"I say... do you think... you’re well hidden?" Just when Dos thought he might have made it out alive, a voice suddenly rang out behind him.

Dos was instantly scared stiff, his whole body shuddering, his instinct was to raise the musket in his hands.

Unfortunately, his hand was pinned mid-air by another hand, while a dagger horizontally slit a bloody gash across his throat.

Blood immediately sprayed out, staining the front of his shirt red. His left hand instinctively dropped the other handgun he was holding and clutched at the gash on his neck.

He desperately tried to stem the gushing blood from the wound, but due to the blood pressure, his efforts seemed extremely futile.

Like a fountain, blood spurted through his fingers, tumbling down into his collar. Because he had killed so many merchants and women, he could even imagine what he looked like now.

He felt he must look incredibly disheveled, hideously so. His expression must be one of utter despair, unable even to cry out.

With a mouthful of blood, he began to spit it out, he noticed the hand holding him had gone, so he staggered forward a few steps.

Almost out of strength, he turned his head only to see a young man, dressed like those others, standing next to the tree where he had hidden himself.

"The twenty-ninth one! Not a single one missing, they’re all here!" This was the last sound he heard in this world.

Then, he felt no more and went to the endless hell.

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