At dawn, the manhunt was still continuing.
Two to three hundred people carried torches and searched for a whole night with Beiguan Army Fort as the center along the dense forest valleys on the east and west sides. However, the result was not as smooth as expected. The traitor who had mixed up with the Wells Army still escaped. To be precise, this search operation failed to catch both traitors.
"Sir, when we found this guy, he was already dead. His femur was broken by the battering ram (note), but the fatal wound was in the chest. Someone stabbed him in the heart." In the open space outside the Beiguan Army Fortress, Odo, who was in charge of the search operation on the east side, led people back dragging an already stiff corpse.
(Note: A battering ram is a hunting tool that uses heavy wood as a pendulum and is equipped with a tripping mechanism.)
Att walked to the body, knelt down and took a closer look. Art recognized this face. This man was a bankrupt farmer recruited by the caravan. He was honest-looking and indifferent. He had never talked much or argued with others since he joined the Art Army. He was quite diligent and hard-working when he was in the new army and was deeply loved by the instructors. Art remembered that this honest face was among the batch of outstanding recruits he rewarded during recruit training.
But at this time, we were separated by life and death, and what annoyed Art the most was that this honest "pace soldier" in his heart would suddenly show a ferocious face, wanting to poison himself and all the officers under his command.
"Where's the other poisonous snake?" Art asked coldly as he stood up.
Otto knew he could not avoid this topic, so he lowered his head and replied with shame: "Sir, these two people should be specially trained headhunters. They were very careful when escaping, and their traces along the way were processed. They even knew how to run back and forth at the fork in the road, so that we could not figure out which road we took..."
"I'm asking you where the other person went?" Art was a little angry. He had to catch these two people. One was to stabilize the morale of the army, and the other was to find out the shadows behind the two. Only by knowing who the enemy was could he prescribe the right medicine.
A thin layer of sweat broke out on Odo's forehead, "Sir, we failed to follow another venomous snake. He was injured, so there were blood stains all the way. But when I led Weitz's third flag team to follow the blood stain to the edge of the eastern mountain, the blood stain disappeared~"
"Hundreds of people with torches, led by the leader, chased an injured man, and he actually let him run away? Moreover, you yourself were injured several times by the trap, and twenty or thirty people were separated. Are you all eating grass?"
The commander yelled and cursed, and the followers and officers around him lowered their heads and did not dare to speak.
Matt rarely gets angry like he did today. He rubbed his forehead and calmed down, "How are the next manhunt missions planned?"
Otto quickly raised his head and replied: "Sir, we have determined that the escaped man must have gone to the east, so more than a hundred people in the east will continue to search after dawn. I plan to pull all the soldiers in the west to the east, and use the place where the blood stains disappeared as the center of the circle to draw a large mesh within five miles of the surrounding area. In addition, I I will send a message to the sergeant major in the wilderness, asking him to lead the cavalry to search eastward along the edge of the jungle. "At the same time, I can't rule out that guy sneaking into the wooden castle and the valley in the opposite direction, so I will let Bass lead the garrison to launch a large-scale search of the wooden castle and the valley and their surrounding areas."
Matt listened to Odo's deployment. Although the method was considered safe, it was too crude. "The method you said is safe, but it requires mobilizing all the strength. In this vast jungle valley, the hundreds of us are just a few ants."
Otto did not refute, he was waiting for Art's next step.
"Think about it, all of you, if you were the traitor and were not familiar with the dense forests and barren valleys in the eastern part of the valley, would you choose to continue walking in circles in the dense forest or get out of the dense forest as quickly as possible, how would you escape capture?"
Otto thought for a while, "If it were me, I would leave the dense forest and walk close to the edge. This way I can avoid getting lost in the mountains, and I can immediately hide in the dense forest when encountering danger. Moreover, it is easier to walk in the wilderness than in the dense forest."
"You are all familiar with the terrain to the east, but think about it, as a person who is not very familiar with roads, which road is the easiest to get out of the dense forest and reach the edge of the wilderness?"
Everyone recalled the terrain of the dense forest valley to the east and the location where the blood stains disappeared, and they all said in unison The reply was: "Wild Wolf Valley!"
The baggage train search team led by Spencer and a squadron of soldiers led by the young officer named Caprivi lost their way in the darkest period before early morning. The distance between these twenty-odd people and the large group of people in the search operation was getting farther and farther. When the search team followed the blood trail due east, these twenty-odd unreliable guys had already walked two miles northeast and arrived at the top of a hillside at the junction of dense forest and wilderness.
"Caprivi, you are such a stubborn donkey. Even the guide who led the way said that you must have gone astray. You must be stubborn. Now it's better. The shadow of the brigade can no longer be seen. After a while, they gathered at dawn and found that we were lost. We had to be reprimanded when we returned. You are so unlucky." Spencer stood on the hillside and looked at the dark wasteland. He couldn't help complaining to the "special" squadron leader named Caprivi.
According to the news received by their two small teams in the middle of the night, the search team had captured a venomous snake, while another venomous snake was injured and was escaping to the east.
The order given to these two teams above is to serve as the far left wing of the entire search team, responsible for the least stressful peripheral search. If they are assigned to the outermost area, the chance of meritorious service and awards is almost gone.
So Caprivi and Spencer lost their initial enthusiasm, and everyone was too tired after a night of exhaustion, so the two old ladies led the crowd and walked over lazily.
But the pace of the two was too slow, and they were soon left behind by the group and lost their way~
"How long have you been talking about these useless things? Think about how to adjust the direction to catch up with the group?" Caprivi was also a little anxious.
“What can I think of? It’s not the team I lead!” Spencer habitually began to shift the blame.
"Aren't you a veteran under Mr. Art? The veterans of each team all know the general terrain, why don't you know it?"
Spencer rolled his eyes, "I am a baggage officer, not a commander. At that time, when the master was taking the guys hunting, I was busy with army affairs, and I had no time to follow him to hunt and check the terrain."
Caprivi pointed to the wasteland to the north, "There seems to be a valley mouth below. Let's go west along the edge of the wasteland and we should be able to return to Beiguan."
"Do you know the nearby topography? Are you sure you can return to Beiguan along the wilderness, or don't take the risk. If the edge of the dense forest runs north-south, you and I may have to run to the north of Tyniec County. It will take ten and a half months for you to return to the military camp in embarrassment. By then, you will not be beaten or scolded." Spencer rejected Caprivi's suggestion and turned around to return the same way.
"Okay~" Caprivi felt that what Spencer said made sense, and before turning around, he glanced at the mouth of the canyon below the mountain.
"Hey, there seems to be a round black shadow at the mouth of the canyon～"
"Really? Hey, it's true."
Spencer glanced at a black round shadow at the mouth of the canyon, and then looked at the terrain, "Forget it, you have to climb up after going down, you are so tired, go back and rest early." He was about to turn around and walk back.
But Caprivi did not intend to save this energy. He ignored the people in the baggage team and directly called the squadron soldiers to go down the hillside towards the valley entrance... "Hey, you fool!" Spencer cursed and followed... A guy in tattered clothes and covered in blood was like a captured wild boar, his hands and feet tied with wooden sticks through hemp rope.
The guy on the wooden stick was already unconscious due to excessive blood loss, but the black-robed soldiers who carried him out of the mountain showed no mercy at all. They were accompanied by soldiers' fists and clubs all the way, and blood dripped all the way back.
Spencer came out of the dense forest and watched Art and his group of officers walking down the gentle slope of Beiguan Army Fort toward him. He rushed in front of Caprivi to meet him, "Sir, our baggage team and Caprivi's squadron worked together to catch this. At the mouth of a canyon in the northeast, this bastard fell into a big pit. He broke his leg, and when we pulled him up, he still resisted with weapons and planned to kill himself with a knife, so we smashed his hand bones." After Spencer finished speaking, he glanced at Caprivi with a guilty look, winced slightly, and walked towards the murderer who was stuck with a wooden stick.
At followed everyone's position and looked towards the dense forest. There were drops of blood all the way, "Are you going to let his blood be turned into dried meat?"
"Huh?" Everyone was puzzled.
"I want to live! If you drain the blood, the person will die! Don't you know?" Art scolded Spencer.
The guy with bruises all over his body, a broken leg and a smashed hand looked pale, but not only was there no pain or fear in his eyes, but he was full of murderous intent.
His hands and feet were tied and then tightly wrapped around a long wooden table with hemp ropes. The end of the wooden table was raised up, so this guy maintained a strange posture with his feet high and his head on the ground.
This posture has lasted for half the afternoon. Art and the military guards were standing or sitting like this, looking straight at the guy on the wooden table, neither asking questions nor punishing them, and there was an eerie silence.
The guy lying on the wooden table finally couldn't bear this weird scene. He struggled a few times and cursed at everyone in the room: "Bastard, if you can, just kill me with one sword. If I even say a word of begging for mercy, I will be considered a loser!"
Seeing that the person on the wooden table finally spoke, Art opened his squinted eyelids. He slowly stood up from the recliner and walked to the wooden table. He showed a sincere smile and said, "Man, who do you think I am? How can I be willing to let you suffer again without having a good chat with you? So don't worry. You just need to answer me who you are? Where do you come from?" Who are you working for? Then I will chop you with my sword and make sure you don't suffer at all. It will be a hundred times more painful than that of your unlucky companion. "
"Don't even think about getting anything from me, bah." The guy on the wooden table spat a mouthful of spit mixed with blood at Art, but due to the tricky angle, the blood spit fell on Art's skirt in a famous arc.
Matt ignored him and said gently to the tied guy on the table: "You don't have to anger me. I will never let you die easily before I get what I want."
After saying that, Art waved to Ron behind him, and Ron picked up a bucket of clear well water and placed it next to Art.
Art took a spoonful of water from the wooden bucket with a large wooden spoon, gently approached the mouth of the guy on the table, and gave him a sip of water.
The guy at the table was not polite. He drank the water from the wooden spoon in one gulp, and then sighed with satisfaction.
"Water is a good thing, but water can also bring people closest to hell." Art said something that puzzled the people at the table.
"Come two people to help support his head." Art ordered the guards beside him, then took a thin cotton towel from Ron's hand and gently covered the guy's face on the wooden table.
The guy tied to the wooden table showed no fear or any words of begging for mercy. He didn't even shake his head to resist. He just thought that Art was going to cover his face and then cut off his head.
The guy whose face was covered with a towel was waiting quietly for his final death...
But after a while, there was no feeling of a dagger cutting his throat. Instead, someone picked up a wooden spoon and poured water on the towel.
The guy on the table first felt cool and comfortable, and then suddenly...
Looking at the guy on the wooden table who kept stretching his legs and kicking his feet, shaking his head and struggling, Art knew that the effect had been achieved.
“After pouring half a bucket of water every time, let him wait for a while, and then pour the remaining half bucket of water. Don’t kill him. Wake me up when he opens his mouth.” Art told Ron who was executing the sentence and lay back on his own He continued to nap on the recliner...
As soon as Art squinted into a light sleep amidst the sounds of whimpering and struggling, Ron came over and gently patted him awake.
"Master, that guy is willing to speak, and the bucket of water hasn't been used up yet." Ron glanced at his master with great admiration.
"Oh? Giving up so quickly? Master, I have to stare for a while and tell him to hold on to half a bucket of water. Master, I will wake up after half a bucket of water." After saying that, Art adjusted his posture and continued to lie down on the chair cushioned with bearskin and take a nap.
Ron's face torn by the scar was full of excitement...
…