Chapter 281 — The 25th Squad in Action
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
Gao Yang was grateful for all the education he had received in his last life, and for his habit of leafing through books whenever he had a spare moment (and of shooting the breeze with people online), but he was just as grateful that in this life he had first transmigrated into a satellite spirit—and that something like a mutation had occurred in the process. He suspected that when he became a satellite, he had undergone some manner of "restructuring" or "compilation" on the mental or spiritual level, and that this restructuring, rooted in the satellite mainframe, must have combed through the entirety of his memories and sorted them into categories. In the end, this had brought him two exceedingly important changes: first, a willpower that was hardly human; second, a memory like a hard drive.
He could remember things very clearly. Even matters from his last life that he had thought long forgotten could be recalled, so long as he made the effort to think back on them.
Now he was delighted to pass on the good things he had dredged up from memory to Rebecca—and, while he was at it, to Hetty, who stood nearby looking thoroughly bewildered.
While the lord of this land and his officials of every rank busied themselves planning postwar production and future development, everyone else in the territory was also occupied with their own affairs: Hammer, studying with his apprentices how to further raise the efficiency of the magical-energy smelting furnace; Norris, contemplating next year's land reclamation; and the 25th Production and Construction Squad, which had just returned to the residential district and was now holding a meeting to hear the work plan for the following day.
Before the monster attack, the 25th Production and Construction Squad had been building a new industrial zone in the southwestern part of the territory. When the alarm came, the whole squad, like the other engineering teams, temporarily laid down its work; they were assigned to sections of the city wall to help haul supplies and reinforce the masonry. Now the battle alarm had been lifted, and the entire squad had returned to its own station. As a special "unit," they were kept apart from the other production teams—likewise when production tasks were assigned and work reviewed. Several dedicated overseers and soldiers were responsible for managing the 25th Squad, and the man addressing them now was a veteran from the Cecil Combat Corps who was said to have served the Cecil family for ten years.
Hall was a member of the 25th Squad and, at the same time, a new arrival in this territory. He sat dutifully in his place, listening as the tall, powerfully built veteran before them relayed the lord's orders to the men. He strove to behave like the most ordinary laborer of all, though it still took some effort to adjust before he could fully inhabit the role he was meant to play.
The "laborers" of this land were different from those elsewhere—that was what made him a little uncomfortable—but fortunately he was a man of strong adaptability and a keen reader of faces, so after living here only a short while he had learned more or less how the common folk of Cecil spoke and behaved.
After confirming that those around him were all listening attentively, Hall lifted his head as if by chance and swiftly swept his gaze over the soldier at the front.
It was normal for a laborer crew to be managed by overseers, but beyond the overseers this squad also had three soldiers keeping order—that was not so ordinary. At first Hall had been nervous about it, thinking he had already drawn the lord's suspicion, but he soon realized that the soldiers managing the squad were not aimed at him in particular but were watching over the whole crew, and so he settled down.