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Page 30
"It's alright...it should be alright..." he answered softly. In the dim light, the captain could vaguely see that his cheeks were covered with large beads of sweat.
"Captain... if there's nothing else, I'm going to sleep now... please don't disturb me..." the soldier said, as he propped himself up and moved in another direction.
……
……
"Um... what's your name? That way I can address you in the future."
“Ah, Garcia… Private Myfic Garcia, 504th Parachute Regiment…”
"what?"
"Okay... I don't want to say anything more... Let me sleep for a while... even just a little while..."
The 82nd Airborne Division badge sewn onto his arm was casually pressed under his body.
“Well, let’s leave him for now…” Captain Davis suddenly pulled out a piece of bread from behind him.
"Come and eat something, you can't do anything without eating."
"No... Boss, you've changed your mind faster than the weather!" Before Philip could even catch the bread properly, Tyler was already in a panic. "You said this was food for the rats, and now you're calling these little devils from the hole in the wall your brothers?"
"Hmph, so what if they're rats?" The captain chewed on his bread, raising an eyebrow at Taylor. "Have you forgotten that time in the Ruhr, when the Germans had that bag of explosives with the fuse chewed through by rats? Ha!"
Amid the captain's hearty laughter, Taylor pursed his lips and took the leftovers Philip offered.
……
……
The campsite outside became noisy.
A gentleman dressed in what looked like a scientist, accompanied by his assistants, walked out of the gleaming gate alongside a slowly advancing truck.
"Is this our new world?"
"Hey! Soldiers!" the scientist called out to a passerby, "Where is your officer?"
"Barring any unforeseen circumstances," the soldier looked around and pointed in one direction, "look, they're already here."
Two officers walked side by side to the scientist and saluted him.
"Lieutenant Colonel Tarcus Caronville, Vanguard Commander of the Interdimensional Expeditionary Force. Hello, sir."
"Colonel Gremay Carrie, hello sir."
"Ah, hello." The scientist waved casually. "I am Dr. Ron of the Eternal Protocol. His Highness Schneizel instructed me to..."
“His Highness the Prince has already told me,” Kari interrupted the Doctor. “Please bring your men and follow me.”
"Okay." The colonel led his guests away, leaving Caronville alone to quietly watch the convoy pass by.
"Hey! You must be Lieutenant Colonel Caronville!" Suddenly, a bespectacled man jumped out of the group that came out of the portal.
"Ah...ah, it's me." Caronville was suddenly taken aback; someone actually recognized him!
"I really didn't expect that." The bespectacled man smiled. "I heard about your reputation back during the Black Rebellion; you were quite well-known!"
"Ha, really..." Caronville gave a wry smile.
"Um, if there's nothing else, I'll be going now..."
"Hey, wait a minute!" Caronville called out to him. "Excuse me, if you don't need anything, can I ask you something?"
"Ask away, I won't lose face."
"Alright, tell me, what are you going to do with all this guns and cannons loaded on this truck?"
……
……
“Oh, it’s like this. His Highness the Prince sent us here to lay the generator and pipelines for the ‘Black Sand Simulation Force Field’ so that we can open more sub-portals.”
"Wait a minute, wait a minute..." the lieutenant colonel interrupted him, "Could you explain these 'sands' to me slowly?"
"Oh, okay..." The bespectacled man picked up a stick from the side and started drawing on the ground.
"Let me put it this way, sir," the bespectacled man said, gripping a wooden stick as he began to lecture the lieutenant colonel.
"You might not understand our scientific principles if I explained them to you. To put it simply, it's like this..."
He pointed to the two small, messy scribbles in the center.
"The one on the left is the Camelot Gate at the 11th District City Hall, and the one on the right is the beam gate that is now here."
Then he pointed to the triangle on the left.
"This is a new sub-portal we built in Area 11, connected to the Camelot Gate, the main portal, by a pipe. When the main portal is activated, if we also activate the 'Triangle' gate at this time..."
He pointed to the triangle on the right.
"Then we can use these pre-laid pipes and generators to open the exits corresponding to the triangular doors in this world. This way, the pressure on the main portal won't be so great, and we can send more troops, supplies, and other miscellaneous things. And these block doors and diamond doors here work on the same principle, that's all."
"So you mean we can just leave the exit of this main portal here alone?"
"No, no, no. If we want these sub-portals to work, we also need to set up some machines here. When the main portal is activated, they can transmit energy through pipes to the designated locations of the sub-portals. In other words, not only must the safety of the sub-portals and related pipes and machines be ensured, but the machines set up here must also be protected so that the entire mother-child portal system can operate stably."
"Ah, since you're capable of setting up new portals, why don't you just open them to other places?"
"Well, it's not that easy," the bespectacled man shook his head. "To put it bluntly, the fact that the main gate is here is pure luck. We haven't figured out the specific patterns and cycles yet. Those sub-portals, frankly, are just fax machines that exchange things with the sub-portals in Area 11. They're not that magical."
"And ultimately," the bespectacled man paused, "without these conduits, the energy field could change due to various factors, such as the Earth's magnetic field, latitude and longitude, tides, and the atmosphere. To give you a blunt example, right now we've opened a portal in the Tokyo concession of Area 11, and you're fighting a bunch of enemies without mechs. But if we were on the American continent, the Empire's mainland, and opened a new portal without connecting to Area 11, the warriors who enter might be facing a third or fourth world, a city called New York or Moscow. The enemy might use things straight out of science fiction to rout us..."
"Oh, this is so unreliable..."
Caronville was about to say something when the radio rang.
“Calling Lieutenant Colonel Caronville! Please respond if you hear me.”
"what happened?"
"The command center has received some information; you'd better come and take a look."
"Okay, I'll be right there. I'll take my leave now, young man."
……
……
……
A few minutes later, Caronville stepped into the command center lobby.
"What is it, Leiffel?"
The major led him to a display screen.
"The S2 outpost to the south just sent a message saying there's some activity in the southwest of the city."
"specifically is?"
"They first heard a whistle outside the city, then they reached some high points and sent back a few photos."
……
“Look, sir.” Leffer zoomed in on one of the photos. Upon closer inspection, he noticed two thin silver lines running parallel to each other across a row of neatly laid wooden planks under a solitary streetlamp—yes, it was a railway.
On one side of the streetlamp, right on the railway tracks, a large, black, worm-like monster lay sprawled on it. A single, bright eye at its head emitted a beam of pure white light, casting it across the ground ahead. Above its head, a long ribbon of white smoke drifted.
It seems the monster's next destination is this city, Berlin.
"So, that's their train? Although I can't see its appearance clearly, it somehow reminds me of something dragged out of our history museum..."
"This is the umpteenth one in our museum..."
"Ahem, let's not talk about that now. Have you figured out where those trains are parked?"
"It's roughly 10 kilometers south of here, slightly west of due south. Of course, this is just a rough estimate, but a little something new happened just a minute before you came in."
Lefel led Karonville to the map table, which had been replaced with a detailed map of Berlin, showing every road and open space in the city very clearly.
"The sentry reported that while they were still looking for the train, they suddenly discovered that the enemy had blown up almost all the intact bridges in the R, S, and T areas over the river to the south."
"what?!"
"Then they confirmed that there was still one intact highway bridge in area T9, and there seemed to be many vehicles and personnel advancing southward on the bridge. There were enemy outposts within a 2-kilometer radius. In addition, there was the only railway bridge left in the city in area T11 that they hadn't destroyed yet, but it seemed that the enemy had buried something on the bridge and laid down some barbed wire or something before retreating to their rear positions."
"What about due south? There should be some bridges there."
"The bridges there are either long gone, or they're not big enough for vehicles and mechs to pass through. Let's go a little further east..."
“Forget about that,” the lieutenant colonel interrupted her. “Alright, it seems this is their retreat plan…”
"A plan?" Lefel didn't seem to understand yet.
"They left this highway bridge behind the defensive line for their retreat, but deliberately left this wider railway bridge to the east. You said they buried things and laid obstacles there before, which was very likely to lure our main force to the sturdier and wider railway bridge. Then, while we were crossing the bridge, they blew it up, cutting us off at both ends, and we would suffer heavy losses again."
"Zero used this tactic when they attacked the Tokyo Concession, sabotaging the overpass, which almost buried Princess Cornelia and her soldiers in there because she was so eager for revenge..."
“If we go any further east, I’m worried there might be hidden Soviet defensive positions there. We don’t have many people, and it’s better if they don’t attack now, but if they do… we really might not live to see dawn…”
"So what are your plans, sir?"
……
"Tell Lancer Squadron, along with Lieutenants Wilson and Aruger's men, to get a good rest tonight. There's a combat mission at 4 a.m. While you're at it, go ask Harlan if he can still participate in the battle."
"Furthermore, without my orders, no combat unit responsible for defending the East District is allowed to withdraw from its position or advance eastward without authorization. That's all."
"Okay sir."
……
……
……
"Hey! Are you all done over there?"
"It's done!"
As soon as Caronville stepped out of the command center, he saw a group of researchers with several workers dressed as laborers. They were shouting to another scientist some distance away, gathered around a newly placed pipe—it looked quite like the tail of a gas pump nozzle, but its patterns and parts were clearly much more elaborate than the former.
"Excuse me," the lieutenant colonel randomly picked a worker in front of him, "who is your supervisor?"
"Are you looking for Dr. Ron?" The worker pointed to a shed in the distance. "He's over there!"
……
"Alright, Colonel!" A booming voice could be heard from the shed from afar. "Notify the people in Area 11 to get moving! We're all ready!"
"Dr. Ron?" he approached and greeted in a low voice.
"Huh? Lieutenant Colonel?" The doctor trembled, as if startled. "What are you doing here?"
"Nothing much, just checking out how these things work so I can think about how to protect you."
"Well, there's nothing special about it. Do you have any planes? As long as you don't stay in the air nearby during the few seconds we activate the device, there's no danger. As for the rest, just follow the rules of your military."
"Oh, really?" The lieutenant colonel smiled faintly. "Since you all have His Highness the Prince backing you up, I'm afraid I'll have to proceed with the highest level of alert."
"Hey, don't say that..." The doctor smiled, seemingly a little embarrassed to listen further, "It's as if we're landlords and you're just hired laborers."
……
"Gate T-UG5 is ready! All personnel at Landing Site 5, prepare yourselves!"
As they were talking, suddenly, that familiar roar of wind, mixed with thunder, began to echo over the camp. The dust on the ground, as thin as a cicada's wing, was swept up by the gale and flew in all directions.
The doctor and the lieutenant colonel quietly watched the two newly erected, three-meter-tall iron pillars resembling lighthouses in the center of the landing area.
"Energy frequency conversion confirmed!" The doctor anxiously bent down to look at the computer in front of him while picking up a microphone next to him.
"Confirmed! Normal!" the speaker next to it replied.
"Alright! Ladies and gentlemen! Get ready! The portal is coming!"
Before the words were even finished, the two lighthouses suddenly burst forth with dazzling light, covering the entire camp in a golden robe. Beams of light pierced the eyes of every spectator like sharp swords. The lieutenant colonel and the doctor stood together, each frantically shielding their eyes from the blinding golden torrent.
After a short while, the doctor called out softly, and Caronville finally lowered his hand.
Before me, the two lighthouses still shone with a dazzling golden light, but it was no longer so blinding; they simply dispelled the surrounding darkness like high-powered streetlights. The iron pipes connecting to the bases had somehow become transparent and shiny, leading to a strangely shaped machine not far away.
"Huh? Why didn't the Crystal Gate appear?" The lieutenant colonel thought to himself, then turned his head and saw the doctor carefully examining a display screen next to him, the images on it catching his attention.