Darkstone Code-Chapter 1013 - 1011: Frontline

In the room, two bodybuilding champions were guiding new trainees on how to help others exercise correctly.

A bit of a tongue-twister, but simply put, it’s about how to use the equipment in the gym to achieve better fitness results.

People who have money to come to the gym at this time are not poor; at least they are middle class. They have fitness needs or place a high value on health management.

They don’t care about small amounts of money, such as three to five hundred or even a thousand gym fees per month. What they need is to see results.

Men hope to become stronger, women hope to become slimmer, but not with more muscles when they lose weight. These are professional knowledge areas that ordinary people can’t become fitness coaches without training.

Wood sat in one of the seats, holding a notebook and pen, carefully taking notes.

He hadn’t been exposed to these things before, so he was exceptionally attentive, and three thousand bucks... it’s not a small amount. Spending it indeed hurts a bit.

If it weren’t for his blind trust in Lynch, he wouldn’t do such stupid things.

He talked about this with his colleagues, but none came with him, partly because they had limited money in their pockets after losing their source of income.

Spending some means having less, and spending three thousand could make their financial situation worse.

Thus, only Wood sat here, quietly attending the class.

For this serious "student," the champion coach also felt something called "respect," and when he needed cooperation from the trainees, he’d often have Wood come up to help, giving him more experience.

Don’t think exercising in front of others is embarrassing; this kind of opportunity is rare. Ordinary people can’t hire these bodybuilding champions for one-on-one teaching.

While Wood was keen on the new course and seemed to overlook those colleagues, the Federation’s military industrial enterprises also reached a cooperation agreement with Lynch.

The content wasn’t much, and overall inclined towards Lynch.

If these military industrial groups initiated weapon testing military actions proactively, they would bear all costs.

If they didn’t initiate the actions, like this one where "Sanchez" hired Darkstone Security for military actions, they would need to pay anywhere between two hundred and fifty thousand to a million for weapon testing.

Moreover, if there were severe design flaws in the weapons sent to the front line, even if the front line replaced the weapons after just one battle, they still needed to pay all fees in full.

The Military Industrial Group didn’t hesitate much and signed a mutually beneficial agreement with Lynch.

Their first batch of experimental weapons was also transported to the riverside city.

At dawn, Ryan slowly sat up, covering his waist, then slowly moved his legs, placing them on the ground.

Wearing slippers, he slowly stood up and walked outside.

He was lucky; while close to death, he received treatment. A doctor found him and, based on his dog tag, quickly gave him a blood transfusion, saving his life.

After the wound was re-stitched, it basically stopped bleeding. He could now move slowly within a small range, but participating in battles was still impossible.

He felt very fortunate to have survived, thinking he was going to die, as the situation indeed suggested.

But in the end, he survived.

Sunlight pierced through gaps between leaves, mottling his face. He watched the busy scene in the camp and those new faces, feeling curious.

"Reinforcement arrived?" he casually asked a guy missing a leg, sitting at the door, sunbathing. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Mariluo is located in the Federation’s North, closer to the cold zone, so while the weather in the Federation hasn’t fully cooled down, the temperature here already showed a distinct drop.

Sunbathing became a very pleasant thing, with warm sunlight falling on the body making one feel a lazy buzz, wanting to find a place to lie down and blissfully nap.

The soldier missing a leg nodded, "Another thousand came, reportedly from Amelia. We lost a lot in this battle."

Ryan heard that over three hundred died this time; it was hard for him to accept this number, but it was indeed the reality.

This made him understand his squad leader’s words; in war, no one is innocent.

Everyone has their positions and decisions; they aren’t Angels, here to save the people living in suffering. They are just invaders.

This revelation completely contradicts the knowledge he previously had. In the Federation’s propaganda, they always represent justice, even coming to Mariluo to help the lower class people escape poverty and the warlord’s tyrannical rule.

After experiencing so much, he suddenly realized it was just a lie told to domestic citizens.

They are invaders, coming from a country unrelated to this place, to kill the locals here. What else can this be if not invasion?

He used to simply think this was "help"; now looking back, he felt so ridiculously naive.

He glanced at the soldier missing a leg beside him, "What happened to your leg?"

The soldier seemed indifferent, chewing on a cigarette, shrugging, "They set a trap; my knee got crushed by a trap clamp."

"The doctor told me they couldn’t save my lower leg, and there was some damage to my thigh bone, so they cut a bit higher."

Ryan was silent for a while after listening, "Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked."

The soldier missing a leg indeed seemed unconcerned, "It’s okay, this might be a good thing for me. As long as my wound doesn’t get infected in the next two weeks, I can return to the Federation."

The temperature in Mariluo is dropping fast now; low temperatures can aid wound recovery, at least it’ll be less likely to get infected.

He said these casual words, but his expression was still somewhat lonely, "But don’t worry, the company won’t fire me."

"I might become an instructor at some base, or get assigned something I can do. Sometimes it has more human touch than the Ministry of Defense."

"If I were with the Ministry of Defense, I might be retired next, forced to find my own way."

They fell into silence again. The Ministry of Defense’s arrangements for injured soldiers were indeed inadequate.

But turning the conversation around, disability means having limited labor force. Continuously paying these people’s wages is a hard expenditure for the Ministry of Defense to bear.

If they opened this precedent, the numbers would grow, eventually becoming an unbearable burden, so they never loosened their stance from the start.

The soldier missing a leg looked at Ryan, "What about you; will you go back?"

Ryan touched the wound on his waist, feeling somewhat confused, "I don’t know; the doctor said my injury would take about six months to heal, but the company hasn’t stated what I’ll do next, just letting me stay here."

In the conversation, another batch of trucks stopped nearby in the Warehouse District, then many new pieces of equipment were moved off the trucks.

Ryan seemed curious, "Are they planning to farm here?"

The equipment looked like something used to spray pesticides on crops, like carrying an oil barrel on the back, with a nozzle in hand or so; he had seen farm tools similar to this.

"I’ll go take a look...," he said, slowly walking over. At this time, the weapon designer was explaining the function of these things to others.

"... It’s called a high-pressure flamethrower, mainly used for assaulting residential houses." Speaking, the designer himself, with the help of an assistant, carried one, walked to the camp’s edge, and found an empty house.

Under people’s watching eyes, he aimed at one of them, lit the gun’s mouth, then pulled the trigger.

In an instant, a snake of fire shot out, burning with black smoke containing a pungent smell. When he released the trigger or rather the valve, the fire snake at the mouth stopped.

But the room continued to burn, and his assistant then poured a basin of water inside.

Not only did it fail to extinguish the flames, but it also made them more intense.

"Our fuel, shot for three seconds, can continue burning for about a minute if there are additional combustibles, the burning time is longer."

"If someone hides in something hard to attack, this will reduce your assault difficulty."

"Once inside catches fire, they’ll come out voluntarily!"

Looking at this flamethrower, Ryan was somewhat amazed; he didn’t expect such powerful tools to exist. Wouldn’t it be great for urban warfare?

But on second thought, carrying this thing, isn’t it like having a bomb on the back?

What if someone shoots the oil tank on the back...

On the way back, he saw some new things, like differently shaped grenades, and even incendiary bombs.

Watching the incendiary points ignite instantly and keep burning, even without any additional combustibles, Ryan not only didn’t worry about the terrible nature of these weapons and whether they’d hurt innocent civilians but instead felt a bit excited.

With these things, presumably, the locals wouldn’t be so unfriendly as before?

Only after enduring wounds, life-threatening injuries, did he understand the essence and beauty of life. Whoever tries to take away his life, he’ll kill them!

The command was arranging new operations. Having only two cities wasn’t enough; they planned to continue heading North, capturing more territory before stopping.

Meanwhile, they also sent people to search for the missing Isabella...