I Became A Mech Soldier After Waking Up in The Future.

Author's Note: This chapter contains a mild description of gore. Please read at your own discretion.

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"Hello? Corporal William, do you hear me? Please answer!" 

But no one replied. 

Jeanne cursed inwardly while weighing her options. After a while, she decided to take the risk of confirming the troops' status.

She walked slowly while crouching down through the grass to get closer to the vicinity of the convoy.

On the way, she tried to make sure that there were no rocks and branches getting stepped on as she walked so that there would be no excessive noise that could attract the monsters' attention in the worst case that any of them were still alive.

The first thing she saw was an armored car.

She quickly approached the car and then cautiously went around it.

After reaching the other side of the car, she turned on the camera on her bracelet ID, quietly stretched her hand out of the area covered by the car, and took an image of the surroundings.

After drawing her hand back, she carefully observed the photo displayed on the screen and found that the encirclement formed by the armored vehicles was quiet and no threat could be seen. But because there was still an area out of the range of the camera that wasn't captured, she still couldn't relax her guard. 

She quietly poked her head from behind the armored car and finally clearly saw the remnants of the recent battle.

The four monsters were not completely dead yet; their bodies were still twitching on the ground in their last breath.

The monster's blood spilled all over the ground, mixing with the blood of the soldiers. It was almost impossible to tell which was which.

Soldiers' corpses were scattered, many of them so badly disfigured that Jeanne couldn't tell their identity. Some of the corpses were split apart into two or three parts. Jeanne also saw a head wearing a helmet rolling beside the wheel not far away. 

Jeanne suddenly felt her vision blurry, her head dizzy, and her breathing ragged. The sight was so brutal it suffocated her.

This was the first time in her life that she encountered such a bloody battlefield.

Since joining the army, she had only gone outside the city to the wilderness twice; the first time was on a mission six years ago, and the second time was right now.

On the mission where she was captured by first-class predator Broodmother in Myrkviðr forest, it was the first time she saw someone die in front of her eyes, as well as the sight of living Zerg and predators.

Even though she almost died that time, it didn't give her that big of an impression.

But it was different this time.

Almost all of the 40 people under her command perished under her watch. Thinking that all of these people died because of her own orders, her palm broke into a cold sweat and her face became slightly pale. 

'Did I kill them?' 

'No, my judgment was not wrong. This is the price that must be paid for victory.'

'Even if it was wrong, this was the sin I must bear, the responsibility I must shoulder as a leader.' 

She heaved a deep and long sigh to regain her composure and slowly stepped into the center of the battlefield.

There was still one missing monster, but at least the radar didn't show any signs of the enemy around, so it should not be near here.

Confident of her conclusion, she made up her mind to rescue the two surviving soldiers. 

Treading the wet and slippery path on the steel drawbridge where the viscous blood coagulated, she finally found the survivors through life response exploration assistance.

She saw that Corporal William and a female soldier were seriously injured. Corporal William's abdomen was cut open and his intestines were flowing out, while the female soldier's right hand was missing.

Jeanne couldn't carry the two by herself, so she ran towards the overturned medical car first to find assistance.

Seeing that three green dots were still shining inside the medical car, Dr. Leah and the two nurses should have survived,

Jeanne circled around to the back of the medical car and went to pull the door, but it was stuck.

She knocked on the car's door while calling Dr. Leah's ID and was soon connected to her. Dr. Leah's voice appeared on the line, slightly weak. 

"Major Armstrong..." 

"Dr. Leah, the battle outside is over, and all the monsters have been eliminated. I'm going to rescue you guys now."

"The door..." Jeanne could hear Dr. Leah's words interrupted by coughing before she continued falteringly, "the door…is stuck and I... I can't open it from the inside..." 

"It's okay, I'll find a way. Are Prof. Bailey and that adventurer still alive?" 

"Well... they're still alive..." 

"That's good. Please wait a little bit longer. I'll find the tools and come back right away." 

'Tools... where can I find the tools...' Jeanne looked around and suddenly remembered something, 'Yes, the armored cars! Maybe the driver had put a toolbox in the car.' 

She immediately set out to find another armored vehicle.

But at that moment, she accidentally caught a glimpse of dripping, thick purple liquid in the gap between the medical car and the steel drawbridge guardrail.

'This is... monster blood?' 

Jeanne looked at it suspiciously and quietly and cautiously walked over to that side to peer into the gap within, and a shocked expression appeared on her face. 

'This the fifth monster's corpse? Why is it dying here?' 

Jeanne squeezed into the gap and went closer to the monster's corpse to get a better look at it.

The monster's corpse had already turned cold and stiff, it seemed that the monster had died for a while, at least before the four on the battlefield.

Jeanne checked the monster's wounds. The muscles of the back ankles and the muscles of both arms and shoulders were all cut off. The wounds were deep, and whoever the culprit was, they was extremely ruthless.

There was a clean, cutting wound in the back of the monster's neck that directly cut off the central nervous system, causing the monster to die quickly. 

The wound was seemingly caused by the most common standard saber used by the army.

"A first-level predator, Devil Mantis, was killed just like this? Who killed it? One of those 37 soldiers? It seems unlikely."

Judging from the trace of the battle on the scene, it looked like there were no more than two people who fought against this monster, and it was very likely that there was only a single person.

This person's skills are very terrifying, neck to neck or even surpassing Keiko, who was currently ranked No. 1 in Jeanne's mind. 

'Wait, these wounds are... secondary wounds?' 

Jeanne found that the hand tendons and hamstrings that had been sliced, including the fatal wound on the neck, were a bit weird as if they had been stabbed twice. 

Why make two cuts in the same place? Is it... to cover up the weapon he used to fight in the first place? Who is it? To kill a praying mantis-shaped predator while concealing their identity? Is they enemy or ally? 

Jeanne suddenly felt a chill creeping down her spine.

After getting involved in Bailey's incident, she suddenly felt as if a thick fog began to cover her surroundings, gradually obscuring her vision. Even with her intelligence, which she was so proud of, she couldn't see through it.

To reignite her spirit, Jeanne decided to get down to business first.

She ran to the logistic armored car and fortunately found the toolbox in it. She picked up a crowbar and rushed back to the medical car.

When she arrived at the front of the car door, she immediately contacted Dr. Leah again and asked everyone to put on the oxygen supply device.

Then, she tried to forcefully open the door with the crowbar in her hand, but it was harder than she thought before. The door was stuck so tightly that her meagre strength couldn't make it budge even an inch. 

Just as she was concentrating on cracking the door open, someone suddenly patted her on the shoulder. She gasped in fright, shook her body, turned around, and swung out the crowbar in her hand. 

"Wait! it's me!"