Chapter 103 - Moruguri
Moruguri. They said it was a beautiful town. They said it was a town of heavens created right beside a river. All of the things that they said and none of them were true. All Del saw were carcasses of buildings from a dead town with all of the buildings littered with holes.
The convoy was moving to that town. Surprisingly, there was enough personnel as a reinforcement for that town. According to the battle report, there were sixty casualties. Ten people were dead. Twenty were sustaining a major injury, and the rest had a minor injury. Del himself only had a bruise on his chest from the bullet that failed to penetrate his ballistic vest.
"We were lucky," Del muttered.
Considering that his helicopter was actually the one that destroy all of the tanks. It could be said that he was singlehandedly handling a company of tanks, again. However, this time, nobody would appreciate him nor his effort. Anyway, all that mattered was that they arrived at Moruguri.
Truth to be told, he was rather disappointed about the lack of knowledge of a company of tanks coming at their direction. It was not like the tank was a small object. Was intelligence about that really that hard or was it because the federation just underestimated the empire? An entire tank platoon should be noticeable, or was the Federation that desperate to send reinforcement to Moruguri?
"Hitman 11, this is Hitman 2, park your car near the medical tent, over."
"Hitman 11 copy."
"Hitman 11, the payment for today is on the guild office. You've done great kid, Hitman 2 out."
Del parked his car beside the medical tent and helped Sharon to unload the box from the car and into the tent. The tent was more horrendous than the tent in the Halivaara. In Moruguri, the tent was literally a slaughterhouse with some soldiers even having their innards dripping into the ground as they laid down in bed.
"HEY! HELP ME WITH THIS PATIENT!"
"HE'S UNSTABLE. GIVE ME THE INJECTION!"
"HEY! DON'T PUT HIS INNARDS BACK!"
The doctors there were also working non-stop. After they have done with one patient, they only changed their gloves and move to another patient that needed treatment. It was really a gore fest with blood spurting out of everyone's body from the bleeding alone.
"ARE YOU THE COURIER?" One of the doctors asked Del.
"Yes?" Del replied as he placed the box.
"Thank you so much," the doctor nodded.
Del immediately got out of the tent so as not to disturb them. Anna was waiting near the car while carrying the backpack on her back. She also held a piece of paper that looked like a note that had been torn hastily from a notebook alongside two white gold coins.
"Did they just give us two white gold coins?" Del asked.
"Yeah, well, what can I say, they're just medical students, they won't have the resource to actually pay us decently," Anna said.
"This won't cut it, to be honest, maybe we can break off from this contract," Del commented.
"What contract? Did we even sign anything? All we did was we agreed to help them and that's it. There was no term, and there was no condition either," Anna said.
"Anyway, where will we be sleeping?" Del asked.
As far as he was concerned, Del practically would be able to sleep in the empty barrack since like it or not, he was still a part of the military and the military had to be willing to provide him and his sister a place to sleep. He just needed to ask and he might get a place to sleep. Like people always said, all you need was to ask.
Del and Anna walked to the command center. To find a command center inside of a federal military base, all he needed to do was to find the most obvious-looking building or tent with a radio antenna. That would usually be the command center aka the guild.
It didn't take too long until they reached the command center which was the only standing building. The building seemed to be one of the residential buildings in that town that had been turned into a command center for the soldier. Truth be told, it was rather convenient.
As they approached the door of that command center, "Military personnel only, can I see your ID?"
Del gave him his ID alongside Anna's ID. The soldier nodded as he checked his ID alongside Anna's ID. "Sorry for the interruption, but can you give me your weapons before I search you?" The soldier asked as he gave Del their IDs back.
"Sure." Del gave the soldier his M240B, his Five-Seven, his M16, his blade, and the rest was on Anna's backpack.
The soldier patted Del's body as he searched Del for hidden weapons. Once he was cleared, the soldier let Del enter the building. Inside of the building, it was no different than the medical tent.
"YOU SAID THERE WOULDN'T BE THIS MANY TANKS! DUMBASS!" The officer slammed the telephone to the tablet.
"General, we have a report that the strength of the enemies is predicted at around one regiment."
"ONE REGIMENT? WERE THOSE SCOUT BOYS BLIND ENOUGH? THEY SAID IT WAS ONLY A BATTALION!" The general shouted at the officer that just given the information.
Something definitely had happened here. Del wasn't sure about it, but something definitely wasn't adding up in here. The general was boiling red. Everyone that he met got quite a mouth from that general.
"Sir, twenty T-45 tanks were spotted near the line just now," an officer said.
"TWENTY??? HOW THE HELL DID THEY MOBILIZE IT SO FAST?" The general asked.
"Sir, it's Brigadier General Aubert's regiment," the officer said.
"AUBERT? THAT DAMN GENERAL," the general said.
Del entered the building at the wrongest time. It would be better if he left immediately. However, it was too late too. One of the female soldiers approached him and apologized, "Sorry for the ruckus, what can I do for you?"
"I wanted to ask whether I can get a place to sleep, but after looking at the ordeal, I'd rather ask later, now, if you excuse me," Del wanted to leave, but suddenly the general shouted at him. Del shuddered from that shout alone.
"YOU THERE! COME OVER HERE, SON!"
"Me?" Del pointed his hand at himself.
"YES, YOU! NOW GET OVER HERE, SON."
With no choice left, Del approached that army general. "Good lord, were you the one that destroy a tank company on your own? Answer me, son."
"Yes, sir."
He then whispered, "Meet me at my office, 1900 hours, I have a job for you, got it?
Del then just nodded. He was in a position to refuse, but getting into the general's good side was quite a priority for him. Besides, maybe getting close to the general would be his ticket to the intelligence that he really wanted to know.
Del nodded.
"Good boy," the general said.
The general walked back to his office and Del walked back to the female soldier that greeted him. The female soldier was wondering what just happened. The unknown stranger suddenly got called by her general and the general whispered something to him.
"Anyway, ma'am, do you know where the barrack is?"
"Oh, sorry, from here, you go straight, search for a tent with "6" written on top of it, it should be your barrack," the female soldier said.
Del walked out of that building alongside Anna after he picked up his belongings from the soldier that took away his equipment for a while. Del wondered how the general noticed his appearance. Well, it was quite true that he wore woodland, but it wasn't particularly standing out since the other soldiers were also wearing dark green uniforms in that area for obvious reason.
Thinking about it again, the white bandages covering Anna's entire face really stood out. It was rare to see someone covered in that much by a bandage and the bandage was white so it particularly stood out.
Del walked along with the ruined city while keeping himself away from the building because some of the buildings were shelled so badly that they might fall down at any minute. There were also some broken field guns scattered around the town. The town fought so badly against the sudden attack from the imperial armored regiment.
The tent was located right next to a destroyed building. Del entered that tent only to find soldiers and someone with a white scrub alongside a white medical mask which was none other than Sharon. It was no different than the medical tent, albeit it was a little bit more cleaner and the amount of blood on the floor wasn't as much as the blood in the medical tent.
"Ah, welcome," Sharon said as she sewed the wound of a soldier.
"Was the attack that bad?" Del asked.
"Well, if you got shot, you'll be treated in your own barracks. If you got punctured lungs, punctured abdomen, slashed intestines, etc, you'll be treated in the medical tent," Sharon answered.
"Damn, that's quite mental, I'm not going to lie about it," Del said.
"You better get some sleep, Del. I have several soldiers left to go through, hopefully, they can walk again tomorrow," Sharon said.
"Thanks. Anna, would you mind waking me up at six?"
Del searched for any empty cot bed that didn't have personal belonging next to it. Del put his machine gun and rifle next to it after he put his body armor and his helmet down.. He then closed his eyes and went to sleep.