Chapter 58: Enemy Raid

  In the late afternoon, Xia Ya and Kevin set out with a team of scouts on light horseback.

  The 13th Cavalry Regiment had a full establishment of 12,000 men, but the actual combat troops were only 8,000. The remaining 4,000 were auxiliary arms, including logistics, rear echelon, escort battalions, infantry guards, and even a temporarily recruited civilian labor battalion. After all, cavalry is not only the king of land warfare, but also expensive and fragile.

  Cavalry horses need to be fed and cared for, veterinarians are needed, blacksmiths and quartermasters in the army are responsible for repairing weapons, logistics personnel are responsible for transporting military supplies, etc.

  The 8,000-strong troops were divided into four independent banner units, with each unit having 2,000 men. In addition, there was also an independent light cavalry vanguard unit of around 200 people.

  The search reconnaissance operation was carried out by a small team from the independent vanguard regiment, consisting of 18 scouts and cavalrymen, plus Shaya and Kevin.

  Xia Ya followed the army for the first time, and before that, he had only stayed in the garrison for less than half a day, without having time to carefully observe this army. At this moment, looking at the scouts and light cavalry beside him, he couldn't help but compare these people with the warriors of the mercenary group he had seen in Wildfire Town.

  These cavalrymen, although only light horsemen, each showed extremely fine horsemanship - if they hadn't controlled the marching speed but instead ran at full force, then in less than a moment, Xia Ya could only eat dust behind them. At the same time, these guys each showed a kind of ferocity that was difficult to describe... just like... wolves!

  Yes, these guys are like a pack of wolves, silent, ferocious, with a hint of tenacity in their eyes. Although they were kind to Xia Ya, Xia Ya clearly felt that these people had not accepted her, and the kindness was just a superficial way of keeping distance.

  Although he was a personal soldier of the general, Kevin strictly followed the orders of the leader of this scouting squad all the way, and did not receive any special treatment because of his identity as the general's guard.

  A party of men rode north, crossing the Alpabet Pass corridor on horseback, penetrating a distance of about one hundred miles, during which they conducted a zigzag search route back and forth, taking about two days.

  Xia Ya gradually became familiar with these people, and as time passed, Xia Ya's rich survival experience in the wilderness showed excellent qualities of a hunter, especially when finding every clue, he could also provide ideas based on some traces, and gradually everyone's eyes on him softened a lot.

  During their rest, Xia Ya and the cavalrymen sat together gnawing on dry and cold biscuits, drinking icy cold water.

  After two days of searching, the area they searched reached a depth of one hundred miles, with the military camp as the base point and conducting a fan-shaped search to the north. Although the cavalrymen were all somewhat tired, their determination on their faces did not diminish in the slightest, and each person's eyes were bright and full of sharpness. And Xia Ya, relying on his excellent physique, showed off his physical strength, which also made Kevin start to have a truly good impression of him.

  Xia Ya had never experienced living in such a collective before, but his seemingly silly and rustic personality unexpectedly suited the tastes of these soldiers. Moreover, Xia Ya had never thought that asking others for guidance was shameful, so he humbly asked the cavalrymen to teach him riding skills, as his excellent physical strength... basically relied on brute force to subdue the horse — anyway, after two days, his riding skills had improved significantly.

  The only one who felt a little helpless was Kevin, he saw that Xia Ya was using brute force to torment the horse and overpower it with strength, and when he saw his own spare horse being messed up by this kid, Kevin could only sigh.

  On the third day, they arrived at a thicket. The thicket was not very large. The cavalrymen ran around the thicket in a circle and did not find any suspicious marks. They decided to rest here for a while and then set off on their return journey.

  "Are you feeling a bit bored like this?" The captain of the guard team asked Xia Ya with a smile during their break. This was an old soldier who had served in the 13th Cavalry Regiment for more than seven years, and after being transferred from another unit to the 13th Cavalry Regiment seven years ago, he had taken root here. It was difficult to be promoted in this elite unit, and this guy was a civilian-born with no background, which even the fair-minded General Adrick couldn't help - after all, there were rules for promotion in the military.

  With this captain's seniority, he could have been transferred to another ordinary army for promotion, but he refused the transfer order several times and "stayed" here. What's even more ridiculous is that it's said that this guy's son also joined the 13th Cavalry Regiment...

  According to Kevin, many people in the 13th Cavalry Regiment had such experiences.

  "Why are you asking this?" Xia Ya stared curiously at the captain, who had been with him for several days and felt that he was a very enthusiastic good person, at least to his comrades. He was a robust middle-aged man with a face full of bronze-colored skin that had been polished by the wind and sun, with dense wrinkles around his eyes, looking like he was already nearly fifty years old despite being only forty.

  "We've been running for two days and got nothing. You must think this mission is pretty boring." The captain chuckled, glancing around at the resting cavalrymen.

  Xia Ya thought for a moment, took a deep breath, and said seriously: "I don't think so, the value of being an inspector doesn't lie in necessarily finding some problem."

  "Oh?" Although it was just a casual question, he didn't expect this rookie to have such an answer. The captain became somewhat interested: "What makes you think that?"

  Xia Ya recalled, as if he had seen some notes about the purpose of combat scouts in the old man's books. After thinking for a moment, he smiled and said: "I don't fully understand either, but... finding problems is important, but if you don't find any problems, at least you can provide valuable clues to the commander, at least indicating that this area is 'clean'. This is also valuable intelligence in itself. So we can't rashly conclude that not finding a problem means there's no merit."

  The team leader narrowed his eyes, and Kevin, who had been busy with his own affairs beside him, couldn't help but look at Xia Ya curiously: "Have you learned these things before?"

  Xia Ya shook her head and hesitated for a moment: "I saw it in some books..."

  The captain's face lit up with a happy smile, and he patted Xia Ya on the back, looking at Kevin: "Hey! Baldy, this rookie is new here, right? Can you tell the general to send him over to me? Nowadays, all the new recruits want to be heavy cavalry charging forward, not many guys are willing to patiently serve as scouts."

  Kevin smiled and said: "You go talk to the general about this yourself."

  He lowered his head and continued to busy himself with his own affairs. Xia Ya sat down beside him, looking at Kevin - this guy was holding a piece of sheepskin, on which were written some dense and intricate characters in charcoal, while Kevin was gently scraping off these characters from the sheepskin with a small knife.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Write a letter." Kevin didn't lift his head: "We soldiers don't have that much money to buy paper, and paper is too easy to damage. So for communication with family, we use sheepskin, write on it with charcoal pen, after reading, scrape off the words, can be reused repeatedly."

  The bald man raised his head and looked at Xia Ya: "You've never used this kind of thing before?"

  Xia Ya suddenly froze, a strange feeling surged in her heart, and she opened her mouth: "I... I didn't write any letters, nor is there anyone to communicate with."

  As he said this, a kind of indescribable desolation suddenly arose in his heart.

  Writing letters... means it's something only close relatives can do, as for me...

  Yeah, after the old man died, I was left alone.

  For some reason, when he thought of this idea, a poor worm's pitiful face suddenly appeared in his mind...

  Xia Ya was stunned for a moment, and then goosebumps all over her body stood up. She quickly clapped her arm hard and spat.

  Damn it, did I catch that queer disease from being with Aku for too long?!

  He quickly shook his head vigorously and threw away this terrible thought.

  But then Kevin's voice was heard beside his ear, this guy's eyes were shining at the moment, and a hint of comical tenderness appeared on his originally somewhat ferocious face: "This is my wife's letter, hehe! I'm a married man, her name is Julia, tell you, she's a pure-blooded Rodoria woman! Haha! Be surprised? Now in the empire, pure-blooded Rodorians are extremely rare. Hehe, I brought one back home! I served in the Rodorian cavalry, my wife is also a Rodorian woman, and there was only me in the entire army!!"

  When it comes to his wife, this taciturn young man suddenly becomes talkative...

  Looking at this arrogant expression, Xia Ya let out a sigh...

  Having a wife is definitely good! Ugh, it's really infuriating, Xia Ya's grandfather still...

  "Uh, your wife must be very beautiful." Xia Yayu, a virgin, expressed a little envy.

  "Of course! She's the goddess in my heart." Leng Tou Qing smiled and his eyes lit up with approval as he looked at Xia Ya: "Her roasted meat is extremely delicious, I'll invite you to my place to try her cooking sometime! You're a great guy, we can become good friends in the future."

  Uh... poor Ah-Dou, he probably still doesn't know what Xia Ya considers "good-looking". If he knew, the two of them would probably turn against each other and duel as soon as they became friends.

  ※※※

  An episode is that many years later, after Xia Ya's success, his glorious deeds spread throughout the mainland, and those earliest comical aesthetic views also became a topic of good-natured ridicule among everyone.

  "Xia Ya Wang said your wife (daughter) is very beautiful" - such words would be considered a famous insult and spread widely...

  This famous quote later spread throughout the mainland, and another world-renowned joke "XXX, your mom is calling you home for dinner." were listed together, and the two quotes complemented each other on the mainland...

  ※※※

  When the scouts were resting, three soldiers who had been selected to stand guard were already lurking in the three trees with the best views around them. The young cavalryman on the far right was wearing thick leather armor, and the rough leather had chafed through the skin on the inside of his thighs after several days, causing him to crouch in a rather comical posture on the branch. However, his eyes were still very bright - he was the best archer in this small squad, and people with the best archery skills usually also have the keenest eyesight.

  He cautiously looked around at a distance, sweeping over several important positions. The soldier let out a sigh of relief, his eyes still gazing into the distance, while carefully hiding his body behind the branches and leaves, unfastening the water bag from his waist to unscrew the cap...

  At the moment he lifted the water bag to drink, his gaze finally left the front - just for a brief moment of lifting his head to drink water...

  Pffft!! An arrow shot out silently from the dark night sky, without making a single sound, and pierced his throat like a venomous snake!

  The arrow pierced through the soldier's water bag and into his throat! In that instant, the soldier's eyes widened in despair, he raised his hand, and fell head-first from the tree!

  The ground scouts were suddenly awakened! At this moment, in the darkness, more than a dozen blurry black shadows had quickly pounced over from the forest!

  Enemy attack!!!!!!

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  To brothers who don't waste tickets on books, I'm telling you with deep feeling: Xia Ya Wang said you're very pretty... Hehe~