Border (2)

Little soldier Hug was in charge of the entire squad's food supply; he was both a logistics officer and a cook. Mi watched as he casually kneaded the flour into a lump, divided it into several small pieces, lit the oven, and threw the dough in once it was hot enough. When the surface of the dough turned yellow and charred, he used a wooden stick to sweep all the dough out. The dough near the oven wall had already turned black; it was definitely cooked, but the texture was no different from that of a stone.

Hugh called his baked dough "Hugh bread." Every day he baked a basket of Hugh bread, then chopped the meat into pieces and put them in the oven to bake until the crust was full of fat and the aroma of roasted meat wafted out. Several soldiers, ignoring the heat, grabbed pieces of meat to eat. With a pot to cook meat broth, the rice pot received the highest treatment, carefully stored in a cellar-like place every day, only taken out when cooking soup, and immediately stored away afterward.

In front of the woodshed was the soldiers' quarters, a small, narrow room with four simple wooden plank beds, piled with stones on both sides. It was excessively rudimentary, but at least it had a roof, providing shelter from the wind and rain. Ever since Mi taught Huge how to bake bread and stew meat in clay pots by burning sand, the soldiers treated Mi much more kindly. Except for not telling her when she could enter the country, they treated Mi almost like a comrade.

It was only then that Mi realized the man with the mustache was their captain. The roofless room where Mi was imprisoned had originally been the mustache captain's bedroom. Since Mi moved in, the mustache captain had been sleeping on the ground beneath the city wall. Mi saw her single tent set up by the mustache captain under the wall. Mi's tent was sewn by an old man from Redstone Town using the warmest leather, and inside there was a soft, warm blanket. Mi looked up at the exposed bedroom; the temperature at the border post would drop very low at night.

The sandstorms were fierce during the day, and Krus would invite Mi to the house where the soldiers lived to escape the sandstorm. Mi learned about this border post from the soldiers. Border Post 17 was the seventeenth entry point into the Flower Kingdom. Along this city wall, there were dozens of such entry points. The Flower Kingdom had a huge and long border.

Border Post 17 only had five people: four soldiers, a captain, and now, with Mi, there were only six. The captain with the mustache wasn't tall, maybe only 1.7 meters at most. He looked a bit eccentric, wearing a linen shirt and leather pants, giving him a somewhat unruly air. He also had a pair of prominent mustaches, and when Mi first saw him, he reminded her of Nasreddin. Actually, the captain with the mustache was quite handsome, like Rhett Butler from Gone with the Wind. However, the border's sandstorms were ruthless, and besides his distinctive mustache, his perpetually squinting eyes, wind-wrinkled skin, and his always slow, deliberate movements made him look particularly unreliable and eccentric.

The four soldiers were quite tall, each over 1.9 meters, but their extreme thinness made them look like bamboo poles. At first glance, the mustachioed captain looked like a child with four table legs. Only two of the four soldiers wore leather armor, and all had similarly dark skin. Mi couldn't tell them apart at all, and the mustachioed captain didn't seem to care. He simply pointed and said, "You go!" to assign guard duty. It was unclear if there were any overlaps in the assignments, but the tall soldiers obeyed the mustachioed captain's orders. There were no higher-ranking officers present, and the mustachioed captain's authority was excessively high. Mi quietly observed the four soldiers, feeling that each of them could easily take down the mustachioed captain with one hand.

The immigration office needed to have guards on duty 24 hours a day, braving the wind and sand on the city walls. Mi was discovered by a soldier on guard duty by the city wall. The guards wore leather armor, and sometimes Mi would see off-duty soldiers take off their leather armor and give it to another soldier. This immigration office not only had few people, but also even fewer military equipment. They only had two leather jackets, and when they weren't wearing leather armor, they would wrap themselves in a cloak, which served as both clothing and a blanket.

Upon arriving at Border Post 17, Mi was cautious, conducting minimal reconnaissance. Once they were familiar with each other, Mi released the witch's form at night. However, she had only just begun to transform, her fingers extending only a few centimeters, when the mustachioed captain immediately crawled out of his tent. He rang the bell by the city gate, and three other soldiers appeared instantly. They cautiously climbed the city wall, observing for a long time in the darkness before descending again. Soldier Krus, carrying a torch, thoroughly surveyed the area around Border Post 17, finally stopping in front of Mi's straw mat. Mi immediately deactivated all reconnaissance and pretended to sleep. The people of Border Post 17 were extremely vigilant; they had been trained to react with lightning speed and operate with extreme caution. Later, Mi discovered that even the slightest change in the border post would alert them; they were like wolves ready to pounce at any moment.

During the day, Mi would climb the city wall to look out at the wilderness. The wind on the wall was obviously stronger, making it almost impossible for a person to stand. The wilderness was bathed in the white sunlight, and in the distance, patches of dust rose up. In just a short while, the city wall was covered with dust.

"Are there many people crossing the border here? Do we have to keep watching all the time?" Mi asked Krus, who was standing guard on the city wall, his back to the wind. No one else had come to this border crossing except Mi these past few days, and Mi had never understood why there were always people standing on the city wall. Krus smiled as Mi turned his head away, spat out the sand in his mouth, and didn't answer Mi's question. He kept staring into the distance. Suddenly, Krus reached out and rang the bell on the city wall. The bell rang urgently.

"Alert! Invasion! Engage!" Krus shouted down at the top of his lungs. A soldier quickly ran over and closed the wooden door at the border, while two other soldiers swiftly pushed two huge stones from the side of the gate to weigh it down.

Mi squinted and looked outside. She saw black figures moving amidst the swirling yellow sand in the distance. Soon, she saw a procession of giant monsters approaching. The ground trembled slightly, the heavy thuds pressing down on one's heart. The yellow sand in front of the giants was thicker than elsewhere, and the billowing dust could not stop their footsteps.

Mi looked closely. The giant had eyes like light bulbs and a broad, earthen head, looking like a giant block of earth pushing forward. Dust billowed from beneath their feet, seemingly connected to their bodies, like a sandstorm and mudslide pushing towards them. The sky was also filled with yellow sand, making the sky above the giant much darker than the rest of the world.

Mi stared at the enormous monster that had suddenly appeared; it was the creature she had encountered on her first day in the wasteland. Mi leaped down from the city wall and found a soldier: "Where are my bow and arrows?"

"Give it to her!" The mustachioed captain, too, grabbed a giant bow and climbed the city wall. The troll arrived quickly; by the time Mi got the bow and arrow, the troll was already four meters tall. The one in front was near the wall, its head protruding above it, swinging its massive stone axe at the wall. The axe struck the wall with resounding booms, scattering rubble everywhere. An axe smashed through the defenseless wooden fence, and the giant's large, muscular arm reached in, pushing aside the boulder blocking the doorway. Two soldiers frantically slashed at the arm with their machetes, the blades chipping away, leaving only pale marks on the arm. What kind of monster was this?

More and more monsters appeared before the city walls, accompanied by the resounding crashes of stones shattering and stone axes leaping over them. Several houses near the border had their roofs smashed open, and one wall even collapsed. Dust billowed inside the city walls as a giant monster crawled halfway in through a small gate. Mi hesitated, then shoved his bow into Krus's hand, drew his dagger, and charged at the monster. The mustachioed captain, seeing Mi, roared, "The dagger's too short, useless! Get out of the way!" An arrow grazed Mi's ear, pinning one of the monster's ears to the ground. Mi sheathed his dagger and drew his sword. The mustachioed captain, leaping and dodging along the walls, glanced at the sword in Mi's hand and shouted, "Stab its ear! Pierce it in, deep!"

While the giant on the ground was struggling, its ears pinned to the ground and baring its teeth, Mi leaped up and plunged her swords into its other, erect ear. The giant roared and quickly gave up struggling, its massive body blocking the entrance. Mi turned around and saw Krus firing arrows haphazardly, which annoyed her. She sheathed her sword, grabbed her bow, and quickly climbed the city wall, running further away. After running a distance, Mi turned and crouched on the wall, whistling arrows that struck the giant's eyes. Blinded, the giant lost its target and wildly swung its stone axe, which smashed against the wall and other giants nearby. The giants near the wall immediately fell into chaos.

The gate to Border Post 17 was mostly blocked by monster corpses, and the two soldiers abandoned their posts. They rushed into a room with a collapsed wall, retrieved two bundles of rope, and began climbing the city wall. Mi had run out of arrows; she placed her bow in a corner of the wall, picked up her sword, and returned to Border Post 17. Outside the wall, a giant monster, struck in one eye by Mi's arrow, was now frantically smashing the wall with its other eye open. The mustachioed captain pulled Krus aside, leaped into the air, and plunged his arrow shaft into the giant's other eye. Half the arrow sank into the monster's eye, and it swayed before collapsing to the ground with a thud, raising a cloud of dust. Two giants, tripped by the fallen corpses, angrily threw their stone axes at Krus. Mi quickly rushed over and pulled Krus aside; the stone axes fell onto the wall and broke in two.

Mi crouched on the uneven part of the city wall and looked out. Seven giants had been shot in the eyes. Two of them had both eyes hit and stood still, swinging stone axes. Most of the stone axes hit the giants' bodies. The other giants, in pain, also swung their axes and came at him. For a moment, several giants were entangled together and killed each other.

Mi moved along the depression. There were more than a dozen giants in this group. Apart from one that had fallen at the border, there were seven or eight fighting together. A little further away outside the city wall, there were two giant corpses with two long arrows stuck in their eyes. They had been shot by Captain Mustache.

Along the city wall, seven or eight trolls surrounded the mustachioed captain. The trolls were taller than the wall itself, with two enormous arms and square heads protruding from it. Stone axes pounded the wall, causing sections to crumble. Two soldiers crawled along a dent in the wall, one end of a rope tied to a protruding stone, the other held in their hands. One soldier tossed the rope lightly, catching the troll's flailing arm. The soldier, Krus, quickly helped his companion secure the rope to a pillar at the other end. The mustachioed captain seized the opportunity, leaping out and plunging his longsword into the troll's ear before swiftly flipping away and pulling the sword away. The troll fell, one arm dangling from the wall. The soldiers released the rope and ran to the other end to pull it back. The mustachioed captain's sword was a knight's sword with a hilt and handguard; its blade was sharp and slender, perfectly suited for attacking the troll's ear. Unfortunately, the giant was tall and large, and when it swung its stone axe, no one could get close. Seeing that nearly half of the city wall had been smashed down by the giant, Mi put away his cumbersome longsword, took out his dagger again, and shouted at the mustachioed captain hanging upside down on the other side of the city wall: "I'll go and stab their eyes."

Captain Little Mustache dodged a swinging arm by vaulting over the wall. He glanced at Mi, nodded, and gave him a word of advice: "Watch out for their axes, avoid their arms."