Chapter 39: Strange, how did they manage to shovel so fast they started smoking?

With a sense of skepticism, Andrei went among the townspeople to make inquiries, receiving a variety of responses.

Most of the elderly who remained were reluctant to leave, bound by an inability to abandon the homes where they had spent their entire lives. Many felt that they were too frail to travel and that if they were forced to evacuate, they would likely perish on the road. They reasoned that it would be better to die with their homeland than to pass away in a strange land.

Beyond the elderly, others remained due to either blind optimism or various personal reasons. Even though Andrei had warned them that the Black Hawk soldiers would slaughter everyone in the town, and had even recounted the tragic scenes he had witnessed with his own eyes, they dismissed his words as mere alarmism.

"Officer, you must be joking. The Black Hawk people are human too; how could they possibly kill everyone?"

A young woman—the same one who had nearly been harassed by the players earlier and who, along with her husband and children, had chosen to stay—said with a smile: "The war will pass quickly. We have heard that the Black Hawk Empire has always had good military discipline. Besides, once they arrive, they will still need people to work, won't they?"

Faced with such blind optimism, Andrei could only roll his eyes and cease his attempts at persuasion. He did not know where the rumors about the Black Hawk Empire's supposedly good discipline originated, but having seen that pile of corpses stacked high, he did not believe a single word of such tales.

In addition to the blindly optimistic, there were also local militiamen who stayed behind, willing to defend their homes alongside the army. Most of these men were retired veterans; though they were advanced in years, their military proficiency remained intact. Furthermore, the Cambrian Empire appeared to be quite a martial nation—nearly every household among these militiamen could produce a rifle or two, capable of taking a life with ease.

Seeing that his efforts were futile, Andrei stopped trying to convince them. Sometimes, the choices truly lie in one's own hands; it is hard to save those who are determined to court death. Fate is a strange thing indeed.

After making a round of the town, Andrei went to check on his players. Having traveled by vehicle, he was far less exhausted than the other soldiers who had marched on foot. Moreover, he was terrified that his players might commit some bizarre act that would lead to disaster, so he could not sleep until he knew exactly what they were doing.

On the outskirts of the town, a large number of soldiers were busy digging trenches and constructing simple fortifications in hopes of repelling the enemy's advance. Andrei’s players had joined in the work, building various types of defenses. Andrei could not quite remember if the ability to construct fortifications existed in *Battlefield 1*; if he recalled correctly, that feature was absent.

However, these players clearly possessed their own magical abilities. It was unclear where they had scavenged their shovels, but they began digging trenches with them in no time. Although their speed at digging trenches and stacking sandbags was much slower than the miraculous construction abilities seen in *Battlefield 5*—where one could pile sandbags or conjure anti-tank obstacles in seconds—it was still impressive. Furthermore, beyond using their entrenching tools to hack at people, the players seemed to have only two functions for them: digging trenches and piling sandbags.

Even so, the players dug with tireless enthusiasm, and their ferocious speed caught the eyes of the other Cambrian soldiers. Some of the soldiers looked at their own shovels in bewilderment and tried to mimic the players' actions, only to realize that they had no idea how the players managed to ignore physics; even if they spun their own shovels until they smoked, they could never achieve such speed.

Although the players' speed at digging fortifications was absurd and the layout of their trenches was chaotic, the game system’s control ensured that the trenches were at least functional. Moreover, digging seemed to earn them a minor amount of influence, and the players gained a small amount of merit as well. Seeing the players obsessed with digging, Andrei breathed a sigh of relief and prepared to head back to rest. The infantry regiment had chosen a church behind the town as their command post and field hospital. It had to be said that the stone structure was essentially a bunker in wartime.

Andrei could not guarantee that the church could withstand heavy artillery fire, but standard field guns would certainly struggle to damage such a building. However, he had barely returned to the command post when he heard a heated argument inside.

"With all due respect, Colonel, I believe we should position the anti-tank gun on the defensive battery behind the town. It offers the widest field of vision and has stood the test of history; it is absolutely the best place to mount the gun!"

Standing before Colonel Unaire, an officer wearing glasses and possessing an academic air was arguing with him, gesturing toward a battery in the distance. Andrei glanced over; that battery must have been a fortification built many years ago. Whether in terms of height or angle, it was perfectly suited for mounting a gun, offering an incredibly wide view and masonry for protection.

But clearly, Lieutenant Colonel Unaire held a different view of the battery.

"No, Chief of Staff, you are wrong. That battery is obsolete!" Lieutenant Colonel Unaire said, frowning. "As you saw in the previous battle, the Black Hawk Empire's artillery is exceptionally proficient, and their accuracy is terrifyingly high!"

"The position of that battery is far too exposed. We only have one anti-tank gun left; we cannot take unnecessary risks! We must keep this gun concealed and use it to ambush the enemy."

Glancing at the location of the battery and recalling the previous battle, Andrei hesitated for a moment before stepping forward. "Sir, Chief of Staff, if I may be so bold, I believe the Colonel is right. If it were me, and I knew there was a battery there, I would certainly order the artillery to concentrate their fire on that spot and cover it with a barrage first!"