Let go of that monster girl!

Each lemming girl's stance exudes a murderous aura honed from years of traversing dangerous trade routes.

Molen stood between the two groups and rubbed his forehead.

Anyone in that situation would think they've just recruited a bunch of cannon fodder.

Militia members cannot be called soldiers; they can only be called cannon fodder.

Not to mention that these rat girls in front of us are ragged, thin, malnourished, and likely have severe psychological trauma from monsters.

Although many novelists who have never seen real swords and guns often fantasize about an old farmer grabbing a dagger and rushing forward to pin the noble lady to the ground and stab her repeatedly.

After all, even rune plate armor needs a vent.

But what if a real fight breaks out?

Please.

The opposing knight slashed off four heads with one strike, and the remaining stragglers were so strong that they didn't urinate while fleeing for their lives.

Miss Knight exists to fight against the Dragon Girl who can burn half a city to glass, and the witches who possess various world-destroying abilities.

The cannon fodder's job is to transport supplies, clean plate armor, and die at the right time to waste a second of the enemy's time.

The lemming guard captain stepped forward, clearly thinking that Moren was going to use the militia rats as a speed bump, and complained with dissatisfaction:

"Sending these rats who have only ever held a hammer to the fungal forest is suicide. They won't even be able to learn the simplest crossbow in just a few days."

Molen nodded in agreement.

"Of course, if the opponent is a knight, then it would be suicide, but monsters are a different story."

Humans have brains, monsters don't.

Molen waved behind him.

Several female rat craftswomen labored up bundle after bundle of ridiculously long objects, which made dull, wooden thuds as they hit the ground.

The lemming girl guard captain was stunned.

Spear.

A spear nearly five meters long.

It wasn't the short spear used by cavalry, nor the ordinary spear used by infantry; it was an absurdly long spear.

Even with three mouse girls standing side by side, they couldn't reach the spearhead; the spear shaft could extend from the fifth row of the queue to the front of the first row of mouse girls.

Macedonian phalanx.

Molen once heard of a classic philosophical question:

How many people can lift a golden cube with sides measuring one meter with their bare hands?

The answer is no matter how many people there are, because there's simply not enough room for more than a few people to stand around the Golden Cube.

The so-called war heroes who can fight against a hundred enemies are actually constantly facing small groups of two or three opponents in the chaos of the battlefield.

If you really let her face a hundred enemies at the same time, she'd definitely be captured, unless she were a dragon girl.

The purpose of the Macedonian phalanx was to concentrate the attack power of the entire phalanx on the front using its extremely long spear shafts.

If the enemy gets even slightly close, they will have to face an impenetrable wall of hundreds of spears at once.

It is said that the most well-trained phalanxes can even intercept arrows.

The best phalanx spears were carved from a single piece of dogwood, reaching a length of five meters, and were both hard and strong.

The things that the Rat Girl has in her hands are naturally not that particular.

A few days ago, Molen had the carpenter rat carve the recycled bedposts into two three- or four-meter-long sticks, reinforced by multiple copper rings joined together in the middle, and the spearheads were sharpened and wrapped in copper.

It's not very sharp, but it's still quite sturdy; at least it won't break easily.

Molen climbed onto the roof of a truck, looking down at the square and directing the militiamen to line up:

"Stand according to the dots on the ground. Those who are not tall should stand in front, and those who are short should stand in the back!"

The mouse girls hurriedly picked up their spears and took their positions according to the markings that had been drawn on the ground with lime beforehand.

The five-meter-long spear weighs nearly twenty kilograms, almost half the weight of the rat girl. Even the rat girls, with their loli-like physical strength, would find it difficult to lift it.

In his earliest plans, Morren considered having two rats share a spear, but after a small-scale trial, it became clear that such coordination was too demanding for a group of grunts.

The spear formation needs to be numerous, so even if the spear tips are directly pressed to the ground, the more the better!

Two square formations, each consisting of one hundred rats, gradually took shape. The dark mass of spearheads swayed slightly in the wind, like two hedgehogs with their sharp spines pointing straight to the sky.

Standing directly in front of it, the view is extremely oppressive.

If the enemy is an elite cavalry, they can easily ride around to the flank and launch a high-speed surprise attack. The turning speed of this bunch of spear hedgehogs is even slower than that of a snail.

But the monster won't.

In theory, tigers can evade hunters' spears, but more often than not, they will frantically try to bite the spearhead because they are completely unaware that the spear is not part of the hunter's body.

The intelligence of most monsters in the Dark Zone is much lower than that of tigers. Even if they are faced with a wall of fire, they will rush in without hesitation.

The lemming girl guard captain thought for a moment, but still expressed doubt:

"Your Excellency, with these crude spears, we can at most kill a few flesh beasts. Against stronger monsters, we might not even be able to break their skin."

"Nobody thinks they can break through."

Glug glug.

Driven by the catgirls' shouts, the giant cargo rat, with its round, chubby paws, dragged the wagon whose power everyone had already witnessed, and Lyme, sitting resignedly in the center.

The flamethrower came to a steady stop in the open space between the two formations.

The lemming girl guard captain stared at the device in the center of the formation for a while, then looked at the dense jungle of spear tips on both sides, and a look of sudden realization appeared on her face.

Chapter 12 The Lumberjacks Set Off!

The gates of Aishan City were wide open, and for a moment, both sides of the road were filled with cute round ears waving small flags made of scraps of cloth.

Cheers accompanied the procession as Morren rode on the broad back of the giant cargo rat, his entire body encased in a fine suit of plate armor.

The scratches on the shoulder pads and breastplate have been skillfully repaired by the blacksmith rat, and sitting on the giant rat's back is quite imposing.

Behind him was the fire-breathing rat cart that had been remodeled by the rat-girl craftsmen. It was wrapped in colorful strips of cloth, and several small flags of the cat-and-mouse caravan were even tied to the frame. From a distance, the pile of junk actually looked somewhat like a war chariot.

The militia rats, carrying spears, followed behind the giant cargo rats. Although their formation was still chaotic, every little face wore an excited smile.

"Heroes! Heroes, come back and tell us your stories!"

"Go, Sister Tonghua!"

"You must come back safely!"

Jimmy stood on the truck in the middle of the giant rat convoy, wagging her cat tail and waving her little paws, and the cat merchants' guards waved back at her.

The cook cried, her face streaked with snot and tears, her little hands clutching Moren's leg armor, muttering incessantly:

"Young master, the pancakes should be eaten hot, and remember to put less salt in the stew. If you drink too much water, you won't be able to run around. Waaah, young master."

"It's only a four-day round trip, there's no need to act like it's a matter of life and death."

Molen looked down helplessly at the cook being dragged along by the giant rat, who was hanging from his leg armor.

"But they said that before, boohoo..."

The cook actually cried herself unconscious, and the cat-girl guards quickly carried her back to the cheering crowd.

Molen sighed inwardly, but maintained a calm expression on his face.

On the fire-breathing rat cart, Lym curled up into a ball. She thought she had gotten quite used to the flames and sounds over time, but seeing so many rat girls looking at her with such fervent and expectant eyes, and knowing that there were supposedly so many monsters outside, made her feel uneasy.

Moren smiled and waved to the rats on either side, speaking in a voice only Lyme behind him could hear:

"Smile, raise your hands, and don't let them see that you're scared."

Although Molen had been planning this short expedition for a long time, the destination was only the edge of the mushroom forest, and it was by no means a life-or-death situation.

But relying solely on this cobbled-together equipment and militia trained for a few days is clearly not a sure thing.

A poorly trained squad of rat girls is a complete rabble, and what they lack most is not equipment and technology, but morale.

Castles often collapse from within first. Equipment and technology can compensate for this, but when morale collapses, nothing works. This is why Morren made the departure ceremony look like a triumphant return.

Lyme stiffly raised his hand, and the rats on the city wall burst into cheers.

"Miss Lyme! Miss Lyme!"

"The fire-breathing sister is so amazing!"

The militia rats, carrying spears, also waved their little hands, their chests puffed out high.

"Hehehe, I'm a great hero, wait for me to come back!"

"I'll bring you big mushrooms from the mushroom forest when I come back!"

"Stop bragging, just don't get scared by the monster and wet your pants!"

"No way! The Baron is here!"

The moment Morren rode the giant rat through the city gate, he drew the gleaming longsword from his waist and pointed it straight at the eternally dark sky above.

"set off!"

A cheer erupted from the rat girls behind them.

Even a few hundred meters away from the thick city wall of the low hill, you can still see the glowstone lights of the farewell procession at the city gate.

The rat girls militia were still whispering excitedly to each other, even discussing how to brag to the other rats when they got back.

But the catgirl guards had already stopped smiling and placed their hands on their crossbows.

The lemming guards remained silent, scattered around the perimeter of the formation.

Moren composed himself and led the rat girls forward.

The farther away you are from the low hills, the more distant those warm and safe lights become.

After walking along the river for about the time it takes to eat a meal, everything around us was shrouded in a terrible silence.

There were no insect chirps, no wind, and no sounds from any living creature.

Molen raised one hand and made a fist.

"Turn off the lights."

In the desolate wilderness of the darkest zone, warm light can illuminate not only the path ahead but also the spot where you died.

The brighter and warmer it is, the faster it will attract those bloodthirsty and twisted monsters.

The mouse girls reluctantly screwed on the lampshade of the fluorite lantern, and as the last bit of pale yellow light disappeared, everything sank into darkness.

It was pitch black, absolute darkness.

There was no sky, no stars, and no moonlight.

The soil that should have been growing grass and trees had long since cracked and died; there was no grass, no moss, not even withered leaves.

Occasionally, one can see dead tree trunks on both sides, their bark long since peeled away, revealing bare wood that is grayish-white like bone, with branches twisted and reaching towards the sky.

A deathly silence, a desolate wasteland.

Only the gentle flow of the river beside them, its soft murmur in the darkness, guided the group's direction.

Slimes and mouse girls, who are adapted to living underground, have a fairly good ability to see blindly, and can make out the general outline even in the dark.

The catgirl's night vision was even better, allowing the guards to move freely in the shadows, as if they were born to belong to this world without light.

The Rat Girl militia dared not make a sound.

The little mouths that were chattering just moments ago were now tightly shut, their round ears pressed flat against their heads, and their tails tucked between their legs. Several of the more timid mouse girls were almost in tears.

The lemming girl guard silently removed several spears from the giant rat's back and handed them to the militia rat.

The militia rats immediately clung to it like it was a lifeline, surrounding the giant cargo rat tightly, forming several lines along the spear, shoulder to shoulder, afraid that if they were to fall behind, they would never be able to find it again.

Even the catgirls abandoned their usual languidness, their pupils dilating in the darkness, their bodies crouching low, resembling silent and keen hunters.

Many of these ratwomen had traveled with Morren to and from the nearby fox market, so they weren't entirely unfamiliar with the darkness of the wilderness.

Molen was most worried about Lem, who was seeing such a scene for the first time.