The story of the black silk female knight

The only thing we know for sure is that the beasts have employed a scorched-earth strategy, concentrating most of their forces, and seem to have a way to counter our nuclear weapons.

"Is it difficult to get further information...? Well, it is. According to your previous description, the wild beasts are now quite vigilant."

Tia nodded, but there was no worry on her face. Instead, she rested her chin on her hand and pondered for a moment, then a smile appeared in her eyes:

"But it's not that difficult."

"Hey? Tia, my darling, you came up with a solution so quickly?"

Valensa was overjoyed:

"Quick, quick... baby, please teach me what to do!"

"Hmm~~ Actually, this is just an idea~~"

Tia smiled, flicked her hair, and then held up one finger and wagged it:

"The wild beasts are now very wary of us, and have set up layers of checkpoints and various countermeasures to prevent us from penetrating their controlled areas to gather intelligence."

So why don't we think about it the other way around... Since it's difficult to actively penetrate the controlled area, why not try letting the wild beasts bring our scouts in themselves?

When we were little, didn't you tell me that story about the Trojan Horse? And how did Cao Cao's second sister leak crucial information?

"Combining these two points might offer a solution?"

"A Trojan horse? A bugging device?"

Valensa's eyes lit up immediately:

"I think I know what to do... Ugh, any more hints, darling?"

"Want another hint? Hum, here's another one for you."

Tia rested her chin on her hand and pondered for a moment:

"Although I didn't see it with my own eyes, I think the fact that the Wild Beasts use elite soldiers of Pearl rank or above for all the patrol teams around the controlled area is not just to guard against us."

The scorched earth tactic is indeed effective in defense, but it has one prerequisite: the city must have sufficient resources. The biggest characteristic of the Wasteland is the scarcity of resources. I don't think that the small area within the sandstorm barrier has enough resources to support so many wild beasts.

In short, you can observe those patrol teams more closely; you should be able to find a breakthrough.

"Observe the patrol teams more closely... I understand."

Valensa nodded, chatted for a bit more about the little things in her life these past few days, and then ended the call.

Tia's method is highly feasible. By employing a Trojan horse tactic, she could get the beasts to take back technological spy gadgets such as miniature listening devices. This might yield significant results.

Spy tools are easy to find; Wei has plenty, and she can be summoned to trade at any time.

What needs to be done now is to figure out what the beast patrol teams on the outskirts of the beast-controlled area do besides patrolling.

At first, Valensa was still thinking about Princess Yu's spirit... Since it was impossible to go deep into enemy-controlled territory to gather intelligence, it should be fine to monitor patrols on the outskirts of enemy-controlled territory, right?

After trying it, I found that it still didn't work very well.

The elite beast warriors of the beast patrol team are very perceptive. They can detect the skeletal crows if they fly too low, but if they fly too high, they cannot see the beast warriors' movements at all.

The same applies to undead creatures like skeletons and zombies... The only way they can avoid being discovered by the elite warriors of the Wild Beasts is to bury themselves in the ground, but even then they can't see what the Wild Beasts are doing, they can only hear their footsteps.

The ability to analyze the behavior of wild beasts simply by their footsteps... even the undead created by Princess Yu don't have such advanced skills.

So Valensa had to take matters into her own hands once again, using her mental powers to reduce her presence and her optical camouflage cloak to become invisible, and she even brought along Thousand Leaf Grass, who knew the Leaf Concealment Technique.

This time it finally went smoothly. As long as we are careful to keep our distance and avoid the upwind side, and don't let the wild beasts with their keen sense of smell detect our scent, we will basically not be discovered by those wild beast patrols.

After observing in secret for two days, they indeed made quite a few discoveries.

These patrol squads, composed of elite beast warriors, were responsible for not only guarding the expeditionary force but also gathering resources.

They have three main objectives.

One is water. These wild beasts will not let go of any water, whether it is clear or muddy. They will collect it in containers and bring it back to their camp or settlement.

Secondly, various kinds of meat.

Monsters and animals are very rare in the Barrens, but they do exist.

It mainly consists of insects, including scorpions the size of a washbasin and worms as thick as a thigh... The Radiant Tunnel Worm that dug through the Fran border defense line with a tunnel was a rare variant among the various worm-like monsters in the Wasteland.

These slimy and foul-smelling worms would disgust any normal person, but the wild beasts consider them a delicacy and are overjoyed every time they catch one.

Besides these insects, there are also a few species of lizard and canine monsters distributed in the Wasteland, which are also the hunting targets and sources of meat for wild beasts.

There were even some male wild beasts that were probably pent up and would do unspeakable things to lizards that were about the same size as them, and then kill and eat them... This scene disgusted Valensa and Thousand Leaf Grass, who were secretly watching, for a long time.

The wild beast clearly understands the principle that a balanced diet of meat and vegetables is essential for health.

Their third primary target for gathering is the vegetarian food of the barren lands.

Of course, there are no trees as lush and green as those in the forests of Fran, and even shrubs and vines are rare here.

The most abundant vegetarian plants on the barren lands are of only two kinds. One is a plant that looks a lot like a cactus. Most of its body is oval-shaped, green, and covered with sharp thorns. Some of the thorns are poisonous. It will prick and poison animals that try to pick it, and then absorb the nutrients from the decaying carcass.

Another major vegetarian target for the wild beasts is a type of fungus that looks a lot like moss. It often appears near water sources in the Barren Ridge. It is slightly poisonous, but tastes quite good. It can be crushed and used to make sauces.

For ordinary wild beasts, a meal consisting of half a hot potato and mushroom sauce would be quite delicious.

As for meat? That was food reserved for elite warriors, and in times of extreme resource scarcity, it was even reserved for tribal chiefs.

Initially, Valensa intended to hide listening devices or other spy gadgets inside the monster flesh so that the beasts could take them back.

But she soon discovered that most of the elite warriors of those wild beasts also had their own selfish motives; they would not hand over all the meat they hunted, but would steal it for themselves.

The level of civilization among wild beasts is indeed very low, but they haven't reached the point of eating raw meat and drinking blood... They also cook their meat over a fire first.

This greatly increases the difficulty of hiding spy tools in meat, because it is hard to determine which meat the wild beasts will hand over and which they will steal for themselves... Even the most advanced spy tools will likely be damaged if they are roasted over a fire.

Therefore, hiding spy gadgets inside the flesh is not an option.

So Valensa tried hiding the spy gadgets inside a plant that looked like a cactus.

At first, things went quite smoothly. The wild beasts rarely ate the plant directly after collecting it; instead, they would store it and transport it back to their settlements.

But Valensa underestimated the power of those plants... These plant-like monsters, which resembled cacti, could absorb anything, including metallic spy equipment.

If you simply make a small opening in these plants and hide the spy equipment inside, it won't take more than a few hours for the plants to completely digest the equipment and lose the signal.

More importantly, this plant is extremely rare... Finding one of these plants that will be discovered by wild beasts but hasn't yet been found to plant spy equipment is incredibly difficult and depends heavily on luck.

As for relying on luck, Valensa was never very good at it... She tried three times and failed each time.

Twice, the wild beasts arrived later than she expected, and by the time they began harvesting, the spy tools inside the plants had already been completely integrated into the plants.

Another time, the patrol of wild beasts was too stupid; they passed by the plant three times without noticing it, and by the time they did, it was too late.

Just as Valencia was feeling both angry and distressed, Thousand Leaf Grass discovered a clue.

"Why must we hide the detection equipment inside the plant, dear sister?"

Pointing to a group of wild beast warriors picking cacti not far away, Thousand Leaf Grass said:

"Look, elder sister... when the wild beasts were picking these plants, they didn't remove the thorns from the surface and throw them away; instead, they collected them. Considering the sharpness and toxicity of these thorns, I suspect they might use them as material for some kind of weapon, like a spiked club or something."

These spikes are outside the plant's body. If the detection device were disguised as such spikes, perhaps it wouldn't be absorbed by the plant itself? Or would it be preserved by the wild beasts?

"It makes sense!"

Valensa's eyes lit up, and she hugged and kissed Thousand Leaf Grass:

"Cao Cao, you were really great this time!"

"Hehe~~"

Chiba was comfortably squinting her eyes, her little feet under her fishnet stockings almost unable to close.

After rewarding Thousand Leaf Grass, Valensa contacted Vie again to order a listening device that looked like a toothpick, to be disguised as a cactus thorn.

Vivi was even more impressive than Valensa had anticipated... She not only brought many miniature listening devices that met the requirements, but also quite a few identical cameras, the kind that were only the thickness of a toothpick, true pinhole cameras.

When Valensa found those plants that looked like cacti again, she didn't cut them open with her sword. Instead, she pulled out some of their thorns and then inserted the disguised listening devices and cameras.

This time it finally went smoothly... When those wild beast patrol teams collected this plant, whether they packed the whole plant away or plucked out the thorns and stuffed the plant directly into their mouths to steal it, the thorns were not discarded, but collected as raw materials.

Some items were lost or damaged during the process, but at least half of the listening devices and cameras still achieved their purpose—after several twists and turns, they were brought into the large wild beast settlement area covered by the sandstorm barrier.

Valensa and her companions, full of enthusiasm, immediately turned on the signal receiver, intending to take a good look and listen to the secrets hidden by the wild beasts, but they encountered a new problem.

Whether it's a camera or a bugging device, the transmitted images and sounds are intermittent, with a lot of static and noise, resulting in extremely low clarity.

Could it be that the sandstorm barrier can also block wireless signal transmission?

Somewhat worried, Valensa quickly called Vie over to provide after-sales service. Vie quickly checked and discovered the cause.

It wasn't that the sandstorm barrier could block wireless signals; it was simply that the underground ruins and the core area of ​​the wild beasts were too far apart.

The fact that a faint signal can still be received at a distance of over 500 kilometers is proof of the high quality of Arasaka's products.

The solution is simple: just add a few signal repeaters in the middle.

So Princess Yu's skeletal crows made their appearance once again, each carrying a small backpack and circling tens of thousands of meters in the sky... avoiding the threat of the wild beasts on the ground and successfully completing the task of strengthening signal transmission.

This time we can finally watch it.

On several monitors in a room of the underground ruins, the secrets of the sandstorm barrier were finally revealed.

Similar to what Valensa vaguely sensed during her forced reconnaissance, this was a super-large settlement of wild beasts.

The plant thorns that were brought in were indeed some kind of weapon material.

Most of the spikes were simply modified and then fixed to wooden sticks, becoming a makeshift weapon for the cannon fodder of the wild beasts... a kind of spiked club.

The information Valensa and her group received mainly came from the wild beasts that used these wolf-tooth clubs.

Most of the users of these spiked clubs are two or three-year-old juvenile wild beasts, at most equivalent to a human of about 10 years old (it takes about 5 years for wild beasts to reach physiological maturity).

They should be enjoying their age, but instead they have started heavy training every day, and often have to do combat training with their own kind... It is normal for them to injure each other during training, and it is not uncommon for them to be killed sometimes.

"Oh ho? Are the wild beasts planning to send minors to the battlefield?"

Princess Yi looked at the young, wounded, starving, and freezing beasts, her eyes filled with no pity, only pleasure and schadenfreude.

"Shouldn't most of their able-bodied members be dead by now?"

Gina thought for a moment, then softly replied:

"The beasts have suffered heavy losses in the autumn wars of the past few years. Coupled with the achievements of our expeditionary force and that evil goddess lady... it's very likely that the beasts have had to resort to using underage individuals to fight. This should be a good thing, right?"

"...I don't think it's that simple."

Only Valencia frowned deeply, not out of pity for the underage beasts, but because she sensed something was amiss:

"The wild beasts that died in the autumn war were the surplus animals they were supposed to eliminate. Our war to open up new trade routes and the descent of the evil god have at most eliminated a few million wild beasts... This is indeed a serious loss for the wild beast population, but it is not enough to deplete their adult populations. At least we can still organize a million more cannon fodder."

In this situation, it's normal for wild beasts to subject underage individuals to military training... but such harsh military training is excessive. This isn't about slowly cultivating them into warriors; it's about using life-or-death combat to accelerate their development.

"But even if they can be produced quickly..."

Valensa then reached out and pointed to a bloodied training winner on the screen:

"They are still just immature individuals, their bodies are not fully developed, and their strength is far from even the Firefly level... What use are they on the battlefield? They will only provide more material for the undead legion. Those high-ranking members of the Wild Beasts must have thought of this... To deal with the undead, selecting a small number of elite forces is much more useful than using a large number of cannon fodder to fill the gaps."

"...That's true."

After hearing Valensa's words, the others were also somewhat puzzled.

As they were quietly discussing various possibilities, a voice transmitted through the bug caught their attention.

It was one of the underage wild beasts muttering to itself:

"I've won five matches in a row. If I can win the final selection tomorrow, I can receive the baptism of the ancestral spirit ritual and become a powerful ancestral warrior!"

Chapter 31 Elite Troop Strategy

A ritual baptism of ancestral spirits?

Powerful ancestral warriors?

What are these?

Valensa and Princess E looked at each other in bewilderment.

Neither the knowledge learned at the War College nor the internal education of the royal family seems to have mentioned such terms.

To prevent themselves from missing something due to not paying attention in class, they consulted their top-performing wives and their crown prince brothers, but still to no avail.

"This is very likely the trump card of the wild beast race, and it is also what they most want to hide in their current efforts to guard against intelligence."

Tia's expression was very solemn during the magical projection communication: