There was an issue with the fishing idea, we couldn’t catch enough fish, there weren''t enough fish that were close to the banks. They were some massive salmon-like fish, but most were tiny and were not being caught. There wasn’t enough to go around to feed a company, maybe a squad but not a company. We were also on limited and borrowed time due to the cold, so I had to make an irrational decision.
I gave my catch to a soldier next to a fire that was lit in a short time frame.
“You can have it.” I told him, he was about to say something but I left before he could speak any further.
Then I started looking around and I approached another soldier “can I borrow your shovel?” I asked him.
He looked confused, “why?” He asked.
“I need it to dig.” And I took it from him.
The soldier was still confused, I then started digging in a place that was clearly a part of no mans. There were several hundred bright red lights shining through the ground meaning land mines were there, none of which reacted to my presence or anybody else''s presence.
But there were spots where no land mines were, as such I started to dig in that area and quickly found what I wanted.
A trench coat sleeve with a frozen blue hand sticking out, I dug in the direction of the torso, throwing the snow to the side revealing a dead Noxu laying on the ground.
The rest of their body was frozen covered in snow and frost, yet they didn’t die from freezing but bullets which there was no evidence of except for the holes in their clothing.
The dead body appeared to be in good condition. Frozen but in edible condition once defrosted and properly prepared, we would have to eat human flesh.
There was a gun with its bayonet still attached, I grabbed the gun and removed the bayonet. It was just a long knife with a cap on the back to attach to the barrel of the gun.
Everybody had gathered around me to see what I was doing, and I pulled the Noxu body out of its hole on top of the snow. I removed its helmet and began speaking to the crowd around me.
“We can not catch enough fish, and likely will never be able to in 3 days. So this is what we are all going to eat in the meantime.” I pulled it over towards a nearby fire and removed its clothing. I tore the pants into cloth. “Dead bodies.” I said as I waited for the body to defrost for cutting.
“Begin digging for dead bodies, cut out the muscles, and crack the bones for its bone marrow. After that, cut out the organs, except for the brain, do not eat the brain.” I said, the body had quickly defrosted.
I got to cutting the Kidneys out, it was one of the easiest organs to get to when compared to the amount of work it takes for an arm or leg.
Everybody else looked around uncomfortably, towards each other and then to me.
I continued talking despite their reactions. “If you wish to take your chances with finding fish or berries, go ahead but I cannot guarantee you’ll be able to find or catch enough for everybody here. But there are around seventy five hundred bodies, enough for the 1000 mouths we have to feed. With each body being enough to feed 25 people with the minimum suggested daily caloric intake of around 2000 calories.” I said, placing the knife over the left kidney.
I cut a tiny hole over where the left kidney should be, I felt for the bean shape and found it. I then cut it out and pulled out the bean shaped slab of meat. My hand was covered in the blood that was spilling out of the left kidney.
I grabbed a cloth in my free hand and moved towards the river only 10 feet to my right and washed out the kidney in the freezing water.
The water drained out the blood and any potential contaminants, I wrapped the kidney in the cloth and moved back to the fire.
Everybody still looked at me, in shock. Fishman was the only major here with the crowd, equally as surprised. This isn’t the worst I’ve done, nor would it be the last.
A Noxu soldier stepped forward and said something in Japanese, he bowed and pulled out a knife. He was in a Noxu flamethrower''s uniform, heavy fire proof trench coat and clothing although he wasn’t wearing his gas mask or the heavy gas tank on his back.
“So a foreigner beats you guys in the willingness to feed yourself?” I asked the large crowd who all didn’t respond.
The Noxu began deliberately cutting at the hip bone slowly trying to cut through the bones. He was very clearly trying to copy what I did with the body.
“If you are willing to dig up, cut, preserve or cook bodies for food, step forward, if not you can go back to trying to spear fish.” Several dozen stepped forward, “but be warned you may not be privileged to eat, unless you help. If you fail to get food then you’ll go hungry.” More than half of the crowd stepped forward joining the previous few dozen. Leaving a minority of 30 people who haven’t stepped forward.
“Good, look for bodies and when you do remove all the clothing, armor, weapons and whatever else that isn’t flesh. Then wait for orders from your majors, we do not want a mess.” I brought out my clipboard and sent out orders to the rest of the battalion.
“Find dead bodies and gather them at the first flag, await for more specific orders from your Major’s.” Orders from CEOofMacNCheese.
I soon got up, leaving the Japanese kid to cut the body by himself. I then made my way to the first flag with Fishman behind me.
Fishman didn’t say a thing as he followed me. We arrived at the first flag and I approached the nine men of varying ages, who were all confused at the orders.
Yet I didn’t let them talk. “Each of your companies will be assigned a job. Body finding, Butchers, Preservers and cooks. 4 companies will be assigned to body finding, 2 companies will be assigned to butcher the bodies, 1 company will build fireplaces and maintain them, a single company will preserve the meats and a single company will cook the butchered body meat.” I looked around at the confused Majors. “Any questions?” I asked.
They all spoke at once, but all stopped with Fishman taking the spotlight. “What? Find bodies, butcher them? Preserve them? Cook them? What are we doing exactly?”
“Getting food of course, you haven’t had the desperation to resort to cannibalism. Or is that a thing people off-world do on long term missions, when you run out of supplies.” I said, it wasn’t a question despite the way I worded it.
Fishman remained unresponsive.
Sharkface then spoke in Fishmans place, “Why?”
I quickly answered. “I realized there''s probably not enough food to go around. Ignoring dead bodies of course, we also have around several million calories to eat, assuming these bodies are healthy adults, and it would take days for us to gather the necessary amount of food for everybody as a non-significant amount of us would’ve starved in several days time. So we resort to cannibalism now, when the bodies are fresh and we have somewhat full stomachs and fat.” Sharkface didn’t answer.
“Any more questions?” I asked.
Punisher stepped forward “Ma’am I thought we were originally assigned to find food.”
“We have found food, now we just need to prepare it for human consumption or preserve it for future consumption.” I said.
Punisher didn’t speak.
“Any more questions, if not we are moving onto assignments.” I said, no one stepped forward or said anything.
This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Alright then here are the assignments. Lolz, Ripper, Shark, and Silenz your men will search for the bodies and bring them to storage or to the butchers. Village your company will build fireplaces for the food and keep them supplied. Punisher, and Shadow your men will butcher the bodies for meat. Buzz your men will preserve the meat however you can for long term supplies, preferably keep them cold. Memez your men will cook the food you are given. Butchers only will need to give 50 bodies to the cooks to feed everybody here.” I said, everybody was nodding now and brought out their clipboards.
Ten papers appeared in front of me all at once, and they left without further words. The orders were what I expected, with everybody giving out the correct orders. After that I left the flag to check on the kid.
When I got there he was still cutting the body fats and muscles off. But the limbs were gone and the head was cut off, it was a brutal scene that''s for sure.
I crouched down next to the kid “So what''s your name?” I asked him. He stopped cutting the ankle.
“Ronin.” The kid said.
“CEO.” I responded.
Ronin likely knew or understood some English, considering the fact we controlled the country for 40 years, just over 30 years ago. Although the Japanese education system likely failed him considering the fact his parents had to pay for something that the community provides.
The kidney was still where I left it, in the cloth. I then began cutting out the right kidney, after that I washed it out and placed it with the left one in another cloth. After that I needed to cook, the current fire isn’t good enough and I would need to make a grill or just a plate of metal that sits above the fire.
I looked around in the snow and found a plate of stainless steel that belonged to a light tank. It was probably a tank I blew up a while ago with a blast spell, the plate of stainless steel was not malleable but it was a big enough piece for me to safely cook over the fire and effectively cook the kidneys. I then grabbed a bunch of rocks, piled them on top of each other creating a very bad base. Ronin had helped me build the stone base, he did attempt to keep it up by burying a bunch of sticks to hold some up but it didn’t help.
There were some openings in which I could throw sticks into the fire to keep it going. The base held together as I placed the stainless steel armor plate onto the base praying I didn’t knock a stone over causing it to collapse. It didn’t.
I occasionally checked the heat by tapping and within a few minutes it was pretty hot, around 400 degrees fahrenheit. I decided to make the base an entire foot above the fire itself so it wouldn’t be too hot, it was almost a thousand degrees farenheit in the fire itself.
I placed the kidneys on the plate which began to sizzle satisfyingly, and an Engineer came by to see what I was doing.
“Did you build that to cook the food?” The soldier asked.
“Yes, it''s just a base of stones stacked on top of one another in a pyramid shape with a stainless steel armor plate on the top which acted as the medium to cook the food.” I explained, the sizzling stopped and I flipped the kidneys.
They began to sizzle on the other side.
The Engineer nodded, “Alright so it''s a normal fire in the center?” He asked.
“Yes, although I built the entire stone stove which could collapse at any moment, with fire still on. I suggest you guys just find a bunch of clay, combine it with some water and fire it to make simple bricks. Although it isn’t as simple as I explained it, as I do not know how to make clay or bricks so you’ll have to figure it out yourselves. You guys are welcome to use this stove for as long as it stands.” I said, the sizzling stopped and I grabbed them with the knife and held them with several layers of cloth.
“Ok.” The Engineer said he turned to the other engineers building stone fires, “recreate this design for the cooks! After that we need to start searching for clay!” He yelled to his fellow Engineers.
They all yelled with an affirmative, they came over to my stove and began to ask me questions. I explained them all in a short time.
Ronin and I moved away from the stove which the engineers took over carefully looking at the stones and the way they were placed.
“Here.” I handed him the right Kidney which had just cooled off.
“Thank you.” Ronin said in Japanese, it was one of the few words I understood.
I responded with the Japanese word for “Your Welcome.”
I took a bite into the Kidney, it wasn’t that hard to bite into. I didn’t think much of the cooked kidney, it was a kidney something I had to do over a dozen times on the failed manned Pluto Missions. Traumatizing the first time I killed someone and turned every single body part into food, then it became almost routine by the third person that died.
Ronin took a bite into his cooked kidney and his eyes seemed to light up the second he started to chew, and he quickly took another bite into it.
“Is it that good?” I asked him.
Ronin ignored me and quickly finished his cooked kidney, there was a surprising amount of a mess he made and by that there was no mess.
I looked at the cooks who were busy cooking up slabs of meat at the makeshift stove, the engineers were nearby digging several holes very clearly trying to make clay of any kind. There were however several people who knew what they were doing, I didn’t bother watching them any further.
I got up and headed back to the bunkers, next to the snow filled trench system. I passed several dozen men who were hanging arms over an open campfire. The smoke passed through the meat, they were smoking the meat was what they were doing. A very simple tactic.
Alongside that was dozens of people butchering the dead bodies, starting with the arms, and legs which were cut off from the torso and then cut further in half at the ankles. Then the limbs were to be skinned of any hair and skin on it and then those were to be given to the cooks or preservers.
The Noxu meat looked indistinguishable from other meats like pork and steak. But when you are hungry with no food anywhere, but you are on top of hundreds of bodies you’ll eat the bodies.
I continued on and it was more of the same, holes being dug to search for clay, camp fires being made and meats were smoked. That''s what we only did, butcher dead bodies, and preserve or cook them.
I however needed to know where the wall went, if we were even in the walls.
“Ronin.” I said to the kid “get your flamethrower we''re going to find the gates.” I told him.
He looked at me confused and I sent an order directly to him via a clipboard hoping it got translated. Ronin looked at the invisible piece of paper in front of him and nodded, then pointed to a nearby bunker.
I nodded and he went down into the connecting trench, then inside the bunker he came out several minutes later carrying a short flamethrower with a gas mask on, and a large tank on his back. I nodded “good, lets go.” I started walking in the opposite direction of the river which should be east.
If the river went north to south that is.
Ronin followed right behind me as we passed first the front line, then the middle and finally the back line where the Officers bunker, and Heavy artillery was held. There were also some field guns there too, everything wasn’t as quiet as one assumed as everybody was evenly spread out through the trench system doing their own thing related to food that is.
We stopped at the backline which had a large forest behind it, it was dark with many evergreen trees. There was a single road which led to the backline, as it was the command center of Palisade in game.
It was dark in the forest, but we braved it as Ronins flamethrower glowed blue. I pulled out my SMG and we entered it, surrounded by pretty trees that glowed white from the reflecting snow that was starting to slowly melt. I could tell the temperatures were above freezing now but just barely.
I looked from left to right, seeing only trees and their snow covered branches. The road was gravel, but was covered by snow. However there was a path of trees cut down creating a path for us to easily follow being lit up by day. Like a path of light.
We walked for almost an half an hour at a brisk pace when we reached the broken wall, with the forts untouched and not crumbled down like they were by the end of the last match.
The trenches, sandbags, barbed wire, and grenade boxes that were built over those two hours were still there. The trenches however were shallow, and unmaintained hundreds of buried bodies were thrown to the side.
I firstly stole a carbine from a dead Kyntari soldier, as the SMG didn’t have that good of a range. Ronin showed me a shotgun he took from a dead body, and posed with it his flamethrower he was sheathing to his side.
“A shotgun fits you well.” I said giving him a thumbs up.
Ronin nodded, and I moved my attention back to the broken wall which was no longer a broken wall, but now a gate. It was wide open, something I didn’t like to see. I looked around and saw there was nothing to block the gate. The only way you can close it is by building your own gate.
I sighed, and turned to Ronin who was also looking at the gate. He muttered something in Japanese, it was muffled by his gas mask.
I approached the gate cautiously with my SMG out, and Ronin got in front of me. On the other side wasn’t more forest but a lightly forested hills that went on for miles. It was very green for some reason, not covered in snow as one would expect from snow but green grassy hilly plains.
It was cold that''s for sure, that was the only correlation the inside and outside the walls had. It confused me, so I turned to Ronin and asked him, “are you seeing this?”
Yet Ronin didn’t respond, he took off his gas mask, his blue skin and long ears glistened in the sunlight. He seemed to be awed by the greenery, as he was just staring out towards the hill.
Although I too was entranced by its beauty, however I shook my head and brought out my Clipboard and sent out this report:
“Found the Broken Wall, it leads towards lots of greenery with green hills going as far as the eye can see.” Was all that I sent.
I moved back inside the wall.
“Come on, let''s go to the top of the forts, we could see more.” I told Ronin, he still didn’t respond so I snapped in his face which seemed to get him out of it. The kid looked at me and I pointed to the forts.
He nodded, and we entered the forts. It was the same exact layout as a newly generated fort would be. Concrete walls on the inside forming a hexagon giving protection on the inside, with shooting holes, and on the outer wall were holes for shooting out of them.
To the side were boxes filled with supplies such as ammo, and other items like binoculars.
I grabbed the binoculars as did Ronin, then I climbed to the top. At that moment I was bombarded with a dozen plus reports all confused from what I meant by that. I could see every single order given by lieutenants and up. Which they took advantage of for communication purposes.
I ignored them for a short second as I climbed to the top, Ronin seemed to also receive all these messages at once for some reason. Well one of those messages.
I sent another message saying “Follow the road you’ll see what I’m talking about.”
I then brought out my binoculars and looked around the hills from a different vantage point. All I saw were hills and somewhat jagged terrain that went on for miles. I didn’t look through my binoculars for long as I was bombarded with 10 different orders telling everyone to continue doing what they are doing. The Majors were going to check it out.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some ignored those orders, but sure enough I heard the other Majors yelling from the forest.
“Colonel CEO, where the hell are you?!” I heard Shark yell from a distance in the forest.
“In the fort! Just follow the road!” I yelled, and went back to my binoculars scouting out the surrounding area. I saw what I expected, a lot of greenery, and nothing else. When I looked to the left and right and saw the wall go into a circle, a perfect circle surrounding the entire area almost like a medieval wall.
It was still made out of pure concret like before, just in a perfect circle somehow.
“Alright!” He yelled back, he didn’t yell again as I was looking around.
Shark yelled again this time his voice was much closer, but not towards me. “So this is where the Broken wall was?” He asked, he was with several of his soldiers who were looking on in confusion at the now Broken Wall.
I jumped down onto the boxes and left the fort, seeing Shark who was surprised by my sudden appearance.
“Yep, just to the east of us. I think, instead of being the center protecting just Vost Dor. Now it''s protecting Noxuia and Vost Dor.” I said, looking at the entrance.
“The gate being open like that is not good.” Shark said.
“Yes it is not, can you get a few dozen of your men over here to guard it?” I asked.
“I could, just that they are busy butchering dead bodies to be smoked.” Shark said.
I looked at him, and said, “Get your men over here, your entire company as well. Have them build walls and a gate to block it, place landmines outside it to discourage any intruders assuming we have anything nearby that''s a threat.”
Shark nodded, “I’ll send the order out right now.”
“We’ll wait for your reinforcements to come before we leave.” I said.
Shark nodded “Alright, it’ll be at least an entire hour if not more before my company gets here.”