Iron Powder and Spellcasters

   Chapter 18 Awakening the Sleeping Tiger (Part 2)

  The wall of the military academy is made of bricks. In order to save money, the height is less than 1.7 meters.

   Now that the thief has run away, we can only let the whole school count the items and see what is missing to know what the female thief has stolen.

   "Where's the people? Damn it!" A loud shout came from outside the house: "Guards!"

  Oops, Winters groaned. Patronizing the chat, forgetting to stand guard.

   The four hurried out of the duty room.

  A high-ranking officer riding a jujube red steed neatly dismounted, and could not help but slap his whip at the four guards.

   "Report! North Gate Yegang! There should be six people! There are actually four people!"

   But a military academy is an army, and it must not be hard-topped at this time.

  The light was so bad that Winters couldn't recognize who the other party was, but it could be seen from the details of the uniform that it was the school officer.

   "Where is the officer on duty?" the colonel asked sharply.

   "Report! We went to reconnaissance where the fire started!" Winters gradually saw the other party's facial features.

   In front of him was a face with sword-brow eagle eyes, a nose job and thin lips.

   This face belongs to the head of the school headquarters, the nominal second-in-command of Luyuan, and the actual head of the family.

   "Why didn't you report the fire?" The minister was furious.

   "Report! I! No! Know! Do!" Winters yelled back. It's a vent, but he really doesn't know.

   The staff on duty are all low-level faculty members. Although the Lu Academy has prepared single-family residences for officers at the school level and above, senior officers generally buy properties off-campus.

   It's not that the short teacher on duty tonight doesn't want to report, but he really doesn't know which leader lives in the school tonight.

   "Emergency assembly! Call everyone up! Line up at the North Gate playground!" The director did not continue to embarrass the four students.

   "Yes!" The four received the order and immediately ran to ring the assembly bell.

   "Wait a minute!" The Minister stopped Winters, who wanted to lift his leg and leave: "What happened to the arm?"

   "Report! There is a thief! The thief moves a knife! I'm repelled!" Winters is no nonsense, and describes what happened in the most concise language.

   In the face of the irritable Minister, he dared not say "a thief ran out of the school, I didn't stop her and let her escape". So he explained it from a different angle - and it wasn't a lie.

   "Fuck! Dare to come to the army's territory to act wildly?" The Minister was furious, and the reaction was exactly the same as that of the instructor on duty: "Come to me tomorrow and give me a detailed report."

   "Boom!"

   "Boom!"

   "Boom!"

   "Boom!"

The    assembly bell rang desperately, followed by the shrill whistle of the guards. Like a beast in a light sleep, the Military Academy was awakened in an instant.

   The quiet theme of the night was replaced by noise, and the awakened cadets in each dormitory jumped out of the beds, grabbed their clothes and quickly put them on their bodies. They didn't have anything to carry, so they hurried out the door after getting dressed.

   Someone shouted outside the door: "Assemble at the North Gate playground! Assemble at the North Gate playground!" This is an order from the head of the Yegang students.

  In this era of no portable kindling, there is no time for the nighttime emergency gathering of the military academy to light the fire. Everything had to be done in the dark, and the students went to the North Gate playground in the dark with the faint moonlight.

  The crowd moves like a school of sardines in the sea, huddled together in silence, but marching in unison, creating an eerie and regular beauty.

  The cadets who rushed out of the dormitories quickly merged into the North Gate playground. The vanguard lined up at the front, and the others quickly searched for their position in the queue.

   Winters also ran back into the queue at this time, and Ike was startled by the wound on his shoulder. But small talk is not allowed in the army, so the two can only communicate with eyes. Each district team began to report the number and summary from the beginning to the end.

  The instructors came from the stables and rode their horses around the phalanx of the officers and students. A caster instructor brought a bunch of torches from the warehouse, lit the torches with the fire technique, and distributed them to each instructor.

   The entire Beimen playground was illuminated by firelight at this moment. The students have already stood in an orderly phalanx, waiting for orders.

  The headmaster rode on his beloved horse and watched the students of the Army Officers Academy gather in an orderly manner in the dark at the front of the playground, and nodded with an imperceptible expression on his face.

   "174 people should arrive in the one-year department, and 174 people actually arrive!"

   "There were 175 people expected to arrive in the second year department, and 173 people actually arrived!"

   "The three-year division should have 172 people! It actually reached 172 people!"

   "Report to the head of the department! The student brigade! There should be 521 people! Actually 519 people! The report is complete."

   "All! Stand at attention!" The headmaster's deafening voice resounded throughout the school, and he apparently used amplicon: "Three minutes! Bring all your tools! Go out to put out the fire! Disband!"

The    academy phalanx spread out again, and Winters hurried to the warehouse to get the tools. But he's actually a little strange. It's on fire. What's the matter with the fire in the residential area? Can't burn here again.

   Several officers on duty who set out to find out the fire also returned at this time, and they hurriedly reported the situation to the Minister.

   After hearing the report, the Minister immediately dispatched a messenger to inform other senior officers of the military academy and the Army Department of the Union Province, and at the same time sent messengers to the two infantry battalions stationed outside Guitu City for help.

  The cadets went back and forth, once again standing in a uniform square, but this time everyone had a few more tools in their hands.

  The Minister didn't talk nonsense. With a wave of his hand, all the students of the military academy formed a six-way column and marched along the main road to the port area of ​​Guitucheng.

   "What happened?!" Ike didn't find a chance to ask Winters until the phalanx opened.

   "Encountered a thief, got a knife." Winters summed up the whole thing as briefly as possible.

   "Why did the thief move the knife?"

"I do not know either."

   "Are you okay?"

   "Flesh wounds."

   "Shut up!" The instructor, who was patrolling on horseback at the edge of the trainee column, snapped to stop Winters and Ike's chatting.

They walked all the way through the low and dilapidated slums in the outermost circle of the city, past the ruins of the demolished old city walls, past the smelly workshops of leather craftsmen, past the disorganized houses of the port area, and finally arrived at the site of the fire.

   Until then, Winters did not understand why the military school was required to rescue the residential area on fire.

  Because the first arsenal of the Gulf States Alliance Army of the Greater Cenas is burning.

   Thank you for the recommendation votes. In fact, I have always been suspicious: except myself, no living person has voted for me at all. It may be that the website used a robot to vote for me a few encouraging votes. But anyway, these votes are inspiring me to keep writing. So if any living readers actually see this passage, thank you for reading it, and thank you for voting me up.

   (end of this chapter)