Commissar Walter meticulously toured the entire Outpost 7, from the temporary front-line bunkers to the rear support areas. His brow remained furrowed.
Everything here was far from his impression of an elite force.
The fortifications were temporary, the firing points were haphazard, and the soldiers were undisciplined. He even saw several soldiers gathered together, happily gambling with empty shell casings as chips.
Others loudly boasted about how they had just blown up seven or eight enemies with a single grenade, their words devoid of any reverence for war.
Aside from their high spirits, which could even be described as overly optimistic, there was nothing commendable about this company.
Absolutely nothing!
Commissar Walter was puzzled and perplexed.
He completely failed to understand how this company, which, apart from its morale, had tactical skills and military discipline comparable to Lower Hive armed workers, could have achieved such a great victory against those fearless cultists in a head-on positional battle.
Listening to the soldiers' chatter, they seemed to have even killed the Chaos Sorcerer who commanded the several thousand cultists. This was even more incredible; a psyker of that level would require a heavy price to take down, even if he personally led the charge.
"There must have been heavy casualties in this positional battle, right?" he asked Robert, who had been following him, with a hint of doubt.
"Uh…"
This question truly stumped Robert. Were the casualties heavy? Yes, impossibly heavy. Aside from him, the company commander, who had barely participated in the fighting because he was hiding in the back, every single player under him had died multiple times.
The casualty rate was probably a thousand percent.
But could he say that? Tell an NPC Commissar that their company, with a total strength of less than a hundred, had suffered several hundred casualties in one battle?
Commissar Walter wasn't an idiot.
So Robert could only equivocate, saying, "Yes, Commissar. Many comrades have… gloriously sacrificed themselves."
Fortunately, Commissar Walter had only asked casually and had no intention of delving deeper into the matter. He was more concerned with practical issues:
"What about your equipment losses? Are they significant?"
At this, Robert's eyes immediately lit up. This was right up his alley! He quickly adopted a heartbroken expression and said, "Yes, Commissar! The losses are enormous! Our weapons and equipment were completely expended in the recent battle. We urgently need replenishment! We need at least two hundred lasguns, two hundred flak armor suits, six hundred frag grenades, and…"
"Stop, stop, stop." Walter quickly raised his hand to stop him, amused by his exorbitant demands. "Are you making a wish to the Emperor? It's not even Sanguinalia yet.
Not a single lasgun or flak armor suit. At most, I can spare you some grenades from other units' allocations, about two hundred of them."
"That little?" Robert's face immediately fell, disappointment written all over it.
"Heh heh," Walter chuckled dryly, then pulled out a folded, somewhat worn paper map from one of his greatcoat pockets and unfolded it before him. "Can you understand what this is?"
Robert leaned closer to take a look. In his vision, the system panel's automatic annotation feature immediately translated the Gothic script and markings on the map into text he could understand. This was a detailed map depicting the lower industrial zone of this hive city.
"I can generally understand it."
"Come," Walter said, "Can you point out where we are now?"
Robert carefully identified it and quickly found the marker for Scrap Disposal Zone 7 among the intricate pipelines and building complexes.
He pointed with his finger: "Here?"
"Not bad, you found it quickly." Walter praised him, then used his weathered finger to draw a pitifully small circle on the map, centered on their current location. "This is the area we currently control."
Robert looked at the circle. If the entire map were a basketball court, the circle Walter had just drawn was barely the size of a manhole cover, occupying less than one-thousandth of the entire map, even if you were generous.
He swallowed, then tentatively asked, "…We've been separated from the main force?"
Walter put away the map, expressionlessly patted Robert's shoulder, and uttered a sentence that made him feel as if he had fallen into an ice cellar.
"Soldier.
WE are the main force."
Seeing Robert frozen in place, Walter put the map back into his pocket, his tone becoming heavy: "Now do you understand why I can only give you two hundred frag grenades, and why I initially told you to scavenge guns from corpses? The foundries that produce military goods were captured long ago.
All we have left are nooks and crannies that other factions see as worthless, yet are easy to defend and hard to attack. This is also why only cultists are attacking us currently; killing the Emperor's faithful holds symbolic meaning in their eyes."
He paused, glancing at the distant players who were still being noisy.
"Otherwise, if even a small squad of normal genestealers came, we might be finished."
"Ultimately, our current stand is just a slow death," Walter's gaze drifted towards the eternally sunless dome of the upper hive city, his voice tinged with weariness. "There will be no supplies, and no reinforcements. Consumables like shells and grenades diminish with every use. All we can do is exert all our strength to inflict greater casualties on the Emperor's enemies before we are overwhelmed."
Walter continued, "And that previous charge, while seemingly a great victory, in reality, we did not inflict significant damage on the cultists' effective strength. Those heretics have no shortage of cannon fodder… We will ultimately be worn down by them."
These words silenced Robert. He realized that the victory he and the players saw was, in the Commissar's eyes, merely a delay of their defeat.
Robert was silent for a moment, then suddenly asked, "Commissar, could I see that map again?"
Walter promptly took it out and handed it to Robert: "It's yours."
Robert spread the map on the ground, examined it carefully, then pointed to a place marked as Chemical Refinery No. 9 on the map, saying, "This place… isn't far from us, is it? Even if we take it, we wouldn't be isolated and without support geographically."
Walter looked at the place he pointed to with surprise: "You want to attack that? The cultists must have heavily fortified it, and I can't commit the entire army, otherwise, even if we take that one factory, we wouldn't be able to hold it.
The existing outposts must be maintained; at most, I can only send one company—that would simply be a waste of manpower."
Robert looked up at the Commissar and said, "But not trying is just a slow death, isn't it?"