radicalducati Page 90
Page 90
"What's there to apologize for?"
"Um...I...I'm sorry..."
Seeing that the golden retriever was still trembling with fear, Payne sighed, pulled open the can, and handed it directly to her. "Eat this first. Take your time and don't rush."
"Thank you... thank you..."
Payne could see that she was completely emaciated, and only her fluffy fur made her look less thin.
Nobody knows how the training base managed to starve her to this extent.
However, she was exceptionally obedient. Even when she was starving for a long time, she dared not eat fast because Payne's order was to "eat slowly." Instead, she ate in small bites.
This situation is actually quite common in Dexter now, but the beast girls sent to Payne are all somewhat eccentric, so he hasn't seen many cases like this golden retriever.
If she hadn't been lucky enough to be assigned to my group, who knows how much more suffering she would have endured... Sigh...
Feeling a little sad, Payne reached out and grabbed her arm. "Come here, sit down and eat slowly."
Chapter 141 CXL. Walking on Thin Ice
When Payne reached for the golden retriever's arm, she jerked to the side as if on cue, causing the soup in the can to shake violently and almost spill out.
After she sat down against the wall, she was greeted by the sniffs of Lacey and Alpha dogs. She simply sniffed back politely and then focused on eating the meat in her can again.
The five beast girls exchanged glances, their nightmarish experiences at the training base flashing back in their minds. They all lowered their heads with gloomy expressions.
Payne also took out a cigarette from his pocket, intending to smoke one to relieve his depressed mood.
But when he turned the lighter and made a "snap" sound, the golden retriever immediately gave him a look of fear and trepidation.
"I...I...I'll finish eating right away! Please...please give me a little more time..." She tried to back away while speeding up her eating, gripping the edge of the can tightly with both hands.
Payne stared at the gray-black circular patch of hairless skin peeking out from under her ear, silently closed the lighter, and put the cigarette back in the pack.
"I'm not smoking anymore, you can eat slowly."
The fear in the golden retriever's eyes gradually faded, and it slowed down its eating speed again.
Although the goal was to heal her injuries, even the most skilled cook can't make a meal without ingredients...
Payne silently browsed the system shop for a while, then turned to ask, "Alpha, do you have many medicines left?"
“There are still some, but not many,” Alpha replied.
This place is too far from the previous field hospital, and Payne doesn't know if the doctor who was willing to treat orcs is still there, so it's definitely not an option to have Golden Hair admitted to the hospital.
This camp was located on the outskirts of Minston and was strictly managed, making it difficult to obtain medicine by bribing doctors with supplies, as was the case on the front lines.
Moreover, the medicines in the system store are all extremely expensive. Unless he completely empties his savings, he won't be able to get any decent medicine.
Although the golden retriever's current situation is very worrying, it is obviously not urgent.
He intended to use the points-based medicine exchange as a last resort, to be used only in the most critical moment.
He really didn't want to use up all the points he had painstakingly accumulated over such a long time.
He squatted there silently watching the golden retriever finish the whole can of meat, and casually asked, "Don't you think it's salty?"
"...Salty?" The golden retriever was taken aback again. "No...no, it's delicious, thank you very much."
Has this poor child even lost their sense of taste? ...
Military canned food is generally saltier, which is the optimal solution for meeting the triple needs of preservation, replenishing energy, and stimulating appetite.
But consuming so much salt in one meal is really too much for a dog girl.
"Drink your water and come with me."
Payne handed over his water jug and got up to walk toward the stables.
We found so many wounds just from examining her head; we need to give her a full examination.
But when Payne entered the stable, he saw the golden retriever who had followed him in still holding his water bottle, seemingly at a loss, without opening the lid to drink.
"What's wrong? Is there a problem?" he asked.
This was clearly just a normal question, but the golden retriever suddenly jolted and said, flustered, "..."
"I'm so sorry! But, but, but this is your kettle, right? I... I certainly can't use it directly, can I?... Oh, right!"
As she spoke, she suddenly ran to the water trough on the side, and with a force that almost drowned her, she lowered her head and plunged her entire face into the water. The splashing water startled the two military horses, causing them to retreat repeatedly.
Almost forgot, for soldiers who had shared the same trench, borrowing belts, canteens, mess kits, and the like was perfectly normal.
But without the "comrade-in-arms" relationship, it might indeed seem a bit strange.
What's more, the golden retriever is a female dog who "smells like a wild beast" to other humans. Normally, those training officers probably wouldn't even want to approach her, let alone let her use their things.
However, this time Pine did smell a faint odor on the golden retriever—it could be the stench of festering wounds.
"Alright, alright, just drink a couple of sips to dilute the salt, get up."
Seeing that the golden retriever's belly was bulging from drinking, and that she looked like she was going to drink herself to death if her trainer didn't say anything, Payne quickly went up and grabbed her by the back of her collar.
Unexpectedly, this action triggered the golden retriever's stress. She immediately curled up and collapsed to the ground, repeatedly saying "I'm sorry, I'm sorry" while trembling violently. Payne could only step aside.
A few seconds later, the golden retriever regained his composure and chuckled sheepishly, "Ahaha...no...sorry...I couldn't control myself..."
“It’s alright, I’m not blaming you.” Payne waved his hand. “Sit down first, take off your clothes, I’ll check your body.”
"Okay... okay."
Without hesitation, the golden retriever sat down on the ground and began unbuttoning his shirt, but stopped halfway through and looked cautiously at Payne: "This...this isn't quite right, is it?"
Seeing her reaction, Payne breathed a sigh of relief:
Fortunately, although they have been whipped to the point of almost obeying humans, they still retain at least a basic sense of shame.
But the golden retriever's next words turned the good news into bad news:
"If... if you're going to examine me and make me take off my clothes, then... then you'll see my body... I... my body is very ugly, so... it's better not to see it..."
Payne: "..."
These damn training officers not only physically torture the beast girls, but also mentally torture them by feeding them all this nonsense?
Communicating with a beast girl like her was exhausting, so Payne decided to give himself and her some breathing room. He then turned to the other five beasts and said:
"Alpha, teach them all the wound care methods you learned from the doctor."
"Understood." Alpha nodded immediately.
It must be admitted that this big black dog is even more clever than Lacey.
While she was lying in the hospital with nothing to do, she would carefully observe the doctor treating her and other patients, and occasionally ask the doctor a few questions, with the idea of relieving the leader's stress.
Fortunately, most of the time the doctor was explaining things to his students, so he could simply see Alpha as an extra student without any impatience.
In return for answering their questions, Alpha would proactively help the doctors move the wounded and various supplies.
Even if they didn't get along well, Paine would consider it paradise if the human and the beast girl could only achieve a mutually beneficial relationship like this.
Unfortunately, reaching such a world still seems a long way off.
Chapter 142 CXLI. Completely Devastated
Actually, at the beginning, Lacey was a very clever dog.
Payne remembered that when Lacey first came under his command, she not only learned the battlefield survival skills he taught her at an extremely fast pace, but she would also familiarize herself with everything on the battlefield from time to time by smelling and listening.
Therefore, without Payne's specific instructions, she was able to spot an ambush during a march by smelling the gun oil of the French troops, thus saving B Company from annihilation.
The last time we caught a French spy by the smell of French cheese also counts.
It was precisely because of this cleverness that she was able to stand out from the many beast girls and become one of the few beast girls who fought alongside Payne all the time.
Even today, she remains one of the most outstanding warriors in this war.
However, perhaps because she had witnessed too much life and death on the battlefield, or perhaps because her head was injured by the blast wave of the explosion, although she could still remember various combat techniques, she seemed quite dull when learning other knowledge.
For example, when Payne was teaching her math and writing, she always looked like she was about to fall asleep at any moment.
In this matter, Payne also reflected on his own actions—
Am I worrying about her too much, giving her overly clear instructions that leave her no room to maneuver, to the point that she subconsciously thinks she doesn't need to study anymore and can just rely on me all the time?
Payne tried to distract himself by thinking about these things, so as not to pay attention to the poor child's soft groans as the five beasts shed their golden fur.
But in the end, he failed. A hissing sound followed, and after a moment of silence from the beast girl's side, Alpha said:
"Chief, I think you'd better come and take a look. This is beyond my ability to handle..."
When Payne turned around, what he saw was not the beast girl's beautiful body, but a wound classification teaching aid.
The whip marks crisscrossed her back like a dark red net.
Fine scratches covered his arms and legs, some of which were covered with blood-red scabs;
The skin with abrasions and blunt trauma has an abnormal purplish-red hue, like damp, moldy bread after rain.
And those cigarette burns, like meteorite craters, with raised edges and charred centers, though few in number, are the most glaring of all the scars.
On the necrotic skin, either no hair grows at all, or only a few gray, sickly short hairs grow, making it look extremely ugly.
Before the old wounds had healed, new wounds appeared, and so on, with new wounds piling up on top of old ones, there was hardly a patch of intact skin on the dog's entire body.
If Grace saw this scene, I wonder how heartbroken she would be.
“…This job is impossible to do,” Payne muttered to himself.
"What can't be done?" Alpha asked.
“This is completely beyond what is needed to train orcs; this is outright abuse,” Payne continued. “Even from a purely pragmatic point of view, how am I supposed to carry out my work if I’m given these orcs?”
"I need to treat the orcs sent from the rear first. Otherwise, if I leave them unattended, they might quietly die at any time."
"Are we sending them here to assist with frontline work, or are we sending them for end-of-life care?"
Upon hearing this, the golden retriever could still laugh: "Haha... well, you don't need to worry about me. After all, that's how I survived."
"If you feel I can't help you, or if you find me an eyesore, I can find a corner to stay in and I definitely won't bother you..."
"Say less."