Chapter 3 — Military Outpost

Like this, Konrad and Erwin spent a week wandering through the forest. They hunted animals when they came across them and created tents with source points. Over this period of time, 5 more soldiers had been summoned and fully equipped. Now, all the guns had suppressors on them to dampen the sound and all the soldiers carried both knives and bayonets. In addition to their AK-104s, the soldiers were also equipped with simple double-barrel shotguns loaded with birdshot for hunting birds.

After a week of encountering no enemies, Konrad had become more relaxed and was comfortable spreading his soldiers further out from him to hunt more efficiently.

The main encampment was built some distance away from a small river. A series of tents spread out and surrounded Konrad's tent, which was located in the middle. Gun pits had been dug out and camouflaged with branches and greenery. This was the standard mobile tent formation of the militaries of Earth.

Konrad and Erwin were the only people in the camp at the moment; the other 5 soldiers had been sent out to hunt and would only return by nightfall. Erwin was ironing Konrad's military uniform and Konrad was in his tent, writing in a diary he summoned.

Despite having found a river two days ago, Konrad had no intention of following it and coming into contact with human society. He knew that his weapons would probably be coveted by the locals of the world, and that strength was the basis for negotiation. If he was attacked, his six soldiers were far from enough to protect him. Konrad had heard a quote from his previous world: "Weak countries have no diplomacy". Recklessly showing his cards would only lead to his destruction.

He thought about what to do next. Preferably, it would be best to build up a small modern army before coming into contact with the natives. He could then pretend to be the general of an expeditionary army from a powerful empire far away looking to expand their territory and form trade connections. Like this, he could justify pulling out new equipment, technology, and manpower.

Any countries he encountered would be cautious when dealing with him as they do not know his background and how powerful his homeland is. Even if they really did attack and wipe out his army, in their minds, they would have just wiped out an insignificant scouting force just to provoke a great enemy. Konrad believed that the countries of this world would know the correct choice of action.

Konrad had spent the past few days doing nothing but drawing out blueprints for everything that he remembered from Earth onto his notebook. While he didn't need to write them down as he had them memorised in his mind, he had done survival training before, and Konrad knew how sluggish his mind could get and how quickly he would forget things when he is put under a prolonged period of stress. For every blueprint that he drew in his leather diary, he would also write down the cost in source points.

Right now, Konrad was drawing a blueprint for an atomic bomb. The atomic bomb was the ultimate killer weapon of humanity, an unbalanced power that was unbelievably cheap in price for the humungous amount of power that it could output. A single $50 million nuclear missile could destroy a city worth billions of dollars and cause hundreds of thousands of casualties! In no circumstance would Konrad allow this technology to be spread in this world.

Luckily, Konrad had done a lot of research on nuclear bombs in his previous world and knew a rough blueprint of a nuclear bomb. He had just finished drawing what he could remember of the blueprints for a 1-kiloton thermonuclear warhead.

Konrad concentrated on the blueprint and got a price of 100,000 source points. Konrad smiled. Like he thought, the real cost of a nuclear bomb was its materials. On Earth, governments could produce a nuclear warhead for the low price of a million dollars. With this weapon, Konrad was invincible in this world. He even dared to fight against the gods with this weapon! Even if you can survive one nuclear bomb, can you survive two? Three?

[I don't believe that anything can survive a nuclear bomb even in this world of magic!]

In the blink of an eye, a month passed by. The small military encampment had expanded to a medium-sized outpost. With the average soldier hunting an average of 100 source points a day, Konrad's soldiers could theoretically double every day. Of course, Konrad didn't do that. He now had 370 soldiers. The rest of the points were spent on reinforcing the encampment. The encampment now had 32 tents and was surrounded by a sandbag and earth wall, with trenches dug in front and a ring of barbed wire in front of the trenches. There was a dense minefield surrounding the camp in all directions and 4 watchtowers with anti-material snipers and heavy machine guns. The trees around the camp had been cleared to allow for better shooting.

Erwin had been delegated the second in command and of the 370 soldiers, the best 10 were selected as Konrad's personal bodyguards. Konrad's life was easy now. He didn't have to do anything, he just needed to give orders and delegate tasks. He had spent the past month training his body, working out and practising his target shooting. He knew that he would eventually have to make contact with the outside world but wanted to spend more time building up a powerful military force first.

On this day, Konrad was looking at a map that was pieced together by scouts that he sent out. Due to overhunting, soldiers had to travel further and further out every day to hunt. Soon, they would need to relocate to a new hunting area.

Suddenly, Konrad felt his source power reacting and fluctuating. He instantly knew that this meant a lot of hostile souls were about to approach.

[Erwin!]

[Sir!]

[I have detected a large number of enemies emerging, all troops to battle stations! Send out the emergency flares to call back all soldiers!]

[Yes sir!]

Erwin ran outside and fired a red flare into the sky.

[Stand to! All troops to battle stations!]

Feeling the fluctuations of the source power, Konrad slowly walked to one of the walls along with his bodyguards. When he arrived a soldier with three stripes on his rank slides came up and saluted him.

[Sergeant Dederick reporting! The defences of our north wall have been set up and our soldiers are ready!]

About 60 soldiers were lying prone on the 2-metre-high north earth wall. The perimeter of the camp had been divided into four sections: the North, East, South and West walls. Each wall had 60 soldiers on it and 20 in the designated watchtower. Of the 60 soldiers, 20 had heavy machine guns.

An eerie silence slowly settled in. Even the birds and crickets normally chirping were silent. The only sounds were reports coming in and the clicking of soldiers checking their guns.