RNP Page 106
Page 106
As for beavers?
Excuse me, do we know each other?
Before this battle began, no one dared to entrust such an important task as a water conservancy project to a beast girl.
Just thinking about this made Payne break out in a cold sweat.
Sorry, engineer, I may have misunderstood you.
Don't even mention you, I don't know how to deal with beavers either.
But since he'd already made that boast, he absolutely had to produce results. Otherwise, not only might the engineer mock him, saying, "Even an expert like you can't handle this?", but Lacey would also suspect that he was just trying to pick up girls...
However, he at least knows the most universal rule for dealing with all animals—food is the hardest currency.
The problem is that he doesn't even know the most basic information, such as whether beavers live in groups or alone, where they usually live, or whether they are vegetarian or omnivorous.
When he opened the system store and looked at the dazzling array of goods, he couldn't find a book like "The Complete Book of Animals" or anything labeled "Special Beaver Food".
However, just as he was racking his brains for a solution, he immediately realized that he was exhibiting his professional habit:
Animal girls aren't purely beasts, so there's no need to rigidly start building relationships by giving them food and respecting their habits.
These beaver girls must have already undergone obedience training before they came, and they're not going to be under his command, so thinking about it too much is really pointless...
Forget it, stop thinking about it, just go for it! Just go for it!
In the end, he found himself empty-handed and approached a beaver girl who was digging in the dirt with her bare hands, explaining his purpose to her.
The five beaver girls digging drainage ditches all had shovels on their backs. At first, Payne thought they were entrenching tools, but they looked bigger than that, so he asked about them:
"What model of shovel do you have? Why aren't you using it?"
The beaver girl looked up at him, and continued digging as she explained, "This is a shovel specially made for us to fit our size, but we're not used to using it."
They're actually finding tools specifically designed for the animal girls' body types? It seems the higher-ups are really taking this seriously.
Payne had a premonition that if this experiment succeeded, perhaps more capable engineering beast girls would be created, and even tools would be produced specifically for them.
Although Pine didn't know of any other animal in nature that possessed such innate engineering talent as the beaver.
If it's just about building some military facilities, then the beast girls can not only avoid the pointless fate of filling in the lines, but also improve the soldiers' living conditions, a win-win situation.
From these perspectives, Pine had no reason not to support the plan.
Finally, if there is a way to teach the beast girls how to work, and to get a group of beast girls together to work according to their own habits, thus creating a scale effect, then their efficiency will definitely surpass that of humans.
This gave the German army not only a construction team that could move at an incredibly fast pace, but also freed up more manpower to be devoted to the front-line battles, which brought a huge strategic advantage—a win-win-win situation.
The cost and time required to raise a beast girl is much lower than raising a person.
Meanwhile, research into the role of beast girls in frontline combat has made little progress, meaning that human soldiers remain irreplaceable at present.
Note: Most of the people involved in the research do indeed look down on beast girls, lack professional knowledge, and do not know or want to know how to do it; Payne simply does not want beast girls to go to the battlefield, so he can conceal the role of beast girls.
However, the most serious problem now is that people generally disagree with allowing beast girls to receive education, which means that it is difficult for beast girls to carry out construction according to human requirements.
Payne, who frequently interacts with illiterate beast girls, has a deep understanding of this—but in return, he has also gained rich experience in communication.
He's here today to try and solve this problem.
So, meeting the somewhat surprised gazes of the beaver girls, Payne squatted down, patted their shoulders, and looked them in the eye, saying, "Alright, let's start by solving the most basic problems you don't understand."
Chapter 167 CLXVI. Payne's Defeat
Including Payne's beast girl squad, almost all the B Company soldiers working near the beaver girl construction team watched their construction work with some curiosity.
Even without a shovel, you can quickly dig out a decent-looking drainage ditch by hand.
"Is this how fast orcs can work when they're all together? Wow, that's fast..."
"It's not fast; look how many times they've had to redo it."
"Why didn't that engineering soldier offer to give some guidance?"
"This level is completely inferior to Payne's."
"Forget it, let's not count on them, let's do it ourselves..."
People were talking a lot.
Seeing Lacey staring intently at Payne, who was working with the beaver girls, and occasionally licking her lips, Ruby pondered for a moment and asked half-jokingly, "You're not thinking about whether beavers taste good, are you?"
Beavers have natural predators including wolves, bears, foxes, birds of prey, and strictly speaking, dogs can also be included.
“No. I won’t do anything that Master doesn’t want me to do,” Lacey replied immediately and seriously.
Pine had previously told Ruby and Lacey that he had read several reports of experiments that were somewhat inhumane:
Researchers once specifically selected some carnivorous beast girls with brutal personalities and had them hunt and eat herbivorous beast girls. As a result, these carnivorous beast girls completed the experimental objective without any psychological burden.
Payne told them these things to show them that beast girls are very malleable; they could become rational humans or degenerate into pure beasts.
One of the purposes of Payne's dual education of combat knowledge and cultural lessons for the beast girls has always been to enable them to maintain human-like rationality and civilization in peacetime after surviving on the battlefield, and to reintegrate into society.
Ruby's joke, however, made Lacey think: "By the way, what do beavers eat?"
The heat cycle is very difficult, so you have to think about trivial things to distract yourself.
This question immediately inspired the beast girls and humans around them. While they were working, they observed the beaver girls' work, trying to find some clues from their actions.
Krop, always quick-witted, scoffed at this and went straight over to chat with the engineer.
But before he could get any useful information, Lacey said:
“You see, even though they have tools, they still habitually gnaw on the branches with their teeth when processing them.”
“It’s like they didn’t have the long correction period like Payne did,” Ruby said. “Their front teeth are so big, and they look a bit reddish, like they weren’t brushed properly, it’s kind of ugly…”
Lacey continued, "I don't know if you've noticed, but when they're processing the branches, they sometimes secretly nibble off a piece of bark, but I've never seen them spit it out."
"...You mean, they eat tree bark?" Ruby said, recalling her diet: nuts, fruits, vegetables, grains, plant sprouts...
"They're so easy to raise," the little squirrel exclaimed, then shook its head. "Why do I suddenly feel a little sorry for them..."
After Lacey's observations spread throughout the area, Cropp returned unhurriedly and said, "Your observation skills are quite good. Beavers eat tree bark, plant shoots, and some aquatic plants."
“Just ask the animal trainer; that’s cheating,” Paul said with a laugh.
Cropp said, "I don't need to ask the animal trainer. Ever since Pine came to the company, I've been influenced by him. In my spare time, I've read a lot of books about wildlife. I've even seen beavers before and can still remember some of their habits."
"So what were you doing just now?"
“I went and made a bet with him. He thinks Payne can’t teach orcs, and I think he can. I bet a pack of cigarettes.”
"You should have said so earlier, I wanted to gamble too."
The soldiers of B Company expressed their trust in Payne, but as for the beast girls, there was no need to even say it aloud.
After the casual conversation ended, people refocused their attention on their work.
Only Lacey would occasionally look up in Payne's direction, tucking her tail between her legs and rubbing against him.
"Um... Master..."
……
Things gradually went beyond people's expectations.
At lunchtime, people noticed that Payne was covered in sweat, but he wouldn't say what was wrong when asked.
When the "expert" was about to leave that evening, Payne, who seemed to have burned out, did not try to stop him. He just talked to the engineer and Cropp for a few words, and then Cropp slapped a pack of cigarettes into the engineer's hand with an incredulous look on his face.
Only after the two engineers left with the beaver girls did Crop finally seem to come to his senses, grabbing Payne by the shoulders and shaking him violently.
"You bastard! I trusted you so much!! You owe me back my cigarettes!!!"
Upon hearing this, everyone was immediately shocked and crowded around, exclaiming, "Paine, you actually failed?!"
Payne looked somewhat haggard and explained with a helpless expression, "I can't say I've completely lost, but I really haven't found any good solutions."
"If you want to teach these illiterate people how to dig trenches and drainage ditches, there is no other way but to use the most basic method, to teach them step by step, and to explain it to them in a way they can understand."
"Moreover, they are almost completely inflexible and simply copy what I teach them."
"Let alone teaching them everything about the battlefield, even just learning most of it feels like an impossible task..."
"Perhaps the only good news is that they do have a talent for civil engineering."
"After they understand what I'm saying, they'll be amazed that there's such a clever solution, and they'll say they'll remember it well."
"So, it comes down to the same old question I keep asking: when are we going to send the orcs to school?"
But Cropp didn't care about the technical details; he just kept shaking Payne's shoulder, on the verge of tears, "You owe me my cigarettes... Doesn't your Ruby hide things everywhere? Give me back your stock..."
Did I force you to gamble?!
Because he was so annoyed by Cropp shaking him, Payne could only tell Ruby, "Go get a pack of cigarettes and throw it in his face."
The little squirrel was naturally quite disgruntled: "Why should I use my stock to make up for your mistake?"
"What wrong have I done? Besides, what do you mean by 'your inventory'? Isn't that the team's shared property? And you make it sound like you're smoking. Go get it now!"
After Ruby left, muttering to herself, Payne glared at the remaining five beasts and yelled, "Are you just going to stand by and watch? Come and rescue us!"
Because the words he used were slightly advanced (referring to "rescuing the emperor"), the three dogs, one horse, and one sheep couldn't understand what he was trying to say.
Only Lacey had spent a considerable amount of time with Payne. She not only guessed what Payne meant, but also, with a sudden flash of inspiration, grabbed Payne's arm and dragged him away, saying with a broad smile:
"Haha, it's indeed my fault that Master failed to properly guide those beastmen. I will take responsibility for punishing Master properly~~"
“Thanks, Lacey, that was a lifesaver… Hmm? ‘Punishment’?” Payne was only halfway through his thanks when he realized something was wrong. “Make up for it! What are you trying to do?!”
“Hehehe~~” But Lacey didn’t answer, she just kept dragging Payne toward the trench.
Chapter 168 CLXVII. The Pre-Battle Pull-off
Payne blinked, then cried out in terror, "Quick, save the day! Second rescue, ooh ooh ooh!..."
Before he could finish shouting, he was hit with a mouthful of dog hair—he was basically being dragged along the ground, and Lacey's tail was just the right height to fit into his mouth.
"Okay, okay, stop fooling around. You can never touch my tail usually, right? Well, now you can have a taste~"
Lacey chuckled, glancing at the beasts (and humans) behind her. "Don't come looking for us yet, I have something to discuss with him."