There must have been about thirty of them all squeezed up on the roof together, aiming down at the crossroads.

When Bertrand saw a figure rush out from the left side of the crossroads he was ready to open fire, thankfully he noticed they were dressed in the blood stained garments of an infantryman’s uniform in time.

His comrades up on the roof clearly didn’t have the same observational skills as two of them opened fire, musket bolts obliterating the fleeing infantrymen.

“BY THE SEER, THAT WAS ONE OF US!” Bertrand screamed out in shock.

“That, thing, that was one of them.” The infantrymen who had manhandled him over to the railing said, before spitting out a giant clump of phlegm over the roof in a display of his disgust.

“That wasn’t one of us lad, we were told to scream when retreating.” One of the linemen said, the bone buttons adorning her uniform spoke more for her than her own words did.

Césaire had told them about the peculiarities and specialities of their legion a few nights ago while drunk.

It should have been evident from the start, but the reason for their lack of orders and seemingly poor cohesion was an intentional result of the way they had been structured.

The twelfth legion a rapid response force, deployed to whichever warzones were in desperate need of reinforcements.

Due to this, detailed planning was rather sparse, the other legions would have already gotten all of that sorted by the time they arrived.

Their officers were also in short supply compared to other legions and focused more on the logistical and scouting aspects compared to strategic elements.

Even the silver buttoned officer had apparently been given those buttons thanks to their heroic work in supplying the revolution during their siege of the royal capital, the scars he got came from an assassin sent to end his life not some brutal battlefield.

Under normal circumstances Bertrand would know all this, but that's where the worse fault of the legion came into play, their lack of orders.

It was an unofficial rule that the bone buttoned were the actual leaders. Of course, the officers were well trained on how to lead troops into battle but they were also very inexperienced and the more senior ones were used to taking on a supporting role.

So for the most part the officers would give out general orders to the bone buttoned and they would carry out these orders under the supervision of a few of the junior officers.

With the adaptor attack though all the junior officers were dead and the only officers still alive were more like logisticians than officers.

It was difficult for him to wrap his head around the fact that the bone buttoned were the actual leaders but once he did it all made sense.

The reason why Olivier knew what he had to do during that adaptor attack was because he had indeed been given orders beforehand. Césaire and Francois were the same of course, having also been given orders to take a contingent of soldiers and secure the wall in certain key locations. should it have been breached.

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the thing he found most confusing though was how everyone but him seemed to know this, and after questioning Césaire about that, he learned that it was a hazing ritual of sorts.

Seer he actually saw red when he heard that, Césaire had apologised of course, saying in the chaos of everything that was going on he had thought Bertrand had already figured it out since he seemed rather calm about the lack of orders.

Now that he knew the added weight the bone buttons carried in this legion he actually knew who he could depend upon.

If she said they were an adaptor, then she was right.

At least he prayed they were, if not then they had just murdered an innocent and terrified comrade of theirs.

The second time Bertrand spotted a figure dashing out of the street he was less constrained with his morality.

The only reason he didn’t open fire this time was because it would be a waste of a good mana cube.

Instead he left it up to the aggressive and helpful infantrymen to take care of them.

He had already called dibs on it as well, shouting out. “MINE!”

A single bolt of force soon followed after his shout, ripping through the false trooper with a ravenous hunger and splattering them all over the crossroads

For a few minutes after the second adapter's death all was quiet, it was deeply disturbing for Bertrand to say the least.

For if the zombies weren’t immediately charging in, that meant they had to be gathering up and preparing and if they were gathering up and preparing, that meant they had to be led by a watcher.

Seer he was not prepared to face a watcher, nobody was.

The twelfth legion didn’t have any artillery on them, not even light cannons, so they ironically had to rely on mages just like in the past age.

And mages weren’t exactly widespread in Francia, especially not in the twelfth legion.

Bertrand would be surprised if they had more than three because just like with the artillery and plans, it was expected that whatever legion they would be reinforcing would have all those things covered.

So all Bertrand could do was knee there, aiming down at the crossroads and praying that he didn’t spot a watcher.

Thankfully when the zombie horde did come rushing at them like a flood of emasculated flesh and raw determination there was no watcher amongst them.

Standard procedure had changed from letting skirmishers fight first, to having the linemen and infantrymen release a volley first.

This volley would knock the zombies down and then the skirmisher could more easily pick them off.

While firing their beamer they would also be pushing back any zombies and giving their compatriots time to reload.

It didn’t work so well for this situation though.

The volley devastated the charge, cleaving through the zombie ranks and killing dozens.

But too many zombies remained largely unharmed, only missing an arm or a leg, which was no where near enough to cripple them.

That made Bertrand’s job far more difficult.

However unnoticed by him, there was another skirmisher on the roof as well and so when he opened fire another beam joined his. Helping him halt the remaining zombies charge and kill off the more injured ones.

In the twelve seconds it took for their beamers to run out of power the duo had massacred the horde, only a measly few zombies continued to stride forth, gait unsteady thanks to all the flesh fleeched from their skinny forms.

They were of no threat, it was almost comical how easily defeated the zombies had been.