Chapter 191: Train
Although it felt good to finally teach the platoon leader the lesson that he was supposed to learn, it still posed a problem for Hugh and Jane.
Now that the platoon leader was unconscious, the other upper ranks would get suspicious. If the platoon leader even missed one cabinet meeting, he would be searched for.
This was not good for their plan, especially since they wanted to go to the search party for Mia. Ideally, they could have persuaded the platoon leader to ask the other upper ranks to join the search party.
Now that they could not do that, then Hugh and Jane would have to sneak in by themselves. This would be hard to do, especially since they were against a whole army.
"What should we do? Should we just defect the army?" the soldier asked.
Hugh considered it for a second, but it still would not be wise. Although a platoon was a large number of people, it still could not compare to a whole army.
"No," Hugh replied. "We'll just go by ourselves."
Serena was also prepared to do that, but it would have been better if they were aided by the whole platoon.
"Ahhh!" a voice screamed.
Hugh and Serena quickly assumed a defensive position as they heard the shout. Have they been found out? Did the commander send an assassin?
The other soldiers also prepared their weapons, but where they realized who the sound came from, they were shocked, to say the least.
The one who had shouted was a soldier from their platoon. However, the reason for his shout was not from an enemy, but a dog that seemed like a wolf.
Everyone looked towards the small wolf-like dog that was chewing on the leather boots of the soldier. They all tilted their heads in confusion.
This was in the middle of nowhere, and they were all traveling in a large group in an army. They would usually not encounter an animal in their journey.
This animal was a pup of a wolf, which made it even weirder. There were usually not any animals of a canine descent in this part.
The soldier who had been bitten in the boot was trying to shake off the wolf-dog, but the animal had a tight jaw that would not let go.
While everyone was confused, Hugh was relieved. It was just Beru, his pet dog. He had thought that it was an enemy, but it was only his dog coming out of his body to eat something.
The other soldiers picked up their weapons and tried to shoo the dog-wolf away, but the wolf's skin was very tough.
Even when they prodded the animal with their sharp swords, it would ignore the blade and keep on nibbling on the leather boots.
"Beru!" Hugh called out.
Once Beru heard Hugh's call, it finally let go of the boots and walked back towards Hugh with a guilty look. It displayed its puppy dog eyes to make Hugh pity him.
Hugh could not help but feel sorry for the Beru. He had been cooped up in his body for too long, and this was the only time where he could go out.
"Fine," Hugh said as he picked up a stone from the ground. "Fetch."
Hugh threw the stone several meters up in the air, surprising everyone that saw him do it.
Beru put his legs into position and finally jumped towards the stone pebble up in the air. Surprisingly, the wolf-dog jumped several meters in the air, defying every expectation.
Once the wolf-dog reached the stone pebble, it quickly swallows it whole without even biting it.
The dog fell gracefully as if he had not just jumped several meters up in the air. Then, it looked up at Hugh as if he was expecting more treats.
Everyone was shocked to their core. This was the indication that the dog-wolf was not normal. The fangs looked even sharper than their blade, and its skin was tougher than metal.
However, they all felt that the wolf-dog was cute with its tail wiggling like a normal dog. Everyone fought the urge to pet the dog for fear of it biting their whole handoff.
"Is that your dog?" a soldier asked.
Hugh nodded his head as he squatted down next to Beru and rubbed its head. Everyone could see that it reacted like a normal dog with its fur being as fluffy as the dog.
"Yeah," Hugh replied.
The soldiers were still all a little bit freaked out of the wolf-dog, but now, they had no hostility over it. Once they knew that Hugh had tamed it, they felt safe around it.
"It must be something very special," a soldier asked. "Aside from jumping several meters up in the air, what else could it do?"
The soldier was asking a rhetorical question, however, he did not expect that Hugh would answer it.
"Oh, it could do a lot more than that," Hugh said.
Then, Hugh realized something. Beru could do a lot of things, including mimicking anyone due to his powers being linked to the dog.
With this idea planted into his mind, Hugh looked at Beru in the eyes and asked him.
"Can you copy this guy?" Hugh said as he pointed at the unconscious body of the platoon leader.
Beru titled his head sideways as if he was confused about the whole situation. However, it seemed to have understood the general gist of what Hugh wanted.
Then, the wolf-dog nodded its head as its whole body started to transform. Its skin melted and changed its properties to mimic a human.
Soon, its small stature changed into the petite body of the platoon leader. Then, the fine details were copied down for the small moles on the platoon leader's face.
Unlike the real platoon leader, this clone had a look of innocence on his face and could even be considered cute.
The platoon leader clone titled its head and smiled at Hugh. It wanted Hugh to praise it. Hugh obliged.
"Who's a good boy? You are!" Hugh said as he rubbed the platoon leader's clone in his head.
Hugh felt awkward petting a grown man in the head, but he had to do it. Beru had done a good job, and he should be rewarded.
However, it seemed that Beru's happiness was too much as a tail appeared behind him and waved in happiness.
Soon enough, the platoon leader's clone started to fall apart as Beru slowly changed into his cute puppy wolf-dog form.
Everyone could agree that the puppy wolf-dog form was cuter than their sworn enemy, the platoon leader.
"Amazing!"
"I don't believe my eye!"
"That little guy is extraordinary!"
The soldiers started to praise Beru's abilities as they all swarmed him and started to pet him like a real dog. They no longer had any hesitations about the weird dog.
"I can't believe that you kept such a cute puppy away from me," Serena said as she picked up Beru in the air and squished her face slower to Beru.
Hugh had an awkward smile as he looked at the swarm of grown men being this happy over a dog. He did not think that Beru would gather such a reaction.
"Um guys," Hugh said as he tried to take their attention away from Beru. "We have important things to do?"
However, it seemed that nobody took any of their attention away from Beru. They all took turns holding him and admiring him.
Hugh shook his head as he waited for the Beru fever to lie down. Only then would he be able to further discuss their plans.
After half an hour, they finally had enough of smothering themselves with Beru. Hugh could finally discuss his new plans going forward.
"We can use Beru and clone him to be the platoon leader," Hugh said.
Most of the soldiers and Jane all felt that this plan was good. However, the problem would be Beru himself since they cannot control him.
"Can he clone for a long time?" Serena asked as she petted Beru who was lying in her lap.
Hugh shrugged his head. He also did not know since he did not have the time to train or find out about Beru's limits.
"I don't know," Hugh said. "However, I think that we could train him, at the very least."
Jane nodded her head. "Yeah. If he cannot sustain for a long time, then we just favorite with the other plan, deal?"
The soldiers all looked at each other as they all considered the feasibility of the plan.
"However," a soldier said with a serious voice. "We have one big problem."
The other soldiers nodded their heads with a serious tone. It seemed that they all agreed that there was one giant problem in the plan.
Hugh tilted his head in confusion. He did not know what kind of problem they were talking about.
When he looked towards Serena, he saw that even she was contemplating the problem.
"Who gets to train Beru first?"