African Entrepreneurship Record

On the other side, Talorin suddenly stopped and said, "Alright, let’s start to return now and see if there’s anything new at the place we just stayed."

"Sergeant, suddenly going back, we probably won’t find anything, right?" Makarich asked.

Talorin scolded, "Don’t talk back now, just do as I say."

Then the small team rushed back in a hurry.

"Stop!" Talorin suddenly ordered: "Don’t disturb the scene."

With sharp eyes, Talorin immediately noticed some changes at the place they had stayed earlier, and to prevent his soldiers from disturbing the traces, he had the team stay on the perimeter.

"There was likely a person who came through here just now, and it’s very likely a Serbian reconnaissance." Talorin said firmly.

Makarich asked, "Sergeant, how do you know?"

Talorin pointed at the grass on the ground and said, "Look at the grass here, isn’t it bent over?"

Makarich said, "Could it be that we stepped on it ourselves? After all, we walk this mountain road every day, and there aren’t different footprints or anything."

Talorin shook his head and said, "This shows you’re not careful enough. Look closely at the direction the grass is bent; the grass stems here have clearly been crossed by someone’s shoes, while our patrol walks vertically. The traces between the two are distinctly different."

"Also here, there’s a fallen leaf, which looks quite out of place." With that, Talorin picked up a leaf from the ground.

He placed the leaf in his hand and said, "This leaf is clearly still fresh, its petiole is even green, and there’s sap here. It was obviously brought here by something exterior. Did anyone break a leaf here earlier?"

Everyone shook their heads and said, "No."

"That’s right!" Talorin continued, "This leaf wasn’t left by us, so it’s very likely that someone else brought it here."

"Look further, it’s clear that someone stepped on the grass across the road too. This shows the enemy is very cunning; he jumped directly across this small path, but even so, he surely had to step on the grass on both sides."

"So, both sides of the grass have signs of damage. This is also why I could immediately spot something unusual. You all need to be more attentive in the future. You never know when it might save your life."

As he spoke, Talorin began inspecting clues on the roadside, for after confirming two points, he could essentially trace the intruder’s movements.

Sure enough, after delving deeper into the forest, he found more clues. Talorin said, "Someone must have passed through our area, moving from south to north. In the forest, he was quite careless, leaving many footprints."

"There’s also a hard-to-detect small path here, concealed by trees, making it difficult to spot. This could’ve once been a local firewood chopping path. There are signs on both sides of the road cleared with a machete, though it’s been months since anyone walked it, and it’s now covered in vegetation."

"We will follow this path down the mountain quickly, maybe we can still catch him."

Afterward, with Talorin leading the team personally, everyone swiftly moved down the mountain along this path, and though the road was winding and covered in branches and shrubs, it hardly hindered their march.

As people from the Dalmatian Kingdom under the Austria-Hungary Empire, this small unit had rich mountain marching experience.

After all, the Neretva region’s topography is full of mountains and coastal hills, including the capital Mostar, a city built in a mountain valley.

For Dalmatian soldiers living in such an environment, dealing with this complex terrain posed no pressure at all.

As Talorin and his men pursued the man down the mountain, the pursued man was completely unaware, holding a machete and constantly clearing the way ahead.

After all, this path had not been traveled for several months, so some clearing was unavoidable.

Of course, deep within the forest, he didn’t think that such small noises could alarm Dalmatian soldiers, given the many wild animals here and the considerable distance from the Dalmatian soldiers’ daily patrol route. Unless there’s someone with exceptional hearing among them, no one could hear these sounds.

But he clearly underestimated the instincts and skills of the old fox, Talorin, and would soon pay for his negligence.

Not long after, Talorin came upon a new discovery, which greatly lifted his mood.

"This guy shouldn’t be moving fast. After all, it’s a road not walked for several months, so he had to use a sharp tool to clear the bushes, grass, and branches ahead."

"This means he’s clearing the way ahead, and his work evidently benefits us, allowing us to speed up along this route."

After about half an hour.

Makarich suddenly said softly, "I hear something."

Talorin nodded and said, "Looks like the person is just ahead, let’s split into three groups and encircle him."

In the deep forest, the man was chopping with his machete, unaware that he had been caught up.

Talking to himself, he said, "I remember last winter, this small road was pretty convenient; just a few months without clearing makes it hard to navigate."

The Serbian Kingdom’s retreat happened at the end of the year, and with a Mediterranean climate, the winter is warm and moist, so the vegetation here flourishes again after the winter rains.

Suddenly, the man heard a noise.

At this time, Dalmatian soldiers were only thirty meters away. In the deep forest, it’s impossible not to make noise.

Run! It was the man’s only thought.

"Pursue!" Talorin quickly gave orders.

Unfortunately, by this time, the man was already panicking, as facing an enemy with superior numbers makes calm hard to maintain.

The pursuit lasted only five minutes before a man with a face full of stubble was pinned in a bush by Dalmatian soldiers. Running ahead in the forest is a disadvantage since he had to clear the way, whereas the Dalmatian soldiers only needed to follow.

"Sergeant, we’ve caught him, we’ve caught him!"

Talorin hurried over as well and quickly identified the man due to the Mosinka-Nagant on his back.

"Tie up this Serbian insurgent."

The Mosinka-Nagant rifle is a Russian weapon, also widely used by the Serbian Kingdom, making it much easier to identify the intruder. The Austria-Hungary troops have their own rifles, and the Bulgarian troops use German weapons, which could be from Germany or East Africa.

Though the man tried to struggle, his efforts were ineffective against the numerously superior Dalmatian soldiers.

His struggles futile, the Serbian man could only curse, though his florid language posed no real threat, no matter how nasty, as the Dalmatian soldiers couldn’t understand Serbian.

In the Dalmatian Kingdom, or the original Neretva region, long-term German education led many to not even speak Chinese anymore, only fluent in German.

"Behave!" Makarich, though not able to understand what the man said, knew from his grim face and tone that nothing good was coming out of the captive’s mouth.

At this time, Talorin said, "Makarich, you and Weisen keep an eye on him. We spent quite some time capturing him, and it’ll probably be nightfall by the time we descend."

To capture this Serbian insurgent, Talorin’s squad spent nearly two hours. Now, returning to the camp would take about another three hours, totaling around five hours.

Of course, Talorin and his team were quite excited, as the pursuit was inherently risky. If not for the dense forest environment making firearms difficult to deploy, this resistor would have greeted them with bullets for sure.