"Ernst, take care of them from here and designate them to one of the soldiers here. I'll take care of the rest, got it?" Fred said.
"Yes sir, follow me everyone." Ernst gestured and guided us into a different place, separating us from the rest of the company.
As Ernst lead us into a different part of the town, the surrounding buildings became more defined with less destruction all around us.
I guess they don't bomb this part often.
Soon, Ernst went inside one of the buildings and we followed inside.
The interiors were completely dirty.
With leaks on the roof and small holes littered everywhere around the walls.
Shattered windows and broken down wooden structures and furnitures.
The only form of interiors were the large wooden tables and chairs around it.
The small makeshift beds near the walls.
The smell of charred or smoky aroma filled the air as if something was being burned.
The building itself was just a one large room, no walls or anything.
At the corner of the room sat three soldiers surrounding a lit furnace and a pot on top with smoke coming out of it.
Ernst seeing this, drew closer to the three soldiers.
"What the hell are you doing?" Ernst stated.
Two of the soldiers, both of them being men turned their head to look at him in irratation.
But one of them whose back turned back at him didn't seem to care there was a lieutenant right behind.
"Katharina Fischer. I got a fresh new pile of meat here." He said.
"Huh?" The person turned around and laid her eyes upon us.
"Oh, what about them?" She said.
"I'm designating you to be their squad leader Fish."
"Huh!? Your joking right?" She tried to laugh it off but stopped seeing the seriousness in his face.
"You better teach them how to survive here, Fish." Ernst turned around and just left us with her.
Not even looking back at us almost as if he did not gave a damn about all of us.
Katharina let out an exhausted sigh of displeasure.
Seeing us in such fresh meat in her territory.
"Guys, we should introduce." Mara whispered to us all and realized our rudeness for not introducing ourself to our new squad leader.
Immediately, we lined up shoulder to shoulder.
Back and neck straight and head forward and chin up.
In unison we saluted and yelled.
"Nice to meet you sir! Thank you for taking under your wing sir!"
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"
The three soldiers cackled out loud at our introduction that we were slightly embarrassed.
Katharina wept in absolute laughter.
"At ease!" She jokingly commanded before going back to laughing.
But our squad looked at each other in total confusion and irritation.
This bastard was mocking us!
"Sorry sorry, It's been a while since we've seen something like that." Her laughter slowly stopped.
"At ease soldier, I'm not going to bite. Make yourself feel at home because you're gonna live here in this hell hole for months or even years!"
"Yeah so um, get comfortable." She turned back to the furnace, waving a hand dismissively.
"Find a spot. We'll talk later."
We sat our bags aside, resting our rifles against the walls.
I unbuckled my gears that were strapped on me before dropping it on the floor.
The only thing that remained were the uniforms that we wore.
"Sir? What are you doing?" Gideon asked her.
"Huh? Oh, just something to eat." She opened the lid of the pot and a gush of white smoke came out.
"I think it's done." The soldier that sat beside the furnace grabbed a spoonful and sipped it.
"Mmm, perfection." His face clenched in pure elation and made a chef's kiss sign with his hands.
"Perfect!" Katharina and the other man also grabbed their utensils and took their share as well.
What she grabbed from the pot was cooked meat looking almost like chicken.
She placed it on her dish and just about she was going to devour it.
She could some sort of sensation behind her.
A sensation of craving.
Her head slowly turned back to see us fully focused on the food.
Mouth drooping saliva that dropped to the floor as our eyes were dilated but engrossed in the food.
"Your not getting a share." She dismissively said and went back to devour the meat.
"What! We haven't eaten for an entire day! At least spare us some." Lena begged her.
"And we haven't eaten for weeks! You really think I am going to share!?"
"Oh come on!" Lena dropped to her knees and begged her.
Katharina was a bit taken a back by her and for a quick second looked pitifully at us.
"Fine! But you have to pay." She motioned her hands and told us to pay.
"Yes! Yes! Yes!" I grabbed a bit of pocket money and placed it down right on her hands.
But she just threw it to the ground.
"I'm not talking about money! Those shit are just paper here. What you have to pay with is something more useful like cigarettes, bullets, tabaco or food!"
We immediately understood her assignment and brought multiple items to her.
A clip of bullets, bread and apples, cigarettes, etc.
"There you go! Now this is the shit I'm talking about. Go grab a dish or something and take what you want." She took all of our items for herself, mischievously smiling.
Bowl in hand, I picked up a small piece of meat and soup from the pot.
Now in the bowl, I sat down and fully prepared myself in the delicacy.
Fork in hand, I stabbed the meat and took a large bite out of it.
And just to spit out all of it instead.
"Ew! This tastes like dogshit!" I yelled.
My squadmates also spits it out in disgust.
"What the fuck is in there! Poop!" Otto said out loud.
"Were you trying to kill us or something!" Wesley followed up.
"Hmm? Isn't this what you eat back in the city?" She confusingly said.