I, Yu Lian, the Sensitive One

The lieutenant felt a little awkward, but luckily, everyone was too busy to pay him any attention.

Perhaps because Yu Lian's earlier movements had been as steady as those of a seasoned criminal, everyone felt reassured, and the soldiers remained fairly calm. Many had already begun checking their weapons. Ina had even loaded her gun and raised it, watching Yu Lian as she waited for his orders.

"Don't get bogged down fighting." Yu Lian said, "Help me up. We're retreating into the cave! Sergeant Yoyo, you take the lead."

The big fellow, who had just put on his power armor, hefted his gun and charged off with the air of a man ready to brave any danger.

"I'll cover the rear." Ina adjusted her gun, her face solemn.

"No need."

"Then I'll..." The bear-man sergeant began, his voice grave.

"I said, none of you need to! Why are you all acting like you're about to die heroically? Did I say anyone had to sacrifice themselves?" Yu Lian roared.

Everyone fell silent and hurried onward with their heads down.

The lieutenant, who had played the swordsman an hour ago, shook his head and carefully followed the group.

The cave was indeed quite deep. The farther in they went, the harder it became to walk; the passage grew more rugged and winding, though they could still make their way through. Just as they finally caught sight of light, the insects' shrieks rose behind them.

To be honest, the swarm's biological structure was much closer to that of actual insects, and creatures like these didn't make a sound when hunting. But perhaps it was the perverse sense of humor of the Queen whom Yu Lian had beaten up so many times in his previous life. She must have thought that having a mass of insects roaring would be intimidating, so she had deliberately given that trait to her insect descendants. It was understandable. When zombies surrounded a city, didn't they always go "Awoooo, awoooo"? Even though their vocal cords had rotted away.

At the rear of the group, Ina held her gun while Baka carried his axe. Both looked back at Yu Lian, who was being carried.

"Move faster! I'm telling you, if you try to play the hero, I'll dismantle this thing!" Yu Lian brandished the "Cluster" concussion bomb in his hand.

The two had no choice but to keep moving. They thought the young warrant officer was being a bit too headstrong, but they were still touched. Everyone else probably felt the same way. Even the plain-looking nurse, with her plain figure and plain demeanor, had taken out a handkerchief to wipe Yu Lian's sweat.

The pain had really started to return. Before, he had been unable to feel his lower body, and every bone in his body had hurt. Now it felt as if someone had shoved another steel rod into his waist—and pulled it straight out of a furnace.

Dragging him, a human wreck, the group finally reached the cave entrance. The Claw Drakes' roars sounded as if they were right beside everyone's ears, and their legs nearly gave out.

Well, the roaring did help. Even in the space age, it still worked. The classics never went out of style.

Ina had already opened fire. But she hadn't lost her head or stopped to cover the rear; she fired as she moved.

"Shoot between their mandibles! That's where the brain center is!" Yu Lian shouted.

Ina took his word for it and fired two more three-round bursts. She was pleased to see two giant insects at the front go down, though they ended up blocking the group's path.

Sergeant Baka grabbed her and picked up the pace. At last, they saw the exit—or rather, a cave mouth that opened at an angle in the rock wall.

"This is the exit you were talking about?" The sergeant major wanted to curse. It wasn't that they couldn't climb out; it was that they'd have to drag the poor bastard with a broken spine out at an angle. He'd probably lose his life from the ordeal.

Yu Lian really did feel as if he was about to die. If before he had only "felt" like every bone in his body was broken, now they probably really were. His internal organs churned violently, and he felt red, yellow, black, purple, and green all rushing up into his nose. He almost spewed everything out in one go.

Miss Belinda hurriedly wiped away her tears. It was only a natural physical reaction, but Yu Lian still felt like he'd made a fool of himself.

Fortunately, everyone managed to crawl out of the cave. Ina's upper body had emerged from the opening, while Baka, at the rear, was pushing her out. He was the only one in the squad strong enough to shove someone wearing over a hundred pounds of power armor.

Ina sprang clear of the cave and reached back for the bear-man's hand. Yu Lian, meanwhile, raised his "Cluster" bomb and watched the two at the cave mouth intently.

Claw Drakes were proper assault troops. They looked big enough to have trouble squeezing through a narrow cave, but they had the burrowing skill unlocked. They could dig faster than groundhogs.

Yu Lian knew the cave wouldn't hold them back for long. Once they were out in the open, his battered squad wouldn't last even a round or two.

He had to take them all out in one go while they were crowded together!

Fortunately, they were biological weapons, led by a dim-witted intelligence that was all brawn and no brains. It would have a hard time understanding the concept of a trap.

Give them a few more years, and these guys won't be so easy to fool. At least in my era, they weren't.

Yu Lian watched Ina haul the hulking, two-meter-tall bear-man straight out of the cave.

By now, he had crawled to the cave entrance. He held a pistol in one hand and the bomb in the other. Several Claw Drakes were squeezing their way through the cave, waving their massive pincers and eight razor-sharp claws. Behind them, more insects howled wildly, and he could just make out a serpentine shape darting through the gaps between them.

Yu Lian didn't hesitate. He activated the bomb and tossed it into the swarm.

The bomb's battery flashed, and the swarm froze for an instant. Yes, even though they were living creatures, they still needed energy. Genes—more varied genes—were the key to their evolution; energy, more energy, was the source of their movement.

A different cry rang out from within the swarm, as if one of them were scolding its fellows. But it was already too late. Yu Lian shot the bomb's manual trigger and rolled away, covering his head.

For a half-paralyzed man with a broken spine, the movement was pure torture. It felt as if the red-hot steel rod in his waist had snapped in two.

A thunderous boom echoed through the cave entrance. Imagine a pressure cooker lid being blown off, only a hundred times louder.

Everyone felt as if they were at the epicenter of an earthquake. It was almost impossible to keep their balance. Yu Lian was the closest, but he no longer had to exert himself against his frail, crippled body—the ground was rolling on its own.

Just as the red, black, green, and purple surged up into his nose again and threatened to spill out, just as he was certain the blast would kill him, an enormous steel hand grabbed him and hauled him upright, propping him against its owner.

It was Ina.

The stabilizers in her powered exoskeleton had helped her regain her balance at once. All that metal had turned into a chair for Yu Lian.

"You're pushing yourself too hard, sir!"

"I had no choice. I don't trust anyone else here to hit the bomb with a shot." Tossing it into the swarm and then putting a bullet into it was no easy feat. There was a reason the security-force riffraff sat at the bottom of the pecking order.

"Then I could've..."

"And we'd both have gone sky-high—no, gotten buried together?"

Ina gritted her teeth and fell silent, thinking that she had to find a way to repay him for saving her life.

Yu Lian, though, felt a little awkward. She was wearing a suit of cold metal, but he really was leaning against her.

"Want something to help you relax a little?" Ina asked.

...Miss, do you know how easy it is to take that the wrong way? Yu Lian clicked his tongue, but the sergeant major had already opened the storage compartment on the outer thigh armor of her exoskeleton. It held energy bars, a cigarette case, a cigar tube, and a flask, and she gestured for Yu Lian to take something.

Who would've thought a broad-browed, honest-looking girl like you wasn't so proper after all?

"I don't have anything more exciting. I'm not into that," she added.

"Who would want that? And from the way you said it, it sounds like that 'more exciting' stuff is pretty common?"

The sergeant major realized she'd misspoken and turned her head away. From the corner of her eye, she saw Yu Lian staring straight at the silver metal tube in the rack. Her cheek twitched. She'd gone to a lot of trouble to get it and hadn't even had a chance to enjoy it yet. But if her lifesaver wanted it, she couldn't very well refuse.

"Green Bay Torpedoes! They've been out of production for thirty years!"

"Out of production? Weren't they named the galaxy's number one cigar last year?"

"No, forget I said anything."

Yu Lian took the metal tube, which looked like a miniature torpedo, with trembling hands. He was overwhelmed by emotion. So there were some upsides to being thrown fifty years into the past. Ever since the orbital bombardment that had wiped out Green Bay's tobacco plantations on Abundance, these renowned cigars had become collector's items—practically impossible to get.

The bigwigs of the Commonwealth thought high-end cigars and other luxuries created more value and gave them more prestige in the eyes of civilizations across the galaxy. So they shut down Earth's metallurgy, chemical, and energy industries, along with its munitions factories. But as it turned out, a single warning bombardment by a small destroyer had been enough to destroy a luxury brand renowned across the universe for over a century.

What irony.

Yu Lian pulled the cigar from the "torpedo tube," determined to savor it properly. He looked up, about to ask Miss Ina for a light, but froze. It wasn't because he was captivated by her pretty face, despite the dirt, but because he saw a shadow leap up behind her.

The Thorned Snake King, which should have died in the explosion!

It had indeed been badly hurt. Half its body was mangled, its carapace peeled open, and brown-yellow fluid oozed out. Yet membranes had unfolded along both sides of its abdomen, glimmering with a cold blue light.

It was about to evolve. It had already developed the ability to form a rudimentary energy shield! That was how it had survived the explosion.

Despite its grievous injuries, the Thorned Snake King showed no sign of slowing. It moved so fast that an ordinary person couldn't follow it with their eyes. This elite insect unit could serve as a squad leader in wartime, but it also often played the role of an assassin.

And yet Yu Lian could follow every movement clearly, as if watching it in slow motion. He could even make out every natural pattern in the carapace on its head, every blade-like tooth in its gaping maw, and the six insect blades springing from its coiled abdomen.

But seeing it clearly didn't mean he could do anything. His blood vessels and nerves felt filled with liquid lead. He couldn't move even a little.

The Thorned Snake King had already raised its blades toward the back of Ina's unguarded head. Only then did the sergeant major show any sign of surprise, and she still hadn't reacted.

Ina Nishika, the "Witch with Burning Eyes"—was she going to die here? The greatest sniper in the history of galactic civilization, whose targets ranged from imperial viceroys and alliance tycoons to legendary Titan beasts, was going to die before she even left her starting village?

What about the young people of Earth who would take up the struggle because of you? What about the more than a hundred short videos teaching people how to build a light-lance cannon from scratch and train a militia?

So was this because I existed as someone reborn? The butterfly effect?

In an instant, red, green, black, purple, and yellow surged up into Yu Lian's throat once more. This time, he couldn't hold it back.

But what burst out wasn't anything unpleasantly indescribable. It was a shock wave, its air rippling in waves, that slid past the sergeant major's shoulder and slammed head-on into the Thorned Snake King's face.

"So I'm a Sensitive too, damn it!"