World Tree Space Station

[This time! The Coordinators feared our assault! So they chose to blow up the colony!]

In the barracks of the massive World Tree Space Station, Xu De watched along with the other soldiers as the leader of the Atlantic Federation gave a mobilization speech in front of the Capitol.

The handsome East Asian youth let out a quiet sigh.

His name was Xu De. He was thirty years old, and in his previous life, he had been a fighter pilot.

Here, he was eighteen. He had arrived just yesterday as a transmigrator.

Or rather, his memories had awakened and fused with those of the original owner.

In any case, the details didn't matter much right now.

The original owner had been a new recruit in the Atlantic Federation.

His background was simple.

An orphan of war, he had enlisted because he had no money for food and wanted to make something of himself.

In his previous life, there had been countless people in certain places in that situation, let alone in this chaotic age.

More importantly, he wasn't an ordinary new recruit. He belonged to the Earth Alliance's newly formed Third Mobile Fleet.

Everyone in this room was a reservist recruit, not yet assigned to a specific unit.

But this wasn't like the pilot training Xu De was familiar with.

The machines here were relatively easy to operate. Anyone with a technical college education could handle one, so the entry requirements were low.

Besides, Mistrals cost far less to build than Moebius units. Many had also been retired from use as work machines.

There was a huge stockpile of them.

In other words, they were expendable, and they weren't worth much.

This wasn't the world he had come from, nor was it the Earth he had known.

With a population of tens of billions, a few more deaths could even ease the pressure of overpopulation. At any rate, people like them weren't worth much.

Everyone had a value.

And theirs was pitifully low.

Xu De could guess some of their plans. They probably wanted to use new recruits like them, along with cheap Mistrals, to figure out what the Coordinators had up their sleeves.

Especially since they still didn't know the Ginn's true combat capabilities, and the enemy had gone berserk over what had happened at Junius.

That was the situation they were in.

They had only been enlisted for three months. After a little basic training, the new recruits had been brought straight to the World Tree Space Station.

They had been folded into the newly converted Third Mobile Fleet, which had previously belonged to the Council United Fleet and was still understrength.

They were called pilots, but really, they were just expendable fodder sent up in construction vehicles. Their training period and rank made that obvious.

That was exactly what the people above them had in mind.

Survival of the fittest. The powerful and those Merchants of Death banded together to exploit the weak.

In their eyes, life was just a value represented by a number.

Clearly, the average person was worth far less in this era than in his previous life.

The unprecedented population and the explosive growth in production were part of the reason, as was the way military manufacturing and material extraction costs had been squeezed even lower.

More people, cheaper guns, less valuable lives.

He looked away from the fat, jowly man on the television and gazed out the window.

A huge blue orb hung beyond the reinforced blast window.

It was a sight he'd never imagined seeing in his previous life, not even as a fighter pilot.

He had tried out for the astronaut program, but hadn't made the cut.

He'd thought he'd never get the chance to see this view.

Now his wish had come true, but he couldn't bring himself to enjoy it.

This was the World Tree Space Station, doomed to be smashed apart and reduced to space debris.

It wouldn't even last until the main story began.

He'd only been here for a day, but thinking about what he was about to face gave Xu De a headache.

This world was far more chaotic than the one he'd come from.

And it wasn't the same world he'd known before.

If things continued this way, after the Neutron Jammer was deployed, his country's strength and social conditions would only get worse.

But none of that was the most important thing right now. What mattered was how to survive the coming battle.

This world was already bad enough, and he was cannon fodder on top of that.

If he were piloting a Moebius, that would be one thing. But he had a Mistral—

The same kind of construction machine used to mine ice aboard the Archangel. Its bulky frame had nothing but a pair of mechanical arms and two Vulcan Cannons.

It was a coffin in space, even more ridiculous than a Ball.

And there was no glory at all in selling his life for the Merchants of Death. Having watched the anime, Xu De knew more about their atrocities than anyone here.

In this world, ordinary workers and soldiers were forced into dangerous labor or military service, while the Merchants of Death kept all the spoils of war for themselves.

They couldn't even count on decent benefits after leaving the military. They were expected to work for those people until they died.

He had no desire to become one of them.

Still, he couldn't request a discharge right now. He had no money, and in a place like the Federation, he wouldn't survive without it.

In peacetime, a drifter might manage if conditions were good.

The merchants might even hand out a little charity to the homeless.

But during wartime, or when the government was running a chronic deficit, that was another story.

Ordinary people had to pay more taxes, and the homeless even more so.

No money? That didn't stop them from making you create value.

There were far more ways to squeeze people during wartime than in ordinary times.

[We will make Earth rise again! We will make Naturals rise again!]

[We will show those heretics who have forsaken humanity that true strength comes not only from flesh and genes, but also from our hearts and minds!]

The shouts of his fellow soldiers brought Xu De's attention back to the room.

"Easy words for him to say. Hearts and minds, huh? Those people are smarter than us, too."

Beside Xu De, Hans, a blond man with his hair slicked back and wearing a regular soldier's uniform, muttered sarcastically as the man on the television finished speaking.

His voice was so quiet that, over the loudspeaker's blaring, only the two of them could hear.

"What do you expect a puppet to say?"

Xu De spoke to his childhood friend from the orphanage in the same tone the original owner had always used.

But inside, his thoughts churned.

Their fleet, newly converted from the Council United Fleet into the First to Third Fleet, would soon be devastated, with countless dead and wounded.

The Third Fleet he was in wouldn't be spared, either.

The Bloody Valentine incident had just happened. The enemy would probably attack in about a week.

That was why they were rushing to bring fresh recruits like them in right after training.

Xu De lowered his head in thought, not even noticing that the speech on the television had ended.

Discharging wasn't a good option. Leaving the military could make things even more dangerous for him.

Besides, getting discharged in seven days would be difficult.

With a major battle imminent, they wouldn't let their cannon fodder go so easily. There wasn't enough time to plan an injury or an escape, either.

But looking at it from the other direction, even if he was only cannon fodder, surviving this battle—and perhaps distinguishing himself—could earn him a promotion and better treatment.

They called them cannon fodder, but there might be some selection process or survival-of-the-fittest scheme at work.

After all, they didn't have any aces capable of space combat yet. This was the quickest way to develop them.

And given how many people were here, that seemed all the more likely.

Xu De clenched his fist.

Only when his palm began to sting did he slowly ease his grip.

The rewards the Merchants of Death offered weren't commensurate with the risks they expected him to take.

But he could still fight for what he wanted. A bigger platform meant more connections, and more connections meant more opportunities.

Then he'd have more options, whether he chose to stay or leave.

For now, the most important things were strength and value.

If they cared about value, then he would give them what they wanted.

He didn't want to bet his life on some vague cheat or seed.

If that was the case, he needed to test his abilities and potential as soon as possible.

Even if this battle had no honor or sense of duty to speak of, he still had his pride.

If he ran away now, his transmigration would have been meaningless.

He wouldn't be able to seize his own future. He'd only be entrusting his fate to others and drifting along with the crowd.

Genesis, Requiem, and Junius in space.

Phantom Pain, terrorist attacks, and riots on the ground.

Any of them could catch him off guard and kill him.

Besides, he'd endured so much hardship before.

Now that something as unbelievable as transmigration had happened, what couldn't he endure?

With that thought, a tiny flame kindled in Xu De's heart.

He would seize his own future!

He had never been one to give up easily, not in his previous life and not in this one.

"Lind, they're calling us to assemble."

"I heard the newly built Moebius units have arrived. Apparently, they're planning to pick a new Moebius pilot from our hundred-man recruit camp."

"They gave us the Moebius manual two months ago, but still haven't let us pilot one. I wonder if I'll get a chance."

The young man's grumbling pulled Xu De out of his thoughts.

"What?!"

Xu De grabbed Hans by the shoulders, suddenly excited.

"What's gotten into you?"

Hans said, annoyed.

"Is that true?!"

"There's a slot open?!"

Xu De gripped Hans's shoulders so tightly that the other man's broad shoulders began to ache.

"Of course it's true."

"Don't underestimate my intelligence network, Little Informant."

Hans looked at his friend with a smug grin.

On the other side, Xu De suppressed his excitement as he listened to Hans, the corners of his mouth lifting in a faint smile.

What was this, a pillow delivered right when he was sleepy?

If it was true, he'd fight tooth and nail for the chance.

Compared with the Mistral, the Moebius was far more capable.

It still couldn't pierce a Ginn's armor, but it was agile.

His odds of survival would rise dramatically.

More importantly, if he got a Moebius, he wouldn't be cannon fodder anymore. He'd be a potential ace.