As for Xu De, he was simply eating as usual. The boy took a sip of yogurt, used the moisture to wash down the dry sandwich that had clearly been sitting around for too long, then continued speaking.
"I remember Ptolemy has a pay-to-eat restaurant, right?"
"Yeah. What are you planning?"
Hans asked curiously. The other three looked over when they heard him.
Of course there was a pay-to-eat restaurant. It served organic meat and vegetables flown in from Earth.
It was ridiculously expensive, but undeniably delicious.
"What else would I be doing there besides eating...?"
Xu De replied helplessly.
"Pfft!!!"
Hans dramatically spat out the water in his mouth.
"Holy shit! Why the fuck did you spit that out on purpose?!"
Price, who was splattered across the table from him, protested angrily.
He'd seen it. After hearing Xu De, Hans had deliberately taken a mouthful of water and spat it out.
"Are you insane?"
"Sorry, I've always wanted to try it."
Hans handed Price a tissue from beside him and continued.
"But why do you want to go eat?"
"What do you mean, why do I want to go eat? I've made money. What else am I supposed to do with it?"
Xu De silently took the tissue and wiped his face, while bringing out the pamphlet he'd quickly stowed away a moment ago.
"I thought you'd say, 'Instead of wasting time eating, I should keep training hard.'"
Hans mimicked Xu De's tone, sounding a little smug. The other two couldn't help laughing.
"I'm not a monk..."
The reward money was about to be paid out. What kind of idiot wouldn't spend money when he had it?
He already worked hard enough. Wasn't it only fair to treat himself?
Balancing work and rest was just as important.
Eating something good would help him absorb what he'd learned, too.
One meal wouldn't take that long, and he had to eat anyway.
Besides, every time he improved, he ought to get a reward.
Only when you recognize that you're getting better do you have the motivation to keep moving forward.
Otherwise, why did games give you rewards every time you leveled up?
A resilient spirit was important, but Xu De wasn't going to stubbornly refuse to spend money when it was worth spending—as long as he didn't become distracted by frivolous pursuits.
After all, wasn't the whole point of working so hard to live a better life?
On the battlefield, everyone had their own way of holding on. Some people really were ascetics, but this was Xu De's way.
"I was going to treat you guys, but never mind if you don't want to go."
Xu De said.
"We're going! Of course we're going!"
The three of them excitedly raised their hands at Xu De's words.
They were about ready to throw up from eating nothing but bread and yogurt.
Xu De had a million. What kind of idiot wouldn't take advantage of that?
After answering, Hans suddenly gave him a mischievous grin.
"How about we look for some pretty girls after dinner? There are way more people at the base than here."
"And we've got military merits to our names now."
Xu De met Hans's grin with a glance.
Ever since those girls had approached him, Hans seemed to have flipped some strange switch.
Or maybe he'd just been pent up for too long.
"Not happening. It'd take too long."
"..."
This time, Hans and the others were speechless.
They suspected Xu De was bragging, but they had no proof.
At last, after a long wait, they arrived inside Ptolemy.
The interior felt quite different from the seamless exterior.
The base was equipped with all sorts of facilities.
There was a barbershop, a restaurant, a billiards hall, and even an inn.
In short, it had everything people might need.
The only problem was that the accommodations for ordinary soldiers were frankly rather dismal.
The unit had been completely broken up, so Xu De had been assigned alongside the other ordinary soldiers.
After all, his current rank was only corporal.
Even if Revil wanted to look after him, he wasn't about to upgrade Xu De to a private room.
Xu De was a promising subordinate, not royalty.
Xu De himself hadn't made any special requests, either. He didn't think it was that bad.
It was certainly worse than what he'd had in his previous life, like those messy pigeonhole apartments in 2077.
But at the end of the day, it was just a place to sleep.
If he had a choice, he'd prefer somewhere nicer. But in the current situation, a worse place to live wouldn't kill him.
Everyone else was still holding serious discussions. Making demands now would be like volunteering to get himself killed.
He was still hoping to get his hands on a Gundam, after all.
"Xu De~!"
He had just set his luggage down by his bed when Bella appeared in front of him.
Her arrival brought a measure of quiet to the crowded, chaotic barracks.
Meanwhile, Bella cast a disdainful glance around the space, filled with every kind of body odor, then continued.
"Why don't we talk in the restaurant?"
At Bella's words, the barracks fell so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.
A dazzling beauty in a second lieutenant's uniform had personally invited a corporal to go out with her.
They'd only ever seen a scene like this in novels.
If Second Lieutenant Bella's rank hadn't made them afraid to act out of turn, they would definitely have gone over to introduce themselves.
But considering she'd become a second lieutenant at such a young age, she was either an elite or someone with connections.
So nobody was actually bold enough to try showing off in front of her.
Of course, that didn't stop them from shooting Xu De jealous looks.
Some of them already knew Xu De, and now they were looking at him with nothing but admiration.
No wonder Xu De had been so restrained aboard the ship. He already had a girlfriend who was an officer.
They'd all enlisted only a few months ago, so why was Xu De the only one who was so impressive?
Could this really be happening?
They wanted to pinch their cheeks to see if they were under an illusion, and if they'd actually died at the World Tree, with all this being a dying fantasy.
But even if they were fantasizing, why would they fantasize about someone else...?
"Who's that? An officer actually came looking for him."
A few people who didn't know Xu De's background began whispering to one another.
They looked at Xu De with a hint of hostility. As far as they were concerned, he was probably living off a woman.
It wasn't that there was anything wrong with that. It was just that they couldn't do it themselves—and they definitely couldn't find one that good.
"You don't know? Xu De's a genius in the Third Fleet!"
"I've even talked to him before!"
Hearing their discussion, the people there who belonged to the Third Fleet couldn't help stepping in to fill them in. They hadn't even bothered pinching their own cheeks.
Their faces were full of pride.
Ignoring everyone else's stares, Xu De answered Bella and followed her to the restaurant.
It wasn't an ordinary restaurant, but the upscale one Xu De had mentioned earlier, where you had to pay for your own meal.
There weren't many people coming and going at this hour, but the restaurant staff clearly knew Bella.
After all, money made you important, and money plus connections made you the most important person of all.
The restaurant had clearly needed connections to open here, so the staff were all the more deferential to Bella.
With the manager showing them the utmost respect, the two of them made their way to a private room farther inside.
Though it was less than ten kilometers in a straight line from the barracks, the surroundings were worlds apart from the underground barracks they'd just left behind.
It was still underground, but the table was made from expensive timber shipped from Earth. Beyond the transparent floor-to-ceiling window was a small patch of bamboo, though it was hard to tell whether it was real.
Even the room's scent reminded Xu De of the gardens in his hometown.
Clearly, it was a private room with an East Asian theme.
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