Three months after the fall of the Old Capital, Lin Shuo officially joined the New Eridu Defense Force's Obsidian Camp.
The paperwork was rushed-he handed over all his parents' experimental data in exchange for a "special service permit" and a flimsy soldier's ID.
There was no welcoming ceremony, no training for newcomers, and even his uniform had been scrounged up at the last minute. The cuffs were a little short, and the epaulets had yet to be sewn on properly.
He was assigned to the Obol Squad. Its captain was an intelligent construct called Willowisp, attached to a gun mounted on the spinal apparatus of a cloned girl named Orphie.
His first day reporting for duty, at the training ground.
Ten in the morning. The sunlight was blinding.
A dozen or so recruits were practicing basic marksmanship, the sounds of bullets striking metal targets ringing out one after another.
Lin Shuo stood at the edge of the line, a standard-issue pistol in his hand, his movements textbook-perfect-his parents had taught him to shoot in the laboratory to test his "combat instincts during Half-Ethereal Transformation."
"Your wrist's too stiff."
A voice came from beside him.
Lin Shuo turned his head.
The speaker was a young soldier who looked eighteen or nineteen, his face carrying that air of superiority veterans wore when looking at rookies.
"Relax your wrist, like this-"
The soldier demonstrated a fluid motion of raising his gun. "Keep it rigid like that, and the recoil will hurt your joints."
Lin Shuo stared at him for two seconds, then turned back and maintained his stance.
"Hey, I'm talking to you."
The soldier was annoyed.
"Don't you know the rules, new guy? When a senior teaches you something, you listen-"
"No need."
Lin Shuo interrupted him, his voice flat.
The Three-Tomoe Sharingan spun silently deep within his eyes-he had long since calculated the trajectory, wind speed, and recoil distribution.
His current stance was optimal, ensuring stability and accuracy during consecutive shots.
But he did not explain.
Explaining was too much trouble.
"Hah?" The soldier laughed in anger.
"No need? Who do you think you are? I heard you only got special permission to enlist because you handed over some experimental data-don't tell me you've never even had basic training?"
Several recruits nearby looked over, their expressions varied.
Lin Shuo ignored him.
He pulled the trigger.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Five bullets, their intervals as even as a metronome.
Fifty meters away, five bull's-eyes on the moving targets were pierced with precision.
The training ground fell silent for a moment.
"Lucky shots." The soldier's expression soured a little, but he refused to back down. "They're just moving targets. If you're so good, hit one a hundred meters away-"
Lin Shuo raised his hand and pointed toward another target station in the distance.
It was a high-speed target that moved erratically along a randomized path, something usually only veterans attempted.
He fired three shots in succession.
On the first shot, the target suddenly accelerated, and the bullet grazed its edge.
On the second shot, the target turned sharply, and the bullet missed.
The third shot-
Lin Shuo narrowed his eyes slightly.
The three tomoe spun wildly, predicting the target's trajectory a second ahead.
He pulled the trigger.
Bang!
The bullet traced a subtle arc through the air-it was not that his aim was accurate, but that he had predicted the target's movement and fired ahead of time, allowing the bullet and target to intersect at a certain point.
The moving target burst apart.
Fragments scattered everywhere.
"..." The soldier stood with his mouth open, unable to speak.
The murmurs around them grew louder.
"He's a monster..."
"Can a normal person even hit that?"
"I heard he used to be a test subject..."
"No wonder his eyes are so scary..."
Lin Shuo lowered his gun, turned, and left the training ground.
He heard the whispers behind him, but he did not care.
He had heard far worse in the laboratory.
This was nothing.
Lunchtime, in the mess hall.
The Obsidian Camp's mess hall was large enough to seat three hundred people at once.
The air was filled with the standard smell of heated nutritional meals-protein blocks, vitamin paste, and energy drinks.
Carrying his tray, Lin Shuo found a seat in a corner and sat down.
The nearby tables quickly filled up, but no one came near his.
An empty zone formed within five meters of him, as though he carried some infectious disease.
He did not care. He lowered his head and ate his nutritional paste-plain, without any seasoning, but he was used to it.
The food in the laboratory had been worse.
Halfway through his meal, someone sat down across from him.
Lin Shuo looked up.
It was an orange-haired girl who looked a few years younger than him, her green eyes studying him curiously.
A mechanical tail rested over her shoulder, its tip ending in the muzzle of a gun-that was Willowisp, the Obol Squad's captain.
"You're Lin Shuo?"
The girl spoke softly, sounding a little timid. "I'm Orphie... the Obol Squad's assault trooper."
Lin Shuo nodded and continued eating.
Orphie blinked. "Um... the captain sent me to get you-meet in Training Room Three at two this afternoon. You'll be meeting the rest of the squad."
"Understood."
"And..." Orphie hesitated.
"I heard what happened at the training ground... don't mind those people-they just... don't know you yet."
Lin Shuo put down his spoon and looked at her. "Do you know me?"
Orphie was at a loss for words.
"You don't, do you?" Lin Shuo said.
"So you don't need to pretend you understand me."
He picked up his tray and stood to leave.
"Wait!" Orphie stood up.
"I... I just wanted to say, if you need help, you can come to me. We'll be in the same squad, after all..."
Lin Shuo paused.
He looked back at Orphie's sincere green eyes.
There was no fear or disgust in those eyes, only simple goodwill.
But he did not know how to respond.
"...Thank you." In the end, those were the only words he managed before quickly leaving the mess hall.
Two in the afternoon, Training Room Three.
It was a partly underground space, with thick metal walls and impact-resistant mats covering the floor.
Several folding chairs stood in the middle of the room, with four people already seated.
When Lin Shuo pushed the door open and entered, everyone's gaze settled on him.
"You're here."
It was the tail on Orphie's shoulder speaking-Willowisp's voice came from the muzzle, a processed, electronically synthesized voice with distinctly feminine qualities, but a brusque tone. "Find a seat, new guy."
Lin Shuo sat in a chair in the corner.
"We'll skip the introductions. It's all in the files anyway."
Willowisp got straight to the point. "Lin Shuo, fifteen, former test subject. Handed over your parents' research data in exchange for eligibility to serve-did I get anything wrong?"
"No."
Lin Shuo nodded.
"Then you should understand that the Obsidian Camp isn't a shelter."
Willowisp pointed her muzzle at him. "Everyone here goes to the front lines and faces Hollows. Those 'special abilities' of yours might have been quite a novelty in the laboratory, but on the battlefield-if you drag us down, I'll personally throw you back into the lab."
Lin Shuo said nothing.
"But since the higher-ups assigned you to my squad, I'm responsible for you."
Willowisp continued, "Starting today, you'll train with the squad. Orphie will walk you through the basic procedures, Soldier 11 will handle tactical instruction, and Trigger will teach you ranged support. Seed... never mind. Stay away from Seed."
In the corner, a blue-haired girl was crouching on the floor, drawing something on a tablet with a stylus.
Hearing her name, she looked up, displaying a smile that did not look quite real.
That was Seed, the Obol Squad's artillery specialist, who operated a giant mech called Old Seed.
"Hello," she said, her voice airy.
"I'm Seed. Your eyes... are very interesting."
She stared into Lin Shuo's eyes, her rectangular pupils contracting slightly.
Lin Shuo sensed a faint Ether fluctuation-Seed was scanning him.
He instinctively activated his Sharingan, the three tomoe spinning as he countered the scan.
Seed blinked. "Rejected. All right."
She lowered her head and continued drawing without another word.
"Don't mind her. That's just how she is."
Another woman had spoken.
Blond hair, a high ponytail, and a tactical blindfold over her face-that was Trigger, the squad's sniper.
She "looked" toward Lin Shuo, the indicator on her blindfold blinking with a gentle green light.
"Welcome to the Obol Squad-I'm Trigger. I mainly handle ranged support and intelligence analysis-I've seen your shooting data. It's excellent. We can compare skills sometime."
Lin Shuo nodded. "Thank you."
The last person stood up.
Short white hair, orange eyes, and little expression on her face-that was Soldier 11, the main attacker.
She walked up to Lin Shuo and extended her hand. "Xia Lin. Just call me Soldier 11."
Lin Shuo shook her hand.
Soldier 11's hand was cold, her grip strong. She held it for three seconds before letting go.
"I read your file three times."
Her tone was as flat as though she were reporting the weather.
"A former test subject, Half-Ethereal Transformation ability, S-rated combat instincts, but F-rated interpersonal skills-in other words, you're good at fighting, but you don't know how to get along with people."
She paused. "In squad combat, the latter can be more fatal than the former."
Lin Shuo looked at her. "So?"
"So you need to learn."
Soldier 11 said, "Learn to trust your teammates, learn to accept orders, learn... to be a normal person."
There was nothing derogatory in her tone when she said "normal person." She was simply stating a fact.
But Lin Shuo's heart still tightened slightly.
A normal person.
He had stopped being one long ago.
"All right, lecture over."
Willowisp interrupted.
"Lin Shuo, your task today is to follow Orphie and familiarize yourself with the camp.
"Formal training starts tomorrow-we'll begin with the most basic teamwork."
She paused, turning her muzzle toward Orphie. "Orphie, show him around. Don't let him get lost."
"Yes, Captain!" Orphie stood at attention.
For the rest of the afternoon, Orphie took Lin Shuo on a circuit of the Obsidian Camp.
The training area, armory, medical station, command center...
Everywhere they went, they encountered other soldiers.
Some nodded in greeting, some ignored him, and others... had obvious rejection in their eyes.
"That's the new test subject?"
"I heard he can turn into a monster..."
"What are the higher-ups thinking, letting someone like that enlist..."
The whispers buzzed like mosquitoes.
Orphie had clearly heard it too. She looked at Lin Shuo awkwardly. "Um... don't take it to heart-everyone just... needs time to adjust."
Lin Shuo said nothing.
He watched their retreating backs, then suddenly spoke. "It's normal for them to be afraid of me."
Orphie froze.
"Back in the lab, the researchers were afraid of me too."
Lin Shuo continued, his voice calm.
"For every test, they had to put on full protective suits and operate from behind blastproof glass.
Because I knew that, if I wanted to, I could easily tear through that glass and rip their throats open."
He turned to look at Orphie. "So they're right to be afraid-I really am a monster."
Orphie opened her mouth, wanting to say, "You're not," but the words caught in her throat and wouldn't come out.
Because she saw Lin Shuo's eyes-something flickered deep within those black pupils.
It wasn't madness.
It wasn't anger.
It was... a bottomless exhaustion.
Like someone who had walked through the darkness for so long that he had forgotten what light looked like.
"Let's go." Lin Shuo looked away.
"Where to next?"
That evening, the whistle signaling the end of training sounded.
Lin Shuo returned to his assigned single room-it was tiny, with only a bed, a desk, and a wardrobe.
The window faced the perimeter wall of the camp, with the searchlights on the distant Hollow containment wall visible beyond it.
He sat on the edge of the bed, looking out at the night.
A lot had happened today.
He had been shunned, talked about, treated like a monster.
But some people had also offered him a helping hand-Orphie, Trigger, even that blunt-spoken Captain Willowisp.
He didn't know how to respond.
The lab had taught him only two things: comply with the tests and hide his emotions.
But now, he needed to learn a third: how to get along with people.
"...What a hassle."
He murmured to himself.
Yet the corners of his mouth lifted just a little.
Maybe it was because of Orphie's sincere eyes.
Maybe it was because of Trigger's words, "Welcome aboard."
Maybe it was because... he had finally left that white laboratory and reached a place with a sky, with sunlight, with an "outside."
Even if the people here were afraid of him.
Even if he didn't know what he should do.
At least... he was moving forward.
That was enough.
A knock came at the door.
"Lin Shuo? Are you there?" It was Orphie's voice.
Lin Shuo got up and opened the door.
Orphie stood outside, holding a paper bag.
"Here."
She held out the paper bag. "The cafeteria is serving red bean buns tonight, so I grabbed an extra... you haven't had dinner yet, have you?"
Lin Shuo took the paper bag. Inside was a red bean bun, still warm.
"...Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Orphie smiled.
"Um... good luck with training tomorrow. The captain sounds harsh, but she's actually really nice. Soldier 11 too. She's just not very good at expressing herself... Trigger is the gentlest, and Seed is a little strange, but she means no harm..."
She chattered on, as though trying hard to put Lin Shuo at ease.
As Lin Shuo listened, he suddenly asked, "Why are you so nice to me?"
Orphie froze.
"Because... because we're teammates."
Her face flushed a little as she spoke. "And... I don't think you're a bad person-even though you look fierce, and your eyes are scary... your gaze is very gentle when you look at the red bean bun."
Lin Shuo lowered his eyes to the red bean bun in his hand.
It was warm and gave off a sweet fragrance.
He remembered Qian An once saying that the red bean buns sold by an old lady on the street were the most delicious things in the world.
"...Thank you."
He said it again.
This time, his voice was a little softer.
Orphie smiled. "Then... see you tomorrow!"
She waved and ran off.
Lin Shuo closed the door and returned to the bedside.
He took a bite of the red bean bun.
It was sweet.
A little cloyingly sweet.
But he ate all of it.
Outside the window, searchlights swept across the night sky.
A new day would soon arrive.
And Lin Shuo knew that his life in the military had only just begun.
Even though it had gotten off to a terrible start.
At least... the red bean bun was sweet.
That was enough.