A hermit crab fell to the ground and wandered in circles aimlessly before finally finding a body.
After confirming it was a corpse, the hermit crab leaped onto it and swiftly crawled toward the dead man's head, trying to invade.
Click. Click.
The hermit crab scratched frantically with its eight legs, attempting to pry the helmet off the corpse's head.
At that moment—
Smack!
A baton slammed down onto it, crushing the hermit crab between the helmet and the truncheon into a splatter of pulp.
Lansi stood there silently, staring down at the baton in his hand with an unreadable expression.
After a moment, he flicked the baton lightly to shake off the unidentified fluid clinging to it.
There were simply too many hermit crabs.
They swarmed forward all at once. Even with helmets and batons, the reserve soldiers were completely inexperienced, and several people died almost immediately.
Once the hermit crabs parasitized a body, they would attempt to control the corpse and attack anyone who remained uninfected.
Some reserve soldiers were mentally unprepared for this. Their former teammates tore off their helmets, and in the next second, they too became parasitized.
Screams rose and fell endlessly.
No one had ever imagined that one day, crabs would become the thing that reminded them of death.
"Hey!"
While Lansi was momentarily lost in thought, a hermit crab suddenly leaped toward the back of his head from behind.
But Lansi seemed to have eyes on the back of his head. The instant the crab jumped at him, he spun around sharply and swung the baton in his hand.
Bang!
The hermit crab was smashed straight out of the air.
"Hoo…"
The scruffy uncle nearby finally let out a breath of relief.
He had just shouted to warn Lansi.
Unable to stop himself, the scruffy uncle stepped closer. As he smashed several hermit crabs apart with the crowbar in his hand, he warned,
"Don't space out, got it?"
Lansi nodded.
"Got it."
But in truth, he hadn't been distracted at all.
He didn't know whether it was because his senses were too sharp, but aside from perceiving moving creatures within his field of vision, he could also instinctively sense living things within a one-meter radius around him.
"Kid, stay close to me so you don't get ambushed."
The scruffy uncle moved closer and confidently pressed his back against Lansi's.
Lansi was a little surprised by the man's trust.
He didn't actually need to stand back-to-back with the scruffy uncle, but to avoid arousing suspicion, he still chose to cooperate and guarded the man's blind spot while facing the surrounding parasitic crabs.
"Tsk, you're pretty capable."
The scruffy uncle's attitude toward Lansi had clearly changed.
Still wearing the helmet Lansi had given him, he swung his crowbar fiercely while saying,
"I take back what I said before… Kid, you're definitely going to become somebody important someday."
Lansi coughed lightly.
"Uh… let's deal with the hermit crabs first."
In reality, as long as they were still alive, everyone present could already clearly see the difference between Lansi and the others.
The scruffy uncle had originally assumed that Lansi looked so delicate that he had to be some privileged kid relying on family connections. Who would have thought…
Tsk tsk. You really couldn't judge people by appearances.
The scruffy uncle subconsciously wanted to rub his nose, but the first thing he touched when he raised his hand was the helmet Lansi had given him earlier, making him feel a little awkward.
The riot did not last very long.
Three hours later, the situation was almost completely under control.
Although the reserve soldiers had initially been overwhelmed by the hermit crabs, they truly deserved their placement in Area A. Their combat instincts were astonishing.
Once they became familiar with the hermit crabs' attack patterns, the remaining reserve soldiers quickly began to counterattack.
With their help, all the surviving hermit crabs around the checkpoint were eventually exterminated.
After dealing with the ones that had crawled out, the inspectors worried that more hermit crabs might still be hidden inside the transport truck. So they tossed a small pill directly into the vehicle.
The pill looked utterly insignificant.
But the moment it hit the water inside the truck, it dissolved instantly. The remaining water in the truck immediately began to boil violently, and the once-prized Snow Mountain Crabs were steamed alive on the spot.
According to regulations, the entire truckload of snow crabs was now considered contaminated and had to be destroyed.
But nobody cared about the crabs anymore.
Everyone's attention was fixed on the corpses lying on the ground.
Lansi stood beside the captain, silently staring at the bodies before him.
Out of their original five-man team, only three remained after the hermit crab attack—
Lansi, the captain, and Huang Mao.
The other two were dead.
To prevent the bodies from being used by the hermit crabs, the captain had been forced to personally shoot half of his teammates' heads apart.
Now, two bloodied corpses lay motionless in front of them.
From the very beginning, all reserve soldiers had been mentally prepared to face death someday.
But when it truly happened—when someone who had still been laughing and talking with you that very morning suddenly became a mangled corpse—the impact on the survivors was indescribable.
Even Lansi was shaken.
As a mermaid, he had once thought he would feel indifferent toward human death. But now, seeing his teammates like this, he still felt an overwhelming sadness rising in his chest.
Life was far too fragile.
Humans were even more fragile.
Something as ordinary as a crab—a creature humans once considered food—had only undergone a slight mutation, yet it was now capable of slaughtering people with terrifying efficiency.
Perhaps this was nature's greatest malice.
"What are you thinking about?"
At some point, the scruffy uncle had walked over. He awkwardly rubbed Lansi's head as he tried to comfort him.
"Don't be too upset. Everyone here's already prepared to die at any moment."
"If that's the case, then why do humans still build high walls and keep struggling like this?"
Lansi couldn't help asking stubbornly.
After truly experiencing life within the League, he had been deeply shocked by its rigid class divisions.
Compared to the human society in Lansi's old memories, the current world had clearly regressed. In some ways, it was even twisted and deformed.
Sometimes, he even maliciously thought that perhaps a human society like this deserved to be destroyed entirely.
He had to admit that his past experiences—being hunted by humans and sold at auctions—had planted an emotion deep inside him that even he himself had not fully realized:
Disgust.
Even the thought, "I used to be human too," could no longer persuade him otherwise.
To outsiders, Lansi's words might have sounded childish or rebellious, but the scruffy uncle didn't laugh at him.
Instead, he thought quietly for a while before rubbing Lansi's head again.
"Tsk… honestly, I can't really explain it clearly either."
The scruffy uncle sighed and looked off into the distance.
"How should I put it… I've thought about this question before too. Humans live such exhausting lives, so why do we still struggle to survive? Wouldn't it be easier if everyone just died…"
He paused, and a strange expression crossed his face. It looked both hopeful and wistful at the same time.
"Have you ever sailed at sea before? Have you ever seen sunlight breaking through after a storm? Sometimes, in the middle of a storm, there's only a single ray of sunlight piercing through the dark clouds…"
"But even if it's only one ray of light… even if everyone's exhausted and the ship is full of holes… people still can't help wanting to keep sailing forward."
"They want to see it with their own eyes… that future that might be filled with light."
Lansi blinked, still not fully understanding.
"Heh. In the end, people survive simply because they want to keep living."
The scruffy uncle smiled.
"Some things—you have to look at their essence."
Lansi couldn't help asking,
"But if that's true, then why are there still poor districts and rich districts?"
"Stupid kid, I'm not denying that this kind of injustice exists. It exists because of humanity's flaws."
The scruffy uncle spoke calmly.
"But didn't you notice? There are also a lot of people trying their hardest to fight against those flaws. That's why humans are such complicated creatures."
Whether it was the reserve soldier system or the district zoning system, both proved that there were people trying to make the Alliance a better place.
The only problem was that their efforts were too easily overlooked.
After being hit with several philosophical questions by the scruffy uncle, Lansi felt completely dizzy.
Still, it helped.
At the very least, it stopped him from drowning too deeply in the grief over his dead teammates.
Because the casualties from the hermit crab incident were so severe, the army quickly sent people to take over the checkpoint.
That was when Lansi saw Wen Yu again.
When Wen Yu arrived, Lansi was sitting together with the surviving reserve soldiers, receiving psychological counseling from a psychiatrist.
The hermit crab incident had happened far too suddenly and had completely disrupted the army's training plans for the reserve soldiers. The higher-ups panicked, worried that too many recruits would suffer mental breakdowns before ever reaching the battlefield. So they specially arranged psychologists to provide counseling for the survivors.
"Are you okay?"
Wen Yu asked worriedly, his expression dark and unpleasant.
In Wen Yu's original plans, he had never intended for Lansi to directly witness such a bloody and brutal scene this early.
"I'm fine."
Lansi smiled and comforted him.
"I'm more worried about you."
And he genuinely meant it.
The hermit crab incident had finally made Lansi understand a little of Wen Yu's situation.
He himself was merely a small reserve soldier, yet before even stepping onto a real battlefield, he had already experienced something like this.
So what about Wen Yu?
How many times had Wen Yu witnessed scenes like these?
Wen Yu gently rubbed Lansi's head, unable to understand why Lansi would say such a thing.
He felt no pity toward the dead humans.
As someone so special, he had witnessed far too many extinctions, massacres, and deaths throughout his life. To him, death had long since become an ordinary thing.
After their brief meeting, the two separated again to handle their own responsibilities.
Because the hermit crab outbreak had been so abnormal, every surviving reserve soldier was individually questioned and forced to submit reports.
By the time all the procedures were finally completed, it was already night.
Lansi walked out of the assembly area feeling utterly exhausted.
As he walked, he kept replaying the scruffy uncle's words over and over in his mind.
"Lansi?"
Suddenly, someone called out to him.
A hand landed on his shoulder.
At that moment, Lansi had been taking a shortcut through a narrow alley on his way home. He had only made it halfway through when someone suddenly grabbed him from behind.
"AHHHHH—!"
Lansi was so startled that he nearly let out a mermaid scream.
When he whipped around, he saw Will standing there like a ghost behind him.
Suppressing the urge to bite him on the spot, Lansi snapped,
"What the hell are you doing?!"
But because he had been frightened so badly, his voice came out slightly nasal and soft, sounding more like a complaint than actual anger.
Will blinked innocently.
"I came to see you."
"Why do you always appear like a ghost every single time?!"
Lansi rubbed his temples helplessly.
Lansi took a closer look and was surprised to find that this time, Will was actually carrying a box.
"What's that?" he asked curiously.
"Didn't you say you wanted something delicious?"
Using his cold expression, Will somehow managed to make a shy look that completely didn't match his face as he said,
"I caught something good for you."
Will opened the box in front of Lansi. Inside was an entire Snow Mountain Crab along with several unfamiliar fish.
Lansi was stunned.
The hermit crab outbreak had happened that morning. All the Snow Mountain Crabs had been cooked and buried on the spot. So where had Will gotten this one?
Seeing that Lansi was only staring at him without moving closer, Will closed the box again and handed it toward him like a nervous boy confessing his feelings.
"For you."
Lansi accepted it instinctively.
When he came back to his senses, he was holding the box with a complicated expression.
"Where did you get these?"
"I... caught them."
Will blinked.
"I want to give you all the good things."
"Don't you know that Snow Mountain Crabs are completely banned right now?"
Lansi had a headache.
"The hermit crab incident broke out this morning. Where did your crab come from? Aren't you afraid your instructor will find out?"
"Is that so?"
Will's expression turned cold, his tone filled with dismissive indifference.
"That's just because they were incompetent. They couldn't even handle a few fish and some sea crabs."
Lansi opened his mouth, unsure what to say.
He could tell what Will was implying.
The hermit crab incident probably had something to do with him.
"Forget it. I don't want to dig into it."
Lansi crouched down and opened the box on the ground. He took out the Snow Mountain Crab and raised his baton, preparing to smash it apart.
Under normal circumstances, he would have been delighted to receive such a gift. But given the current situation, walking around with a box full of suspicious seafood was far too conspicuous.
For both Will's safety and his own, Lansi decided to destroy the evidence.
Will watched him dismantle the crab, surprise filling his face.
Then he crouched beside Lansi and asked quietly,
"Are you angry?"
"No."
Lansi answered dryly. After completely crushing the Snow Mountain Crab, he secretly tossed it into the garbage pile nearby before explaining,
"Don't do this kind of thing again."
"Why won't you eat it?"
Will suddenly picked up a live fish from the box and held it toward Lansi's mouth.
"It's delicious."
Caught completely off guard, Lansi nearly had a live fish shoved into his mouth. He hurriedly leaned back in disgust.
"Enough! I don't eat live fish!"
"You're lying!"
Will suddenly raised his voice.
"You can obviously eat it, but you refuse to! Are you doing it on purpose?!"
Like a child throwing a tantrum, Will abruptly hurled the live fish away. His eyes reddened as he stared blankly at Lansi.
Lansi: "..."
Damn it, why did he look exactly like that sulking black-tailed mermaid, Winsor?
Were they all children from the same kindergarten or something?
Lansi sighed.
After dealing with both Winsor and Wen Yu for so long, he realized he had become especially skilled at handling situations like this.
"Why are you acting like a child?"
Lansi sounded helpless. After cleaning up the alley a little, he reached out and rubbed Will's head.
"Are you hungry?"
Will's face remained expressionless, but the oppressive aura around him eased considerably.
"Mm. I'm starving."
Lansi closed the box Will had brought him and slung it over his shoulder.
"I'm going to eat something, but eating alone is boring... Will, come eat with me."
"I already brought you fish."
Will replied stubbornly.
"But I want grilled fish."
Lansi didn't get angry. Instead, he stood up and extended a hand toward Will.
"Come eat grilled fish with me, okay?"
After a long pause, Will finally reached out and took Lansi's hand.
"Fine," he replied awkwardly. "Since you're asking me."
Will thought to himself that he was really spoiling this white mermaid far too much.