THE GOD EATER

As Amelia began to speak, she pointed at the four subordinates around her and said, “These four will be your commanders. I assigned you to the posts that they control. There are many other posts in this small world, but only these four are in dire need of manpower.

Then she smiled and said, “For the few of you that I assigned to Greg over here, I want to tell you that you didn’t get assigned to him because of bad luck.”

“I picked you to work with him because you were one of the few who didn’t look ready to kill him just now. You were able to withstand his attitude just now, which means that you will be able to work somewhat amicably with him.”

“In any case, I wish you good luck. That will be all.”

Then she turned to leave.

But Loki raised his hands and said, “I have a question.”

So she stopped and said, “The question and answer session is over. If you have any more questions, direct them to your captains.”

But Loki refused to back down. He said, “This is about my posting. I was angry, just like everyone else, but you still assigned me to Greg. I want to ask why that is the case.”

In response, she smiled and said, “Be honest, you weren’t really angry with him, were you?”

Before Loki could deny her claims, she patted the bear beneath her and said, “He knew that your anger wasn’t real.”

Then she pointed at herself and said, “As for me, I didn’t know why you thought it was a good idea to pretend to be angry with Greg. However, I now know why you were pretending.”

As she said this, she looked at the four captains and said, “It seems one of you has told him about my selection criteria.”

After she said, she glared at the four captains for a few seconds. Then she urged the giant bear to move.

The giant bear reared up and roared. It raised its two front paws high up before slamming them down and galloping away.

Behind her, Loki watched her leave with a calm gaze. This was different from what he did in the last timeline.

In the last timeline, when she had assigned him to Greg, he had watched her leave with immense resentment in his eyes. That was because he very much hated the idea of going with Greg.

There was also the fact that the anger he displayed at Greg in the last timeline was real. He didn’t like that he went through so much effort and was still saddled with Greg.

But things are different this time around because he is prepared to fight Greg for survival. He has also made plans to be victorious in their fight, and these plans have made him calm and collected.

He was prepared for much worse, which was why he couldn’t express genuine anger over some words from Greg. And he had accepted the worst possible option long before he came to the battlefield, which was why he didn’t look at Amelia with resentment in his eyes.

But he did have something to say about this. He said to himself, “This isn’t fair. Nothing I do seems to work.”

“I blame my Dao Heart for this. The angrier I become, the calmer I become. Damn it all.”

Then he shrugged and said, “No matter. I will take it as it comes.”

But he was jolted out of his thoughts when Greg came up to him and smiled as he said, “It seems we are stuck together.”

Loki nodded before saying, “So it seems.”

Then he turned to leave.

The direction he was going was directly opposite to where Greg parked his dirigible. So he called over to Loki, saying, “Where are you going? We are leaving in that direction, and we are using my ship.”

As he spoke, he pointed at the small dirigible in the distance to indicate their mode of transportation.

But Loki didn’t look back as he said, “I want to find another means of transportation. I am sure that is not against the rules.”

In reply, Greg shook his head and said, “It is not against the rules. But you have to report for duty at the post before the end of one week. If you fail to do that, I will not allow you into the post.”

Loki didn’t say anything and continued on his way. This made Greg click his tongue, point at Loki, and say to the other nine waiting for him, “Of the ten of you, I am willing to bet that that one will be first to die. He doesn’t even know his way around, yet he thinks it is a good idea to walk off alone to a destination that he doesn’t know where it is.”

“Mark my words, he is chicken soup. If you want to live long in this battlefield, don’t behave like him.”

Then he led his new recruits to the small dirigible. He was like a duck leading nine ducklings to their next meal. But if they knew what he was capable of, no one would be willing to follow him anywhere.

On the other side, Loki went with another group that was going to the front lines. He asked them to give him a ride, and they did.

The airship that he took this time was bigger and faster than the dirigible. The airship was still small, but it was faster. This and the fact that they weren’t attacked on their way meant that they arrived at the frontline much earlier than Greg’s team.

When they got to the frontline, he began his trip towards Greg’s post. He ran all the way there because he didn’t have a vehicle to use.

On the way to his post, he thought about the things that he had learned about Earthly Battlefield E6-137. The captain of that team had explained some things to them, so he was able to learn a couple of things that Greg didn’t see fit to teach them.