Chapter 43: She Is So Strange

Lu Meng felt a tight constriction in her chest.
"Aren't there guides? Even if the contamination level is high, can't it be lowered?"

She did not know much about these matters. In the materials Martha had given her, it only mentioned that sentinels with a contamination value exceeding 80% would undergo therianthropy, become dangerously out of control in behavior, and be placed under military confinement.
Everything he was saying was entirely alien to her.
Yet she thought, even if the contamination value reached 80%, could nothing be done? Weren't there still guides?

Ace crossed his arms and leaned back against the chair. "A contamination value isn't a game; how could it be lowered so easily?"
She really was naive.
He was a super-S-class sentinel. Generally speaking, only A-class guides could establish a mental link with him; other lower-ranked guides were incapable of providing him with psychological conditioning.
Moreover, once his contamination value reached 80%, even an A-class guide would be powerless to reduce it.

Lu Meng deeply disliked his attitude of utter resignation toward life and death, and could not help slightly knitting her brows.
"How will you know if you don't try?"

Ace raised an eyebrow. "How to try? You going to try for me?"
He paused for a moment before adding,
"The guides in the military district have all been thoroughly offended by me."

He said this merely to tease her, knowing full well in his heart that mental contamination at 80% was fundamentally irreversible.
To his surprise, after pondering for a brief moment, she suddenly straightened her body, her eyes earnest and sincere.
"I'll help you."

Ace's pupils contracted slightly, and his voice turned inexplicably hoarse. "Why?"
Didn't she clearly seem to detest him?
Of course, he didn't like her either.
Yet why would she want to help him?
A myriad of complicated emotions churned within him for a moment.

Lu Meng looked at him, tears shimmering in her eyes.
"I just feel that no matter which military district soldiers belong to, they protect the homeland and guard the people. They are the heroes of the country, and they should never end up meeting such a fate."

She still remembered how, during the outbreak of the zombie apocalypse, countless soldiers had stepped forward, using piles of corpses to carve out a path of survival for the people.
She would maintain an absolute reverence for soldiers for the rest of her life.

Ace met her gaze, momentarily dazed.
Then, an inexplicable emotion flowed through his heart.
Heroes?
It was the first time he had heard anyone refer to them in such a way—neither looking down from on high, nor speaking with casual indifference.
Instead, it carried a certain reverence.

He could not understand where this sentiment of hers came from.
He also believed that no other sentinel in the world would understand it.
Ever since their mental awakening, their fates had never been under their own control.

Those with high mental power entered the military district to form the most formidable squads.
Those with low mental power were ignored and drifted into the lower strata of society.
Those who were good-looking might catch the eye of some guide and become a kept captive.
Those who were ugly ended up in underground boxing matches and beast arenas, wagering their lives just to scrape together a path to survival.

A sentinel's destiny was predetermined from the moment of their differentiation.
They entered the military district merely by stroke of luck.
They resisted the Zerg simply because they refused to sink to the level of the lower class.
They were not the heroes she spoke of, nor did they fight to safeguard the empire's safety; rather, the rules simply told them that only by doing this could they live with dignity.

To put it bluntly, given the chance to choose for themselves, no one would willingly spend every day struggling to survive amidst the fire of artillery and mental contamination.

Seeing him gaze at her with such a strange expression, Lu Meng could not help touching her face. "Is there something on my face?"
Why had he been staring at her like that?

Ace withdrew his gaze. "No."
His fingers gently tapped against his arm, and his eyes involuntarily drifted back to her face, a trace of lingering confusion in the depths of his gaze.
She... was truly bizarre.