68: Chapter 68 Lina's Obsession

Gluck watched the little girl, her cheeks puffed out as she chewed incessantly like a little hamster. He turned helplessly to the woman, his voice rising slightly.

He was speaking to her, but also to the surrounding crowd.

"Lena, it's not necessary. It's really not."

He waved a hand. "We have plenty of water like this—enough to cover half the planet's surface."

After a pause, he scratched his head, his tone becoming more casual. "Uh, you wouldn't understand even if I told you. Anyway, there's just more than we could ever use."

Lena slowly stood up, instinctively hiding Martha behind her a bit more. Her eyes, filled with doubt, stared intently at Gluck.

The surrounding people were the same; their eyes were full of distrust.

This old rogue soldier never spoke seriously, always spouting nonsense. Although they didn't know what the idiom meant, the Archmagos had said it meant being unreliable.

"Gluck," Lena's voice was still trembling, but it was much softer than before. "Is what you're saying... true?"

"When have I ever lied to you?" Gluck spread his hands, looking innocent as if he had suffered a great injustice.

Someone in the crowd suddenly muttered, "Last time you said the Green-skin flavored Protein Bars were gone. What are you feeding Martha right now?"

"Huh? Can you blame me for that!" Gluck immediately became defensive, his voice rising. "Now it's called the Soldier Exclusive Edition, not Green-skin flavored anymore!"

He glared at the person who muttered and complained, "Didn't you guys say you didn't like them? So few people claimed them, so they only produced a small amount, exclusively for us Skitarii!"

"Go eat your mushrooms. They all taste the same anyway. Why are you so obsessed with these?"

As he spoke, he pointed at the Protein Bar in Martha's hand.

The little girl's mouth was stuffed with the Protein Bar, her cheeks bulging like two small balloons. She still tried her best to glare at the Sisters, attempting to express her anger.

But her constant chewing made her anger look exceptionally cute, losing its last bit of conviction.

Someone in the crowd couldn't help but let out a snicker.

Laughter was infectious; soon, more people joined in, and the tense atmosphere instantly relaxed.

Lena's tensed shoulders finally relaxed slowly.

She pulled Martha out from behind her, knelt down, and gently wiped the Protein Bar crumbs from the corner of her daughter's mouth with her sleeve, her movements incredibly tender.

Only Gluck, looking at Martha's round figure, couldn't help but frown.

Too fat.

This was not good.

In this universe, being fat was sometimes a curse, especially for civilians.

It makes people slow to react and move, and this world was not yet peaceful. Danger was everywhere, and accidents could happen at any time.

And it wasn't just Martha; the children in the Settlement were all growing too fat. This wasn't right.

Lena noticed his gaze and followed his line of sight to her daughter.

Her expression changed instantly—it was the look of a mother realizing she might have done something wrong, mixed with a bit of regret and a bit of heartache.

"I know," she whispered, her voice full of guilt. "She's too fat."

Gluck didn't respond, only watching her quietly with a complex gaze.

"I can't change it," Lena's voice grew even lower, almost scattered by the wind. "When we were below... in the Underhive... I was truly terrified of starving."

Her fingertips gripped Martha's small hand so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

"I know it's different now. I know the supply station has goods every day, and I know we'll never go hungry again."

"But..."

She suddenly looked up, her eyes already red. Her voice was laced with hysterical fear. "I just can't change! I just want her to be a bit fatter, just a little bit more!"

"If one day the Protein Bars stop being supplied, she can survive on her accumulated fat. Survive until a new turn of events, survive until she can continue to live well!"

As soon as she finished speaking, she could no longer hold it in and burst into reckless tears.

The crying was not beautiful at all. Her previous sophisticated aura vanished without a trace, leaving only a desolate wail squeezed from deep within her throat, carrying the unrefined coarseness unique to the Underhive.

It was the fear of hunger carved into her bones and blood, the despair of waking up in the middle of the night and clenching her fists only to find nothing, and the overwhelming regret of a mother who, upon finally being safe, realized she had fed her daughter into a prey that couldn't run.

The surrounding people looked at her, each feeling a shared sense of sorrow.

They looked at each other and nodded gently, the same question hidden in their eyes: You too?

In the next second, many people's eyes turned red.

Some lowered their heads and quietly wiped their eyes with their sleeves; some gripped their children's hands tightly, their knuckles also turning white; some lips quivered slightly as if they wanted to say something, but in the end, no sound came out.

They had all had that kind of fear.

They had all woken up in the middle of the night with the astringent taste of low-quality corpse starch still on their fingertips. They had all hidden Protein Bars under beds, in wall cracks, and on roof beams, stuffing their small rooms to the brim. They had all tried their hardest to raise their children until they were too fat to run.

They all knew it wasn't that they "couldn't change."

It was that they didn't dare to.

In the Hive City, "just in case" was something that could happen at any moment.

Even corpse starch could be cut off, let alone the luxury they considered unattainable—Protein Bars.

Supplies would stop; tomorrow could be worse than today.

Every yesterday they had lived through told them with blood and tears: hoarding was never greed; it was for the sake of continuing to live.

But now, Gluck was telling them that this was the surface.

The surface was different from the Hive City.

But they had only been on the surface for three months.

Three months of stability were not enough to erase the fear of the past carved into their bones.

The crowd fell into silence again, a silence heavier than any wail, pressing down until it was hard to breathe.

Despite this, under Gluck's reassurance, the crowd still did not disperse.

They just stood there quietly, calmly blocking the path between the Sisters and the lake, like a silent dam, indestructible.

They knew what would happen next.

When the people from the Spire appeared here and saw this clear lake, they would surely find a way to requisition it.

Seeing it was the reason; wanting it was the law; the phrase "the Imperium needs it" was the best license to kill.

They could even imagine their bodies being kicked into the lake later, and their names being written down as "Heretics" or "Mobs," filed away in some dossier that would never be opened.

Yet, they still stubbornly refused to disperse.

In the Hive City, they had knelt for a lifetime, crawled for a lifetime, and been crushed as consumables for a lifetime.

In this life, for the first time, they had the consciousness of becoming "human."