Cannon fodder in the Interstellar

Instructor Dudley praised Ruo Manni’s performance in the role of vice-captain in a very gentle tone.

However, Ruo Manni was not at all pleased by the praise. Instead, her hair stood on end at Dudley’s smile, and she braced herself for his next words.

“But,” Dudley continued, “how have you been training for the past decade? Your physical abilities are so poor. You’re already a mid-level fourth-tier warrior, yet your physical condition is worse than a mid-level third-tier warrior’s. Can’t you even handle basic training? How can your physical fitness be this bad?”

“And, your on-the-spot combat ability is so lacking. You’re too soft-hearted; even children fighting have more intent to kill than you. I have never seen a military academy student with such poor combat awareness. You can’t even say when to use which weapon, how to attack, or how to properly utilize your psychic weapons. You don’t know any of it.” Dudley unleashed a storm of criticism on Ruo Manni.

Ruo Manni shrank her neck and listened obediently. She knew Instructor Dudley was dissatisfied with her on-the-spot combat awareness, but she didn’t expect the dissatisfaction to be so extensive.

However, growing up in a time of peace, she found it challenging even to injure someone, let alone kill. Ruo Manni didn’t want to be a saint or a naive person, but she couldn’t suddenly become ruthless either.

“Most importantly, you can’t even protect yourself and don’t even understand what danger is. It’s so bad I don’t even want to continue…” Dudley’s frustration was palpable.

“Even if you haven’t fought against others before, didn’t you ever go on SkyNet to participate in some arena matches to hone your combat experience? You’ve completely wasted your talent…”

Ruo Manni was overwhelmed by the criticism and didn’t dare to breathe loudly. She couldn’t possibly say that the original host hadn’t done any of these things.

She felt aggrieved but couldn’t voice it. No matter what faults the original host had, she had to take the blame.

“Report, Instructor, Ruo Manni used to specialize in mecha manufacturing, so she didn’t pay much attention to combat skills before,” Hebrew Adam interjected, unable to stand by as his teammate was being criticized so harshly.

“Don’t interrupt!” Instructor Dudley glared fiercely at Hebrew Adam. “Will the enemy say this to you? Will they show mercy because of your lack of experience? No, they will happily exploit your weaknesses and attack forcefully. For a mecha warrior, physical fitness and combat skills are fundamental to survival. Everything else is irrelevant; no excuse is acceptable. I’m not picking a fight with her; I’m telling her what she failed to do before and needs to make up for now, or she won’t make any progress.”

“Ruo Manni’s weaknesses are so obvious, and as the team leader, you, Hebrew Adam, have not helped her address these weaknesses. This is a regular failure on your part. As the team leader, you should lead your team to improve and advance together, not stand by and watch,” Instructor Dudley shifted his criticism to Hebrew Adams.

Ruo Manni wanted to speak up and say that Instructor Dudley’s criticism of Hebrew Adam was unfair. Over the past two weeks, Hebrew Adam had been her training partner every night in addition to the regular training sessions. Otherwise, Instructor Dudley would probably be even harsher.

“Are you trying to say that you have actually been training her combat skills all along?” Instructor Dudley sharply sensed the thoughts of the two parties and pointed them out directly.

As their instructor, Dudley was very familiar with the training conditions of both teams and had been looking for a chance to scold them.

Now was the perfect opportunity, so Instructor Dudley said without hesitation: “What you call combat training is nothing more than rehearsals. It’s a waste of time and doesn’t actually improve your skills. To truly enhance your combat abilities, you need to put in at least 90% of your effort in training, and you shouldn’t fear injury or bloodshed. You won’t learn any lessons or improve without seeing blood. Do you think there’s a reason why there’s the latest treatment pod in your training room?”

How harsh; it seems like they want them to fight to the death, Ruo Manni thought with a cold, indifferent expression. Instructor Dudley must truly believe in the lesson of blood. Since he had started scolding, it was foreseeable that her coming days would be miserable, and she would likely have a long and intimate relationship with the treatment pod.

However, Ruo Manni was not disheartened by the instructor’s harsh criticism. She could sense from the scolding that it came from a place of care and earnest concern.

The team leaders, both the captain and the deputy captain, were so scolded that they dared not lift their heads. The other four members of the Adam team stood straight, not even daring to glance around, fearful of drawing the instructor’s ire onto themselves.

But they were overthinking it; escaping this ordeal was impossible. After finishing with the team leaders, Instructor Dudley’s gaze shifted to Su Forty-Three. With a very gentle voice, he asked, “Su, how would you rate your performance in this training exercise?”

Su Forty-Three’s eyes showed a look of despair. Who could save him now?

His teammates were struggling to protect themselves; who could save him? So, Su Forty-Three gritted his teeth and loudly said, “Report, Instructor, I believe my performance deserves a score of seventy-five.”

Despite the deputy captain’s excellent performance on the way, he was scolded so severely by Instructor Dudley that he couldn’t lift his head. Su Forty-Three felt that his own performance was worse than Ruo Manni’s, but according to the instructor’s routine, speaking unrealistic things randomly would only make him angrier. So he spoke according to his honest thoughts.

Instructor Dudley narrowed his eyes at Su Forty-Three, and Su Forty-Three felt a chill at the back of his neck.

As expected, Instructor Dudley launched into another storm of scolding. Su Forty-Three, who had thought he had done well, realized just how many mistakes he had made after the instructor’s criticism.

The most surprising thing to the teammates was that Sheila received a genuinely kind and sincere compliment from Instructor Dudley. Her score reached eighty, with no trace of hypocrisy or sarcasm.

Sheila initially thought she was the worst among them. Watching her previous five teammates being scolded thoroughly, she had already prepared herself for a similar reprimand when her turn came.

To her surprise, Instructor Dudley considered her performance the best. Feeling the envious and jealous glances from her teammates, Sheila felt the air was exceptionally fresh and the sunshine extraordinarily bright.

Instructor Dudley scolded them for a full half hour and only stopped when the shadows of other teams finally appeared in the ocean.

The team that arrived second on the shore was unsurprisingly the Hua team. This time, Mina-Olli was not injured and was in good spirits, smiling at Ruo Manni and Sheila.

After the Hua team landed, they saw that the Adam team had arrived first, but their expressions remained unaffected.

The problem was that every member of the Adam team displayed a warm and genuine welcome, expressing sincere happiness at their arrival.

This was really unusual, extremely unusual. However, the Hua team couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong; they just had an instinct that the Adam team’s overly genuine happiness seemed very suspicious.