Calvin's anger subsided slightly, but his gaze was still as sharp as a sword, piercing Sean's back.
"Then why do you want to escape?"
Sean's throat moved. He grabbed Calvin's arm tightly with both hands and looked directly at him.
"This is not an escape, this is exactly not an escape," Sean lowered his voice, but sounded more forceful, "What kind of life did we live in Hekla? Like bed bugs, like mice, in short not like human beings, what did we do to satisfy our hunger? Everyone is willing to do it and must do it. No one except mom cares whether we live or die. Everyone is busy surviving today, and no one has the strength to think about how to live tomorrow.
"Do you still remember when we first arrived in Tan Yi? What kind of life did the people here live? There were cake shops on the streets, beautiful clothes in the windows, and people drinking on the streets every night. Even the homeless were eating. Like a fat pig, lying lazily in the corner...
"Do you still remember? At that time, we both swore that we would definitely buy a big house in Tan Yi in the future. It would have to be as high as two stories, with a 600-square-meter backyard and a big cellar. We would build a house in the yard. There are three big dogs in the house, and there are barrels of good wine in the cellar... As long as we work here until we are 25 years old—"
"The premise is that this place is not captured by chelates." Calvin's voice was low.
"Yes, isn't this exactly our mission? I felt the same way at the time." Sean laughed, "Until I found out the gender battle loss ratio of mercury needles, do you know what it is? 16:1... Carl , don’t you think this is ridiculous?”
Calvin said nothing.
Sean continued: "I don't understand, even if men are slightly inferior in endurance, we are obviously stronger in strength and explosiveness, so I tried to find the reason for the high mortality rate of mercury injections in men.
"At first, I guessed that there was a factor in nurturing the next generation, so women were always better protected. But I soon discovered that relying solely on fertility to obtain new mercury needles was too inefficient - male mercury needles Talents are almost not hereditary, and the probability of a female giving birth to a gifted child is only about 1/30.
"Even if you gather all the female mercury needles together and make them pregnant and give birth continuously, it is impossible to catch up with the efficiency of going directly to the wasteland to find new people. Besides, this group of women cannot be imprisoned.
"Then, I thought it might be the reason for the assignment of tasks. Maybe those high-risk missions far away from habitable places would all be assigned to men, so I compared 41 high-risk annihilation missions with heavy losses in the past century, and finally found that the problem It's not about distribution at all, but the impact of blood loss on bullet time.
"When the blood loss reaches 10% in a short period of time, the percentages of men and women who can continue to maintain bullet time are 93% and 97% respectively; when it reaches 30%, the figures drop to 46% and 89% respectively; and when the blood loss exceeds After 40%, men face shock or immediate death, while 43% of women can continue to maintain bullet time.
"As for women with mercury needles, they will only lose their combat effectiveness completely when their blood loss exceeds 50% - women have an almost overwhelming natural advantage in fighting blood loss."
Even though Sean was trying hard to control his voice, he was still very excited.
"This is the fundamental reason why men have a high battle casualty rate - the more dangerous and difficult the battle, the longer it lasts, and the longer the battle lasts, the more disadvantageous it is for us!"
"so what?"
Sean looked at him, "Karl, have you ever thought that people like us are destined to be tools in a habitable land?"
"……Ah."
"Do you still remember the introduction to natural history last semester?" Sean whispered: "In any sexually reproducing population, most males can be discarded, because only the number of females is firmly monopolized. For the reproduction of a population, as long as a small number of males survive, the seeding of the entire population can be completed.
"And people like us are born as bastards, victims who are born without protection and destined to be pushed to death. It's the same whether in Hecla or here."
Sean looked deeply at Calvin.
"I have thought clearly that no one or anything should try to suck blood from me. I am just myself, and I will only live my life according to my personal will. Only in this way can we deserve our survival. Only in this way Mom will only be happy if she is in heaven——"
Calvin threw away Sean's arm in disgust.
"Karl!" Seeing Calvin turn around to leave, Sean chased after him a few steps, "Don't you understand me? Don't think about going into battle. No one here really thinks about us. The mercury needle is simply While using us as consumables, we should find a way to retreat to the logistics, or even retreat to the government troops in livable areas - only by going to those places can we get rid of this inertia of being casually abandoned and move up. Go higher, even—"
"Get away!"
Calvin shouted angrily and pushed Sean aside.
Sean suddenly lost his balance and sat on the ground. He had never seen Calvin so angry before, and he froze there.
Calvin took a deep breath, turned around and walked in the opposite direction. Sean suddenly felt a little panicked. Just when he was hesitating about what to say, Calvin stopped.
"Karl...?" Sean shouted softly, "Karl, we-"
"Without our land, we are nothing."
After leaving these words, Calvin walked away. He heard Sean shouting his name loudly from behind, but he still walked forward without looking back until he disappeared at the end of the corridor.
Then, he reached into his pocket and pressed the pause button of the recorder.
…
In the evening, Calvin came to Valenti's office alone and knocked lightly on the door.
"Please come in." Valenti turned around and saw Calvin pushing open the door with a gloomy look on his face. She was a little surprised - when she asked to talk to Calvin about Sean a few days ago, he refused. Said it would take some time.
Now that Calvin has taken the initiative to find him, it may mean that the matter is turning around.
Valenti smiled and motioned for Calvin to sit down, "Can I help you with anything?"
"...I want to talk about Sean." Calvin whispered, "About him and Hesta."
"Um."
"Yesterday, Ms. Morley suggested that I record my conversation with Sean, so that I can restore the situation to the greatest extent possible," Calvin frowned, "But -"
"Is there such a thing?" Valenti was surprised, "This is unreasonable."
Calvin raised his eyes and glanced at Valenti, "You also think this is unreasonable?"
"Yes, this is unreasonable," Valenti's expression became serious, "I will go and have a good talk with Molly. This method should not be included in the requirements for you."
"...I originally prepared a recorder," Calvin whispered, "but when I was talking about these topics with Sean, I forgot to turn it on, so I didn't record it. But if you are willing to listen to my I can talk to you about my idea now.”
