EROS [Zerg]

Eros remained noncommittal, believing that his love for Kam was merely the care a female insect showed to a male, and not a unique love between two insects.

Even though Eros might allow Camus to do things like kissing and hugging him, this indulgence is not love.

It can only be considered a negligible sacrifice to satisfy the male's requirements.

A loud whistle came from outside the window.

Before long, the female insects' morning exercise chants could be heard.

The female insects in the Comet Class do not do morning exercises, but they do have morning reading sessions.

Eros and Alai walked into the classroom and found that several female insects were already sitting inside.

Cooper yawned as he flipped through a book, while Kelly and Josh opened their terminals and logged onto the StarNet to play games as if nothing was amiss. Desail sat alone by the window, chatting via text message with his online girlfriend, a little Asian woman, whom he had met on the StarNet. The dark circles under his eyes were even more pronounced than those of Eros…

The seat next to Eros was always empty; he had never seen Galilee attend class.

The lax attitude of the female insects in the Comet Class is already obvious to all. Although Alai has gotten used to it, he still misses the atmosphere of a year ago.

Since Lieutenant General Evanson's death, the annual educational funds transferred from his account to the academy specifically for the female comet class have been terminated. The teaching quality of the comet class has been declining, and more and more students are dropping out. There are even rumors in the academy that the comet class will be canceled sooner or later.

Alai knew perfectly well that if the students in the Comet Class continued to be so sluggish, the rumors would eventually become true.

He tried every method he could think of, but he couldn't revive the gloomy atmosphere in the Comet Class.

“Alai, I have a question.” Eros was behind Alai and tapped him on the shoulder.

"You were among the first generation of students in the Comet Class and were also the class monitor, so your grades should be considered among the best in the class, right?"

Alai nodded, then suddenly became interested: "I guess so. You want to have a competition with me?"

Eros smiled and nodded: "A comparison is fine, but I'm more curious about why you haven't graduated yet?"

Alai shrugged and leaned close to Eros's ear, sighing softly, "Who knows? He always fails his graduation exams, not a single one. If he fails, he won't graduate."

"Is it really that strange?" Eros heard Alai sigh, but he didn't see a trace of sadness on his face.

"Really." Alai smiled. "You'll have to work harder. My grades are usually pretty good."

The morning exercise slogans outside the classroom gradually stopped. The female insects from other classes had already finished their morning exercises, and the female insects from the Comet class had all come to the classroom, except for Galilee.

Eros was flipping through his textbook, previewing the material he would be learning in class, when suddenly a book was placed on the table next to him.

Eros looked up and saw the black-haired female insect standing beside him, her extremely aggressive scarlet eyes staring at him.

“Gali?” Eros didn’t like being stared at like that, and he frowned slightly.

“I remember you. Your name is Eros?” Gally sat down in his seat and moved closer to Eros. “I never expected that you would be my deskmate.”

“That’s because you’ve skipped too many classes. Otherwise, you would have known on my first day here,” Eros said coldly.

“The classes here are useless and boring. I saw you were pretty good at fighting last time. Why don’t you skip classes and come with me to the training ground? Staying there is much more meaningful than staying here.” Ga nudged Eros with his elbow.

Eros frowned and looked up at Gally: "If it's useless, what are you doing here?"

Eros disliked Gali; he had a bad impression of her from the first meeting, and now he felt that this female insect was even more impolite.

Alai noticed Eros's displeasure and stretched out his arm between the two insects: "Gali, Eros has only been here a few days. I'll rearrange your positions in a few days."

"Change seats? No... no need." Gali looked at Eros's sour face and found it amusing. He waved his hand at Alai: "You know I don't come here for class often."

Alai nodded, adopting the air of a class monitor: "Then you two should get along well, and don't bully him."

“Squad Leader Alai, am I the kind of bug who bullies bugs?” Gali shrugged: “I just thought he looked too much like that person, so I took a few more glances out of curiosity.”

Upon hearing this, Alai glanced at Eros out of the corner of his eye and was certain that Eros hated Gali even more now.

“He is Eros, not Evanson,” Allai reminded him.

“Of course I know,” Gally said, his gaze still lingering on Eros. “So I want to have a match with him.”

Even though he knew perfectly well that Eros was not Evanson, Gali still kept comparing him to Evanson in front of him, his arrogance unconsciously showing in his words and expressions.

Ale suddenly understood why Eros hated him so much before for suggesting he and Evanson get together. Looking at Gally's current actions, Ale realized that this was really annoying.

"What do you want to compete with me in?" Eros asked, turning to meet Galilee's eyes.

"Let's have some competitions between female soldiers." Eros's sudden question caught Galley off guard, leaving him momentarily unsure what to compete in. He glanced at Eros a few times and then said, "We can go to the mecha training ground during class this afternoon, shall we go and have a competition?"

“Oh, I don’t.” Eros refused bluntly: “Besides, I’m just an ordinary female insect, not a military female.”

"Then let's have a close-quarters combat contest."

"will not."

"Mechanical assembly?"

"I haven't touched it at all."

"Battlefield analysis?"

"I don't understand either."

Gally: "..."

"How did you get into the academy?!" Gali was practically going crazy. Some of the most basic skills, things that even newly grown insect larvae could do, Eros knew nothing about.

“It’s all about looks.” Eros gave a cryptic smile, his gaze towards Gali filled with an inexplicable sarcasm.

"what?"

"It's all about looks, huh?" Eros's smile faded. He glanced at the time on his terminal, spread out his textbooks on the table, and repeated, "Didn't you tell me to go back and look in the mirror more often, and think about what I've done to deserve studying at the same academy as you?"

Gally was taken aback. He hadn't expected Eros to remember those words. What a petty female insect.

Thinking of this, his eyes darted around, and he slapped his paw on Eros's table: "It's okay if you don't know how, you can learn."

"In this year's school league, let's have a one-on-one match. Looking at your skinny arms and legs, I won't bully you; how about we compete in mecha combat?"

Eros ignored him, but Gali wasn't about to give up so easily. He leaned down and whispered in Eros's ear, "Back in the day, Evanson was number one in the school league every year. If you want to be a pretty face in the academy, go ahead, but don't make me look down on you."

Eros lowered his gaze and did not respond to Galilee.

Female insects are born competitive, and Eros is no exception.

They yearn for victory, for glory, and for proving themselves.

Gally was once a female soldier who had actually been on the battlefield, and he knew Eros's expression all too well.

This is a sign that ambition is sprouting.

Many new recruits have had this expression on their faces to some extent.

But seeing this expression on that face that so closely resembled Evanson, Galley thought to himself, even if this is just a pretty face, it's definitely a collector's item.

"Think about it?"

"You're so annoying." Eros, exasperated, turned to Gali with a look of utter disbelief, "Do I look like a bug that can afford to support a mecha?"

"Mech combat? I don't even have a mech, what do I have to compare with you?"

"Who says we can't compare?!"

Hearing Eros's words, Kailer and Josh, who were playing a game, came over: "Haven't you heard of the holographic war game 'Void Battle' that's been all the rage on Zerg Planet lately?"

"Cruise of the Lost?" Eros heard the name for the first time. He knew a bit about the entire game series, but had never played it before.

"It's currently the only known ultra-high-end virtual reality game in the entire interstellar space. This game not only features a wide variety of spaceships, but also a large number of high-tech weapons such as mech warships, simulating various combat environments in space," Josh explained.

"Registering a game account inside doesn't require real-name registration, so privacy protection is perfect. Moreover, it claims to have a 1:1 virtual and real-world experience and a sense of actual operation."

"The best thing is that it's completely free. I really don't know which race created this game."

"Not Zerg?" Eros asked in surprise.

Kyle shook his head and sent a link to Eros from the terminal on his wrist: "Who knows? The creator of this game is very mysterious. To this day, no bug has been able to find out who he is from the StarNet. Moreover, the language used in the game is a universal language, so there is no way to determine which race the author comes from."

"Kailer, Josh, go back to your seats and sit down. Class is about to start, don't bring games into class." Alai stretched out his arm to shoo away the two female insects surrounding Eros. "And don't lead the new students astray."

"Class monitor, you're hindering the new students from integrating into the class."

Kyle and Josh made a face at Alai and went back to their seats to continue playing.

Although these twins look different, they have surprisingly similar personalities and interests; they are conjoined worms that hatched from the same conjoined egg.

Their bodies were still connected when they hatched from the egg, and they were only separated by surgery. This resulted in their bodies being incomplete from a young age, with their internal organs and wings being incomplete.

Fortunately, the twins were born into an aristocratic family. Their maternal father was successful in his career and did not dislike them because of their deformities. On the contrary, he loved them dearly.

Just as Alai was urging the other female insects who hadn't taken their seats to hurry back to their places, Professor Boules, a faculty member in the Department of Law, pushed open the door and walked in.

Professor Brees was 150 years old and one of the most senior and knowledgeable professors in the college. He was slightly overweight and looked a little plump due to his age.

Professor Brees always had a smile on his face, and the students always felt that he was very kind whenever they saw him.

"My little bugs, get back to your seats, class is about to begin!"