Frederick returned to the camp alone. His steps were unsteady, as if he were walking on cotton.
The "unparalleled delicacy"—that pot of soup mixing Tyranid flesh, Ork fungus, and Corpse Starch—churned in his mind, emitting a spiritual foul odor.
His attempt to close the distance and understand the Helldivers by sharing a meal had completely failed.
Throughout the entire process, he had mechanically chewed on his bland nutrient bar, grinding and swallowing the synthetic protein and essential vitamins, unable to utter a single question.
He hadn't even dared to glance at the pot, terrified that his curiosity might overcome his sanity.
This could be attributed to Frederick having just graduated from the Commissar Academy and not having undergone much baptism by fire.
His knowledge base was impeccable, and his will was as strong as steel, but his worldview was ultimately framed by the doctrines of the Imperial military code.
An old Commissar, one who had served eight or ten years on the front lines, would likely have sat beside the bubbling green soup with an impassive face, calmly eating his nutrient bar while smilingly questioning the players.
At the camp gate, the sentry who had been nodding off was now awake and standing ramrod straight.
Seeing Frederick approach alone, he proactively raised his hand in a salute and said, "Good day, Commissar."
This greeting finally pulled Frederick back to reality from his chaotic thoughts.
He stopped, sized up the sentry, and tried to find a single trace of a normal soldier in him. He asked in a deep voice, "You're not curious why only I returned?"
"Why else would it be?" the sentry replied as a matter of course, as if stating an obvious fact. "Everyone else died."
"..."
Frederick intended to take a deep breath to calm the unspeakable emotions brought on by the Helldivers' constant shattering of his worldview.
But just as that familiar air, permeated with chemicals and decay, was about to fill his nostrils, he suddenly remembered—the air around him was still laced with trace amounts of poison gas. If he took a real, deep breath, he might actually die.
So he forcibly held it in, bypassing the sentry and walking straight into the camp.
After all this commotion, Frederick had given up on trying to understand the Helldivers by interacting with their rank-and-file soldiers.
These guys were like Orks—their thought processes defied common sense, and trying to fathom them with logic would only lead to deeper confusion.
He had to change his approach.
He decided to go straight to the command post and deal with the regiment's command layer. At least during their first meeting, the two men who claimed to be the Regimental Commander and Vice-Commander seemed like normal, communicative human beings.
When Frederick lifted the door flap of the command tent and stepped inside, he saw three people.
In addition to Freeman and Yujiro from the first meeting, a third person was seated boldly at the tactical table, using a military shovel as a spoon to greedily devour a can of Gnat-Ox meat.
Frederick's pupils slightly constricted. He instantly realized it.
The guy he had seen lying on the cot, sleeping long past noon during his first visit, was actually one of the regiment's command staff?!
A slacker who could sleep until midday in the command post was one of this unit's officers?
However, after experiencing so much in just a few hours, Frederick felt his nerves had thickened enough, and his face lacked the energy to display any more surprise.
He stepped forward expressionlessly, walked to the tactical table, and stated directly, "Show me your mission brief again."
When Freeman heard Frederick wanted to see the mission brief, his face instantly lit up with joy, as if he'd heard fantastic news.
He immediately pulled the paper from a pile of messy documents and handed it over with both hands, his respectful attitude making Frederick slightly uncomfortable.
It was then that the Helldiver who was shoveling Gnat-Ox meat into his mouth with the entrenching tool dropped his "cutlery" with a loud clatter.
Sticky liquid still clung to the blade, but he didn't care, glaring at the other two: "Damn you two bastards, aren't you going to introduce me to the Commissar?"
With that reminder, Freeman and Yujiro were suddenly jolted, wearing expressions that said, "Oh right, there was that too." Yujiro quickly smoothed things over, pointing at the man and saying,
"Commissar, look at our memory. This man beside us is our Regimental Chief of Staff, Sanji. You can just call him Sanji."
"Understood." After the previous spiritual shock, Frederick vaguely understood that the Helldivers didn't seem to care much for formalities, so he didn't put on an overly enthusiastic reaction, simply nodding plainly in acknowledgment.
His attention was focused more on the paper in his hand. As he quickly skimmed the mission details, he asked casually, "Before I arrived, I heard your regiment also has a Military Committee? Is the Executive Member not present?"
"Oh, the Executive Member is just a rank-and-file soldier when we're not holding a meeting. What would they be doing hanging around the command post?" Freeman waved his hand, his tone suggesting, "Why even ask?"
"They're probably cleaning their weapons or shooting the breeze with someone right now."
Frederick nodded, dropping the subject. He swiftly steered the conversation toward the mission itself:
"Your mission doesn't look complicated. It's just driving Hellhound Flamer Tanks, cooperating with infantry carrying flamers, to burn and purify the Tyranid-infested area that the main force has already cleared, ensuring no Tyranid flora remains.
Theoretically, you won't encounter any formed enemy units. Why wait for me, and why must I be the one to issue the order?"
"Commissar, precisely because it's not complicated, it's very simple, and we won't encounter any enemies, we had to wait for you to come! You issue one more order, and we earn one more layer of merit!" Freeman stated bluntly.
"If the mission were a hard fight, a tough battle where we had to engage a lot of enemies, then why wait? We'd have charged right in without a second thought."
"Damn it, you have the nerve to say that!" Chief of Staff Sanji, who hadn't said much, was instantly enraged by this. He pointed the meat-stained entrenching tool at Freeman's nose.
"If you hadn't insisted on that stupid name for our squad, Ctrl+Alt+Defeat, would our regiment be stuck getting no good missions? Would High Command dare to entrust us with hard, tough battles after seeing our command layer's names?"
"I swear, you both didn't object when I first suggested it! Why are you pulling a retroactive, stinking complaint now?" Freeman shot back, using an impolite phrase.
"Who the heck knew this game... cough, who knew our people were so superstitious? Does a nickname really affect the missions we get? By the time we figured out the problem, we'd been playing for so long, we couldn't bear to switch accounts!"
Watching the atmosphere in the command post take a sharp turn for the worse, with the three men seemingly ready to come to blows, Frederick's eye twitched.
He reasoned that the space in this command tent was so narrow; if they actually started fighting, wouldn't he get dragged into it too?
So he decisively slapped the paper down on the table and said sternly, "Enough! Go inform the troops to assemble immediately. There is no time to lose; I will issue the combat order now!"
Sure enough, as soon as he spoke, the three men, who had been on the verge of a confrontation, instantly broke into cheerful smiles.
The anger on their faces vanished without a trace, as if the argument had never happened. Freeman and Yujiro immediately crowded around, and Sanji happily put away his military shovel.
"Alright! Wise Commissar!"
"We'll get right on it!"
Watching the three of them excitedly prepare for action, having completely cast the previous matter aside... Frederick felt like he had finally grasped the trick to dealing with these strange individuals.