"He's… absorbing the radiation?"
"Ssh, he doesn't like any noise while he's doing that."
Almost a full day after Lucian's encounter with the General's so-called elite force, his group found a vast lake — well, at first, it did not look like a lake at all but just a boiling sea of green mud. But now, Hawk's bald head was slowly reflecting its true color.
There are many lakes in the Wasteland, and Lucian has learned that the Wasteland was an entire continent of its own, with an area of 10 million square miles — almost 3 times the area of a desert called the Sahara desert back in his previous life.
Hawk could really only hold his breath as he stared at the octopus-looking kaiju with incredibly long limbs just floating above the contaminated water — of course, the octopus-looking kaiju was Lucian, with his hair spread out as he was slowly absorbing the radiation from the water.
And very soon, not even an hour later, the sea of green mud turned almost crystal blue; now reflecting the sky above it.
The octopus then started crawling out of the water; its limbs becoming short and shorter until he reached the land — and all the tendrils just retracted back and returned to being Lucian's hair as he slithered out of the water.
"Scan me, quick! Scan me!"
Rosa quickly pointed the Geiger counter she was holding at Lucian.
"It's at… 3.26."
"Ack, I knew it wasn't that much, I wasted my time!" Lucian whipped his tail in frustration, slightly cracking the hard ground of the wasteland, "Anyway, this water should be good after boiling. But—"
And before Lucian could finish his words, both Rosa and Adelfred just stripped there and then and rushed toward the lake.
"Ack, my eyes!" Lucian quickly covered his eyes as he saw Adelfred's flailing mutated flesh just swinging around — as for Rosa, like her face, only half of her body was disfigured, and from the parts that weren't, it was obvious that Rosa was a very beautiful and athletic woman… and Hawk seemed to notice that too.
"Kh!" And Hawk was punished for that by Lucian whipping him on the cheek with his tendrils.
"What are you looking at, Baldie?" Lucian glared at Hawk while pointing at him with his tiny hands, "You like looking at little girls? I knew bald people can't be trusted."
"...Little girls?" Hawk wanted to retain his silence throughout his entire role as a hostage. After all, even if his hands were bound behind his back, with several gallons of water hanging from his waist and 7 heavy rifles hanging from his neck... And not to mention he was stripped down to his underwear, if he knew something like this was going to happen, he wouldn't have worn a tanga brief. But still, even then, he had his pride as a soldier of the state — but that comment was something he truly couldn't pass,
"I have a daughter," he exclaimed, "And what part of that looks like a little girl to you!?"
"All of you look like children to me," Lucian then slithered toward his napkin, which he folded earlier before he went into the water, and then once again wore it behind him like a cape, "Such is the curse of age."
"You're… crazy," Hawk could really only kneel there and then as the weight of everything just finally dawned on him, metaphorically and physically, "Just kill me instead of making me go through this shame!"
"Bite your tongue."
"Huh…?" Hawk blinked a couple of times as the tone of Lucian's voice once again turned cold.
"If you really want to die, bite your tongue here and now," Lucian looked Hawk in the eyes; any sort of friendliness in Lucian's face, now completely gone, "It's so easy, I have done it more than a thousand times — just bite it and everything would…
…you have the luxury that I never had, do it."
Hawk could not really say anything after that. He just stared at Lucian for a few more seconds before looking away.
"That's what I thought, Hawk… tuah!" Lucian then pretended to spit on the ground in disgust, "Fucking pussy."
The two remained silent after that, with Lucian just watching Rosa and Adelfred having fun in the water. As for Hawk, well, he just started trying to remove the rope binding his wrists together so that he could make a run for it.
"Don't bother with that," Lucian did not even look at Hawk as he breathed out, "There's a reason why I tied the rifles on your neck — it's a powerplay. You should know that since you're a trained soldier…
…This is your fate now, Hawk. You just have to live with it like the rest of us who are suffering."
"Suffering…?" Hawk's eyebrows lowered as soon as he heard that, "Those Hestians deserve their fate. Do you know how many Murcans they've killed? How they oppressed us in the past? We are only retaliating for all the pain they have caused us."
"And will your daughter fight against them too?"
"W… what?"
"You're a fool if you think this war ends with your generation," Lucian scoffed, "It will just continue on and on until your daughter's grandchildren and their grandchildren stand atop the bodies of billions."
"And what are you proposing, peace?" Hawk scoffed while shaking his head, "Why am I even talking about this with a monster? If you want peace, then just go with those bastards in the Murcana Hestia United fucks."
"Peace? Pft…" Lucian then just burst out into a fit of laughter, "...Peace doesn't exist. What you need is co-existence, and co-existence isn't peaceful; it's painful, it's order in its rawest form — but it benefits everyone in it."
"And what does that mean?" Hawk squinted his eyes as he looked at Lucian.
"If I have to tell you, you will never get it," Lucian crossed his arms.
"...Are you a god?" Hawk could not help but ask.
"Ask me that again and I will make you eat your own intestines," Lucian glared at Hawk, "You know what? You should actually just make yourselves useful and point your weapons at them. They are supposed to be outside the Wall, right?"
"...The gods are not to be trifled with," Hawk let out a small groan as he looked down, "My people tried to nuke a part of the Wall hundreds of years ago but could not even damage it, not even a single crack — and then a god visited Murcana and started killing a bunch of us for what we tried to do… at least, that is what I read in the textbooks."
"Oh…" A sinister smile started to crawl on Lucian's face, "...So, there's a chance that they really do live on the other side of the Wall? Interesting…
…very interes—"
"Eep!"
And before Lucian could finish his words, Rosa and Adelfred quickly started frantically running away from the lake, with Rosa not even covering herself and just quickly grabbing her wand from the ground.
"There's… there's something on the water!"
"W—"
And before Lucian could even say anything, a large catfish just suddenly emerged from the lake; its head, larger than a sedan. And as a matter of course, Lucian did not waste any time at all as he even rolled on the ground to get the Geiger counter and pointing it at the flying eel before it could return to the water.
"0.8!"
"0.8… That is almost a kaiju," Hawk widened his eyes.
"No," Lucian, however, just carefully threw the Geiger counter as he started slithering back to the water, grabbing his blades along with him, "It's…
…seafood time!"