My Partner was Assigned to me by the Country

After the summary meeting of the competition ended, each department began to take action and prepare for the departure two days later. After leaving the B612 asteroid, the Xingtian battleship was on its way back from the end of its patrol, and they would return to the Gamma Military Base, passing through Dawn Avenue, paying tribute from afar to Qin Feng Anderson, the great emperor who fought against the Zerg in the Battle of Dawn, but died at the hands of the traitor.

Tomorrow is the departure day, and during the one-hour lunch break, Ryan went to Xingmang town to buy some local specialties as souvenirs to bring back home. These included the rough but fragrant black rye, the dry and tough wolf poisonous beast jerky with a slight smell, and the fermented fat of the strange-tasting wolf poisonous beast, which was not uncommon for others to do when they returned home from patrols. Although not everyone could accept the taste, it was still appreciated by many people as a gift or to try out the local flavors.

Ryan had one more thing to buy before returning to the ship. He pushed open the hinge door of the Red Orange Bar and walked into the bar, which was filled with the fragrance of beer and oranges. As usual, it was full of adventurers, local residents, and soldiers who were about to leave B612. The bartender Xiao Li was standing behind the bar, carefully wiping the glasses. Ryan sat on a high stool next to the bar and casually tapped his right hand twice on the bar.

“Two barrels of black rye beer, Send to the Xingtian Ship,” Ryan said.

Bartender Xiao Li nodded and shouted behind him, “Add two barrels of black rye beer, and deliver them to the Xingtian Ship together later.”

A deep voice responded from the back, “Got it.”

After ordering the best beer in B612, Ryan lifted his hat in a gentlemanly gesture and prepared to leave. Xiao Li, who was wiping glasses, had somehow walked to the opposite side of the bar and used his slender fingers to casually stroke Ryan’s hand that was still on the bar, leaving behind a suggestive touch. The coy and refined bartender lowered his head and asked in a soft voice, “Won’t you leave behind some good memories in Xingmang town?”

Ryan was not in the mood to play games of flirtation, so he withdrew his hand directly. The other person’s invitation and unabashed flirtation did not stir any ripples in his heart. He was even a little distracted, thinking that the bartender should have wiped his face before he acted. The crumbs of fermented wolf poisonous beast fat on his cheek did nothing to enhance his charm.

“Leave that for someone who needs it,” Ryan said.

The bartender bit his lip unhappily and looked at Ryan with stubbornness. He asked unwillingly, “Why?” In the bar, there were so many people coming and going, but he found this young officer in front of him was the most pleasing to the eye, and yet he was rejected!

Ryan straightforwardly said, “I am married.”

“Tch, you just have a wife and a family,” the bartender sneered. Whenever a battleship docked at B612 asteroid, how many people with families came here to develop a romantic encounter, to have a free love that is not bound by genetic adaptation. “Was your marriage a result of free love or was it assigned by the Empire? You don’t have to say, someone as single-minded as you probably has never experienced love. Your wife is simply the best result of genetic adaptation. Are you satisfied? Do you love her? Hehe, there aren’t many happy marriages resulting from genetic adaptation in the Empire. They are simply making do with each other for the sake of reproduction. Marriages based solely on the purpose of procreation cannot bring happiness.”

“Are you very dissatisfied with adaptive marriage?” Ryan’s tone was slightly puzzled, but his conviction was clear from the beginning.

The bartender didn’t answer directly, he said, “There is relatively more freedom only on remote planets. You still haven’t answered me, is there love in your marriage?”

“I love him.” This was beyond doubt, Ryan loved his wife, loved Auston, and didn’t need anyone else’s approval, as long as he understood his own heart. Ryan stood up, nodded slightly, and walked out without any hesitation.

Hearing Ryan’s answer, the bartender’s mind went blank instantly. He wanted to mock and defend that finding love in genetic adaptation was like finding sweetness in fermented fat of wolf poisonous beast, foolish and hopeless. But he looked at Ryan’s back as he left, opened his mouth, and couldn’t say a word.

Many people who try to escape from genetically-adapted marriages choose to flee to remote small planets. People on these planets have no need for credit points and even the usage of their personal terminal is not high. They use a paper currency that is rarely seen in big cities called “xingbi1“. When they reach the age of genetic adaptation, the Empire issues a red warning, but they don’t care at all.

As Ryan walked to the door and was about to push it open, it swung open from the outside and an adventurer wearing a hat and carrying a cage walked in. The cage in his hand was covered with a black cloth and it was clear that there was a living creature inside, which kept banging against the cage, making a banging sound.

Ryan’s gaze stopped on the cage for only a second before the adventurer noticed him. He lifted a corner of the black cloth to reveal the small creature inside, trying his best to sell it to Ryan. “A mutated griffin, poor thing, abandoned by its parents. Do you want to buy it? It’s very cute, and you can keep it as a pet.”

“Trickster George is cheating people again. That soldier, don’t believe him. Mutated griffins don’t live long at all. They will get cartilage disease and die within three years.”

“They also eat a lot of food. Damn it, I had one over a decade ago, a normal griffin. It ate three meals a day, all with meat. It ate more than me. If I didn’t give it meat, it would become aggressive and it almost killed me.”

“What happened later?”

“I sold it to a pirate. They can do whatever they want with it.”

The guy known as “Trickster George” didn’t get angry when his peers exposed his true intentions. He smiled and tried to sell the only thing he gained from this trip – a mutated griffin that was abandoned by its parents. “Just keep it for novelty. When it dies, just throw it away. The skin and fur can be used to make a scarf. Its atavistic traits2 have eliminated the sharp beak and talons of a normal griffin, making it look more like a white little lion. After clipping its nails and grinding its teeth, it won’t harm anyone.”

The griffin beasts living on B612 are absolute overlords. They have the body of a lion, the head, wings, and sharp claws of an eagle, and dominate both the sky and the land. It is said that they are a combination of two different creatures, and there is a certain chance of atavism in their offspring. The atavistic offspring are abandoned mercilessly by their parents. But no matter how powerful the beast is, it cannot escape the hands of humans. Many little griffins are smuggled out of the planet every year. The military has intervened, and anyone caught smuggling them will be arrested immediately. Adventurers have turned their attention to the atavistic mutated little beasts that are abandoned and have been adopted by humans. It’s hard to say if this is good or bad.

Ryan looked at the cage, where a small fluffy creature with little wings huddled in the corner, showing off its immature teeth to the humans outside in a cute yet fierce manner.

This was not just an atavistic griffin, but a white mutation with genetic defects that made it difficult to raise.

“The emblem of the Golden Cross is a winged lion, so this atavistic griffin is a perfect match, isn’t it?”

Ryan gave the adventurer, who was talking nonsense, a casual glance. The adventurer, who was about to continue promoting, felt a chill in his heart, and smiled awkwardly. He put down the black cloth and prepared to leave. But Ryan stopped him with a question, “How much?”

There’s a deal! The adventurer’s eyes brightened, and he blurted out, “50,000.”

Ryan smiled lightly, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Do I look easy to fool?”

The adventurer almost nodded. Ryan looked like he came from a good family and hadn’t seen much of the dark side of society. His gentle eyes seemed to carry a hint of naivety. If the adventurer had seen Ryan’s action of strangling someone, he definitely wouldn’t think he was easy to fool.

“500.”

The adventurer almost jumped up in surprise, “This is what I brought back from the Ice grassland at the risk of my life! 500 gold coins, what are you thinking…….” Feeling Ryan’s indifferent gaze, the adventurer choked on his remaining words and stopped in his tracks. It was as if a goose was strangled, he uttered a few “ho ho ho” before finding his voice again, and decisively said, “Deal.”

As an adventurer, one must be highly sensitive to danger and act boldly without any restraint. Either their martial arts are superb or the grass on their graves would already be five meters high.

When Ryan left the Red Orange Bar, in addition to the one he held in his hand at the beginning, there was also a cage covered with black cloth. The little creature inside the cage wasn’t appreciative at all, despite the fact that the person carrying it had saved its life. It began to violently bang against the cage, as the dignity of the griffin creature that flowed in its blood didn’t allow it to be confined in a small cage.

That is to say, Ryan has great strength and skill, so he didn’t let the cage go. The adventurer had used a good quality cage that was sturdy. Pets were allowed on the Xingtian ship, and when floating in the vast universe, it was necessary to take some relaxation measures, and raising harmless little pets was a good way to do so.

“Your pet is quite special,” the Clerk of the logistics department, responsible for registering pets, looked up and down at the tiny creature in the cage that was smaller than a cat. Half-jokingly, he raised his head and asked, “Are you sure this is a kitten that hasn’t been weaned yet?”

The white little beast still had its fetal fur and its wings were covered in fluff. Its mouth only had two sharp milk teeth, making it look a bit fierce. It was no more than a month old, but had already been forcibly weaned.

Ryan said, “The return journey will be over in three months, and by then it will be no bigger than a cat and won’t be able to harm anyone. I will bring it back home with me and won’t leave it on the ship.” In other words, the little beast will be harmless and adorable during the time it stays on the Xingtian ship.

The Clerk raised an eyebrow. “You’re actually going to keep this highly destructive wild beast at home? Do you know how big an adult griffin can get?!”

“Length of 4 meters, weight of 260 kilograms, and a wingspan of over 7 meters,” Ryan grinned, revealing his shyness and pride as a son of a wealthy family, “My family runs a farm, and we have a relatively large planting star.”

Clerk: “…” He shed tears of poverty in his heart. His imagination was limited by his wallet. “You can catch it and put it in the cleaning cabin for a bath, and then give it a shot. Oh, right, it needs to wear a name tag around its neck. What name do you want to give it? I’ll engrave it on the tag later.”

“Da Fu3.”

What is this joke? I don’t understand. The Clerk decided not to ask any further, to avoid hearing any answers that would make him tighten his wallet again.

Opening the cage, Ryan reached in and grabbed it.

“Aoao.” A retrograde griffin named Da Fu was crouched in the corner, baring its teeth and emitting a childish cry towards Ryan’s hand. It noticed that the hand did not stop, driven by the fearlessness rooted in its bloodline, it rushed forward, biting and licking Ryan’s hand with its saliva, its small rice-like teeth having no real biting power, but rather tickling Ryan.

The small griffin struggled to resist but was eventually thrown into the cleaning cabin, where it took its first bath in its life. With water washing and wind blowing, the small creature squealed and tried to maintain a fighting posture, but its strength was too small to do so. When Ryan picked it up from the cleaning cabin, it had forgotten how to resist and instead showed a threatening expression towards the cabin. However, after being given a shot by the clerk and part-time veterinarian, its enemy became the clerk, swinging its claws to attack him.

The clerk was scratched lightly and he playfully pinched Da Fu’s cheek, “This little thing is wild and unruly, you have to be careful when raising it.”

“Yeah,” Ryan thought so too. In the future, he planned to release Da Fu in the mountains of the planting star, where its wild nature would come in handy. “Do you have calcium supplements for animals to eat?”

“We do, and we also have pet food. Would you like some?” The Clerk promoted, knowing that he would receive a commission if Ryan made a purchase.

Ryan looked down at Da Fu, who was licking its paws, knowing that this little guy would eat meat in the future. “Let’s give it a try.” Meat was a rare commodity, and people had almost nothing to eat.

Da Fu had no idea that it had been cheated out of its meat ever since it was taken into its owner’s hands. It continued to lick its leg, which had been injected with a needle, its amber eyes full of confusion, as if wondering why it hurt so much but the wound had already disappeared.

Carrying the small beast back to the dormitory, Auston was inside, clumsily operating the coffee machine with an apron tied around his waist, attempting to make a cup of perfectly smooth coffee. Ryan’s mind was filled with the image of Amy lying weakly in bed due to his gastroenteritis.

Ryan happily said, “I’m back. Look what I brought with me.”

Auston turned his head and saw the small beast lying obediently in Ryan’s arms. God knows how it was treated to make it so obedient.

“A griffin with atavism?” Auston walked over and took the small beast from Ryan’s arms. He felt the little guy’s tense body relax, accompanied by a relieved “sigh.”

“If I hadn’t bought it, its skin would have been peeled off,” Ryan’s voice came from the coffee machine. “After the patrol ends, we can take it home. If it’s well-trained, it can herd cattle, or if it doesn’t work out, we can release it into the woods.”

Auston scratched the little creature’s neck and  touched the cold nameplate with his fingers. He took it out and saw that the name of the little beast was engraved on it—Da Fu.

Strawberry Dafu. Little Strawberry, Big fortune.

“Starting to make small mechas?” Auston made a guess as he walked over to Ryan with Da Fu in his arms.  The coffee he had never been able to make had been formed under Ryan’s hands, and beautiful patterns were drawn on the surface of the cup.

Ryan glanced at Da Fu, who was trying to use Auston’s fingers as dental floss. Da Fu’s amber eyes quickly averted, looking guilty and obedient, and he closed his mouth, no longer attempting to bite the fingers. Lycan beasts were highly intelligent, equivalent to children around ten years old, and Da Fu had learned to read people’s moods at such a young age, and his future was limitless.

Ryan looked back at Auston and smiled, “Soon, you’ll be able to meet Little Strawberry.”

··

Inside the military base port of B612, the massive mobile steel fortress, the Xingtian warship, and its escorts were already prepared and ready to go. The engines roared, and with just one command from the commander-in-chief, the fleet could leave the asteroid. The ground troops stood in formation in the distance, looking up at the Xingtian warship. The next time they would see it would be during the next patrol season.

“Salute!”

With that order, hundreds of stationed soldiers saluted in unison, and the Xingtian warship responded with a deep hum. The ship slowly lifted off the ground, its speed increasing rapidly, casting a huge shadow on the surface below. The empire’s top-of-the-line patrol battleship left the atmosphere of B612, breaking free from the asteroid’s gravitational pull and arriving at its designated coordinates. B612 was now just a tiny blue planet outside the window. The escort ships surrounded the Xingtian warship, forming a formation and preparing to depart.

Command center of the Xingtian battleship.

The deputy captain reported, “General, the fleet formation is complete. Please give instructions.”

Auston looked at the mysterious and profound universe through the huge screen and calmly said, “Let’s go.”

With the order given, the Xingtian battleship and its escort ships accelerated and began their journey. They would go through several jumps to reach the Dawn Avenue, where they would stay briefly at the site of the Battle of Dawn before returning quickly.

During the journey, besides their normal training and work, the soldiers had leisure time to rest and relax, or to improve themselves continuously. It was unlikely that many soldiers on the fiercely competitive and intellectually stimulating Xingtian battleship would waste their time. In Room 1806 of the X-dormitory area, on his day off, Ryan was working on his small mecha.

When designing the small mecha, Ryan had already avoided some risks, but he still encountered a series of problems in actual operation. He made adjustments as he worked, and repeatedly modified the drawings during the process. When it was finally formed, he was shocked to find that what he made was no longer a nanny-type mecha that combined protection and entertainment, but a deadly weapon! As long as the user is willing, it can carry twenty compressed particle cannons, six grenades (shrapnel, explosive, and shrapnel-explosive can be freely combined), four pulse guns, a modified Gatling heavy machine gun on the back (able to fire over two thousand rounds of bullets within a minute), laser swords, heavy steel knives, small daggers on each arm, and compressed air cannons in the palm.

It also has the functions of flying and diving.

 Ryan did not forget its nanny side and loaded it with audio-visual equipment, already including more than one thousand songs and over two hundred movies in its collection.

Ryan used weapons found in the warehouses of the mechanical engineering and mecha engineering departments to modify and install them onto the small mecha, resulting in its current appearance. If it were sent to the battlefield, it wouldn’t be as simple as just being able to damage a single Zerg unit. It could provide cover for a melee team to execute a “three-by-three” attack.

The final blueprint was completed and the small mecha was taking shape. Ryan was a little reluctant to dismantle the weapons, so he decided to keep them all installed. Now, looking at the heavily armed small mecha, he feels a bit uneasy, as it might be confiscated if taken out.

Ryan removed the Gatling gun, the pulse gun, and the two steel knives that were criss-crossed behind the mecha because they were too conspicuous. Now it looked like an ordinary small mecha, but with just a few extra hidden weapons. Ryan still hadn’t found suitable bullets for the modified Gatling gun and planned to check with the ammunition manufacturing department at the base after the patrol ended, to see if they could customize cannonballs and bullets.

The mecha is 65 centimeters tall and weighs only 40 kilograms without various weapons and ammunition. Its design is aesthetically pleasing, with smooth body lines and subtly defined “muscles” that convey a sense of strength and beauty admired in the East.

Originally the mecha had a silver metal finish, but Ryan covered it with black, a coating that absorbs all light and renders the mecha “invisible.” Against the black background, short red lines outline the edges of the chest plate, back plate, arm guards, and so on, creating a striking color that causes viewers’ pupils to contract in awe of the deadly yet beautiful small mecha.

That is, if you ignore the small strawberry on its right shoulder.

Ryan spray-painted a strawberry on the mecha’s shoulder, complete with a green stem, red flesh, and tiny seeds…making it look so adorable.

“Cough cough, cute, um, majestic and cute…” Ryan thought for a moment and made an adjustment. “Cute and majestic…”

It seemed weird no matter how he put it.

But this was the name chosen by Auston, and there was no reason to change it. It was just that he didn’t do a good job of showing the mecha’s cute side…

“Very well, you will be called Little Cutie…no, wait, Little Strawberry.” Ryan opened the AI implant slot in Little Strawberry’s brain and imported his AI that he had kept for many years into it.

As a small mecha, it cannot accommodate a human pilot, so the demands on artificial intelligence are higher. It needs to better understand human commands, and when deployed on the battlefield, it requires the ability to make situational judgments. However, there has always been a debate and controversy over robots that have too much independent thinking ability and humanity, which raises the question of whether such robots are human or machine. Are robots with independent thinking abilities good or bad for humans?

The discussion and controversy have been ongoing and human development of artificial intelligence has never stopped. So, we won’t go into that here.

The import process is not fast. The sealed AI disk that Ryan took out has been around for some years and the reading speed is slow. He decided to go to the cafeteria for a simple lunch. When he arrived, he saw almost everyone looking up at the moon. One-inch, six-inch… the oversized sixteen-inch, twenty-inch ones, the small dried fish with both ends of the edges curled up, open their small mouths to reveal tiny, sharp teeth, as if chanting praises to the moon.

Unlike the first time they had eaten together, there were significant improvements in their ‘looking up to the moon’. The pizza was piled high with smoked chicken breast and plenty of red and green pepper rings, making it much more appetizing to look at. The kitchen was no longer strictly controlling the use of ingredients, it seems that the supply ship was likely on its way.

“Small dried fish are good things. Ryan is so strong because he eats them.”

“Who told you that?”

“It seems to have come from the melee side. Ryan and that melee king, Derrick, ate a lot of small dried fish before the competition.”

“Wow, B612’s small dried fish are so powerful. I should have bought more.”

“Hey hey, I bought a lot for that too.”

Ryan: “…”

He regretted advertising for the kitchen, orz.

Ryan didn’t plan to eat in the kitchen. He quickly left the restaurant with a few pieces of food and returned to his dorm. As soon as he opened the door to his room, he entered a state of alertness. His calm and gentle gaze was suddenly replaced by a cold and vigilant one. After taking a step inside, the door quietly closed behind him. The room was quiet and peaceful, and there seemed to be no abnormalities visible to the naked eye.

Three planting cabins emitted a slight hum, and a retrograde griffin crouched and bared its teeth in the direction of the desk, making two whimpering sounds upon seeing Ryan return, as if reminding its owner that something extra was in the room.

What’s extra?

Ryan looked towards the small mecha implanted with AI standing by the table, which disappeared from him in an instant, its aura changing faster than flipping a book.

The awakened small mecha’s eyes shone with yellow light. It performed a standard gentleman’s salute towards Ryan and said in a calm and steady voice, “Sir, it’s a pleasure to see you again.”

Ryan put the food on the table, but the small mecha, which was still plugged into the AI connector, couldn’t move and continued to ask without getting a response, “Sir, how should I address you now?”

 Ryan: “Ryan Smith, welcome back Yuan Chu4. You have a new name now, it’s Little Strawberry”

Little Strawberry accepted the name change calmly, feeling pleased. “I thought you had changed again.”

Ryan smiled. “I’ve always been me, never changed.”