66 Enthusiasm

Apparently, the three original members of the squad were all too excited about Daniel and 666 joining their group that they did not even manage to get an ounce of sleep the previous night.

One has to know that 5 to 6 members are needed in order to form a academy-approved squad, otherwise, students within the academy are not allowed to go on expeditions posted by the academy's notice board without special permission. Since Minerva evaluates the capabilites of each entry student along with their personalities and family background, some students would inevitably be left unable to form a complete squad until transfer students come during the second semester in January.

Missing out on the squad activities during these crucial months would cause the students who were unable to form a squad to lose out before they even arrive at the starting line. Of course, in order to ensure that all students within the academy gets an equal opprtunity to participate in their events, those who have not formed a squad yet can temporarily apply to become the 6th auxiliary member of another squad in the meantime. Though, people like Susan, Luke and Eva will still lose out since mission accomplishment by a squad is not only measured by individual performance but also group performance and reliability.

An auxiliary member would only be able to obtain an individual performance score, but would not be able to retain his or her group performance score once the person leaves his/her temporary squad to reform their own squad. Hence why the three members of Squad number 8 were so enthusiastic and even arrived almost an hour early at the cafe before Daniel and 666 even got out of their beds.

***

"We're so lucky that we managed to snag two more people into our squad!" Susan exclaimed as she gleamed at Daniel and 666 who were seated next to each other by the corner of the table. "The academy usually don't even get one transfer student in the middle of the semester, much less two. But we managed to get both transfer students at the same time!"

"Minerva probably decided that our personalities are much more compatible than the other groups, otherwise the AI would have allocated you two to two different 4 member squads, so that a total of 2 squads can be formed instead of one. I guess we are pretty lucky, now that I think about it." Eva added, looking visibly grateful for the existence of the two new members.

Seeing such positive gazes from the other members of the group, who were just strangers hours ago, Daniel felt slightly uncomfortable but could only keep that to himself. In order to try and make himself more comfortable, he gave an awkward smile and said, "Thank you for adding me and 666 on your group chat yesterday. The both of us have just transferred to EUMA, so please take care of us from now on."

"Of course!" Susan gave Daniel a heavy pat on the back with a grin. "Anything for you, you handsome lad."

"Susan, would you stop flirting whenever you get the chance!" Luke, who is seated opposite from the two new members, rolled his eyes at Susan and spoke with a sneer, "You don't even know their sexual orientation yet."

"I'm currently not looking for a relationship." 666 suddenly added in an emotionless tone, completely cutting off the flow of the conversation in one go before Susan even have the chance to yell back at her 'nemesis'.

"Aren't we here to increase our understanding of each other to increase our combat abilities, why are we speaking about such unrelated topics?" 666 then asked in a confused tone. "Does this squad even have a captain?"

"I'm the captain of the squad temporarily." Eva raised her hand and nodded at 666, instantly turning serious even though it took her more than a second to get used to the sudden change in tone from their conversation. "Until the group evaluation, I will be the one giving the orders, since it was what Susan, Luke and I have determined in September. However, if we have a group training session in the future and find someone else more suitable to be captain, I will relinquish my captaincy immediately."

She then took a serious look at Daniel and 666 to see if they have a problem with this arrangement. Seeing this 666 replied in an informative tone, "I usually like to act alone, but when I'm placed in a group, I find it a pain to try and manage others, so it's better for someone else to be the captain. However, this also depends on your abilities as well."

After giving both Eva and 666 a look, Daniel gave out a sigh and answered as well, "Out of everyone here, I think I am the one least qualified to be the captain since I have basically no experience in any real combat situations. So I'm more than okay with this arrangement."

Hearing that both of the new members seemed obedient, Eva also nodded in acknowledgement. It was then that Susan could not take it anymore and blurted out, "Okay, stop with all this serious talk and leave them for later! I'm starving! Can't we order some food first?"

"Although I hate to admit it, Susan is right. I'm also starving!" Luke added before becoming the recipient of Susan's glare within an instant. It was then that the two of them grabbed their own respective menus and started flipping it without consulting anyone else, leaving the other members slightly speechless at the two's lack of manners.

***

Since this is a cafe, except for the exquisite latte art generated on top of everyone's drinks, the food were only slightly above average. Although both 666 and Daniel seemed quite satisfied with the quality of the food, both Susan and Luke could not help but feel slightly disappointed after stuffing their stomachs full.

"Man, the food back in the capital are so much better than the food here!" Luke complained as he patted on his bulging stomach. "I wish the academy would hire more famous chefs to come and cook at this place."

"Although this place is better than the cafeteria, I still don't think it's worth it." Susan added.

"Quit complaining, you two." Eva replied while rolling her eyes. "Do you think everyone can have luxury food for lunch every day? The food here is already made using premium ingredients sourced from the Far East, what more do you want! I really don't get you capitalists and your Lunarian mindsets."

"Hey, just because my parents work for the T7 Corporation, doesn't mean that I'm a Lunarian, okay!" Luke complained, feeling slightly offended by Eva's insinuation. "Just because I complained about the food doesn't make me rich! This is a quality issue, not a money issue!"

"And where do you think this 'quality' comes from?" Eva rolled his eyes again. "By spending more Federation credits."

Apparently, both Susan and Luke came from families who works for different subsidiaries of the T7 Corporation. Actually, one would be able to see quite a lot of people similar to them enrolled in military academies, since their parents wanted to have their children create connections within the Federation army for their own goals.

Also, the chefs within the military academy are already quite decent compared to many of the restaurants that Daniel have been before, making him not understanding why the two in front of him are still complaining even though the food tasted great, in the former's opinion. Though, when he thought about his friend Jake and how he normally reacted to canteen food, to the point where the latter would have his father's personal cook have it freshly made and delivered to the school every day at noon, Daniel could somewhat understand the sentiment of the two rich kids before him.

Since nobody within their squad had any better plans, the five of them decided to head to a VR cafe and play some FPS games together in order to create a better group harmony together, especially since Daniel and 666 needed to get used to the fighting styles of their new teammates. Although, since the five of them were simply playing mainstream video games, it doesn't really help train their abilities. Though, it seems that none of the group really cared about that and simply wanted to have fun.

Being placed on the same team also allowed Daniel and 666 to get use to Eva's way of commanding, so it would be easier for them to communicate in the future. However, 666 would often times go out alone and eliminate the opponent team completely before Eva even had the chance to call him back, making the whole practice somewhat redundant. Though, she couldn't really say anything since 666 have managed to put their team way up on the ranks within the local leaderboard, which displays the total amount of points gained per day of each team within the geographical region.