The amount of information was massive.
The players fell silent for a few seconds, digesting this pile of rules that felt less like a game and more like the crushing pressure of corporate slavery.
"Borrow 10, repay 19?! That's ruthless! Is this System run by Khorne?"
"No way, Khorne only cares about chopping. This actuary-level extortion feels like a hybrid between Tzeentch and a tax collector!"
[Loyal But Broke] was the first to wail.
"Breathing costs money, reviving requires loan-shark debt... I'm playing a game and I still have to worry about bankruptcy and forced labor?"
[I Want the Halo of Tranquility But I am Broke] looked absolutely despondent.
"Shouldn't the focus be on 'you can do anything'? And wait, where are the mechs? We were promised mechs! What the hell is this pickaxe?!"
Following the guide, [Schrödinger's Loyalist] successfully pulled a miner's pickaxe out of his 5-slot inventory.
The other players quickly followed suit.
For a moment, the chamber echoed with the clank and clatter of metal and a chorus of swearing.
Every single person pulled out the exact same tool: a miner's pickaxe.
Zeke looked at the heavy, incredibly realistic miner's pick in his hand, looked down at his beggar-tier outfit, and then looked up at their dim, dilapidated spawn point.
The sea of stars? Mine to explore?
His mind flashed back to the red mecha in the cinematic, standing on the mountain peak and pointing toward the cosmos.
Then he looked at the reality in front of him.
"...I think I've boarded a pirate ship," Zeke muttered. "A pirate ship selling a Hive City hard-labor simulator disguised as a sci-fi adventure. The devs are definitely T'au spies! Using false advertising to corrupt our loyalty to the Emperor... I mean, to the beauty of mechas!"
Complaints aside, the quest still had to be done. After all, this game felt unbelievably realistic.
1 Imperial Coin meant handing in 10 units of resources.
The 10 Imperial Coins reward, plus the 1 coin earned, would total 11 coins. Minus today's 0.3 breathing tax, he would be left with 10.7 coins.
The players began to spontaneously gather and discuss.
Although their IDs were bizarre and varied, right now everyone was wearing the same beggar rags and holding the same broken pickaxes. A bizarre sense of blue-collar solidarity began to grow.
"This place looks like part of an abandoned factory. Who knows what's outside."
"The quest says 'surrounding safe zones', but how do we define that?"
"The System didn't even give us a minimap."
"Material identification guidelines? How do we use that?"
"Let me try focusing my mind to identify it..." [Fugitive Cogboy of the Mechanicus] stared at a piece of scrap metal on the floor. A moment later...
A faint, glowing outline, visible only to him, appeared on the surface of the metal plate, while a stream of information flowed into his mind: [Low-quality galvanized steel scrap, approx. 0.05 standard units. Recyclable. Estimated value: 0.005 Imperial Coins.]
"It works! But this is way too little! I have to pick up 20 of these just to get 0.1 coins?"
"Better than nothing! Hurry, let's go outside and take a look!"
The crowd began moving toward the massive, sealed blast door—the only thing in the workshop that looked like an exit.
Next to the door was a simple mechanical lever.
It took the combined effort of several players (fortunately, the starting physical strength of these bodies was decent) to pull it down with a loud, grinding creak.
The heavy metal blast door lifted upward, letting in a harsher light and an even more complex array of smells: industrial exhaust, dust, and the faint, distant roar of machinery.
Squinting, the players stepped out of the workshop and stood on a protruding metal platform.
The view before them suddenly opened up, yet it was suffocating.
They were standing on the edge of a colossal, bowl-shaped crater.
The rock walls of the crater had been carved into countless tiers. Every tier was riddled with honeycomb-like tunnel entrances, extending pipelines, rusted walkways, and rickety suspension bridges.
As far as the eye could see, the area was littered with discarded mechanical wreckage, mountainous piles of slag, and puddles of suspiciously colored stagnant water.
In the distance were the towering, shadowy outlines of gigantic structures piercing through the ash-yellow clouds—the base foundations of Aru City's main Hive. They looked like countless mountains of steel, radiating an overwhelming sense of oppression.
The sky was a dark yellow, choked by polluted clouds, with a hazy star barely providing enough illumination.
There were no green trees. No clean water. No blue skies.
Only steel, rust, and ruins.
"This is the fucking 'sea of stars'?!"
[Soul of Cadia]'s jaw dropped. "This is clearly the sewer pipe draining into the sea of stars!"
"Where are the mechs?! You want to pilot a mech in here? I'd be afraid of knocking over a building just turning around!"
"I'm suddenly starting to think the bright, shiny planets in the cinematic are paid DLC..."
"Stop talking nonsense! Do you see the shiny reflections from the ore veins down there?"
"And all that scrapped machinery! That's all money! That's Imperial Coins! To pay off our breathing debt, charge!"
Someone yelled at the top of their lungs, and the players surged forward like a flood. Waving their pickaxes and mattocks, they scrambled down the rusted stairs and ropes at the edge of the platform, charging toward the massive abandoned mine.
Zeke also took a deep breath of the rust-tinged air and tightened his grip on his miner's pick.
"Well, the mecha dream is dead. Guess I'm a miner first."
"For Imperial Coins... No wait, for survival!"
"For... the chance to one day actually touch the control stick of a mech!"
He picked a direction that looked less crowded and followed a relatively intact walkway down to the lower levels of the pit.
His target was a few half-buried heaps of wreckage in the slag that looked like small drilling rigs. The metal content there should be fairly high.
As he walked, he couldn't help but grumble again:
"The game dev is definitely a hardcore Warhammer anti-fan, simulating the daily grind of a 40k underclass wage-slave this realistically..."
"Emperor Above, if this is truly your trial, you're being way too stingy! At least issue us a lasgun!"
But...
He glanced at the corner of his vision, looking at the [Psychic Aptitude: Unactivated] status, and a strange feeling rippled through his chest.
Unactivated... is still better than being labeled 'psyker sensitive' and getting targeted by daemons, right?
At least for now, I'm just a miner who owes 0.3 coins in rent.
–
Meanwhile, deep within the Warp.
"Yes, that's the flavor..."
Lucian felt a long-lost sense of satiety spreading from the depths of his soul. Although he was still leagues away from being full, it was finally no longer that dissipating, existential starvation.
"More... just a little bit more..."
"Scavenge hard, my Pilots."
"Every ounce of your confusion, every bit of your effort, every single complaint you make... it's all food for my growth!"
He watched the glowing dots representing the players scatter like ants into the abandoned mine, the clinking and clanking of their tools already beginning.
"System, mark those particularly active individuals with high emotional output. Pay special attention to [Eternally Loyal to the Emperor]. His complaining energy is quite potent. He's a premium crop... ah, I mean, a potential high-value player."
"During the beginner phase, the emotions are mostly driven by novelty and adaptation. Wait until they earn their first paycheck, unlock the store, and see the very real upgrade options and the unpretentious, exorbitant prices of weapons…That surging desire, the inner conflict, the painful struggles, and the proactive drive that will erupt just to earn more Imperial Coins...That is when the true feast begins."
Lucian planned delightfully.
"As for the mechas? There will be mechas."
"Once the mines you've dug through are deep enough to bury a small starport."
"After all, mechas are very expensive."
"Whether it's manufacturing them, or redeeming them from the System."