Since You're Here! (Seeking Monthly Votes, Follow-ups, and Collections)

Wang Zhong stared at the battlefield before him, a scene of absolute, chaotic carnage.

To the left, the Lord of Change and Mystery summoned by the Tzeentch cultists chanted blasphemous incantations with its three heads, each speaking in a different tone.

Its nine arms brandished magical artifacts, twisting the surrounding space into a kaleidoscopic nightmare.

To the right, the Khorne Berserker and the Bloodletter were tearing the last few desperate overseers to shreds, their blood splashing onto the metal floor and pooling into small, crimson streams.

In the center, the main force of the Siclaman rebels fought; though they had not yet transformed into demons, their blood-crazed expressions were no different.

Yet, in the cracks between these three warring factions—behind the ruins of collapsed equipment, beneath the chassis of overturned transport vehicles, and in the gaps between smoking coolant pipes—lay the native workers.

They wore the same tattered work uniforms as Wang Zhong and his companions, huddled together and trembling, their eyes filled with nothing but pure terror.

Some knelt on the ground, muttering prayers; others clutched their heads, too afraid to look; some had collapsed entirely, their pants soaked in urine.

Wang Zhong's gaze swept across their faces.

There was the silent old man who had stood next to him on his first day sorting ore.

There was the middle-aged woman who had accidentally given him an extra half-scoop of nutrient paste at lunch.

And there was that cunning middle-aged man who always tried to push the easiest tasks onto the newcomers...

Over the past twelve days, the total number of words Wang Zhong had exchanged with these NPC workers didn't even reach twenty.

They were merely background props, the most insignificant batch among the countless expendables in the Warhammer world.

According to standard game logic, one should ignore them at a time like this and focus on one's own goals: grabbing loot, hoarding gear, leveling up, and waiting until one was powerful enough to save the world later.

After all, they were NPCs; if they died, they would just respawn... right?

But when Wang Zhong watched a Khorne Berserker casually grab a collapsed young worker, rip off his arm like a chicken leg, and toss it toward the Tzeentch demons with a roar of laughter, the string in his mind labeled "this is just a game" suddenly snapped.

"Fuck."

Wang Zhong spat the word out.

Brother Loyalty and Xue Brother looked at him simultaneously.

"Brother Loyalty?"

Wang Zhong turned his head to look at the group of players behind him, who had just made a fortune and still had eyes gleaming with greed.

He took a deep breath, his voice ringing out across the area channel, calm yet carrying a resolve he hadn't even realized he possessed:

"Brothers, look closely."

"This is the goddamn Warhammer world."

"A world where the Emperor's coins are worth more than human lives, where Chaos cultists treat living people as sacrifices, and where local tyrants use civilians as expendable resources and test subjects."

He pointed at the workers shivering in the gaps:

"I don't know what Ren and those blue lunatics are planning."

"I don't know if the Alru Group will let these witnesses go after seeing their factory torn apart like this."

"But I know one thing!"

Wang Zhong paused, gripping his laser pistol tightly.

"We were raised with socialist values; if we just stand here and watch these people die such miserable deaths at the hands of these demons!"

"Then what makes us any different from the numb, heartless elites of this cruel world?"

"Remember the topics we discussed on the forums?"

"If you transmigrated into the Warhammer world, how would you save the people at the bottom?"

"You pounded your keyboards, coming up with plan after plan—from organizing unions to launching uprisings, from defecting to the Tau to embracing the Grandfather..."

"Now is the time to implement the plans you once devised. Since the grand tone of this world cannot be changed, we start small—we start by saving these workers."

"The point is, we can respawn."

"We just made over three hundred coins in our pockets; we won't even feel bad if we drop some gear when we die."

"Since we're already here..."

He grinned, the expression looking somewhat ferocious beneath his helmet visor:

"What's wrong with playing the hero for once?"

"We've already earned the Imperial Coins anyway. We aren't using them, so we aren't losing anything."

"The brothers who died earlier said there are several respawn points outside. Walking out is the same as dying out; at most, we lose some gear."

"We'll gather these scattered workers, help them clear a path, and save as many as we can."

"And while we're at it! We can loot another factory area! We're just here to scavenge and fight—we aren't retreating!"

He scanned all the players:

"No matter how many of these workers make it out, at least we tried. As long as we've done our best, that's enough!"

"We are going to bring a little bit of shock to this dog-eat-dog world."

"Of course," Wang Zhong added, his voice open and frank, "brothers who don't want to participate can choose to act on their own. It's not mandatory."

"Those willing, stay behind. We're going to pull off something big."

There was a three-second silence on the channel.

Then, Tax Brother spoke first, his voice as coarse as sandpaper on rust:

"What else is there to say? Brother Loyalty!"

"To trade the hardships of yesterday for a bit of happiness and fulfillment tomorrow."

He patted the modified shotgun in his hands: "I've long since found those overseers an eyesore. Before, I couldn't beat them, but now... hehe."

Schrodinger's Loyalist:

"Analyzing from a gaming perspective, rescuing the workers can yield local intelligence and boost our reputation in Aurelian, laying the foundation for future development."

"Although I can't see a reputation system at the moment, going by standard RPG logic, this should be a hidden setting."

"Besides," he smiled, a rare sight, "the Warhammer setting is defined by pessimism and despair. Who wouldn't want to be the light that illuminates the darkness for once?"

"Even if it only illuminates a small patch, even if it's just for five minutes."

"I'm in."

Soul of Cadia roared in the channel: "Cadians never retreat! Rescuing people, right? Count me in!"

"But Brother Loyalty, after we save them, can we swing by the East District Warehouse on the way?"

"I took a look with the system earlier; it seems like there's quite a bit of rare metal piled up over there..."

Did White Scars speed today: "Saving lives and grabbing loot, both at once! I'm charging in on this one!"

Tau-kun, you are right, but Bolter is righter: "Tau-kun says saving people is conducive to long-term development..."

"But I just want to say, screw it! For the brothers who were turned into nutrient paste!"

Mechanicus Oil-Lover on the Run: "The current battlefield is a stalemate between three factions; we have an operational window of fifteen to twenty minutes."

"I suggest prioritizing control of the Raw Material Transport Tunnel on the northwest side. That tunnel leads directly to the breach in the factory perimeter wall, offering the highest probability of escape."

Nurgle Loving Father Loves All: "Accept all life, whether sound or broken; helping others is also the teaching of the Loving Father."

The players expressed their stances one after another.

In truth, the reason was simple: the money was already made, running around alone wasn't as good as sticking with the main force, and besides... being a savior in the Warhammer world, that plot sounded badass.

"Good!"

Wang Zhong nodded firmly and immediately began to deploy:

"Everyone, stick to your previous groups! Group One, head to the northwest corner to clear the tunnel obstructions and establish a defensive line!"

"Groups Two and Three, spread out. Use every method you can think of—shouting, hand signals, throwing rocks—to gather those hiding workers toward the northwest corner!"

"Tell them we're here to help, and we'll carve out a path for them to run!"

"Group Four, technical team, follow me! We need to get some intelligence!"

He led his direct squad and the dozen or so members of the technical team, crouching low as they crossed a patch of burning ruins. Soon, beneath the chassis of an overturned transport vehicle, he dragged out a middle-aged man wearing an overseer's uniform who was trembling uncontrollably.

Half of the man's face was blackened by soot, and his left arm was bent at an unnatural angle, clearly injured in the recent explosion.

When he saw the player workwear worn by Wang Zhong and the others, he froze for a moment before his expression turned pleading:

"Don't, don't kill me... I'm not a lead overseer... I'm just a bookkeeper... I never whipped any of you..."

"Name."

Wang Zhong pressed the muzzle of his laspistol against the man's forehead.

"Jer, Jeremy... Jeremy Hoffman."

"Position."

"Factory No. 3... assembly line production recorder... and, and backup overseer..."

Jeremy's voice trembled, "But I really never hit anyone! I just kept the books and handed out tools..."

Wang Zhong ignored his defense and cut straight to the point:

"I ask, you answer."

"Answer well, and I'll let you walk out alive."

"Answer poorly."

He shifted the muzzle down half an inch, pressing it against the bridge of Jeremy's nose: "Do you know what this is? A Lucius Pattern laspistol. At this range, it can turn your head into charcoal."

Jeremy nodded frantically, tears and snot streaming down his face.

"First question: What year is it now? Imperial dating."

Jeremy blinked, clearly not expecting this question, but he stammered out an answer:

"It, it's roughly... the end of M30... I'm not sure of the exact year, but it should be around nine hundred... The Imperial tax collector mentioned it once when he came by, saying the Great Crusade had been going on for nearly a millennium..."