The sheer amount of information was overwhelming.
The players fell silent for a few seconds, digesting this pile of rules that felt nothing like a game and more like the crushing pressure of corporate drudgery.
"Pay back nineteen for every nine you borrow? That's brutal! Was this system designed by Khorne?"
"No, Khorne only cares about chopping people up. This bean-counter style feels like a mix of Tzeentch and some tax collector!"
Loyal But Broke was the first to wail.
"Breathing costs money, and reviving means taking out a loan from a loan shark... I have to worry about bankruptcy and forced labor even in a game?"
Want Crown But Want Money More looked utterly despairing.
"Shouldn't the point be that we can do anything we want? Also, where are the mechs? Weren't we promised mechs? What's with this hoe?!"
Schrodinger's Loyalist had already followed the instructions and successfully pulled a miner's pick from the five-slot inventory, which seemed to connect to another dimension.
The other players followed suit.
The compartment soon filled with the clanging of tools and a chorus of curses.
Everyone had the exact same tool: a miner's pick.
Wang Zhong looked at the heavy, realistic-feeling pick in his hand, then down at his outfit and back up at the dim, dilapidated starting area.
A starry sea? One he could explore himself?
The red mech from the CG flashed through his mind, standing atop a mountain and pointing toward the sea of stars.
Then he looked at what was in front of him.
"...I think I've been swindled."
Wang Zhong muttered, "By a swindler flying the flag of sci-fi adventure while peddling a Hive City laborer simulator."
"The devs must have been sent by the Tau! They're corrupting our loyalty to the Emperor... No, our loyalty to the beauty of mechs, with false advertising!"
He could complain all he wanted, but he still had to do the task. This game looked realistic enough.
One Imperial Coin meant handing over ten units of resources.
With the ten Imperial Coins from the reward and the one he'd earned himself, he'd have eleven coins total. After deducting today's 0.3 breathing tax, he'd have 10.7 left.
The players began gathering together to discuss things on their own.
Their IDs were all over the place, but for now they were all wearing the same beggars' clothes and carrying the same busted picks. A strange sense of worker solidarity began to grow.
"This place looks like part of an abandoned factory. No idea what's outside."
"What counts as the surrounding safe zone the task mentioned?"
"The system didn't even give us a minimap."
"How do you use the material identification guide?"
"I'll try focusing my thoughts and wishing to identify it..." Mechanicus Oil-Lover on the Run stared at a scrap of metal on the ground. A moment later,
a faint glowing outline appeared on the surface of the metal plate, visible only to him, and a stream of information entered his mind: [Low-quality galvanized steel scrap, approximately 0.05 standard units, recyclable, estimated value: 0.005 Imperial Coins].
"It works! But that's way too little! We'd need to pick up twenty pieces just to get 0.1 coin?"
"Better than nothing! Come on, let's go look outside!"
The crowd started moving toward the only thing in the workshop that looked like an exit: a massive, sealed blast door.
A simple mechanical lever stood beside it.
Several players joined forces—these bodies seemed to have decent starting strength—and managed to pull it down with a series of creaks and groans.
The heavy metal door rose, letting in harsher light and a more complex mixture of smells: industrial fumes, dust, and the faint rumble of machinery in the distance.
The players squinted as they stepped out of the workshop and onto a protruding metal platform.
The view opened up before them, but it was suffocating.
They stood on the edge of an enormous, bowl-shaped pit.
The pit's rocky walls had been carved into countless levels, each one riddled with honeycomb-like openings, stretching pipes, rusted walkways, and rickety suspension bridges.
As far as the eye could see, there were abandoned machine parts, mountains of slag, and puddles of suspicious-looking water.
In the distance loomed massive structures that pierced the gray-yellow clouds. They were the foundations of the main Hive City of Arlu City, like countless steel mountains pressing down on them.
The sky was a dark yellow, obscured by polluted clouds, and a hazy star barely provided any light.
No green trees, no clean water, no blue sky.
Only steel, rust, and ruins.
"So this is the fucking starry sea?"
Soul of Cadia gaped. "We've ended up inside the sewage pipe leading into the starry sea!"
"Where are the mechs we were promised? You'd be afraid to turn around in a mech here in case you knocked down a building!"
"I'm starting to think those bright planets in the CG were a paid DLC..."
"Quit whining! See those glints from the ore veins down there?"
"And all that abandoned machinery! It's all money! Imperial Coins! We've got to pay off our breathing debt—charge!"
At someone's shout, the players poured down the rusted stair-rope along the edge of the platform, swinging picks and hoes as they charged into the enormous abandoned mine.
Wang Zhong took a deep breath of the iron-scented air and tightened his grip on the miner's pick.
"Guess the mech dream's dead. I'll be a miner for now."
"For Imperial Coins... No, to stay alive!"
"So that one day... I can finally get my hands on a mech's controls!"
He chose a direction that looked less crowded and followed a mostly intact walkway down into the lower levels of the mine.
His target was a few objects half-buried in the ore rubble. They looked like the remains of small drilling machines, and probably contained a decent amount of metal.
As he walked, he couldn't help grumbling again:
"The devs are definitely veteran 40K haters. They've made the daily life of the Imperium's bottom-rung wage slaves way too realistic..."
"Emperor above, if this is truly your trial, you're being way too stingy. At least give me a Lasgun!"
"But..."
He glanced at the "Psychic Talent: Inactive" status in the corner of his vision, and a strange feeling stirred in his heart.
"Inactive... Still better than being marked as psychically sensitive and likely to attract daemons, right?"
"At least for now, I'm just a miner who owes 0.3 coins in rent."
Meanwhile, deep in the Warp.
"Yes, that's the flavor..."
Lu Sheng felt a long-missed fullness deep in his soul. He was still nowhere near stuffed, but at least he no longer felt like he was starving away.
"A little more, just a little more..."
"Keep working hard to pick up trash, my pilots."
"Every doubt you feel, every bit of effort you put in, every complaint you make... It's all nourishment for our growth!"
He watched the glowing specks of players spread out through the abandoned mine like ants, clanging away as they started to work.
"System, mark the individuals who are particularly active and producing a lot of emotional energy."
"Pay close attention to Loyal to the Emperor Forever. He generates plenty of energy from complaining. He's a high-quality leek... I mean, a potentially high-value player."
"During the tutorial, their emotions will mostly be driven by novelty and adjustment."
"Once they've earned their first money and unlocked the shop, and seen the real upgrade options and down-to-earth weapon prices..."
"The desire, hesitation, agonizing struggle, and burst of initiative as they work for more Imperial Coins..."
"That's the real feast."
Lu Sheng happily laid out his plans.
"What about the mechs?"
"They'll come."
"Once you've dug out enough of this mine to fill in a small spaceport."
"After all, mechs are expensive."
"Whether you build them or exchange for them."
Before you continue