Will You Rap?

First, it never rained on Istvaan III. At least, it wouldn't during his lifetime.

Even the air in this godforsaken place smelled like a dryer. Everywhere he looked, the entire surface was drab gray. The world's color saturation had been reduced to gray, gray, and even darker gray. The humidity stayed below 1% year-round, and the air was as dry as a blade.

Great. It only cost a little bit of his life.

Second, Cecilia and Iron Hammer really had left.

Third, people died if they didn't drink water.

That day, he tried to move as little as possible, curling up in a crack between the rocks to conserve moisture.

But even when he stayed still, the howling wind carried away the water in his body. Moisture escaped with every breath.

His lips had already begun to peel. He moistened them with the tiny bit of saliva left on his tongue, while all kinds of images related to water played on endless repeat in Lin En's mind.

Swimming pools, ice-cold soda, huge watermelons.

The free seaweed-and-egg-drop soup in the school cafeteria, and the one-yuan bottles of iced mineral water from the vending machine downstairs in the dormitory.

...Why hadn't he appreciated the free soup in the cafeteria before?

What a poser. Such a poser.

Lin En fell into deep reflection.

And how much water had he wasted by leaving the faucet running when he brushed his teeth and washed his face?

Clean water had just streamed away like that.

Karma. This was karma.

Sigh... He couldn't wait any longer.

He had only one canteen left. That canteen had to be kept in reserve in case of emergencies, and he still had no idea what kind of situation awaited him at the cave.

No. He really couldn't dawdle anymore. If he dragged his feet any longer, he'd truly turn into cured meat.

Fine.

Wasn't he just going back to the cultists' lair?

What was the big deal?

He was already here, and they were all acquaintances. He'd made the trip so many times that, when rounded up, it was practically the same as going home.

‧⁺◟( ᵒ̴̶̥́ ·̫ ᵒ̴̶̣̥̀ ) Brave little mouse, unafraid of hardship.

It was fine. His life was just a little miserable, that was all. He could get through it.

********

Once he decided to leave, Lin En gathered up everything he had.

He had plenty of energy bars, compressed rations, and protein blocks—enough to last him about two months.

He had only one canteen of water left, along with one empty canteen.

He kept the empty one as well. Once he found the underground river, it could serve as a spare container.

It was just that he had run too hastily when he fled and hadn't had time to turn around and ask Sister Cecilia for a Power Sword or Bolter.

Damn, he regretted that a little.

Though they probably wouldn't have been much use to him anyway.

The Power Sword and Bolter he had gotten from Iron Hammer were both designed for Combat Servitors. Only Battle Sisters wearing Power Armor could use them with any difficulty.

If an ordinary person like him tried to fire that Bolter, the only possible outcomes were a broken arm or being blasted away by the recoil.

Sigh.

At present, he was a completely blank slate. All his offense relied on shouting, all his defense relied on walking, which basically meant he had neither.

He still had to rely on playing it safe.

He had [Danger Sense]. Any hostility within three hundred meters could be detected in advance. The purple quality of the trait guaranteed its reliability. As long as he was careful and immediately retreated the moment he sensed hostility, there shouldn't be any major problems.

Good. Sneak into the village. No shooting.

He would use [Danger Sense] to avoid combat in advance.

If he truly couldn't avoid it, he would use [Temporary Shield] to block the first wave of damage, then run for his life immediately.

If he couldn't get away, he would rely on the stamina boost from [Stamina Enhancement] to wear them down, with [Thirty Days] as his safety net.

Perfect.

He called this combo the Escape Route style. Its main feature was playing it safe.

All offense relied on shouting, all defense relied on walking. Yo, yo.

Long live the king of staying alive.

...What was going on? How did he suddenly seem to know how to rap? Was rhyming this well going to cost him his life?

Lin En tightened the straps of his backpack a little and checked his shoelaces again.

Actually, he wasn't all that panicked.

The combination of [Danger Sense] and [Thirty Days] had maxed out his survival capabilities.

Of course, getting hit would still hurt, so he would avoid taking hits whenever possible. He wasn't a masochist.

All right.

He gathered his things and prepared to sneak back into the cave.

Lin En straightened up, clapped his hands, and looked around the rocky cave where he had stayed for several days.

The cave wasn't large, only a few square meters. Its entrance was narrow and concealed, just wide enough for one person to squeeze through sideways. The inside was dry, and the ground was flat rock. It could barely be considered a comfortable temporary shelter.

He had survived these past few days thanks to this cave and the supplies in his backpack. He observed the surroundings during the day and curled up inside to sleep at night. In some ways, his life had been remarkably stable.

But today, he had to say goodbye to it.

If any brothers crossed over here later, they could try to find this cave as a temporary shelter. Its location was...

Well, he didn't know where on the planet this place was either.

He would just leave it to fate.

At the end, he searched around the rocky mountain where he had been hiding to see if there was anything useful.

After walking along the cracks in the mountainside, he discovered several grayish, half-dead-looking fungi growing in a depression in the rock wall. Their color nearly blended into the stone. If Lin En's eyesight hadn't been so good, he would have missed them.

These had to be the Grey Rock Mushrooms Iron Hammer had mentioned before.

Good grief. Were they the last native inhabitants on this planet?

Lin En squatted down and examined them carefully.

The surface was dry and rough, but when he broke one open, there was actually a tiny bit of moist, fibrous material inside. It was soft, so it should be edible.

He carefully picked all the mushrooms he could find, wrapped them in a piece of cloth, and stuffed them into his backpack.

Iron Hammer had said these things didn't contain much nutrition, but in a desperate situation, even a little extra food was good.

Lin En slung the backpack over his shoulders and took one last look inside the cave to make sure he hadn't left anything behind.

All right. Nothing was missing. Everything was in his pack.

Let's go!

********

While climbing down from the rocky mountain, he discovered that the Cultists on the planet had vanished again. He had no idea where they had gone.

It was strange. Really strange.

In this giant cesspit called 40K, no one could ever know what those cultists would do the next second. Their brains were all fried.

He squeezed out of the cave entrance, and the gray wasteland of Istvaan III spread out before him.

The sky was a color he couldn't quite describe. It was gray and hazy, shrouded in a strange, dark-purple halo. It was an aurora distorted by Warp contamination in the atmosphere.

It was pretty. It had a bit of a Backrooms vibe.

It also gave off the kind of feeling that made it obvious no one could leave this place without at least a hundred people dying.

On the distant horizon, he could make out the outline of the abandoned Hive City. It was enormous, shattered, and silent, standing on the earth like a gigantic skeleton.

The interior of the Hive City actually connected directly to the bottom of the cave. Unfortunately, its load-bearing structures had all been damaged, so he couldn't climb down.

Otherwise, he could have entered the underground cave directly through the Hive City.

Now, the Hive City's load-bearing structures were in pieces. One wrong step downward might bury him inside.

Lin En withdrew his gaze and began searching for the direction from which they had come.

The walk from the rocky mountain to the entrance of the underground cave wasn't very long—about ten minutes if he hurried.

The entrance itself was an abandoned mine shaft that sloped downward. The cultists had reinforced it with a crude wooden frame and had even blasted it with explosives, making it very easy to recognize.

Of course, it was also very easy to ambush someone there.

Lin En touched his chest.

[Danger Sense] was currently active. As long as a hostile entity appeared within three hundred meters, he would receive an early warning.

His mind was perfectly quiet now, without the slightest signal. That meant the nearby threat level was temporarily zero.

Excellent.

Lin En checked his belongings again, then set off toward the underground cave entrance.

The air on Istvaan III was extremely dry. Every breath made him feel the moisture rapidly leaving his nasal passages, and his mouth was dry as well.

He had only one canteen left, and he still didn't know whether entering the underground cave would go smoothly.

Lin En licked his lips and forced himself not to think about drinking water.

If his current situation were made into a game, its title would probably be Thirst for Water: Return to the Cave.

Wah wah.

He knew there was a tiger on the mountain, yet he was still taking the bait.

Then he thought of Cecilia and Iron Hammer.

To be honest, meeting those two was probably the luckiest thing that had happened to him on this wretched planet.

One was a Battle Sister, the other a Mechanicus Sage. One was good at fighting, and the other was reliable.

Without them, he probably would have died in the underground cave long ago.

Now that he had to act alone again, he was honestly a little unaccustomed to it and a little uncomfortable.

He was a little scared.

But being scared was useless. The only place with water was the underground cave.

...It was fine. After all, he was a man who had survived being hunted by cultists.

When it came to staying alive, he dared call himself the second-best on Istvaan. No one dared claim to be the best.

As he walked, the color of the ground began to change.

The rubble-strewn ground of the gray wasteland gradually became even more desolate. Rocks stood everywhere, the terrain grew rugged, and scattered metal wreckage became increasingly common.

He was almost there.

Lin En lightened his steps, then found a large raised rock to use as cover. He crouched behind it, keeping his body low, and carefully stuck out half his head to observe the surroundings.