Even the Men of Iron Would Be Shocked

Gunfire filled the entire War Factory, with wildly flying bolts crisscrossing the Orks' large-caliber bullets.

Iax alone wandered freely through the center of the battlefield.

The Orks' bullets were no more effective against him than the bolts.

Yet his threat identification level had not dropped at all.

Iax was not worried about the Orks' technology. Instead, he was more concerned about the technology left behind on this planet from an earlier age.

At least for now, these Orks showed no signs of an overwhelming technological advantage over present-day humanity.

Huge, crudely made gears, blazing furnaces, and production lines that looked cobbled together from garbage.

All of it left Iax somewhat puzzled.

Were these Orks really so lacking in common sense?

On a single metal plate, Iax could easily identify several metallic materials with different compositions.

Some were clearly materials produced during the Federation era, while others were ordinary reprocessed steel.

A heap of metal scraps of wildly varying quality had been crudely welded together to form a single piece of material.

Those materials were then processed into all sorts of bizarre weapons or armor.

The enormous disparity in material quality struck Iax as utterly strange.

It was like building a tank whose outer armor was half paper and half iron. Even more absurdly, in the Orks' hands, those fragile sheets of paper somehow displayed the same strength as iron.

This nearly threw Iax's cognitive core into disarray.

An Ork Mekboy Boy had been lurking nearby for some time. Initially absorbed in the fighting, he had spotted Iax staring blankly at a few metal plates.

The gleaming shell, towering stature, and appearance completely unlike the other enemies all piqued the Mekboy Boy's curiosity.

To satisfy that curiosity, he hid himself and quietly studied Iax amid the cover and chaos of the