Warhammer: Rebuilding the Golden Age Starting with Farming

Chapter 13 Death Forbidden Zone

Andy stood on the foot pedal of the half-track, but did not rush to press the accelerator.

Although the other party had opened the door, showing great sincerity, and even the look in their eyes that seemed to want to devour him alive had become much less intense.

But at the bottom of the nest, sincerity usually only lasts for five minutes.

One second they're calling you brother, the next they might stab you in the back for your gear.

Andy turned around, raised his heavy metal arm, and waved to the seemingly empty pile of rocks behind him.

"Splash!"

The sound of gravel rolling down could be heard.

A dozen or so figures that had almost blended into the ruins stood up.

That was Gamma-9 and his escort team.

Although the group looked somewhat disheveled, with their robes tattered, they held their guns very steadily.

Especially the Gamma-9, that automatic rifle that Andy had personally repaired, was always locked tightly to the wall above the second-in-command named Ben.

Roger, who was on the wall, saw this scene and his brain, which had been a little hot from eating a starch ball, instantly calmed down.

A layer of cold sweat seeped out from his back, making his mechanical back feel a little itchy.

That was close.

Luckily, I didn't listen to Ben's advice and just double-crossed him.

This opponent is not only a formidable individual capable of taking on a skinner in a one-on-one fight, but also a tactical commander.

This tactic of hiding the main force in a blind spot and then going alone to draw attention is definitely the work of a seasoned player.

If that door hadn't been opened, or if someone on the wall had accidentally fired their weapon, they would be facing not food, but a violent barrage of crossfire.

Roger took a deep breath, once again thankful that his intuition had saved everyone's lives.

"Get the guys to raise their guns higher!" Roger growled, turning around. "Don't let the guests misunderstand!"

Following Andy's gesture, Gamma-9 led his men out from behind the cover. Although their formation was still scattered, their aura of having powerful backers was undeniable.

Andy then sat back in the driver's seat.

"Rumble..."

The modified engine of the half-track truck roared as it slowly drove into the Rust Brotherhood's territory, carrying a full load of white hope.

The wheels rolled over the gravel road, raising dust that carried the aroma of starch.

As soon as Andy entered the gate, his STC vision system started working automatically.

The scan results showed that the situation here was worse than he had imagined.

Although this place is called a fission power plant, apart from the main reactor building that is still emitting a faint blue light, the surrounding area is full of various illegally constructed shacks.

Exposed cables were everywhere, tangled together like a jumble of hemp.

As for those so-called "fraternity members," most of them are people with physical disabilities.

Their prosthetics came in all shapes and sizes; some were modified from hydraulic rods, some were simply welded steel pipes, and some even used servo skulls they'd picked up from who-knows-where as knee joints.

In the eyes of the orthodox Mechanicus, these people were a great blasphemy against the Mechanic Soul.

But in Andy's eyes, these people were able to piece themselves together from industrial waste and survive without standard parts, blueprints, or holy oil. This pragmatic spirit was a million times better than that of priests who only knew how to kowtow to parts.

The car came to a complete stop.

Andy jumped out of the car, and Roger and Ben came to meet him.

Roger walked very fast, but the mechanical leg seemed to have some malfunction, making his steps choppy.

"I'm Roger, the...man in charge here."

Roger stretched out his still relatively intact right hand, which was covered in engine oil and white powder left over from the starch ball.

Andy extended his metal hand and shook hands with him.

"Andy."

The cold touch of the shape memory alloy made Roger flinch slightly, but he quickly regained his composure.

"This stuff..." Roger's eyes were glued to the truck. "Is it all really for us?"

"As long as the power grid is connected, the goods here can be used as the first batch of deposits."

Andy answered very readily.

"If you can provide additional technical support, such as helping me process some parts or providing me with some human resources, I can increase the price."

Roger's eyes lit up a little more when he heard the words "price increase".

"No problem! Absolutely no problem!"

Roger patted his chest and guaranteed it.

"As long as we have the blueprints, there's nothing we can't build... well, of course, the precision might be a bit lacking, but it will definitely work!"

At this moment, Gamma-9 and his crew caught up as well.

These two technicians, who were originally on opposing sides—one a priest of the orthodox Mechanicus and the other a wandering mechanic who had apostasy—are now strangely coexisting harmoniously under the halo of Andy, the great sage.

Gamma-9 looked at Roger's messy modifications, and although there was still some disdain in his eyes, he didn't dare to say a word because of the hot melt pistol.

Andy ignored their eye contact and got straight to the point.

There's something I don't understand.

Andy pointed to the fairly well-prepared fortifications around them, and then to the molten pistol at Roger's waist.

"You have guns, electricity, and some technically skilled people."

"In a place like the bottom nest, this configuration is at least considered a medium-sized force."

"How did things get so bad that we can't even afford to eat?"

"They even have to survive by gnawing on that toxic, radioactive moss?"

This is indeed a problem.

Logically speaking, with electricity as a hard currency, the Brotherhood could live quite comfortably even without raiding, just by engaging in trade.

Upon hearing this question, Roger's previously excited face instantly fell, and a bitter expression spread across his half-face.

"Andy, you don't understand."

Roger sighed, took out a deflated cigarette from his pocket, and tried to light it, but found that the lighter was out of gas.

Andy stretched out his finger, and a blue arc of electricity appeared at the tip, lighting it for him.

Roger nodded gratefully and took a deep drag of the pungent smoke.

"We were trapped by other forces. This place is a piece of fat meat, and everyone wants a bite."

"Let's not even talk about those skinner lunatics. They've been blocking the outside the whole time. As soon as our scavenging team dares to go out, we'll clash with them."

"But that's not the worst part."

Roger exhaled a smoke ring, which dissipated in the air filled with radioactive dust.

"The worst part is that our fungal farm is finished."

"Just last week, all the culture tanks turned black overnight, and all that grew out was the kind of black mold that can kill people."

Andy nodded.

The fungal farms located at the bottom of the nest actually use organic matter from underground sewage to cultivate edible fungi.

This ecosystem is extremely fragile; even slight changes in the water source or the introduction of a little chemical waste can easily cause the entire microbial community to collapse.

To grow edible fungi in this sewage full of heavy metals, chemical waste, and corpse residue, the farm must maintain an extremely fragile biochemical balance at all times. It seems simple, but the technical threshold is actually very high.

If, in an attempt to save money, a factory in the upper echelons of the city secretly discharged a batch of untreated strong acid coolant or other chemical waste.

These seemingly insignificant pieces of trash, when they flow to the bottom, become an ecological disaster.

For a low-level leader like Roger, this is the most despairing thing. Your lifeline is in the hands of those big shots upstream who can do whatever they want, and you can only watch helplessly as your water turns black, without even knowing who did the shit.

"If we run out of food, we'll have to go to farther places to look for it."

Roger's voice became low and even trembled slightly.

"Three days ago, we simply couldn't hold on any longer."

"I found a coordinate in the old files, which said it was a place called Mining Area No. 39, which used to be an underground ecological park."

"I was thinking, since it's an ecological park, even if it's abandoned, there should still be some plants and nutrients, right?"

Upon hearing the words "underground ecological park," Andy's electronic eyes flickered slightly.

But he didn't say anything; he just listened quietly.

Roger didn't understand Andy's reaction; he was still immersed in that painful memory.

"I sent my adjutant Maxim, who is also my best brother, with twelve of our most elite men."

"They took the best reconnaissance vehicle and the last two boxes of explosives."

Roger threw the cigarette butt on the ground and crushed it out with his metal foot.

"In the end... it was all gone."

"They didn't even send back a distress signal; that place isn't a park at all."

Roger looked up, his red prosthetic eye filled with fear.

"That was a forbidden zone of death."

"Some say it's full of man-eating monsters, and others say the plants inside move and chew up people's bones."

"My brothers... must have become fertilizer in that hellhole by now."

Hearing this, Ben, who was standing next to him, also lowered his head, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the gun.

Without a doubt, that was the most devastating loss the Ironclad Brotherhood had ever suffered, nearly breaking their backbone.

If it weren't for the need to survive, who would willingly go to that cursed place to die?

The atmosphere at the scene became extremely oppressive.

The fear of the unknown and the sense of powerlessness in the face of death weigh on everyone's heart.

Even the Gamma-9 had a gear symbol drawn on its chest, and it was muttering "May the machine spirit protect us."

In this suffocating silence.

Andy suddenly spoke up:

"That place is indeed quite chaotic, but your judgment is correct."

Andy turned around and casually pointed to the mountain of white starch balls piled up in the back of the truck.

"As you can see, I'm the one who got these things there."

Roger suddenly raised his head, his mouth wide open, and didn't even react when the ash from the cigarette burned his chin.

"Wh...what?"

Roger suspected that his hearing sensors were malfunctioning.

"You're saying all of this... came from that underground eco-park?!"

"Um."

Andy nodded, his tone relaxed.

"The plants there are indeed a bit lacking in pruning; the weeds are growing too tall, and there are some unfriendly flowers."

"That made the path difficult to navigate when I went in."

Andy patted the chainsaw at his waist, which he hadn't had time to clean and still had bits of green plant hanging from its teeth.

"So I used a gun and a chainsaw to do some...weeding."

Roger glanced at Andy, his gaze finally settling on the chainsaw at Andy's waist.

Not only Roger, but all the brothers watching were in a frenzy.

The entire room fell into a deathly silence.

Abandoned mine area No. 39, underground ecological park, a death zone where twelve fully armed elite soldiers went in and were silenced.

In the mouth of this mechanical monster, it's just a small garden that needs "a little weeding"?

Is this some kind of new interstellar joke?

Most importantly, he actually managed to bring the grain out!

Not just a little bit, but a whole truckload!!