Warhammer: Start with a dog.

Chapter 818 The Gacha Master and the Mysterious Working Man
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A long-absent rage swept through the blacksmith's mind.

When he realized it, the blood red color had just begun to fade from his retina.

When he was still a "bastard" struggling to survive under the barrage of gunfire in the trenches of steel warriors, this feeling of his twin heart pounding violently, of blood flowing through his muscles and organs, often occurred to him.

But at this moment, he suddenly felt that this feeling had been gone for ten thousand years...

Perhaps there was also a bit of smugness mixed in, leading to the enraged reaction of being ambushed at close range by this insect?
Well, it's okay.

First, no one else here saw his slight embarrassment, so it did not damage his professional image;

Secondly, he survived to the end.

Hong Su gripped his battle axe, its razor-sharp, gleaming blade now completely covered in the blood and mangled limbs of the gene-stealing mutant chieftain. His internal organs, slightly cooler than human body temperature, were wrapped around his armored gauntlets. Amidst the booming vibrations of the blood flowing through his brain, he felt a strange sense of relief—he remembered not to damage the precious mutated head of this gene-stealing mutant.

The creature that attacked him was covered in chitinous carapace, had four arms with single molecular blades longer than a human thigh, and its brain had mutated into a strange growth: the brain in the translucent skull was still flashing with blue electric sparks from the end of the psionic use.

A mutated gene-stealing patriarch!
—Yes, Hongsuo had just roared in a sudden surge of hormones and a wave of rage, and was now locked in combat with this thing.

They were so close, and the signal from Honso's last thought, "Don't ruin the precious sample!" was so clear, that the mechs who followed him into the room eventually chose to silently form a circle, creating a makeshift steel gladiator pit between the war blacksmith and his cunning rival, and then thoughtfully turned on searchlights.

"...Sometimes I really want to take your headgear apart and take a look."

Hong Suo stared with bloodshot eyes at the other's breastplate, which was much taller than his own.

The mechs remained politely silent, their skull masks expressionless.

The pharmacist coughed, feeling a bit silly, probably a side effect of the strong hormonal shock he had just experienced.

Oh dear! Drinking alcohol and taking drugs are harmful! Even endogenous hormones are no good.

A calm and detached mind is indispensable for a qualified pharmacist.

Hong Suo pondered for a moment, then checked his physical condition. Well, as expected, his adrenaline and noradrenaline levels were severely elevated, and his cortisol levels were also quite high.

Perhaps it was because he had been traveling back and forth on the front lines and teleporting too many times? The apothecary master pondered, after all, there was no precedent for his workload and teleportation intensity, whether in the Empire or Chaos.

Oh! My little Nira Ido! Where are you?

Hong Suo erased that sentence from his log and re-recorded his physical condition data.

Then he walked up to the fallen, three-person-high beast and raised his axe high.

Without any resistance, the force field axe severed its head, which was covered by chitinous armor comparable to alloy and thick, tough, rubber-like skin, in two strikes.

Then, Hunsuo put it in a bag he carried with him, sealed it with a tag, and hung it on his belt with great effort.

The mechs were tall enough to carry such a huge head, but Hongsuo felt it would be more appropriate to hang this special trophy skull on his belt.

"...This is for easy preservation."

He convinced himself and muttered to himself, then staggered to the nearest sink and tried to find some water to wash his hands.

The faucet was turned on, but only a tiny, dirty stream of water dripped out, barely enough to rinse the area.

The apothecary cursed and kicked, causing the terracotta and stainless steel to collide with a loud thud.

He turned on the next tap, and it was the same.

He roared as he grabbed his battle axe and paced back and forth like a wild beast in the room, which reeked of decay and the blood of countless people. He swung the axe, hacking the chains, hooks, bleeding beds, and other things in the operating room to pieces.

Finally, he stopped, panting heavily.

“Seeds,” Hunsso murmured. “Right, seeds. Gene seeds, they’re still waiting for me. I have to take the seeds back; Palogov is waiting for me to bring them back…”

He looked up, staring at the vault door, the power axe in his hand whistling once more, leaving a trail of blood-red light in the air.

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When Warren woke up, there was no one beside him.

He stared at the ceiling of the warship's cabin, feeling a profound, empty peace, a peace he had never known before.

His physical condition was good, but he was also very weak. The medicine was being injected into his body, and his damaged organs and flesh were recovering.

But the divine wrath of Saint Gillespie, who had accompanied them, had left his body and mind, and he felt a helpless panic, like a crustacean losing its hard shell that it relied on for survival and protection.

So where is this?

His keen sense of smell detected the odors of certain drugs and disinfectants that were only used by Astartes pharmacists.

Oh. The blood of Saint Gillespie, he remembered!
Warren abruptly stood up, the ripped cables flashing and alarms blaring. Frustrated, he turned and punched each machine in turn until they finally fell silent. That damned "Silver Skull Pharmacist"!
His cruiser and its crew...

Damn it, just by looking at his face, which looks like a steel warrior, you can tell he's no decent person!

He jumped out of bed alertly, noticing that this place was completely different from the infirmary he knew, filled with an atmosphere that would make a country bumpkin hesitant and even feel it was too clean to put his feet on—what a strange idea! The son of the glorious Saint Gilles would never have such a lowly thought!
Warren resolutely stepped barefoot onto the gleaming floor of the infirmary, took two steps, and when he looked back, he couldn't help but notice the clear, pale yellow footprints of his two feet imprinted on the floor—well, how long had it been since he last showered before taking off his power armor? Three weeks? Four weeks? —Astartes' own sweat was clean enough, it didn't really matter!
However, a voice from who-knows-where kept lingering in Warren's mind: even if sweat can cleanse, where do the oils and dried sweat on the skin's surface go, especially on the feet where gravity might cause them to accumulate sweat from the whole body...

What a bunch of weird and nonsensical thoughts!
The man tearing the flesh couldn't help but raise his hand and wave it in front of his eyes, as if he could sweep something away.

"Your new arm may need a little more time for the bones to grow stronger."

Someone said unhappily, "Because you didn't lie there properly and wait for the bone-strengthening medication to be fully released and injected. Ugh, I really get annoyed by patients who don't follow orders. I should have come earlier to give you more sedatives. Now the medical room's equipment bill will be deducted from my account again. I'm so annoyed, there's never enough work! Even death can't stop this!"

"Who are you?" The Flesh-Tearer Company Commander turned around warily, sizing up the person in front of him.

"I'm an unlucky biology graduate student who was asked to work here temporarily by a salary I couldn't refuse, an elder I couldn't refuse, and a colleague I couldn't refuse... You can assume that's how I am."

The young man with messy, gray-white hair that looked rather dull and pale green eyes glanced at him with a bored and unhappy expression.

The man was wearing a pair of gold-rimmed glasses that seemed to serve no purpose other than optics, a face mask, a gray shirt, and a white lab coat with a row of pens stuck in his chest.

Warren could smell a faint scent of hay and... animal fur on him, along with a mixture of disinfectant and chemical odors.

He gazed at the other man's thin neck, where the arteries bulged and throbbed slightly, and felt the angel's fangs sliding between his gums.

“Company Commander Warren,” the other interrupted his gaze, forcing him to refocus on the other’s face, “come with me. I need to do some functional tests on your new arm and new half of your body.”

"what are you saying……"

"You don't remember?" The young man looked even more impatient, almost on the verge of exploding, as he waved the thick report in his hand.

“You were treated by Hong Suo, and then someone brought you here. When you were brought here, your entire left shoulder and above your left hip bone were missing. Hmm, Hong Suo’s initial analysis is that you encountered an explosive device. But because the time between losing your left hand and regaining it was very short, you may not have even finished your phantom limb phase, so your brain automatically embellished this memory for you.”

He shrugged and let out a frustrated sigh from behind his mask.

"Can you stop dawdling? Hurry up and come with me for the checkup. I have so much work and research to do, so many parameters to record, so many review papers to write, so many mutant strains to prepare, so many drug comparisons... centrifuges... titrations... culturing..."

While he was rambling on and on, Warren remembered something.

The Flesh-Tearer Company Commander held up his left hand in surprise. The skin of this hand was as dark as ever, the typical skin color of the tribesmen on the planet Coretasia. It was flexible and strong, with the black carapace and nerve interfaces functioning normally. But after being reminded, one would notice that the skin of this hand was slightly darker than the other side, and the skin was also smoother. All the old scars and other traces of acid corrosion had disappeared without a trace—even the tattoos he had received in the tribe in his childhood and the faint scars left from the injuries he sustained when he was injured during the selection.

But he remembered clearly that after he managed to lure all his brothers, who had suddenly fallen into divine rage and desire, into other parts and lock them up, he killed the third-to-last assassin by blowing open one of his hands. Actually, what the apothecary meant when he said he was going to use himself as bait before the apothecary arrived was to test the credibility of this guy and the forces behind him, and then try to use his own life and the molten bomb to eliminate the gene stealers on the ship for them at the end... As for telling the other party about the seed bank?
The Flesh-Tearers' seed bank... couldn't withstand any official Martian inspection, but he couldn't just abandon this stockpile. Seth had taken too many people with him. Although he went to Baal to give the Flesh-Tearers a dignified and glorious end, instead of letting them slowly wither and die over the next two hundred years, Warren's ideas were still slightly different from those of the other officers as the tenth company commander responsible for training new recruits and supplying the chapter.

He was able to make this decision because he was the highest-ranking officer remaining in Coretasia; otherwise, the enraged Lord of the Black Tower might have killed him first instead of leaving with him.

Warren thought to himself that those invaders who had breached their homeworld through the warp gate were undoubtedly followers of Khorne and champions of chaos, and if the Seed of the Flesh-Tearer fell into their hands… he shuddered.

"Finished watching? Finished reminiscing?" The young man snorted heavily, slapping the floor with his leather shoes in an extremely impatient manner. "If you're done watching, hurry up and come with me."

...This place seems to possess strong biological and genetic capabilities, completely different from the remote borderland he had initially imagined it to be, teeming with pirates, cultists, aliens, heretics, and shameless merchants, swindlers, and thieves. This laboratory appears to be far more powerful and capable than the one at the Coretasia Fortress Monastery.

Warren thought to himself that if he had known there were such advanced facilities here, he might have been more inclined to ask for help... But who knows, what if this were a laboratory that didn't quite meet the Empire's requirements?
The pharmacist who brought him here after anesthetizing himself is too suspicious!

Let's play along with him for a while and see if we can get enough help from him. Also, we should play it by ear; he might need to find his own power armor and return to the Baryonyx.

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After waiting for eleven hours in the quarantine area of ​​the port, the survivors of the Baryonyx were still not allowed to leave the port, but they had no complaints.

Because these talking combat robots left after distributing food, and when they returned, they carried a large number of tents, sleeping bags, disinfection equipment, emergency heaters, and a strange, thin, and soft blanket. These supplies greatly eased the tension of the people waiting to enter the port—after all, who would give so many good things to livestock and slaves to be slaughtered?
They're all brand new!

“I’ve never worn anything so soft and warm in my life!” Elsa’s companion exclaimed, stroking the unassuming gray blanket.

Indeed, everyone around who received it wrapped it around themselves and then showed a satisfied and warm expression of relaxation.

Elsa couldn’t imagine any imperial world producing such a wondrous and precious blanket—she knew that some nobles had what were called “ring shawls,” which were shawls made from the most precious animal down, requiring a great deal of hand weaving, and so thin that a ring could pass through them.

But it certainly wouldn't be in such a monochrome color and distributed to such a down-on-their-luck crew.

and so……

She raised her head in confusion, looking once again at the red and green light that appeared in the center of the Wandering Harbor today.

...Could this be the legendary paradise...?

A tiny flash of light from a great distance fell into the automatic capture frame of her medical electronic prosthetic eye, which replaced one of her eyes.

(End of this chapter)