Warhammer: Empire Reboot

"You bunch of brainless idiots, you have a couple of drinks after work and then you start measuring girls' waists. What, didn't the factory rules teach you to look at the workpiece with your eyes? Didn't they teach you not to stick your eyeballs to people's butts?"

Another male worker next to him immediately raised his hand.

“To be fair, you female workers also talk about men.”

The female worker sneered: "We're talking about who can carry the main shaft and who has a strong back."

An even louder burst of laughter erupted in the tavern.

Someone is banging on the table.

Someone whistled.

The boss yelled at them, saying he'd raise the price if they kept arguing.

In the corner, a young worker held a glass, his face still showing the embarrassment of being scolded by the older workers earlier that day. Looking at the wine in his glass, he muttered, "Back in my factory on another planet, there were no bonuses for meeting targets."

An older worker nearby asked, "Where?"

"Gore's foundry zone. If they don't finish there, they'll get beaten up. If they finish, it means the target was set too low, so they'll double it the next day."

The people around the table quieted down a bit.

The young worker continued, “When I first came here, I thought it would be the same. But then I found out that, despite the scolding, the work was done, and the accounting was really done. Whoever did the work got paid. Whoever made a mistake had to make up for it. Whoever got injured was sent to the medical station. Damn, for the first time I felt that even working could be done with a bit of humanity.”

The old worker took a sip of his drink.

"Don't describe this place like paradise. The furnace is still hot, the targets are still being met, and those iron-faced monsters at Cornerstone are still more accurate than anyone else."

The young worker nodded.

"I know."

The old worker put the cup on the table.

"But you're right, kid. Here, if you finish your work honestly, you can walk in with your head held high, have a drink, curse your mother a few times, and go home to sleep peacefully!"

The old worker suddenly broke into a proud smile: "Next month, my youngest daughter will be admitted to the advanced technical class. She bragged to me that she wants to be an engineer and manage an entire production line!"

The person next to him immediately said, "Then you're in trouble. From now on, your daughter will be in charge of you at the factory."

The old worker cursed, "Get lost! If she really can manage the production line, I'll have her deduct your work points first."

Everyone laughed again.

The wine glasses clinked together.

Someone was the first to stand up.

"Salute to the Seventh Artillery Group!"

"Thanks to the heat treatment team, there were no oven explosions tonight!"

"A salute to those idiots in the repair crew whose asses are stuck in water pipes!"

"Fuck your grandpas!" the heat treatment and repair team immediately retorted.

"Let's make sure we can legitimately sleep in an hour later tomorrow!"

"Homage to—the great Seal Bearer!"

This time, many people in the tavern raised their glasses.

"May the lord strike with his sword and seize a few more planets so we can build a few more giant cannons!"

"May the Emperor bless you, my lord!"

"May those damned, chaotic bastards eat the cannonballs we made ourselves for generations to come!"

The cups collided.

The wine spilled on the table.

The workers drank and continued to boast, curse, and chat about whose girl had the prettiest buttocks, whose son had come in last place on the exam, which production line foreman was the most pretentious, and which key officer looked like a walking iron plate.

Ilancia stood in the corner of the tavern.

She looked at these people.

They are rude, noisy, foul-mouthed, and their aesthetic sense is far from elegant.

But they lived authentically.

They know how to get tired, how to scold, and how to laugh.

I'll go get a drink after I finish the task.

They know how to connect their work with some larger goal.

The workers of Damocles also labored.

The female worker in the lead smog hospital who was missing three fingers also worked.

The children of the chimney scraping team also worked.

People in debt-ridden areas are oppressed by labor from birth to death.

But that labor is like a cage, a noose, a bill, with no hope of tomorrow.

Outside the tavern, the last rays of dusk sank behind the chimney.

The factory's night shift lights came on.

In the distance, the core components of the newly completed seventh artillery group were slowly transported by heavy transport vehicles to the rail-mounted lifting platform.

As the convoy passed through Workers' Street, someone in the tavern rushed out, waving a glass and shouting.

"Go! Honey! Blow those filthy, mushy yolks to ashes!!"

…………

When the static field reopened, Ilancia no longer tried to understand the journey using Eldar perception.

All she knew was that Lawson had thrown her from one world to another.

Ilancia looks up.

Above are layers of intersecting steel beams, pipelines, and lighting strips.

In the distance, there is a huge vertical shaft, with many lifting platforms moving slowly along the shaft wall.

Further away, the high-rise urban structures resemble layers of iron curtains pressing down, obscuring the real sky.

She made a judgment immediately.

She was no stranger to the Lower Nest of the Human Empire.

That's the place in the imperial city most prone to decay.

Pollution, gangs, black markets, organ trafficking, water ticket brawls, illegal drugs, corpse recycling, budding cults, fugitives, private trade by nobles, dirty intermediaries hired by wandering merchants and ronin, and all those things that breed in the cracks of human society.

The Eldar's impression of Lower Nest is not much better than that of the Imperial Inquisition.

Many gene-stealer cults originated here.

Many Chaos Secret Societies found their first desperate believers here.

Many Dark Eldar also like to start their operations here, because the disappearance of a few low-level people often goes unnoticed for months.

Ilancia instinctively tensed her shoulders and back.

But the next moment, she realized something was wrong.

It's too clean.

The walls on both sides of the passageway had been repainted; although the color was simple, there were no large patches of mold or grease. There were drainage channels on the floor, their openings covered with metal mesh, and the water flowing inside was surprisingly clear.

The lighting strip did not flicker frequently.

The air filter duct is operating stably.

There is a garbage recycling point on the street corner, with different categories labeled on it.

Each recycling point has a sign indicating penalties and reward points.

Ilancia stared at the row of recycling outlets, her brows furrowing deeper and deeper.

"Is this the lowering of the nest?"

"Nest City World, Nineteenth Lower Residential Area"

Ilancia looked to the side.

Several men in overalls were pushing a maintenance cart past the manhole. The cart contained cleaning tools, spare filters, lighting modules, and several rolls of new safety signs.

An old man sat at the doorway, peeling some kind of hard-shelled root with a knife.

The two children squatted down and watched.

The child's clothes were old, but clean.

They were holding small data boards with what appeared to be basic math problems on the screen.

Not far away, a canteen was opening its doors.

The menu for today is hanging at the entrance.

Grain porridge.

Synthesize protein blocks.

Pickled vegetables.

Additional salt content in heavy industry positions.

Ilancia wondered if she had come to the wrong place.

"This is not descending from the nest."

Lawson glanced at her.

"So what do you think the lower nest should look like?"

Ilancia watched a patrol team walk past the end of the street.

That was a cornerstone sequence member, accompanied by four local sheriffs.

"Going down to the nest must be dirtier, messier, and more dangerous."