Lord Mick's smile froze completely on his face, looking more pained than a sob. Watching that grime-covered "worker" standing tall within the Astra Militarum ranks, he felt a chill surge from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head; he realized he likely wouldn't survive the day.
Wiping the cold sweat from his forehead, he squeezed out a fawning expression, trying to salvage some dignity while hinting that he wasn't entirely ignorant: "My Lord, this—this isn't necessary, is it? It's one thing to send investigators, but why let your subordinates suffer such hardships? We could have hosted them with fine food and drink!"
The leader of the Helldivers chuckled. The sound carried the distinct metallic rasp of his mask, making it exceptionally grating: "Whether it was necessary, we shall soon find out."
He turned to Freeman, signaling him to begin his account.
Freeman stepped forward. His voice was hoarse, yet every word was crystal clear: "This factory is a living hell on earth. The workers live in constant agony; their daily rations are barely enough to sustain life, while they work twenty, sometimes 22 hours a day. The slightest slackening results in a brutal beating from the overseers—at best, skin is flayed open; at worst, limbs are broken."
He paused, his gaze sweeping over the expressionless workers before settling on the pale-faced Mick and his overseers: "Bodies are thrown out every day. Some die of exhaustion, some are caught in machinery malfunctions, and others are beaten to death by overseers, only to be tossed casually into the waste disposal chutes without even their names being recorded. They are consumables, fuel for the machines, the sole reason for this factory's existence."
After listening to the account, the leader of the Helldivers shrugged and said simply, "Fair enough."
Then, he slowly drew the pistol from his waist and aimed it at Lord Mick.
Mick collapsed to the ground in terror, a foul-smelling liquid spreading beneath him. His eyes bulged, his tongue tied by fear as he stammered incoherently, "You—you can't—you mustn't!" He couldn't believe he had fallen to such a state.
"Why can't I?" the Helldiver countered, his voice dripping with mockery. "How strange. You've manufactured so much death in your own factory, yet you haven't prepared yourself to face it?"
With that, he gave Mick no further chance to speak.
BANG!
A deafening gunshot rang out. Lord Mick's head exploded instantly, blood and brain matter splattering across the cold floor. Simultaneously, the other Helldivers raised their lasguns, unleashing piercing energy beams with precision upon the trembling overseers. Red light flashed repeatedly; the overseers didn't even have time to scream before they fell dead, their bodies scorched by the high heat, emitting a charred stench.
Throughout the process, the workers showed almost no reaction. They continued their repetitive labor numbly, as if everything around them was irrelevant.
The machines on the production line roared as before, sparks flew as before, and sweat continued to pour. They only occasionally looked up at the fallen overseers and Lord Mick before bowing their heads again to resume their endless toil.
The Tech-Priest, who had been watching them closely, blinked his mechanical eye with a complex red light and let out a low, heavy sigh.
Under day-after-day oppression, they had long since become indifferent to everything. In their eyes, whether it was those around them dying or those above them dying, it was all the same; their lives would not change. A new administrator would be just like the old one, continuing to treat them as tools.
It wasn't that such people couldn't be changed, but the Helldivers lacked the resources and time to change them—to awaken souls that had been ground into dust. Rather than investing limited resources into these people who had been squeezed into numbness, it was better to use them to mold the children whose worldviews were not yet formed and were easier to shape.
The Tech-Priest's complex mechanical eye rotated slowly, finally settling on the depths of the factory—on the children darting between the gaps in the machinery, hauling small parts. These children, gaunt and dressed in rags, still had a flicker of undimmed spirit in their eyes—the curiosity and fear of childhood, and a vague longing for the unknown world. Though their bodies were frail, their movements were exceptionally agile, clearly having survived in this steel jungle since infancy.
Whether it was a cause for sorrow or relief, the workers' children lived within the factory as well, forced onto the production lines from a young age. This, however, spared the Tech-Priest the trouble of convincing the workers to hand over their children for education.
These hopeless, exploited parents would hand over their children without hesitation for just a bit of food to fill their bellies.
After all, the birth of these children wasn't out of love; rather, in their long-term suffering and numb labor, they sought brief moments of pleasure to combat despair, and they lacked cheap contraception.
To them, a child was less a beacon of hope and more an accidental burden—or rather, another "pariah" destined to repeat their fate.
At this moment, the leader of the Helldivers, who had remained silent, walked up to the Tech-Priest and asked in a low voice: "Well?"
The Tech-Priest's mechanical limbs hummed slightly. His voice, sharpened by the synthesizer, carried a metallic chill and calculated precision: "If there is hope, it lies in the next generation."
The Helldiver clicked his tongue, his expression beneath the mask seemingly helpless: "Starting education from children? That's going to be a real hassle. But you Adeptus Mechanicus players certainly don't lack patience; it takes years just to become an apprentice. I've never seen anyone play a game like this—I suppose we've finally met our match."
He continued, his tone turning serious: "But don't make education the first priority. This is just an experiment, a trial isolated out here. The urgent task is still to figure out the basic situation of the Hive's Middle Level and compile a clear data report."
He surveyed the factory, which had just undergone a bloody purging, and the numb workers.
He smiled, his voice carrying a hint of mockery toward the Imperium: "I imagine even someone like Calgar rarely encounters a situation where 'the reports submitted are absolutely truthful,' 'subordinates execute orders exactly as commanded,' and 'failures are never hidden.'"
"Oh and Freeman? About that bear I owe ya, I guess I owe you another!"