Warhammer: Rebuilding the Golden Age Starting with Farming.

Just as the sentry said, the vehicle was really clean. There were no scary human skins hanging on it, no inexplicable flags, and no cumbersome decorations added for the sake of so-called "machine spirit faith".

It is a purely industrial vehicle designed for transportation.

That minimalist style stunned Roger, the tech geek, at first glance.

You know what, this car has been really well modified.

The air intake has been moved to a higher position to prevent sand and dust from being sucked in; the suspension system has been clearly reinforced, and the vehicle's posture is very stable; even the simple exhaust pipe, you can tell from the sound that the back pressure is adjusted just right.

It looks like it was modified by a skilled person.

But then Roger's gaze was drawn to what was in the truck bed.

Because that thing was just too conspicuous.

The white, unidentified objects were piled up into a small mountain.

In the dim light of the nest, the white was almost blinding.

Roger turned the telescope up to its maximum magnification and discovered that those things were round spheres.

Even though they were hundreds of meters apart, they were still wearing thick dust masks.

But Roger's modified olfactory sensor seemed to produce a hallucination.

He smelled a scent that he had only ever heard in his dreams.

The taste of carbohydrates.

That's the aroma that starch releases when heated to high temperatures, an aroma that can drive any carbon-based organism crazy.

Roger made a gurgling sound in his throat.

Ben, who was next to him, was also swallowing hard.

"Boss..." Ben's voice trembled, "That truck... it wasn't all food, was it?"

Roger didn't say anything.

He saw that the car did not slow down, but instead rushed straight towards the power station gate.

But the car stopped 200 meters from the gate.

A tall figure jumped out of the driver's seat.

The figure was completely encased in cold, hard engineering armor, and the sunlight reflected off the gleaming metal shell with a chilling gleam.

The man carried a twin-barreled heavy logging gun as if it were a toy.

Then, the figure did something that made Roger's heart stop.

He turned around, grabbed a white ball the size of a basketball from the truck bed, and swung it around in a wide arc.

"call--"

With a whooshing sound, the white sphere traced a parabola in the air.

It landed precisely on the open ground in front of the defensive wall.

"Splat".

The sphere cracked.

It revealed the pure white, delicate inner flesh.

At that moment, the sound of swallowing saliva filled the entire defensive wall.

Chapter 12 Negotiation

The synchronized sound of swallowing saliva on the defensive wall was particularly loud in the silent wasteland.

Roger Castle stared intently at the white starch ball that had fallen to the ground.

Although the thing was cracked and covered in dirt, the exposed white surface was still incredibly tempting.

In the upper-level hive cities, even nobles' pets might not eat this kind of thing; it would be thrown directly into the trash.

But at the bottom of the nest, with Roger and his crew having been without food for three days, this was priceless.

That fall was like a blow to Roger's very heart.

What a waste!

If this were used to make porridge, it could feed at least a dozen people until today!

The massive metal structure below seemed completely unconcerned about such waste.

Andy slung the heavy logging gun over his shoulder, put his other hand on his hip, and looked up at the crowd on the wall.

His electronic eyes gleamed blue in the sunlight, exuding a calm that was subtly unsettling, without any hint of menace.

"Listen up, those above!"

Andy's voice was amplified by the loudspeaker and reached everyone's ears.

"I am from the bottom nest shelter of the next-door casting furnace-7".

"I don't like beating around the bush."

"My truck is full of high-yield starch balls, fresh out of the oven and still warm."

"I'd like to discuss a business deal with you."

Discuss business?

Roger's mind was racing.

These days, doing business in the underworld usually means one party pointing a gun at the other's head and then robbing them of everything.

But Andy didn't fire, and he really did bring a truckload of goods.

Roger had never seen anyone in his life bring grain to his door to discuss business.

"Boss, what do we do?" Ben, standing beside him, held the makeshift laser rifle in his hand, his palms sweating. "Shoot? If we take him down, that whole truckload of food is ours!"

This was indeed a very tempting offer for Roger and the Brotherhood.

The other party was only one person. Although the big metal guy looked tough, he was still just one person.

There are over thirty guns on the defensive wall; even if you pile up human lives, you can still kill him.

If we take him, the Rust Brotherhood can survive.

This is the survival rule of the bottom nest: the strong prey on the weak, and no means are too ruthless.

Roger's fingers rubbed against the trigger of the fused pistol, ready to pull it at any moment.

But he hesitated.

His intuition as a technician told him that things weren't that simple.

First of all, the fact that that guy dared to swagger through the streets carrying so much grain without being robbed by skinners on the road shows that his fighting ability is definitely not as simple as it seems.

Secondly, that car.

Roger looked again at the perfectly modified half-track truck.

The tuning of that suspension system and the modification ideas for that air intake are definitely not something an ordinary person can do.

This suggests that the other party has a powerful technical team behind them, or possesses some kind of lost advanced technology.

If we kill him, will it invite even more terrible retaliation?

Moreover, the weapon in his hand looked so ferocious that it could only be described as ruthless; he didn't seem like a kind person at all.

more importantly……

Roger looked at the starch ball that had fallen to the ground.

That's grain!

If we can establish a stable trade relationship, will we be able to eat this kind of food every day in the future?

Kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, or take a long-term, sustainable approach?

Roger took a deep breath, suppressing the urge to simply rob the place.

"Don't fire!!"

Roger shouted, stopping his men who were itching to attack.

He straightened up and peeked out from behind the defensive wall.

“I am Roger Custer of the Brotherhood of Rust!”

Roger's voice was also amplified by the speaker.

What kind of business do you want to discuss?

When Andy saw the figure emerging from the wall, especially Roger's half-mechanical head and red electronic eyes, he roughly knew what was going on. This guy seemed a little more reliable than that idiot Gamma-9 who only knew how to chant scriptures.

At least he knew to ask questions first, instead of immediately firing on some inexplicable belief.

"It's simple, I have food here, but I'm out of power."

Andy patted the truck bed behind him.

"I want to connect your power grid to my shelter."

"One kilowatt-hour of electricity can be exchanged for one pound of starch balls."

"Long-term cooperation, honesty and trustworthiness."

One kilowatt-hour of electricity can be exchanged for one kilogram of grain?

When Roger heard the offer, he almost lost his balance and fell off the wall.

This isn't business talk, it's practically charity!

Brother, do you know how much it costs to generate one kilowatt-hour of electricity from a fission power plant?!

Almost zero!

As long as the Brotherhood's fuel rods haven't burned out, electricity will be a continuous source of waste.

On the black market, a pound of starch balls can be exchanged for at least 500 live bullets of any type, or ten standard units of filtered water.

The exchange rate was so outrageous that Roger's first thought was that something was amiss.

If such a thoughtless offer is being made, it means this is definitely a trap.

The other party is either insane or has ulterior motives.

"Impossible! I don't believe it!" Roger shouted. "There's no such thing as a free lunch! What do you want?"

Andy sighed; communicating with these paranoid patients was really exhausting.

But he could also understand that in the Warhammer universe, what usually falls from the sky is not a pie, but a Cyclone Torpedo or a Tyrannosaurus Spore.

"I want stability."

Andy placed the heavy logging gun on the ground and held the barrel with both hands.

"I just wiped out a squad of the Skinners gang and cleaned up a mine full of mutated plants while I was at it."

"I need a stable energy supply to expand production."

"and……"

Andy paused, his tone becoming somewhat playful.

"I've heard that you guys are tech heretics?"

"Perfect match, me too."

“I don’t like those oil-guzzling guys who just smear oil and chant mantras. I should have more in common with you guys than with the rest of the shelter.”

This statement struck Roger to the core. In Roger's eyes, those technological heretics in the Underhive were all brothers.

Being a technological outcast is more lethal than a cartload of grain.

In a world where the orthodox Mechanics are considered heretics and are expelled like trash, finding a fellow human being is incredibly difficult.

Looking at Andy's unadorned, purely functional metal body, Roger suddenly felt that that was what machines should look like.

Isn't this the minimalism that their Brotherhood of Rust has always pursued?