Tonight, she was heading to Section E of the distribution zone.
Rumor was, a group had struck gold there last week—two discarded mechas and a half-destroyed drone, worth nearly 150,000 credits.
Her heart raced at the thought. A score like that could change everything. She had rented an E-class pulse ray gun contract for three days—dangerous, yes, but worth the risk.
Section E was crawling with not just Comtosia beasts, but also invaders slipping in through unregistered cracks from the warfront dimension.
Still, she hoped this was a step closer to her dream—to earn real money as a combatant or support officer in intelligence and communications. Maybe even find out the truth about her missing parents.
She stepped out.
The boys were waiting in the living room, waving her off.
She promised to be back early in the morning to cook them breakfast and see them off to school.
Closing the door, she took the elevator down and boarded a local passenger ship bound for the shipyard.
The ride cost her five credits. She slid into a seat near the front, pulling up ZepeNet to browse upgrade shops for the GameBox.
"[We have arrived at the distribution center. Please exit the ship if this is your destination.]"
The announcement blared overhead.
Iseul stood, slipping into the crowd of junk diggers.
She wove her way through, eyes sharp, heart set on finding her big score.
She was about to reach the check-in point to scan her ZepeNet identification crystal implanted in her wrist when—
"Jang Iseul!"
Iseul paused and turned toward the voice.
"Unnie Hae-won!" she waved, happy to see Park Hae-won. She was an unnie who had looked after her since she began scrape-digging here.
"You're finally back?! I thought you said you'd been gone all month?! Is everything well?!"
Iseul fired off questions without giving Hae-won a moment to answer. They had no time—their turn at check-in had come.
"Which section are you wanting to work?" the employee asked boredly, not even bothering to look up from his ZepeNet projection band.
"I'm heading to Section E," she answered.
After a short wait, her identification crystal was scanned again, turning blue to signify clearance. She stepped aside to wait for Hae-won.
When they regrouped, Hae-won's brow furrowed. "Are you really going to Section E?" she asked cautiously, worry painted across her features.
"I'm raising five younger brothers. I can't worry about my safety, but at the same time—I can't limit myself to small risks for little bucks. I don't have that luxury," Iseul said firmly.
She also needed resources for her gift, to strengthen her power. That required credits she simply didn't have. Section F meant sleepless nights for scraps. Section E meant risk—but also real rewards.
Most avoided it unless they were high-level gifters or part of a thirty-man team. Danger loomed there.
Unnie Hae-won sighed, understanding but uneasy. "If you're needing money, I can help you out. I just took a big job while away and made a decent amount of credits. You don't have to risk your life. What would your brothers do if something happened to you?"
Iseul fell silent, then shook her head. She had already thought about this long and hard. If she doesn't take risks, they might as well be as good as dead, scraping by on crumbs.
"I understand your concern, unnie, and I appreciate it. But no matter what, I must go. More than ever—because I have five brothers waiting at home for me. If I don't earn big, they won't survive. All I can do is work, rest just enough to keep going, and make sure they have a future. That's what a big sister can ask for."
She smiled brightly, dazzling Hae-won with her rare, beautiful smile.
After a few more exchanged words, they parted ways.
Iseul headed toward Section E.
She made it to the barrier gate that you have to cross after getting approved by a gifter guard.
After getting approved to pass through, she entered the building that was on the other side of the gate.
Each section has an appraisal building where you bring your items to get checked, as well as the rubble you've picked up.
It's also the place to pick up a hover trolley to carry your stuff. Medium trolleys cost 3 credits, attachable trolleys with pulleys 5 credits, and space rebel collection bags—which provide eight meters of collection space—cost 20 credits each.
Anything of value can be sold here, or you can pay a fee of 100 credits to take items out and sell them elsewhere—a good deal for rare finds.
Currently, she had 3,648 credits in her account and was looking to hit big today.
She entered and waited in line a bit before it was her turn.
"Appraisal or Tolley?" the woman behind the desk asked the moment she stepped forward.
"1 attachable Tolley with extra pulleys, please, and 4 space rubble collection bags," she told the lady politely.
"That's 85 credits. Scan here, dear," the worker said with a nod.
She quickly scanned her ZepeNet band holographic bank QR codes.
[Transaction completed!]
The woman handed over her items, then turned and headed down the hall to grab her trolley from the charging stations.
After scanning the receipt code, the trolley activated and marked itself for her. She hopped on, and as the small door leading outside opened, she tossed her rebel bags in the back and took off toward the west.
While driving, she looked around, taking in the environment and trying to get familiar with it.
If today she scored a good haul—or found something with some good dough—then she would start coming here regularly.
Though the radiation levels were a tad higher than ideal for comfort in her suit, every reward would outweigh the consequences of the risk.
She drove for a while before something caught her eye.
She stopped and reversed slowly until she backed up to the point where she felt the glare, then parked completely.
She grabbed her rubble bags, loaded her pulse ray gun ready to fire at anything non-human, and held her tissues for debris handling.
She climbed over a few mountains of rubble, stopping occasionally to flip over broken pieces of cement and debris.
Beginning to clear out an area, she brought out markers to mark the sections she was creating.
Then she slowly, but surely, started "playing rock Django"—moving smaller pieces of rock to make larger chunks of cement and debris fall precisely, so she could stretch her rubble bags just enough.
Navigating carefully, she maneuvered the debris so it would accurately fall into the space-collecting bags until they were filled.
After ten minutes of hauling large debris and cement from the buildings, the bags were full.
She knew that this amount of rubble was only worth so much—a drop in the ocean compared to what she could make by hauling all this junk.
They paid 0.5 credits for every 2 square feet of rubble collected.
The rubble was typically about 2 meters high, give or take, and covered the area entirely. There was no clear path to walk unless she cleared it herself, especially if she wanted to try her luck at finding valuable scraps before others.
Normally, she stayed here until early morning, digging and collecting rubble. Sometimes she got lucky and found something good, but rarely more than a few hundred—or at most, 1,000 credits.
She didn't complain. She just worked harder, improving her chances with every haul.
Typically, she would clear just over 4,500 square feet, hauling 104.5 full bags of rubble and making 26 trips back and forth.
She had mouths to feed, so she broke herself for her siblings.
After 45 minutes in this area, she finally removed all the large cement debris and uncovered 48 meters of ruined junk beneath. This area looked decent enough that she felt like doing a small victory shimmy.
Iseul quickly climbed down into the valley pit she had created and began searching through the items.
After a few careful minutes, she came across a Zap Streaming Kim with a cracked lens on the camera—it was a C-alloy grade model! The best versions sold for at least 10,000 credits. She could probably flip this for 5,000–6,000 credits, even with the broken lens.
"Good find," she muttered to herself.
She set the camera aside in one of the spare hover trolleys that wasn't carrying debris bags, keeping it free solely for valuable items she might find.