Chapter 6
As Iseul rode her trolley back to the appraisal center to empty the rubble at the Mecha Radiation Absorber area, she began to scrutinize her surroundings.
The E section of the scrapyard sprawled across the lot like a disaster frozen in place.
Collapsed apartments and gutted buildings bled into mounds of rubble, some piled higher than a man.
"Ashrat, gross."
Iseul winced at the funky pocket she drove past. She fanned her nose through her suit.
The air stank of burnt plastic and rust, sharp enough to sting the nose.
Step too close and dust clung to the throat, tasting of ash and old metal.
For a while, Iseul had been going back and forth seven or eight times, dumping her valuables, rubble, junk, and trash into piles.
Pipes jutted out at ankle height, slick with oil that had long since hardened.
Tangled wiring coiled through shattered drones and split-open appliances, humming faintly when the wind brushed past.
Iseul felt this area looked far worse than the F section.
Every corner seemed to whisper what it used to be—then reminded her it was nothing but trash now.
She could only imagine what the other sections looked and smelled like.
Iseul clenched the handles of the trolley tighter, slowing down as she reached her desired destination.
The area was busy with large Mechas moving piles of debris around as she closed in on the debris radiation absorption site marking drone checkpoint.
[Please proceed forward and wait to be assisted.]
The marking drone reminded everyone that passed by.
These drones were responsible for weighing and counting turned-in debris and metals for sale.
Iseul, having already been familiar with the whole process, ignored the drone and entered.
Finding a parking area, Jang Iseul hopped off, removing her bags and set aside the one with just trash.
Then the other pile—just straight debris, and one with metals, and the other with miscellaneous items that could be sold for money, whether to the appraisal center, a private sale, or opening a shop in the virtual ZepeNet world after fixing and cleaning the items.
After sorting everything, she sat quietly and browsed on her ZepeNet band.
The air fogged with a radioactive haze, carrying the metallic tang of decay and ionized dust floating in the air.
[Please proceed forward to designated areas for credit mark station of debris, selling metals, or appraisal for scrap finds.]
Faint pulses from dormant consoles and fractured engines whispered reminders of advanced tech, now left to rot alongside the debris of human life.
Tsk.
How wasteful.
What a slagheap of a world, she thought bitterly.
Her thoughts drifted to her parents, who had gone missing not long ago in the other place—the one people now called Comosta World.
A little before their disappearance, she had overheard them whispering late one night, voices low but sharp with urgency.
They said they had reason to believe that something existed over there—something alive—that could absorb radiation itself, neutralizing the poison in the air and making it possible to live radiation-free.
Even grow crops.
That single hope had been enough to push them toward Comosta, and they had never returned.
Everything had changed when the Milky Way's protective veil—the natural shield that had kept their solar system safe from cosmic energy—was ripped apart and swallowed by a wormhole.
It tore humanity from its sun and spat them into a different, radiation-heavy universe.
Radiation wasn't something people warned about anymore; it was just part of living.
It bled into food, soil, animals, even humans.
No corner of existence escaped it.
The early years were brutal.
People wasted away from poisoning, or starved when the land went barren.
Entire settlements vanished.
Scientists, doctors, and every so-called traditional profession fell one by one; their knowledge died with them.
What replaced them was survival—fixers, scavengers, builders, fighters, finders, patchers, knowledge holders and so on.
Over time, the radiation didn't just kill—it changed them.
Their bodies bent under it, cells twisting, nerves rewiring until some people could spark lightning from their fingertips, ignite fires with a thought, or flood entire neighborhoods with light.
They were called Gifters.
Humanity clung to that discovery like salvation, convinced it meant evolution.
For a while, hope outweighed fear.
But gifting was never the endgame—it was just the beginning.
No one had lived long enough, or known enough science, to predict what radiation really did: atoms clashing in ways they shouldn't, reality grinding against itself.
Cracks began to appear—thin tears in the fabric of the world, glowing seams where you could glimpse another environment shimmering on the other side.
Strange risks bled through with the radiation, reshaping everything.
As the years rolled on, those tears only spread wider.
The boundaries between worlds grew unstable, dimensions folding into one another until entire regions merged.
At first, it was just glimpses through cracks; then it became landmasses, rivers, and skies colliding.
Eventually, it spiraled into full-blown conflict—fighting over territory, over survival, over resources that seemed endless on the other side.
That place was overflowing with life and matter, rich in everything our world had lost.
It earned a name whispered first in fear, then shouted in greed: Comosta World.
And from Comosta, the invaders came.
They didn't carry machines, not the kind humanity knew.
Their "technology" grew from the ground itself.
They cultivated plants unlike anything humans had ever seen—living organisms with properties that rivaled and even surpassed the most advanced tech.
They called them Flora: power-giving plants.
Weapons, shelters, tools, even entire systems of energy and communication—everything sprouted from the soil, woven from roots, sap, and blossoms engineered by nature itself.
To humans, it looked primitive, even tribal.
But in practice, their Flora was as advanced as any reactor, factory, or weapon built in a lab.
And they wielded it with violent precision.
Before her parents disappeared, Iseul had overheard them talking about this Flora, the resources of Comosta, and how the Comostans lived in jungle tribes or villages, communicating in Takia.
Schools now taught children about Comosta, Flora, survival tactics, and even Takia Language 101.
Access to Comosta wasn't open to everyone.
Only D-class Gifters and above could go.
Lower-class E and F Gifters almost never appeared at the battlefront.
The environment alone—the doubled gravity, the fresh air—was deadly for radiated bodies.
Too much radiation would contaminate Comosta itself.
However, if someone displayed exceptionally high potential in their Gift, they could be considered for special approval, subject to evaluation by higher-ups.
Even then, candidates had to endure intensive training.
Months were spent conditioning themselves to withstand double gravity, to expel and lower radiation levels in their bodies, to stabilize themselves for the harsh environment.
The cleaner the body, the higher the potential rank.
In other words: the lower the radiation inside you, the higher the Gift rank and class potential.
Her goal was clear.
She wanted to refine her Gift, raise it in level and power, train her body until she could be reevaluated, and be selected for expeditions into Comosta by interested parties.
Understanding her abilities fully, mastering them, and surviving where others couldn't—that was the path she would walk, one trolley of scrap at a time.
She adjusted the trolley one last time, feeling the weight of the metals shift beneath her gloves.
Each trip through the E section was exhausting, and yet every pile she sorted, every scrap she cataloged, felt like a step closer.
It wasn't just about clearing debris or earning a few credits in ZepeNet—it was practice.
A way to push herself.
To train her body and her Gift in small, controlled doses.
The cracks of dust and faint hums of broken tech reminded her why she kept going.