On the desolate plains of the Trash Planet, within the shadow of a deep ravine, a hulking Iron-spine Wasteland Wolf crouched upon a jagged outcrop. Its claws, honed to a metallic sheen, dug into the rock with a faint, grating screech. The beast's muscles, corded like woven cables beneath a pelt of dust-grey fur, were tensed for a spring that never came. Its amber eyes, glowing with a feral hunger, were fixed not on nearby prey, but on the two-meter-high alloy wall that stood like a scar against the rusty horizon seven hundred meters away. A low, continuous growl rumbled in its chest, a sound felt more through the vibrating stone than heard—a primal song of resentment for the barrier. To the wolf, that wall was an insult. Beyond it, a chaotic, tangled nest of a settlement thrummed with the scent of life, of sweat, of cooked proteins and unwashed bodies. In its simple, brutal mind, it didn't see buildings or people; it saw meat. Thousands of warm, pulsing morsels, huddled together.
Behind the settlement, belching a perpetual, greasy black smog into the permanently twilight sky, stood one of X5's fifteen mining facilities. Its skeletal towers clawed at the heavens, while deep within its belly, a half-excavated mountain wept valuable ore. The operation was a relentless, grinding beast. The cacophony of ancient machinery—the shriek of grinding drills, the tectonic thud of crushers, the hiss of superheated steam—mixed with the faint, desperate shouts of human labor. Wealth, like a subterranean river of filthy water, flowed incessantly into the coffers of its distant owners. This poisoned prosperity seeped into the land itself; the few hardy weeds that clung to life at the settlement's edge were stunted and brown. Nothing beautiful could bloom here.
Above it all, suspended in the smog like a grotesque chandelier, was the magnetic docking spire. Dim, boxy Level-1 shuttles, like metal insects, clung to its sides, feeding on glowing energy from its ports. Higher up, floating on repulsor platforms that hummed a constant, sub-audible drone, were the clean, angular structures of the corporate offices. The managers, the overseers, the owners—they lived up there, breathing filtered air, separated from the stench and struggle below by sheer altitude and immense privilege.
Down in the maze of rusted metal and packed-earth buildings, the air was a thick broth. Steam and smoke from a thousand illicit vents coiled upwards, forming a second, grimy cloud layer. The smell was a complex, aggressive thing: hot engine oil, fermenting algae-brew, unwashed bodies, sizzling street-food of dubious origin, and the pervasive, metallic tang of the planet itself.
At half-past one in the artificial afternoon, inside the cramped, sweltering back kitchen of a tavern called The Rusty Bolt, the atmosphere was at its most potent. Rust streaked every metal surface in patterns of orange and umber. From a groaning, ancient ventilation hood, a steady drip-drip-dripof foul, brownish condensate fell into a dented pan. The sizzle of something unidentifiable hitting a scorching griddle fought with the clatter of tankards. From the main room, a wave of raucous laughter, shouted curses, and the stomping of boots provided a relentless, chaotic soundtrack. It was a place of vibrant, desperate life.
Seventeen-year-old Yao navigated this chaos with the weary grace of a ghost. Slipping through a forest of groping hands and leering faces, her tray now empty, she aimed for the relative sanctuary of the back storeroom. Just as she reached the greasy curtain, a meaty hand shot out and clamped around her thin wrist. The man reeked of cheap synth-whiskey and stale sweat. Before she could react, his other hand, calloused and rough, cupped her chin, forcing her face up. His eyes, bloodshot and greedy, roamed over her features. A dark, cold stillness settled behind Yao's own eyes, a familiar void where fear should have been. He grinned, a gap-toothed smile, and with a flick of his fingers, tugged at the collar of her threadbare tunic. Three dull copper coins, warm from his palm, dropped down the front of her shirt, their slight weight coming to rest against her skin.
Pale skin, the gleam of metal—a crude transaction.
Yao's gaze flickered downward, taking in the three-alloy hook-tailed knife at his belt, its edge nicked and dark with old stains. She caught the coppery, dried-blood scent that clung to his leathers. The void in her eyes was instantly replaced by a mask of timid fragility. Her shoulders slumped, her voice became a whisper. "Th-thank you, uncle. You should… you should go enjoy your drink."
The man barked a laugh, the sound like gravel shaken in a tin. He gave her backside a rough, familiar pat, his finger then jabbing towards the small, branded sigil just above her collarbone—a stylized chain link, the mark of an indentured servant. "Little slave," he sneered, his breath hot on her face. "Why waste time with this? Come with me tonight. I'll show you a better way to earn your keep…" He trailed off, winking at his companions before lurching back into the crowd, his obscene laughter swallowed by the general din.
Yao pushed through the curtain into the storeroom. The cooler, quieter air was a small relief. She almost collided with her twelve-year-old "brother," a scrawny boy with a permanent sheen of grime on his face and dried snot crusting his upper lip. He was engrossed in a handheld gaming device, its screen casting a sickly green light on his features. Seeing her, his eyes, sharp and acquisitive, immediately locked onto the small coin pouch at her waist. He lunged for it without a word.
Yao sidestepped, her movement economical. He stumbled, whirling on her with instant fury. "Give it! They gave you money! Now! Or I'll tell Dad you hit me!"
A flicker of genuine fear crossed Yao's face. She bit her lower lip. "This money… Mom collects it all. If it's missing, she'll beat me."
"I don't care!" he snarled, lunging again. This time, she didn't fully evade him. He grabbed at the pouch, and in the brief struggle, her elbow knocked a steaming kettle from a nearby shelf. It hit the stone floor with a deafening crash, shattering and sending a wave of scalding water across their feet.
The boy yelped. The curtain was yanked aside, and Madam Maili, the tavern keeper, burst in. Her eyes, hard and calculating, took in the scene: her son hopping in pain, Yao standing frozen, the shattered pottery. Anger flashed across Maili's broad face, and her arm twitched upward, instinct driving her towards a slap. But the motion aborted halfway. The anger melted into a performative scowl directed at the boy. "You little troublemaker! Get out! Go!" The boy, seeing his escape, shot a triumphant grin at Yao and scrambled away.
Maili turned to Yao. Her expression was now one of harried concern. "Are you hurt? Burned? Go, clean it up! Quickly now, we're busy!" Her voice was loud, meant to carry to the main room.
Yao didn't move, her body trembling, eyes wide with what looked like terrified, unshed tears.
"Don't just stand there looking pathetic!" Maili huffed, the act of kindness straining her features. "I'm not beating you, am I? There's stew. Proper meat stew. For lunch. School starts again soon, you know. Need to keep your strength up if you're to study." She shooed Yao towards the back. "Now go! I have customers!"
"R-really? Thank you, Mother." Yao's voice was a grateful whisper. She dipped her head and scurried past.
The moment she was through the door leading to the rear yard, the terrified slouch vanished from her shoulders. The grateful tremor stilled. She wiped at the corner of her eye with the back of her hand, her face settling into an expression of utter blankness. She did not go to the shared washroom. Instead, she headed for the ramshackle lean-to that served as her room, a glorified storage closet.
Inside, the air was cold and smelled of dust and old metal. She sat on the edge of her thin sleeping pallet, methodically applying a cheap salve to the reddening skin on her hand. Her movements were precise, detached. Finished, she pushed open the small, grime-encrusted transom window just a crack and peered out. Her eyes, sharp and assessing, scanned the muddy alley behind the tavern. Three men loitered there, sharing a hand-rolled cigarette. They weren't passing through. They were orbiting, their path a slow, deliberate circuit around The Rusty Bolt.
Yao closed the window, latching it quietly. She returned to her pallet, put the salve away in a small drawer, and then, with a grunt of effort, shoved the rickety storage cabinet aside. Behind it, cleverly concealed in a hollowed-out section of the wall, was her secret. An array of mismatched bottles and jars, some containing viscous liquids, others holding dried, strange-looking herbs and faintly glowing mineral fragments. A small, battery-powered heating coil sat in the center.
She knelt on the cold floor, her breath misting in the chill air. With the focus of a master artisan, she began her work. Droppers measured precise amounts of various liquids, which she mixed in a chipped ceramic bowl. The air filled with a strange, astringent herbal scent, undercut by a sharp, ozonic tang. She selected a brush she had painstakingly crafted from the rigid, quill-like hairs of three different predatory wasteland creatures, tied with fine wire. Dipping the tip into the swirling concoction, she began to draw on a sheet of coarse, fibrous paper made from pulped rock-root.
The design was complex, a spiraling, interlocking pattern of lines and angular symbols that seemed to drink the light from the room. It was a thing of harsh geometry and implied violence, a blood-red tattoo of power waiting to be born. As she neared completion, the lines began to glow with a faint, sullen red light. The air crackled with static.
Then, a hiss. A wisp of smoke rose from the paper. The intricate lines darkened, then blackened. With a sudden whoosh, the entire sheet burst into crimson-and-gold flames, not a natural fire, but a magical conflagration that reeked of burnt copper and spoiled honey. Yao moved fast, grabbing a pouch of specially treated flour and scattering it over the flames. They died instantly, leaving only a pile of foul-smelling ash.
Her face, in the sudden gloom, was pale. Her fingers, usually so steady, trembled slightly. She stared at the ruins of her work, then at her dwindling supplies. Disappointment, sharp and acidic, rose in her throat. This made the seventh attempt. The seventh failure.
Only one portion of the rare catalyst remained. One last chance.
The call for lunch came soon after. In the cramped family kitchen, a pot of watery stew simmered. True to her word, Madam Maili ladled a portion into a bowl. It had a few more discernible chunks of protein floating in the greasy broth than the usual fare. She handed it to Yao without meeting her eyes. "Eat. Build your strength."
Yao took it, her expression one of humble, eager gratitude. She had not eaten real meat in her seventeen years. The first spoonful was rich, alien. Why the sudden kindness?The question was a cold stone in her gut, but her hunger was a sharper, more immediate reality.
As she ate in silence, the main tavern door swung open. A mountain of a man, a wilderness tracker by the look of his patched furs and scarred face, swaggered in. He went straight to the counter where Maili was drawing ale from a barrel. Without preamble, he brought his hand down on her ample backside with a loud, familiar smack!
Maili jumped, then turned, a hand flying to her chest. Her expression was a practiced blend of outrage and coy invitation. "You brute!" she scolded, slapping his arm playfully, leaning into the contact. The tracker grinned, feeling the press of her against him. He tossed a heavy pouch of coins onto the counter. The clatter of copper was a siren song in the noisy room.
"Plump Maili," he rumbled, his voice like grinding stones. "More tempting every time. I've got a proposition for you. A profitable one. Concerns that daughter of yours, Yao. Interested in a chat?"
The mention of her name was a spark in tinder. A group of half-drunk miners and haulers at a nearby table roared their approval, pounding their fists on the wood. "Where is she, Maili? Hiding the little flower?"
"Curse it, Oaks got to feel her up yesterday, and I got nothing!"
"Damn that Oaks! Thinks his coin lets him do anything!"
"Yeah, but he hasthe coin, you don't!"
Maili's eyes darted, calculating. She put on a show of maternal protectiveness. "Yao? She's… she's unwell! Sick in bed! You louts leave her be! Now, who ordered this ale? Payment first!"
In a small, curtained-off alcove behind the bar, Maili's husband, a thin man with sparse, greasy hair, was oblivious to the commotion. His eyes, gleaming with a feverish avarice, were fixed on the small pile of coins before him. He was counting them, one by one, his lips moving soundlessly.
Outside Yao's lean-to, two of the local layabouts Maili employed as casual muscle were sharing a bottle. Their attention, however, was fixed on the flimsy door. They took turns pressing their ears against the warped wood. From within, they heard what sounded like a muffled struggle, a feminine gasp, the thud of a body against the wall. Their eyes glazed over with a sick anticipation. They shifted uncomfortably, their imaginations running wild, each wishing he was the one on the other side of that door.
They were on their third bottle, the frustration and cheap liquor making them bold and stupid, when the sound from inside changed.
A scream. Not of passion, but of pure, unadulterated terror—short, sharp, and abruptly cut off. It was followed instantly by a deep, concussive WHUMPF, and a flash of violent orange light that blazed through the cracks in the door and the tiny window.
The two men yelped, falling off their stools in shock.
The explosion rocked the entire courtyard. Patrons inside the tavern froze, tankards halfway to their lips. Neighboring stalls and shops emptied as people rushed towards the source of the noise and the column of black smoke now rising from the lean-to.
The flimsy wooden door of the shack was blown off its hinges. From the billowing smoke and licking flames, a figure stumbled out. It was a young man, maybe eighteen, bare-chested, struggling to pull up his trousers. Angry, fresh scratch marks raked across his chest. His face was smudged with soot and twisted in a convincing mask of panic and disorientation.
It was Oaks. The notorious, wealthy loafer. And his state told a story everyone in the filthy, crowded yard instantly understood.
A horrified silence fell for a second, then shattered into uproar.
"Yao! Where's Yao?"
"She's inside! The girl's inside!"
Chaos erupted. Some men, driven by a crude sense of duty or perhaps the hope of reward, began grabbing buckets to fight the fire. A handsome youth, his face pale with genuine horror, pushed to the front, shouting Yao's name, joining the futile effort.
The fire, fed by Yao's hidden alchemical supplies, burned with an unnatural ferocity but died quickly, consuming the meager fuel of the shack. When the smoke cleared, the structure was a blackened, steaming skeleton. And there, amidst the charred ruins, was a horrifyingly familiar form—small, curled, and utterly consumed by the flames.
A palpable stillness settled over the crowd. Pity? Some felt it, especially those who knew the realities of life for a girl like Yao in a place like this. Their eyes moved from the tragic corpse to the half-dressed Oaks, to the ashen but strangely controlled faces of Madam Maili and her husband, who had now emerged. A dark understanding dawned in the minds of a few. But on X5, in the Pit, pity was a currency with no value. Unless it could be spent.
The crowd swelled. A murmur began, building into a chant. "Kill him!"
"He's a murderer! A violator!"
"He broke the Code! X5's law demands his life!"
The mob, smelling blood and opportunity, closed in. Oaks and his two sniveling companions, who had miraculously appeared from the crowd, were surrounded. The companions fell to their knees, weeping, pointing at Oaks. "He made us do it! It was all him!"
Oaks's wealth, with no heir… by the rough justice of the Pit, it would be forfeit, divided.
Oaks, sweating profusely, looked genuinely terrified. He scanned the crowd, his mind racing. As a burly man tried to sneak a hand into his discarded trousers to fish for his coin purse, Oaks's hand shot out, fingers like a vice around the thief's wrist. The man looked up, startled, into Oaks's eyes. For a fraction of a second, the panic was gone, replaced by a cold, analytical sharpness that was utterly foreign to the foppish wastrel. The thief blinked, unsettled. Since when did Oaks have a gaze like that?
"Hold! In the name of the Sector Magistrate, STAND DOWN!"
The bellow cut through the din. From the main gate of the settlement, three hulking Brun-bear mounts thundered into the square, their riders clad in the dull grey armor of the Planetary Oversight Corps. The barrel of a shark-toothed rail rifle, its tip glowing a deadly cyan, was centered on Oaks's forehead. The crowd fell back, the fever for mob justice cooling instantly under the gaze of official authority.
Oaks visibly sagged with relief, then feigned fresh fear. The Corps Captain, his face stern, was about to pronounce judgment when Oaks cried out, his voice cracking with desperation, "I invoke the Mercenary Indemnity! My assets, all of them, for my life, as per—"
"HALT."
A new voice, cold and metallic, sliced through the air. It came from the far end of the street. The sound that followed was not the organic thud of pawed feet, but the synchronized, hydraulic clatterof alloy hooves on packed earth. The crowd turned as one.
Four figures, astride mechanical steeds of polished gunmetal grey, emerged from the dusty haze. They moved with impossible, silent speed. Each rider was encased in sleek, black composite armor, their faces hidden behind expressionless, matte-black helms. On the flanks of their cyber-steeds, a small, embossed logo was visible: a bronze gear interlocked with a sword—the sigil of the Bronze Combine.
"By the ancestors… those are JK-134 models… a single one costs a Green Note…" someone whispered, the sum—equivalent to a lifetime of labor here—stunning the crowd into a deeper silence.
The leader of the black-armored riders didn't dismount. He merely flicked a secure comms unit to the stunned Corps Captain. The Captain listened, his face going from confusion to shock to sullen acceptance. He lowered his rifle. "The… the accused is under Combine protection. The case is dismissed. The… victim was an indentured servant, property of the establishment owner here. No civil claim exists. The matter is closed."
The black-armored leader gave a curt nod, his helmet turning towards Oaks. "You. Come with us." It was not a request.
The ride to Oaks's residence—a rundown, seven-story tenement that was his primary source of income—was a blur. The people watched, bewildered and murmuring, as the privileged wastrel was whisked away from justice. Among them, the handsome youth who had tried to save Yao watched with a deeply troubled expression before melting into the shadows.
The Combine riders stopped before the tenement. They dismounted, their movements perfectly synchronized. The leader turned to Oaks, who was doing an excellent impression of a terrified rabbit. "Your mother's effects. Where are they?"
"M-my mother? She… she didn't leave much, sirs, I swear! W-who are you? Why did you save me?" Oaks stammered, wringing his hands, his posture the very picture of cowed, cowardly confusion.
The leader ignored him. With brutal efficiency, he and his men began to tear the apartment apart. Oaks, whimpering, retreated to the bathroom, the only room left untouched. He shut the door and leaned against it, his performance dropping like a discarded mask.
The bathroom was a closet of stained porcelain. The invaders had already been here; the medicine cabinet hung open, empty. Oaks—no, the consciousness inside, the sharp, calculating mind of the resource broker from another world—looked at her reflection in the cracked mirror. She reached up, her fingers tracing the unfamiliar, rough stubble on the jaw, the stronger brow ridge, the Adam's apple. A wave of profound dysphoria, cold and nauseating, washed over her.
Being a man came with societal power, yes. But it was a heavy, ill-fitting suit. Given the choice…she thought, I'd take being Yao again in a heartbeat.Even as a slave, even hunted. At least that body was her own. And Yao hadn't been her real name either. Just another skin to wear.
A top-tier resource merchant. A penthouse with an ocean view was within reach next year. And now this.The bitterness was a sharp tang in the back of her throat. Couldn't even isekai properly.
A sudden, searing pain lanced through her gut, climbing up her esophagus. She bent over the filthy sink, her body convulsing. A mouthful of dark, viscous blood, speckled with faint, iridescent sparks, splattered into the stained porcelain. The backlash from the Devouring Scroll. Damn it. I knew the bootleg, half-finished version was a risk…
She was fumbling for a rag when the door exploded inward.
It didn't open; it was blastedoff its hinges, slamming against the opposite wall. She spun, blood still on her lips, to face the black-armored leader filling the doorway.
His gaze was not on her face, but on the blood in the sink. His right hand was raised, fingers held in a precise, almost delicate configuration—a perfect, formal mudra. A faint, viridian light, like corrupted emerald, glowed at his fingertips. The air in the small room seemed to stir, drawn towards that light. And behind his visor, she could swear she saw a faint green film slide across his eyes, like a second, analytical lens clicking into place.
He wasn't just looking. He was scanning. Extracting data from the very essence of her spilled life-force.
A cold, hard certainty crystallized in her mind, cutting through the pain and the panic. The game world… it's not just a rough approximation. It's perfect. The maps, the items, the lore… and now the core mechanics. The Arcane. It's all real.
The terrifying implications of that truth, which she had only intellectually accepted over the past month, now landed with the weight of a collapsing starship. She wasn't in a versionof Arcane Throne. She was init.
And the man in front of her, a practitioner of the very magic that governed this world, had just analyzed the unique, chaotic energy signature of a forbidden, dimension-hopping artifact lingering in her blood.
The green light in his eyes focused on her. The leader's head tilted, just slightly.
Oh, she thought, the world narrowing to that glowing, alien gaze. I'm burned.