Gerhard opened his eyes and gasped heavily. Air rushed into his lungs as if he had been drowning. His chest heaved violently and hurt as air finally reentered the alveoli. His fingers clawed against the cold metal floor beneath him. Rusted steel grated against his palms and should have drawn blood, but for some reason didn't. Flakes of oxidised iron broke loose as Gerhard tried to push himself upright.
For a few seconds, he couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. Only the sound of his ragged breathing filled the small chamber, as his eyes shot left and right.
Then the memories came. Not one set and not slowly, but two sets, and they crashed into his mind hard. The first belonged to a life that had ended... just a few moments ago, as it seemed. It was about the modern world with blue skies, cities of glass and concrete, internet, electricity, and 'ordinary' human life. He remembered reading stories, watching videos, and spending nights reading about fictional universes.
Including one universe in particular. One that millions of people loved and read about, but NONE wanted to be a part of. Never ever wanting to be there in person.
Warhammer 40'000.
The second set of memories crashed into him like a collapsing cathedral that this reality truly was right now.
Cold stone corridors, towering manufactorums, the worthlessness of human lives, the sheer scale of wars, the fact that warcrimes was a foreign word, the constant droning chants of the Adeptus Mechanicus who had turned their bodies into chimaeran abominations of broken machines, gunfire echoing through hive streets, screaming, Greenskin, axes, blood... and death.
Gerhard froze. Slowly... very slowly... he raised his head.
The room around him was dim, lit only by a flickering lumen strip barely clinging to life. Hundreds of old rusted pipes ran along the walls, leaking condensation that dripped onto the metal floor with hollow metallic taps and smelled like toxic chemicals.
This was no modern room. It was a maintenance chamber. This was Hive architecture. His breathing quickened as his new reality became clear.
"No... no no no... NO, NOOOOO! FUCK!"
He staggered to his feet and went through his memories. The name of the planet he was born and raised on, the Hive City he was born and survived in, the Orks, the Xenos species that were the planet's biggest menace and killed everyone, including his parents.
His heart began to hammer violently in his chest. The world he now inhabited had once been an Imperial mining and manufacturing colony. A harsh but stable world under the rule of the Imperium of Man. Its surface was scarred with oceans of scrap metal, deserts, mountain-sized manufactorums, and the massive hive city where he had lived his entire life. However, there were rumours of glorious geological sights, but that part belonged to the nobility and was more a myth than anything else for 99.8% of humans.
Hive Grendel, this Hive City was called. Billions had once lived there. Workers, servitors, soldiers, and families... including his.
His father had been a manufacturing technician. His mother worked in food distribution for the lower-hab blocks. They had not been wealthy; no one in the lower hive was, but they had survived. Against all odds, Gerhard had been blessed with intelligent, cunning, but humble parents who knew when to do what to make sure they survived. If there was even something like that, Gerhard's life was as much a paradise as it was for 99.8% of humanity.
Until the Orks came.
The invasion had begun years ago. No one had expected it, but no one ever truly did with the Orks. A Rok had slammed into the northern plains like a falling meteorite. One had to ask whether this had been planned or if the Orks simply took what they got and then followed the same script.
"...Fuck..."
Gerhard still remembered the Orks, of course he did. He loved them when they were still a tabletop faction and the Warhammer 40k's comedic relief. He slapped his head in frustration, thinking about how the initial landing had been handled by the Adeptus Arbites and the Planetary Governor. Of course, the Arbites were more concerned with upholding the law and killing all traitors and heretics, but the Xenos threat should have been taken seriously.
There were initially a 'mere' thousands of Orks. Not really much, and they could have been handled rather easily. Which they also did, but not correctly. The nobles weren't interested in spending the resources to use the proper means of handling Orks and their spores to prevent another bigger attack.
The second wave of Orks consisted of millions of greenskins. The greenskins poured across the wastelands like a living tide, screaming their crude battle cries about 'dakka' as ramshackle vehicles and towering walkers rolled across the planet. The oceans of scrap were like heaven for the Orks, and they thrived in it, creating the most destructive weapons of war they could.
The Imperial Guard regiments stationed on the planet fought; no one could ever claim otherwise. They fought hard. But the world had been a backwater. Poorly defended, unimportant in the grand scheme of things, except for the regular tithe. So reinforcements never came.
The first wave could be repelled, and the second as well, even the third... but the Orks... well, the Orks multiplied. Their spores multiplied, spawning Gretchin, Snortnlings, Squigs and Orks. The longer they remained on a world, the stronger they became and the harsher the attacks weighed on the Hive.
Gerhard's memories showed the war clearly.
The sirens, the lockdown, the desperate attempts to barricade the lower hive, the desperate use of the Underhive's inhabitants as cannon fodder. For a time, the PDF, the planetary defence force, held the gates.
Then the Orks broke through and took more and more ground. What followed had not been a battle that one was used in the 3rd millennium. It had been slaughter that the Orks were so famous for, and the galaxy had become accustomed to.
Orks flooded the lower hive levels, smashing through hab blocks and manufactorums alike. They didn't conquer, but destroyed all they saw without pause.
People died in the millions.
Gerhard's family had been among them. He remembered the moment it happened clearly. The door bursting open, his father trying to hold it shut and using the lasgun he had traded for. The green hand smashed through the metal, following it up with a roar of laughter. And then, blood and death. For some reason, he was still here, still alive.
Gerhard's breathing grew rapid, too rapid. The room began to spin. He grabbed his head as both lifetimes crashed together.
He was nineteen for fucks sake! And now he was alone on a world infested with Orks. Everyone was dead. The Imperium hadn't come, no Astartes, no fleet, Nothing.
Just endless greenskins spreading through the Hive and across the planet like a plague. He was the last one left in this sector of the hive. The last survivor.
His chest tightened. He was incapable of inhaling. His heart pounded violently. His vision darkened at the edges, and a panic attack was building fast.
Too many thoughts swirled in his mind, too much fear flooded his system. Fear that came with knowledge. This was one of the few realities that having meta knowledge was counterproductive and even the most foolish thing you could have. If the Chaos gods found out about it, he would not only be dead, but he would be tortured in the most horrendous ways imaginable. And what's worse, he would doom the entire reality. Such advantages wouldn't go unpunished...
"I'm so fucked, aren't I? Ha... hahaha... HAHAHAHAHA!!"
Gerhard laughed like a man who had lost his mind. A man, cursed with knowledge.
"I'm going to die here--"
!!!
Then suddenly everything stopped. As if a switch had been flipped inside his mind, the panic vanished. His heartbeat slowed, and His breathing stabilised. The fear remained, but it no longer controlled him, no longer hindered his thoughts and logic. It was as if he had reached 'enlightenment' in a very cultivation-like manner.
He even felt emotionally detached, and then a blue window appeared before his eyes.
|Gamer's Mind (Passive) Lv. MAX
| Allows the user to calmly and logically think things through. Allows a peaceful state of mind. Immunity to mental disorder.
...
Gerhard blinked.
"What...?"
Another window appeared.
[The Gamer Ability has awakened.]
"The... gamer?"
Gerhard stared at the floating blue screen. His heart should have started racing again, but Gamer's Mind held everything steady. Another memory surfaced. A manhwa he had read in his previous life.
The Gamer, with the main character called Han Jihan. A system that turned reality into a game for him. Skills, levels, inventory, crafting and Instant dungeons. His body functioned like a game character.
|Gamer's Body (Passive) Lv. MAX
| Grants a body that allows the user to live in the real world like a game. Sleeping in a bed restores HP, MP and all mass effects.
Gerhard slowly raised his hand.
"Status Window," he said, forgetting that he could have mentally summoned it.
Immediately, another screen appeared.
------------------
|Name: Gerhard
|Class: The Gamer
|Level: LV1
------------------
|HP: 200/200
|MP: 100/100
------------------
STR: 15
VIT: 9
DEX: 11
INT: 10
WIS: 9
LUK: 2
------------------
|Points: 0
|Money: 0
------------------
Gerhard stared at the numbers. Of course, the luck stat was a 2. Not 0 and not 1, since having the Gamer ability itself is immensely lucky. But of course, he is in the Warhammer 40k reality, which balances it out.
Or does it?
A slow smile appeared on his face. In this universe where humanity fought endless wars, where Orks multiplied endlessly, where malicious, thirsting gods laughed and wanted to torture you for enternity, and a terribly insectoid cancer was already present... Where survival was almost impossible, Gerhard had just received one of the most broken abilities imaginable.
A Gamer was the bane of almost all realities and stories he had read in his past life. No one liked gamers since they broke... the game... in a way. They broke conventional laws, rules and anything that was inconvenient for them.
His mind began working rapidly. What did he need right now? Thanks to Gamer's Mind, he was able to quickly address his current situation and think logically about his needs.
Food, water, shelter, skills, crafting, training, and a whole shit-ton of Dakka!
According to the system's logic, special actions could become skills, which meant that he would have to do the bare minimum to get those skills and acquire capabilities through dumb repetition.
Agriculture. Manufacturing. Engineering. Combat training.
Everything could level up, everything could improve, everything could be mastered and progressed with almost no limit.
Technology, weapons, armour, spaceships... Gerhard remembered the scattered equipment he had salvaged from dead guardsmen before dying and looked around, finding a small pile of it quickly.
Burnt-out Lasguns, broken and too big pieces of Flak armour, empty and broken Power cells. None of this could be used to fight, but that wasn't a big problem right now. His Gamer ability treated objects as items, allowing him to study them. Studying them would likely yield a skill, and then he would eventually understand them, being able to recreate them.
In that process, he will dismantle them, rebuild them and create new ones. All of this is to abuse the Gamer's abilities, the most overpowered aspect.
"Oh yes, it's all coming together."
A plan formed in his head. A plan to deal with this terror and to turn it around, showing the galaxy the middle finger and maybe... maybe, he might have some fun. It would be a waste not to make the best of his situation, now wouldn't it? So without further ado, Gerhard stood up and walked over to the equipment and the bits and pieces he had managed to salvage with included some of the most valuable thing in the Hive... seeds.