69: Chapter 69 Imperial Absurdity and the Suffering of Those Below the Nest

They couldn't bear to pollute this pure lake water and would not allow anyone to touch it.

Guarding it with all their might, they protected it as if it were their own eyes.

If the noble lords wanted it, if the Ecclesiarchy wanted it—then they would have to crush them first!

They would fight back with their own blood.

Only by mixing their blood into this water could the noble lords of the upper spires take it away.

Lena dared to stand before the Sister with Martha; they dared to as well.

They could no longer afford to lose anything else.

This lake was the first thing they had ever owned that didn't require trading their lives for.

So, they were willing to give their lives to protect it.

Sister Superior Ludmilla stood where she was, watching the gathering crowd.

Even more people were putting down their work, clutching anything that could serve as a weapon, and rushing toward this place.

Though people instinctively lowered their heads wherever her gaze fell...

...once her gaze moved on, they would look up again, staring at her with determination.

She made a move an Adepta Sororitas would never make: she took three steps back, standing side-by-side with Vera and Elena.

Inside her, something was shaking violently, on the verge of collapse.

In the Imperium, if a world could ensure its commoners didn't starve to death, it could already be called a 'Model World.'

The Inquisition would issue commendations for it, and nobles would boast of their benevolence.

The Adeptus Mechanicus would offer prayers praising the machine spirit for it.

But here, people weren't worried about 'not having enough to eat,' but rather 'eating too much.'

She looked down at her mechanical prosthetic.

It had quieted down, no longer vibrating, no longer calling out.

She suddenly realized the absurdity of this world—a sight she had never seen before appeared in this lost world of the Imperium.

When the Imperium's 'protection' vanished from here, the people instead lived better.

Gluck seemed to see through her confusion, walking over and speaking with a half-smile: 'In your Imperium, water is very precious, isn't it?'

Sister Superior Ludmilla did not answer.

She didn't believe that Gluck, as a Skitarii veteran, wouldn't know this.

In the Imperium, clean water was never meant for quenching thirst.

It was a luxury, a symbol of power, and a tool to control life and death.

The Water Guilds of the Hive Cities held every usable drop of water tightly, monopolizing all sources.

Clean water was never a business; it was naked rule—give water to someone, and they lived; withhold it, and they could only wait for death.

The private teachings of the nobility and the Ecclesiarchy were etched into the very body of the Imperium: water was never for drinking, but for making the lower classes beg on their knees.

Those in the Mid-hive could at least drink barely purified industrial recycled water, the source of which no one dared to investigate.

But the commoners of the Underhive didn't even deserve that.

What they drank was murky industrial wastewater and foul-smelling corpse recycling fluid.

It couldn't even be called water; it was merely 'something to keep the throat from catching fire.'

Yes, she had seen it.

Even at the headquarters of the Order on Ophelia VII, and on Terra, the capital of the Imperium.

The priests of the Ecclesiarchy and the nobles of the Imperium all did this.

This had become a secret that could not be told to the lower classes.

As a Psyker, Vera was the first to sense the emotions gathering from all directions.

Like countless invisible streams, they were slowly and irrepressibly flowing into that azure lake, into the echoes of the Warp.

It didn't amplify or go to extremes; it simply presented scenes in her mind.

She saw Lena, she saw Martha, and she saw a rusted corridor.

The stench was so thick it wouldn't dissipate, like a greasy film sticking to the throat.

An unknown liquid seeped from the walls, glowing with a ghostly green fluorescence in the dark.

A man, Lena's husband, with a weary but warm smile, was hugging Lena.

He carefully pulled a sticky yellow lump from his backpack and handed it to Lena; it was corpse starch, pressed into an irregular shape.

Beside them, Martha had a beautiful smile.

The little girl was as thin as a kitten on the verge of death, with yellowed nails and protruding ribs, her skin so thin the blue veins beneath were visible.

The man leaned against the corner of the room and closed his eyes.

Lena began to cook.

She added some mushrooms roasted on steam pipes to the lump of corpse starch, using a wooden stick to stir and mix them together.

There was no water—water was the most precious thing, and no one could bear to use it for making soup.

The main source of hydration for their family was the moist corpse starch.

Martha crouched nearby, staring longingly at the pot.

The rationed corpse starch was never enough, never enough for a single day.

Every time, Lena would split it in half, giving one half to her husband and the other to her daughter.

And she herself only ate their leftovers.

Then she would pick up some scraps from factory waste and add some mushrooms she grew herself; it was barely enough to feel full.

If luck was on her side one day and she caught a cockroach or a rat, it was a happy day.

Though this little family struggled, their survival could still be sustained.

But today, the meal was ready, yet her husband wouldn't wake up.

Working sixteen hours a day, sometimes even eighteen, he had finally exhausted his life.

She stood for a long time, then set down the bowl, crouched down, and closed the man's eyes.

She cannot cry.

She bit her lower lip until it bled.

Because she didn't dare cry; tears were also water.

In a place where even tears couldn't be wasted, she could only swallow all her sorrow.

She swallowed the blood from her bitten lip along with the bowl of mush, then dragged her husband's body to find Old Fox.

Old Fox would take anything and sell anything.

Because he had a Particle Pistol, a high-end item that had trickled down from the Upper Hive, he was the boss of this area.

He glanced at the corpse that was nothing but skin and bones, curled his lip, and named a price.

It wasn't high, but it was enough for her and Martha to survive for several more days.

Lena sold her husband to the Corpse Guild; such was the code of conduct in the Underhive.

Then, the gang came.

A woman who had sold her husband and had Nutrient Paste—food better than corpse starch—naturally became a target for the gang.

When they kicked the door open, Lena immediately shoved Martha under the bed.

'Protection fee,' said the man in the lead, revealing a mouthful of yellow teeth.

Lena did not resist.

She handed over half—the Nutrient Paste she had gotten in exchange for her husband.

When she handed over that half, her hand didn't shake, nor was there any reluctance.

She knew that if she didn't hand it over, they would not only take everything but also turn her into a corpse and take Martha away.

In the Underhive, a gang that still allowed them a moment to breathe and scrape by was already considered a saint.

The remaining days became an endless ordeal of suffering.

A woman, a woman surviving in the lower levels of the Hive City, no matter how hard she tried, could not feed a child.

She scavenged for scrap, stole factory offcuts, and washed clothes for the gang.

She did anything, as long as it could be traded for a bite to eat.