The crowd filed out in an orderly line. Roy, too, was assigned a weapon and a position. Though he regretted not having had the chance to report the discovery of the Iron Man to the chieftain, he nonetheless chose to obey command. He led a team whose members were wrapped in heavy clothing, their weapons hidden beneath, toward one of the local clinics.
Inside the clinic, there was only a single, unusually plump middle-aged man. Upon noticing their arrival, he lifted his head slightly to glance at them, still wearing a pleasant smile.
"Good evening, gentlemen. Is there anything I can help you with?"
"I heard you sell cheap food here?" Roy stepped forward, his face expressionless.
"But of course," the man said with a squinting smile. "Prices are negotiable—barter, credit, it's all fine. Care for some?"
Roy didn't answer right away. In his eyes, this man was already dead. Still, he pressed on.
"I've also heard… you've been buying corpses?"
"Hmm? Yes, what about it?" the man replied as though it were the most natural thing in the world. "Do you think there's something wrong with the source of my ingredients? But you must understand—despair and the will to survive are among the most powerful forces there are. To stay alive, the starving will eat anything: fellow men, morals, or even their own humanity. Isn't that so?"
This was the underhive—bitter cold, endless misery. Countless people hovered on the brink of death, toiling day and night just to stay fed. In a place like this, resorting to cannibalism was hardly the most unspeakable act.
The Ecclesiarchy may consider such things heresy, but tell me—which of their priests would deign to descend to these depths? Let the sacred soil of the hive's underbelly stain their hallowed boots?
The followers of the God-Emperor would never understand the raw, desperate strength of the downtrodden masses—the lengths to which they would go to survive.
"Picture this," the man said dreamily, trying to convince his supposed customers to abandon their pitiful notions of morality. "When a fruit ripens on its branch, its fate is already sealed—to fall, rot, and return to the soil. Birth, death, decay, and rebirth. The Great Cycle of Three is inescapable. Here, for the same price, you can buy three times as much food. Isn't that a fair trade?"
"Shut your mouth."
Roy's voice was cold. He could no longer stomach this heretical blasphemy. With a flash, he drew the dagger hidden beneath his coat and raised it high, roaring with righteous fury:
"Die, heretic!"
But the middle-aged man reacted with impossible speed. The blade grazed past his head and struck only his shoulder. A flicker of shock passed through his eyes, but he gritted his teeth, seized Roy's arm, and with a sudden surge of strength, flipped him over in a brutal over-the-shoulder throw. Then, dagger still embedded in his shoulder, he dashed deeper into the clinic.
The move seemed to trigger something.
Suddenly, a mass of ragged figures burst from the inner rooms of the clinic—bodies riddled with boils and tumors, eyes gleaming with sick devotion.
"For the God-Emperor!" Roy shouted, drawing a laspistol looted from a Planetary Defense Force patrol on the upper hive. With each flash of ionized light and the sharp hiss of superheated air, death responded to his zealous call, descending upon the heretics like divine wrath.
And similar battles erupted throughout the district.
Their chieftain had already deciphered the heretics' intentions—rebellion.
The nobles of the spire had sealed the tunnels between the underhive and midhive, leaving the people below to rot in plague and suffering. If this continued, the world would descend into an unprecedented uprising.
Their Angel had foreseen it: by the seventh month of plague, this world would burn in revolt.
Though they had nothing but contempt for the decadent nobles and the false priests of the Ecclesiarchy, they would still not allow the Emperor's majesty to be tarnished. These rotting heretics would be purged, and their people cleansed—so that His armies might arrive to a world made pure!
Roy charged into the fray, fearless and unrelenting. He had already executed seven of the Emperor's enemies and was about to claim an eighth when a bolt of lightning tore across the battlefield, crackling with psychic force. It blasted apart a dozen of his comrades in an instant.
"A psyker…"
Roy's eyes widened as he collapsed, powerless. Just ahead stood a robed figure, mold spreading across their tattered cloak—a sanctioned psyker, eyes aglow with warpfire. Rage and regret filled Roy's final gaze.
Psykers—foul abominations—should be burned upon the pyres of the Inquisition. But now, he could no longer rise to administer judgment. Life was draining from the wound seared into him by warp lightning.
It didn't matter.
More faithful warriors surged forward, charging the psyker with cries of vengeance. He trusted them—his brothers.
Yet, just before darkness took him, Roy caught a glimpse of something impossible:
A black rift tore open in the air before him, and from it reached a small, round, white hand.
---
"Ugh, what on Terra is going on here?"
Doraemon groaned, rubbing his head. As a robot who once casually joked about the fall of his own country, he absolutely loathed all forms of war. And now, he was utterly baffled. Why were these people suddenly screaming about heresy and God-Emperor and trying to kill each other?
In any case, he needed to save lives.
Even if some of these people had just tried to beat him senseless, Doraemon couldn't bear to watch anyone die.
But he noticed something strange: those infected with the plague possessed terrifying vitality. Even with grave injuries, they could leap up and fight again. But once they collapsed… they stayed dead.
By contrast, the bald ones with heavy frown lines—clearly non-humans or severely mutated hivefolk—still had signs of life even after being knocked down.
So…
"Obtaining Bag!"
Doraemon pulled out what looked like a totally ordinary bag from his pocket. He reached inside with his chubby paw and rummaged around. A moment later, he yanked out a barely-breathing patient.
The Obtaining Bag could retrieve anything from anywhere—as long as you reached in with the intent to grab it.
One after another, he began rescuing the gravely wounded from the battlefield. Once he'd brought enough to safety, he eagerly pulled out his Doctor Bag to begin treatment.
Yet, he noticed something odd. Beyond the usual wounds and burns, every single patient seemed to be afflicted by one bizarre condition:
[Genestealer Cult Mental Conditioning]
"Huh… not sure what that means," Doraemon murmured. "But if it shows up as a disease… that means I can cure it, right?"
With that, Doraemon grabbed a vial of medicine, gently pried open each patient's mouth, and began pouring the cure inside.