Chapter 30: No One Needs to Worry

The ship's airlock roared as it opened.

Karna stepped out under the gaze of countless crimson eyes, then reached back to seal the gate. Only after it was fully locked and he had carefully checked the internal surveillance did he let out a soft sigh of relief.

"Is this the pressure everyone else faces when dealing with the Black Rage?"

"Brother Karna, what are you doing?"

Kahurangi’s voice came from the side. He had finished his daily routine of harassing Ramesses and was now heading to spar with Arthur to claim his daily mission rewards. He had heard that the Deathwatch was borrowing a sealed compartment as an independent space, so he had come to take a look.

"It’s like the Gray Blindness that occurs among your own kind." Karna gestured toward his head. "We have the same issue."

He did not shy away from the truth.

"Oh." Kahurangi understood instantly. There were definitely Blood Angels among this group. Their chapter kept meticulous records of every founding chapter—so detailed, in fact, that they knew the characteristics of those chapters during the Great Crusade better than some chapters who had suffered major historical upheavals.

Of course, these "Deathwatch" members were no simpletons either. They were intimately familiar with the origins and genetic flaws of the Carcharodons, yet as a chapter active in the Imperium, they were strangely ignorant of the current state of the Empire, lacking even a complete star map. They could pull out a stack of chain-axes that were now considered the exclusive domain of Chaos traitors, and after carefully studying the current Imperium through the Sharks' information database, their sheer shock—wearing expressions that suggested, "How the hell did humanity turn into this?"—had left the Carcharodons deeply suspicious.

"I’m off to the arena, then." Having understood the reason for the storage request, Kahurangi stopped dwelling on it. For the Sharks, the daily rewards were far more important.

"Understood. I’m going to check the other warehouses." Karna nodded. Both sides tacitly agreed not to continue the conversation. He knew exactly why Kahurangi was in such a hurry to leave.

***

Ever since they boarded the Sharks' flagship, Ramesses had been unable to perform his usual Warp-based "wild experiments." Arthur, liberated and bored, had naturally taken to sparring with the Sharks, intent on learning from them. And as with all learning, there was a tuition fee to be paid.

Karna glanced at the storage data displayed on his arm; it had plummeted compared to the restock he’d done yesterday. They had only been in transit for a little over a month, yet he felt he had to restock every single day.

"Let’s see..." Karna lowered his head to check his memo list, preparing to package the day’s information for Romulus, only to realize they had already exited the Warp. "We should be arriving at our destination soon."

"The Sharks are here to pay the Gray Tithe. I heard there’s an Adeptus Mechanicus exploratory fleet nearby; they originally intended to rush there to replenish strategic supplies." Romulus, having finished a joint exercise with the Astra Militarum, pushed open the isolation door to the area assigned to the Deathwatch.

Directly in front of him, Ramesses—having finished dealing with Kahurangi and still unsure what the Librarian was actually after—was burning incense before a small censer. Since they were on someone else's ship, he dared not conduct any major experiments, at most "fishing" for resources in the Warp; thus, he had to focus on smaller projects.

After a month of travel, he had finally managed to pull an external line from the Warp connection between Karna and the Black Rage. Now, Karna could use this connection to channel the physical strength of the Sanguinary Sons, launching indiscriminate attacks against any Horus he saw. The fewer people sharing the line, the higher the intensity of the Black Rage and the greater the combat power, though increasing the capacity required further investment. This meant their small group’s percentage of resources spent kept rising.

"I imagine they have little interest in that matter now, right?" Ramesses muttered, bowing three times to the censer and whispering a few phrases in Classical Chinese.

"Naturally. After all, their weathered gear has been completely renewed." Romulus found it amusing to recall how the Sharks had pointed at the Stormbirds they were gifted and asked if they could trade them for an equal weight in ammunition and other military supplies. Once given, there was no taking things back, so Arthur had stepped in to give them a way to earn supplies. Bolters were too expensive to trade, but power weapons, combustion weapons, and precision components were in abundance.

"These guys seem to have accepted that they get gear every time they spar with Arthur, and Arthur is happy to learn from them. Those are techniques honed in mountains of corpses and seas of blood for ten millennia." Romulus couldn't help but sigh at the Carcharodons' pragmatism; they were like bloodhounds the moment they smelled a profit. Unfortunately, as time went on, the Sharks had less and less to teach. Currently, only the Captains, the Librarians, and Te Kahurangi himself hadn't been picked clean. For the sake of the Chapter's future, the captains probably hadn't had a good night's rest in weeks.

If not for the high cost of waking a Dreadnought, Romulus suspected these people would have dragged one out to serve as a coach.

"It seems our 'stretchers' are evolving at high speed. I told you, beyond our ability to materialize souls, we must each have our own unique traits. After all, the initial paint jobs we arrived with weren't just random graffiti." Ramesses joked, pulling out three more incense sticks to offer to the censer, then began chanting the ancient texts for the experimental materials.

"You still care about that?" Romulus asked, curious. Having seen the gruesome state of the experimental site, he genuinely felt that Ramesses had nerves of steel, and it was equally absurd that Arthur could watch it all with a blank expression.

"You aren't involved in this, so you don't understand." Ramesses raised his head, his expression turning solemn. "I must maintain my reverence for life in this way. Even though I slacked off after graduation, my mentors always taught us that no matter what is on the test bench—even if it's just a piece of deactivated limb—you must operate with a heart of awe."

"This is a line every medical researcher must respect. The only difference between these bodies and normal humans is consciousness. Even a sliver of overstepping, and you’re the difference between an angel and a demon."

"...It seems I don't need to worry about you." Romulus fell silent for a moment, then smiled. He had always been concerned about Ramesses’ "I don't care about the morality, if there's power, I'll exploit it" attitude. But seeing the state of his mind, Romulus realized he had been overthinking it.

"Just kidding. I was raised in a healthy family with a mother and a father, you know. You didn't really think every rich kid was just a self-centered playboy, did you?" Ramesses replied with a boastful grin.

"Believe in your brothers, don't act like an old mother. Of course, I don't mind more communication. After all, in this world, we are the only ones who can truly understand each other." He softened his flamboyant expression. "Only the four of us."