Warhammer: Rebuilding the Golden Age Starting with Farming

Chapter 18 The Skinners' Lair

The smoke from the battlefield had not yet dissipated, and the air was filled with the smell of burning fuel.

Gamma-9 was directing his team of guards to use shovels to push the bodies into the nearby rubble, or to use pliers to remove usable screws and boards from the charred remains.

Andy did not participate in this kind of low-end labor.

He stood next to an overturned armored pickup truck, with a skinner driver still alive under his feet.

This guy was lucky; the barrage of heavy logging gun fire just now only broke one of his thighs, not cut him in two.

But his luck ran out.

"Pooh!"

The driver, whose face was full of scars and who was still acting fiercely even though he was barely alive, spat a mouthful of bloody saliva onto Andy's metal leg armor.

"Bloodfang's leader is dead... but this isn't over!" The driver gritted his teeth, his eyes filled with madness. "The other war gangs will..."

"Click."

Andy applied a little force with his foot.

The hydraulically driven metal foot crushed the driver's intact kneecap.

"ah!!"

The screams instantly drowned out the clanging sounds of people cleaning up the battlefield.

Andy remained expressionless, lacking even the most basic patience for this creature that had no value other than making noise.

"Where is your base?"

Andy's voice was as calm as if he were asking for directions.

"Go to hell! You..."

"Click—"

This time it's the wrist.

Andy's movements were very rhythmic; he would ask a question after each broken bone.

This purely physical communication method is highly efficient.

In less than half a minute, the driver who had been so defiant just moments before completely broke down.

He was wailing and crying with snot and tears streaming down his face, confessing everything he should and shouldn't have said.

According to him.

The skinners' lair is located at the No. 12 abandoned chemical treatment plant, thirty kilometers away.

There are probably fewer than thirty people left inside, and they are all elderly, weak, sick, or disabled. The main force was wiped out in the previous wave of casualties.

Andy got the coordinates he wanted and pushed off with his feet.

"puff--"

The driver's chest caved in, and the world became quiet.

Andy turned around and picked out a modified jeep that looked relatively intact from a pile of scrap metal.

The car's windshield was shattered, and a steel bar was stuck in the hood, but the engine was still stubbornly running.

Andy jumped into the car, reached out and ripped off a string of dried human ears hanging from the rearview mirror and threw them away, then broke a skull welded to the center of the steering wheel.

"Damn it, these idiots' aesthetic sense is simply inhuman."

Andy was speechless.

Putting everything else aside, this stupid skull is actually pointing right at the driver's chest.

If there is a sudden stop or a collision, this thing can puncture the driver's chest cavity.

Andy shifted into gear and floored the accelerator.

The jeep roared out of the shelter gate.

Chopping the grass does not remove the roots, but the spring breeze blows and regenerates.

This old proverb applies equally well in the Warhammer universe.

If we don't take advantage of the opportunity to wipe out the Skinners' main force and destroy their stronghold, those who escaped will soon defect to other gangs or sell Andy's coordinates to even more ruthless characters.

More importantly, a gang's stronghold that has been entrenched for many years is itself a huge resource pool.

They've been robbing for so many years, they must have hoarded a lot of good stuff.

The 30-kilometer journey took only half an hour for this jeep, which had its excess weight removed.

The No. 12 waste chemical treatment plant appears on the horizon.

The environment here is even worse than at the shelter; yellow toxic smog floats in the air, and the ground is covered with colorful chemical waste pits.

The so-called hideout of the skinners was located beneath a massive rusty distillation tower.

From a distance, Andy could smell an extremely complex odor.

It smelled like the stench of a rotting corpse, mixed with a pungent, acidic chemical odor.

Several fresh corpses hung at the gate, and a few freshly peeled human skins swayed in the wind.

Several skinners guarding the gate were dozing off against the door. They didn't have any decent weapons on them, mostly rusty iron pipes and machetes.

After all, the elites had all died with Bloodfang at Andy's doorstep, leaving only a bunch of mediocre people behind.

Andy did not slow down.

He floored the accelerator in the Jeep.

"boom!!"

The jeep, with its front end fitted with a crash beam, smashed right through the fragile wire mesh gate.

The loud noise startled the guards, who jumped up.

Before they could even see who it was, Andy had already raised the twin-barreled heavy logging rifle with one hand.

On his way here, he casually placed this big guy on the passenger seat.

"Knock knock knock knock!"

The muffled gunshots rang out again.

12.7mm bullets ricocheted wildly in the narrow courtyard.

There is no suspense.

This was a one-sided massacre; the rioters who tried to resist were like paper in front of heavy machine guns.

Just five minutes passed.

The gunfire stopped.

There wasn't a single living person left standing in the entire chemical plant.

Andy jumped out of the car, carrying the still-smoking gun, stepped over the corpses scattered on the ground, and walked into the factory's inner workshop.

The sight here is enough to make any normal person vomit their dinner from the night before.

Hooks were everywhere, hanging with peeled human skin.

The worktable was piled high with unprocessed limbs and severed bodies, and a mountain of skulls stood in the corner.

But Andy's electronic eyes didn't linger on these disgusting things; instead, they locked onto several huge cement pools.

The pools were filled with a thick, yellowish-green liquid, bubbling and gurgling.

"No way..."

Could it be that...?

Andy walked to the edge of the pool and stirred it with an iron rod.

[Composition Analysis: Industrial sulfuric acid (65% concentration), chromium salt solution, formalin, tannic acid.]

That's right, this thing really is a tanning vat!

In order to preserve their perverse trophies and keep the human skin supple and rot-free, skinners must use a specialized tanning process.

Tanning leather requires large amounts of acids and chromium salts.

These brainless thugs unknowingly built a fairly professional chemical tanning production line.

These three large pools of industrial sulfuric acid, although mixed with some organic impurities, become the most crucial raw material for manufacturing smokeless gunpowder and primers after simple distillation and purification!

Andy continued walking inside and arrived at the warehouse at the back.

The discovery here surprised and delighted Andy even more.

Dozens of blue plastic buckets with skull and crossbones logos were piled up in the corner.

[Item: Industrial saltpeter (80% purity)]

This stuff is usually used to make explosives or fertilizer.

The skinners apparently used it to make homemade bombs.

Now, they belong to Andy.

We have sulfuric acid, saltpeter, and starch.

Once Andy has all three of these things, he can hand-make nitrated starch explosive, which is a standard propellant.

Andy immediately called Gamma-9 via radio.

"After cleaning up the battlefield, take everyone and haul all the empty barrels and empty cars from home to Chemical Processing Station No. 12."

"There is a batch of strategic materials here that needs to be recovered."

After arranging the moving tasks, Andy went into a separate room on the second floor.

Judging from the decor, this should be the private office of the boss, Bloodfang.

Andy casually swept an eyeball that was soaking in a jar onto the ground.

He rummaged through the drawers of the table.

Since there are so many chemical raw materials here, there must be a supply channel.

The skinners, these illiterate people, could not possibly produce sulfuric acid and formaldehyde themselves.

Soon, Andy found an electronic data board covered in oil stains.

This thing looks quite old; the screen is covered in cracks.

Andy extended his finger, and the data probe was inserted directly into the interface.

After a simple brute-force attack, a trading log appeared.

[Transaction counterparty: Birdbeak Doctor.]

[Transaction details: 500 fresh, live livers and 20 AB-blooded slave workers.]

[Exchanged Goods: 20 barrels of industrial sulfuric acid, 10 barrels of saltpeter, and 5 boxes of analgesics.]

Looking at this record, Andy's mind raced.

It turned out to be the case.

Besides their perverse fetishes, there is another important reason why skinners are so keen on killing and capturing people.

They are the raw material suppliers for the organization called "Doctors Beak".

They were responsible for providing the meat and organs, while the beaked doctors were responsible for providing the chemical raw materials and medicines.

This has led to the formation of a complete black market industrial chain.

Andy's gaze fell on a metal badge next to the data panel.

It was a strangely shaped pattern.

A pale skull with a long bird's beak represents the mask design of the plague doctor in ancient Terran history.

Andy picked up the badge and weighed it in his hand.

Just then, a new unread message popped up on the data panel.

[Sender: Birdbeak Doctor (Agent)]

[Time: 18:00 today.]

[Content: Is the cargo ready? Handover tonight at the usual place. This time we need more hearts; the test subjects are being used up quickly.]

Andy checked the time; it was 16:00 PM.

There are still two hours before the trading begins.

Andy's lips curled into a cold smile.

Just now, Bauer was advising him not to provoke those doctors who were all bio-monsters.

But now, an opportunity has come knocking on our door.

These doctors possess a vast amount of pharmaceuticals and advanced chemical technology, and may even have antibiotic production lines that only exist in Andy's imagination.

Rather than being passively attacked later, it's better to take the initiative.

Now that Bloodfang is dead, shouldn't we find someone else to talk to about this deal?

Andy stuffed the bird beak badge into his waist pouch.

By this time, the sky outside the window had darkened, and a hazy, yellowish toxic fog enveloped the desolate chemical plant.