Repeat Customers
The first knock was weak—more like a dying tap than a real request.
Kenji sat up, halfway through a lukewarm can of Kenji’s Crunchless Corn Surprise?, when the turret pinged.
[LIFEFORM DETECTED – TWO HUMANS – INJURY LEVEL: MODERATE TO SEVERE]
[THREAT: LOW]
He stood and glanced at the external monitor. Two figures. Frostbitten, cloaked in stitched-together animal pelts and thermal rags. One leaned heavily on the other. The sled they dragged behind them had snapped halfway through the journey, forcing them to carry most of their salvage by hand.
Kenji muttered, “Idiots actually came back.”
The door hatch hissed open just slightly. A weak voice cracked from the cold:
“I-Is that… is this still the Shack?”
Kenji leaned forward. “Still is. You brought something worth heating your bones?”
The man dropped a satchel of parts with shaking hands. “Old drone cores. One still sparks. Found a melted rifle too. And… monster meat. Not much, but—”
Lira stepped in beside Kenji, her arms folded, tone sharp. “You didn’t bring any women, did you?”
The traders blinked, confused.
Elyra pushed past silently and hauled the sled the rest of the way. The system began scanning.
[SCANNING TRADE OFFER…]
[DRONE CORE (Damaged): 2.1 cans]
[Partial Firearm Frame: 1.0 cans]
[Rotten Monster Meat: 0.6 cans]
[Cloth Bundle: Negligible]
[TOTAL VALUE: 3.7 CANS]
Kenji sighed.
“Fine. You get three cans and one nutrient bar. That’s me being generous.”
He tapped the console. The hatch ejected three steaming containers and a small high-density ration.
The traders dropped to their knees in the snow and tore the cans open like starving dogs.
Kenji’s Leftover Lasagna Mystery?
Kenji’s Double-Freeze Beef Can?
Kenji’s Mildly Regretful Pork Pudding?
Steam curled up into their cracked faces. One of them actually cried.
Kenji stepped back, arms crossed.
“You two walked how far?”
The older man coughed. “We… we left from Bastion 27. Took us two weeks. Traveled through a collapsed tunnel, crawled over a frozen chasm, and fought off some snow rats.”
Lira looked horrified. “You came seventy kilometers in this weather… for cans?”
“Better than starving underground.”
Kenji paused.
“System. Biomass value on the snow rats?”
[Approx. 0.8 cans per full corpse – higher if freshly killed]
He made a note to add snow rat to the accepted tradable.
Lira busied herself organizing the trade inventory, muttering about people “showing up unannounced like this was some kind of soup line.”
Kenji just stared out at the snow, watching the two scavengers warm their hands beside the Shack’s outer vent.
They had risked death for food. Walked across wasteland. Fought monsters.
All for a chance to sit outside a truck and eat canned regret.
And they’d do it again.
UPGRADE PROGRESS: 40%
RECYCLER MODULE: UNLOCKED
Recycler Module Online
As the scavengers limped away into the blizzard, Kenji stood in front of the processing console, watching the system churn through rusted metal and busted tech like it was chewing popcorn.
[RECYCLER MODULE ONLINE]
[TECH LEVEL: BASELINE – UNLOCKED FUNCTIONS: MATERIAL EXTRACTION, BASIC CRAFTING MENU]
The screen split into two sections:
Left—Recycler Input: a swirling animation of old gear, drone parts, firearms.
Right—Usable Resources: a growing list of components.
? Cracked Microcircuits (x9)
? Burnt Wiring Clusters (x5)
? Stabilized Core Fragments (x2)
? Rusted Alloy Plate Chunks (x3)
? Polymer Sealant Gel (x1)
Kenji grinned. “Finally. Something useful.”
He tapped the console, opening a crafting menu.
[AVAILABLE BLUEPRINTS: BASIC SENSOR UNIT | TURRET AMMO LOADER | AUTOMATED STORAGE GRABBER]
Most of the options were greyed out. He scrolled to the bottom.
[DRONE CHASSIS – LOCKED: Requires Upgrade Tier 3]
[Mini-Turret Frame – LOCKED: Requires Advanced Alloy + Tier 2]
“Guess I’ll start small.”
He selected the Sensor Unit blueprint.
Cost:
? 2 Microcircuits
? 2 Wiring Clusters
? 1 Alloy Plate Chunk
[Confirm Craft?]
Yes.
The console hummed to life. Internal systems whirred behind the walls. Small mechanical arms clicked into place, fusing metal and wire under blue arc light.
Within minutes, a palm-sized motion detector slid out from a hatch—round, dome-shaped, with a single blinking red eye.
Kenji picked it up. It was warm. Light. Simple, but effective.
“You’ll scream when someone steps too close. I like you already.”
He placed the sensor near the outer perimeter, half-buried under a mound of snow, synced it with the turret, and turned back toward the Shack.
Lira had already rearranged the inventory board.
“Where do I put the new component list?”
“Next to canned meat and slave valuations.”
She nodded. “Makes sense.”
Elyra poked her head in through the hatch. “Sky’s getting darker.”
Kenji stretched his back, wincing as it popped.
Lira immediately perked up. “Want me to—?”
“Yes.”
She guided him to the chair and began working her fingers into his shoulders. Kenji groaned.
“Feels like I carried a mech on my spine.”
“You carry the world’s only working kitchen,” Lira said softly, blushing. “That’s heavier.”
The sensor pinged outside. Wind. Just wind.
But it was one more set of eyes Kenji didn’t have before.
And tomorrow, he’d build another.
RECYCLER: OPERATIONAL
SENSOR UNITS: 1 DEPLOYED
MATERIAL STORED: 16% CAPACITY
UPGRADE BAR: 41.3%
The Price of Travel
The storm rolled in with screaming winds and biting ice, but it wasn’t enough to stop the approach of another desperate convoy.
Kenji’s turret pinged low.
[SIGNATURE DETECTED – 5 INDIVIDUALS – 2 CRITICAL]
[FACTION: BASTION SIGMA – SURFACE SCOUT UNIT]
He opened the feed.
A snow-tracked skimmer limped through the storm, dragging one side like a dying beast. The passengers weren’t much better—one was unconscious, another missing a glove and half a hand. The others looked frostbitten, half-starved, and terrified of their surroundings.
Kenji sighed and opened comms.
“Bring trade goods, or you’re eating snow.”
A female voice cracked through. “We have cores… salvage. Just—open the door.”
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“System?”
[TRADE EVALUATION: 3x High-Capacity Power Cells, 1 Stabilized Drone Rotor, 1 Lesser Beast Core – Total Value: 11.4 Cans]
He opened the hatch.
They collapsed inside, dragging their cargo behind them.
Lira scowled. “They’re leaking on the floor.”
Elyra rolled her eyes and moved toward the salvage.
Kenji handed them a few cans.
? Kenji’s Burnt Hope Hash?
? Kenji’s Frostbite Buster Broth?
? Kenji’s Delirium Chili?
They ate in silence, twitching and shaking.
Kenji leaned back.
“You people should consider setting up a supply route. Hell, pave a trail. Make regular trips. I’m not moving.”
The squad leader—Vyn, judging by the patch on her shoulder—laughed bitterly.
“There’s a reason we live underground, Shackmaster.”
“Enlighten me.”
“You’re seventy kilometers from the nearest known entry point. Half that route is crawling with snow beasts. The other half is cracked terrain with unstable weather spikes.”
“And?”
“And no one can keep a path open. The cost to guard it? Enormous. No faction wants to waste enhanced soldiers on resupply missions just for food. You surviving out here is… insane.”
Kenji shrugged. “I have beans. I have a turret. What more do I need?”
Vyn wiped her mouth. “A miracle.”
He posted a private note in his system:
“Do not rely on outsiders. Assume no one will come back.”
He looked back at them.
“Eat. Rest. Then crawl home.”
They didn’t argue.
The Meat Merchant
It wasn’t the wind that warned Kenji this time. It was the sensor ping—low, steady, and unusually heavy.
He leaned forward at the console.
[SINGLE HUMAN – NON-HOSTILE – BIOMASS SIGNATURE: HIGH]
[APPROACHING WITH SLED-PACKED CARGO]
He flipped on the camera.
A lone figure trudged across the snow, half-covered in stitched leather and scale-lined furs. Behind him, a thick-bodied sled beast pulled three large crates strapped to a reinforced sled. Even in the camera feed, Kenji could tell it wasn’t junk.
“We’ve got a visitor,” he muttered.
Elyra sniffed the air through a crack in the hatch. “Something meaty.”
Kenji opened comms. “Trader or corpse-to-be?”
“Trader,” came the calm reply. “Name’s Gorrin. I’ve got meat—good stuff. From The Other Side.”
That made Kenji pause.
He opened the hatch.
The cold slammed in with a hiss. Gorrin entered, trailing frost. The sled beast huffed and dropped to its belly outside the Shack.
Without a word, Gorrin popped the latch on the nearest crate. Inside: slabs of dense red meat, wrapped in cold-sealed film. It didn’t look appetizing—stringy, tough, uneven—but it didn’t reek. And it wasn’t rotting.
Kenji’s system immediately scanned the contents.
[ITEM: BEAST MEAT – GIANT HOWLER (OTHER SIDE)]
[CORRUPTION: LOW]
[FLAVOR PROFILE: TOUGH, CHEWY, BARELY PALATABLE]
[BIOMASS VALUE: VERY HIGH – CRATE YIELD ESTIMATE: 20 CANS]
[NOTE: VALUE KNOWN ONLY TO USER]
Kenji didn’t react.
He kept his expression blank as Gorrin spoke.
“It’s not good eating, but it’s dense. The nobles grill it, mostly for show. But I figure your machine can make better use of it.”
“How much you asking per crate?”
“Ten cans. Assorted. Nothing fancy.”
Kenji gave the faintest shrug. “Deal.”
Lira blinked. “Wait—aren’t we—”
He waved her off and typed the command.
Ten assorted cans slid out of the dispenser:
? Kenji’s Defrosted Feast Kit?
? Kenji’s Carnival Meat Medley?
? Kenji’s Forgotten Festival Soup?
? Kenji’s Grilled Sadness Deluxe?
? Kenji’s Meat-In-Name-Only Surprise?
? Kenji’s Protein Crunchlog?
? Kenji’s Second Chance Stew?
? Kenji’s Bonus Noodle Pack?
? Kenji’s Don’t-Ask Jerky?
? Kenji’s Red Label Emergency Broth?
Gorrin whistled low. “Looks fancier than it tastes, I bet.”
“Maybe,” Kenji said with a faint grin. “Let me know.”
Gorrin nodded, collected the crates, and hauled two more off the sled.
“Three crates total. Same deal?”
“Done.”
The system pinged behind him as Kenji fed the first crate into the biomass chute.
[BIOMASS YIELD PROCESSED: +20.3 CANS]
[UPGRADE BAR: +2.0%]
He didn’t say a word.
No one else in the room knew how valuable the meat really was—not even Gorrin. Kenji handed over thirty cans in total, and earned back over sixty in biomass.
“You’ll be back?” he asked.
“If I don’t die on the way,” Gorrin smirked.
Kenji nodded. “Then you’re welcome anytime.”
Gorrin tipped his head, gave Elyra a polite nod, and vanished back into the white horizon with his beast.
Lira finally spoke. “You overpaid.”
Kenji didn’t look up from the biomass screen.
“No. I didn’t.”
TRADE LOG:
? 3 Crates Received (Est. Value: 60 Cans Biomass)
? 30 Cans Paid (Assorted)
? Net Gain: +30 Cans in System Energy
Surface Ghost
Far below the frozen hellscape, past the sealed pressure doors and humming air scrubbers of Bastion-9, people talked.
They didn’t speak Kenji’s name. They didn’t know it.
But they whispered about him.
“There’s a man up top who sells food. Real food.”
“My cousin’s squad reached him. Said he’s got an auto-turret, can cook anything, and takes meat from demons.”
“They say the truck feeds you, then judges your soul.”
“Some say he’s not even real. Just an AI with a personality glitch.”
Even in noble lounges where wine was filtered algae and bread was compressed fungus, rumors trickled up.
A few nobles tried to chart the Shack’s location, but the maps never matched. The surface changed too often. What was a slope one week became a chasm the next.
“He’s a ghost,” one drunken merchant said, swirling a glass of thawed fruit mash. “A ghost chef. Feeding the damned.”
Back at the Shack, Kenji lounged in his chair with a can of Kenji’s Anti-Hero Chili?, reading the latest trade pings on his system console.
[REQUEST: INFO ON FOOD ORIGINS – FROM UNKNOWN NODE]
[REQUEST: MAP COORDINATES – DENIED AUTOMATICALLY]
[MESSAGE: ‘Are you real?’ – FROM USER: FrozenFeastFan]
He ignored all of them.
Outside, a faint breeze dragged a scrap of paper along the snow. It had a hand-drawn image—poorly sketched, crayon on scavenged plastic. It showed a boxy truck surrounded by smiling stick people with little “!!” floating above their heads.
At the bottom, someone had written:
“Thank you, Shack Ghost. You fed my family.”
Kenji stared at it for a long time.
Then picked it up and stuck it to the inside of a storage cabinet with a magnet labeled “BEANS ONLY.”
Lira saw him do it. She said nothing, just smiled to herself.
Elyra poked her head in from outside. “Turret pinged earlier. False alarm. Just a snow bat.”
“Figures,” Kenji said. “Even the wildlife’s afraid of us now.”
He leaned back, staring at the snow.
His Shack was a myth.
Elyra’s Hunt
Kenji stood at the Shack’s open side hatch, wind biting against his cheeks, eyes narrowed against the glare of the snow.
“You sure about this?” he asked.
Elyra tightened the straps on her gear—light, flexible armor reinforced with metal plates scavenged from melted drone panels. Her twin knives gleamed with a soft blue hue, coated in anti-corrosion serum.
“You need more salvage. We haven’t had a fresh drop site since the noble convoy. I tracked a crash ping northwest—looked like a scavenger crawler hit something nasty.”
Kenji sighed. “You don’t owe me solo work.”
She smirked. “I don’t owe you anything. I just hate being bored.”
“If you die, I’m not replacing you.”
“If I die, I expect a can named after me.”
“Deal.”
With that, she vanished into the frost.
Six hours later…
The turret pinged twice, and Kenji looked up.
[SIGNATURE RETURNING – IDENTIFIED: ELYRA – STATUS: INJURED]
He rushed to the hatch and caught her just as she staggered through the door—one arm limp, her shoulder bleeding, her hair frozen in chunks of ice.
“Sit down. Don’t bleed on the ammo.”
“Wasn’t planning to.”
Lira shrieked when she saw the blood and immediately began fussing with bandages and heat packs. Elyra growled through her teeth but didn’t stop her.
Kenji popped open a med-spray and began sealing the worst wound on her side.
“You got it?”
Elyra tossed down a scorched, blackened power core—still warm.
“Found two wrecked crawlers. No survivors. Whatever hit them… wasn’t human. I grabbed what I could.”
Kenji scanned the power core.
[ITEM: High-Efficiency Dual Core – STATUS: Damaged, Repairable]
[ESTIMATED ENERGY OUTPUT: +12.5 Cans Equivalent]
“That’s going to help.”
He glanced at her torn armor—shredded in the back, the right pauldron half-melted.
“I’ll reinforce your gear. System’s got new blueprints now.”
She muttered something under her breath and looked away—but not before Kenji saw the smallest flicker of relief in her eyes.
Lira sat beside her, arms crossed, watching Kenji silently.
She didn’t say it out loud… but it was clear:
They both cared.
SALVAGE ACQUIRED:
? 1x Dual Power Core
? 2x Scorched Alloy Plating
? 1x Partially Intact Drone Brain (Encrypted)
ELYRA STATUS: STABILIZED – WOUNDS SEALED – ARMOR 40% INTEGRITY
UPGRADE BAR: 61.1%
Lira’s Position
The Shack was quiet. Too quiet.
Kenji leaned back in his seat, watching processed metal pour into the system’s inventory list. Salvaged alloys, condensed polymer bricks, stripped wiring—all ticking up in steady rhythm.
“Not bad,” he muttered, biting into a can of Kenji’s No-Effort Meal Mash?. “I’ve got enough junk to build a second turret if things go south.”
Lira hovered nearby, arms crossed, pretending to be busy organizing the food labels. She kept glancing toward him. Again.
“What now?” Kenji grunted.
“That courier yesterday… she smiled too much.”
“So?”
“She was looking at you.”
Kenji didn’t look away from the screen.
“Lira, I’m fifty-four, smell like burned protein bars, and have a gut. If she’s into that, she needs therapy.”
Lira grumbled something under her breath and went back to wiping down the storage crates. She always got territorial after a trade involving pretty women.
Kenji didn’t care.
Let her pout. As long as she kept logging supply values and massaging his back after long days, she could glare at every woman in the wasteland for all he cared.
“You’re tense again,” she said, already moving behind him.
“Yeah,” Kenji muttered. “Turret doesn’t rotate evenly. Must’ve scraped during the last storm.”
She didn’t reply—just started rubbing his shoulders, fingers instinctively finding the pressure points along his upper back.
Kenji closed his eyes for a moment, letting out a low groan.
“You’re useful for one thing, at least.”
Lira smiled faintly. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Elyra peeked into the Shack, her ears twitching. “I smell insecurity.”
“I smell useless commentary,” Kenji shot back.
Elyra rolled her eyes and disappeared.
Kenji stayed still, letting the massage continue while staring at the slow rise of the upgrade bar. He didn’t care if Lira got possessive. Let her act clingy. As long as she stayed loyal and kept working, he didn’t mind.
He just wanted food, peace, warm naps, and back rubs.
UPGRADE BAR: 63.5%
Surface Taxes
The knock was too polite.
Kenji raised an eyebrow as the turret feed showed a small snow-skimmer parked twenty meters from the Shack. Sleek design, chrome plating, house insignia etched in gold across the side.
[VISUAL ID: NOBLE TRANSPORT – BASTION LINNIS CREST DETECTED]
[ESCORT: 2 AUGMENTED BODYGUARDS – NON-HOSTILE]
Kenji didn’t like gold.
He let the turret track them without disabling its trigger.
The door opened, and a young nobleman stepped out—white coat, high collar, smug grin. His face practically screamed inherited arrogance. His boots didn’t even have snow on them. He’d ridden the whole way.
The guards stood tall beside him, mechanical implants humming faintly.
Kenji stayed inside and opened comms.
“State your business. Quickly.”
“Ah! Shackmaster, I presume.” The noble swept into a bow. “I am Lord Rylin of House Linnis. I come on behalf of the Bastion Surface Asset Division.”
Kenji stared blankly. “The what.”
“You see,” Rylin continued, “you’ve been operating a business on surface land that technically falls under historical noble territory. According to dormant claims filed two decades ago, this ice ridge falls under Linnis border jurisdiction.”
“And?”
“And we’d like to formalize it with a licensing fee. For land use.”
Kenji blinked once.
Then slowly walked over to the dispenser and tapped a button.
The delivery hatch opened with a quiet hiss.
A single can slid out, hot and steaming.
Rylin’s face lit up—until he read the label:
Kenji’s Tax Collector Tears?
“Now with added salt from noble whining.”
Rylin’s smile froze. “Is this… supposed to be a joke?”
Kenji’s voice didn’t rise. “Let me explain something. The only laws that apply out here are the ones written by turrets. This isn’t a Bastion. This isn’t your territory. This is my Shack. And if you try to strong-arm me again, the turret’s going to explain it to your ribcage.”
Rylin’s face twitched. One of the guards stepped forward, only to get pinged immediately by the turret’s targeting beam.
[THREAT DETECTED – LOCKED]
The guard froze.
Kenji continued. “Now, take your fake tax claim, your haircut, and that shiny sled, and disappear.”
Rylin opened his mouth.
The turret powered up.
He closed it again.
Moments later, the skimmer was gone—kicking up snow as it retreated at full speed.
Kenji tossed the can of Tax Collector Tears? into a crate labeled “Petty Politics.”
Lira didn’t say a word.
Elyra stifled a laugh.
Kenji exhaled.
“Surface taxes. They really tried it.”
REPUTATION UPDATE:
? Bastion Linnis: Hostile
? “Unlicensed Operation” Claim: Rejected
UPGRADE BAR: 65.9%
Shack of Legends
By now, the Shack had no address.
Only stories.
In Bastion 11, a half-mad scavenger ranted about a “ghost truck” that sold food warm enough to make a grown man cry.
In Bastion 32, a starving courier swore she’d tasted meat that made her hallucinate a summer that never existed.
In Bastion 7’s slums, a makeshift shrine had formed—a rusted can nailed to a wall beneath scrawled graffiti: “He fed us when the world wouldn’t.”
And yet no one could agree where it was. Every map contradicted the last. Some said it was mobile. Others claimed it phased in and out of reality. One theory insisted the Shack only appeared to those with “the hunger of the damned.”
Kenji wasn’t interested in any of that.
He was more interested in the new alert flashing on his system:
[TRADE REQUEST: BASTION BLACKMARKET NODE]
[MESSAGE: ‘We don’t believe you exist, but if you do—name your price for one can.’]
He rolled his eyes and declined it.
Lira taped up another trade receipt on the wall. She’d started tracking them like trophies.
Elyra handed Kenji a fresh data core salvaged from the last ambush, half-melted and steaming. “This one talks about a raid team trying to map our route.”
“How’d that go for them?”
“Judging by the corpse pile? Badly.”
Kenji smirked.
Later that night, while everyone slept, he stepped outside.
The wind howled as usual. The turret buzzed softly in standby mode.
Buried beneath a ridge of snow, something stuck out—half-covered by frost and forgotten.
Kenji brushed the snow off gently.
A carved stone. Jagged, but deliberate. Letters etched with a scavenger’s knife.
“Thank you for keeping her alive.”
No signature. Just that.
Kenji stared for a long time.
Then he picked up the stone and set it near the biomass chute—off to the side, where no one would trip over it.
He didn’t tell the others.
Didn’t need to.
He went back inside, cracked open a can of Kenji’s Don’t Cry Stew?, and sat in silence.
The Shack wasn’t just a food stop anymore.
It was becoming legend.
CHAPTER 4 COMPLETE
TOTAL UPGRADE BAR: 68.4%
REPUTATION STATUS: SURFACE LEGEND – UNDERGROUND WHISPERS ACTIVE
NOTABLE TAGS UNLOCKED:
? Feeder of the Elite
? Ghost Chef
? King of Cans
? Surface Sovereign
