Raynor shoveled dung while dodging Squigs that could charge at any moment, feeling as overworked as a beast of burden.
This shell was inherently stiff with uncoordinated movements. Combined with his nerves, he nearly got flattened by a Squig several times. Once, a large red beast lunged at him, and he scrambled away on all fours, dropping his shovel in the process. The Squig thundered past, crashing into the fence with a resounding boom. If he had been a second slower, his "account" would have been deleted right then and there.
Yagg, on the other hand, was incredibly skilled. He shoveled while grumbling and cursing, occasionally finding time to smack a disobedient Squig with his shovel. Under his hands, those violent creatures actually behaved themselves much better.
"Don't just stand dere!" Yagg shouted, slapping his shovel against the face of a Squig trying to lunge. "Work faster! If we don't finish 'fore dark, da Boss gonna dock our teef!"
The "Boss" Yagg referred to was the gang leader in charge of the Muscle Squig sector. Under his command, besides the Muscle Squigs, there was also a "Spicy Squig" sector. In short, neither was a particularly pleasant place to work.
Raynor gritted his teeth and kept shoveling, tossing piles of manure—some nearly as tall as Yagg—into a cart. Sweat poured down his forehead, dripping into the filth. His arms shook and his back ached, but he didn't dare stop.
After cleaning the entire enclosure, Yagg took him to collect their pay. The minor headman of this pen—a Grot even scrawnier than Yagg—sat behind a table made of ammunition crates. He sat with his legs crossed, puffing on a rolled cigarette he'd found somewhere, his expression arrogant.
Yagg dumped the manure from the cart into a designated pit and led Raynor to the window. "Pay fer today."
The Grot glanced at them, fished two items out of a drawer, and tossed them onto the windowsill.
Two teeth.
They were of common quality, smaller than the imitations on Yagg's necklace, with yellowed surfaces, cracks, and worn edges. They were probably just enough to trade for two Squig pies and two cups of mushroom beer.
Raynor held the two teeth and sighed. This was the least amount of money he had ever earned in his life, for the most exhausting work. When he was a tax collector on Necromunda, he could at least sit in an office drinking tea and occasionally skim some extra cash from the black market. When he was the Governor of Brevis, a single word from him could mobilize rations for tens of millions, and a single house raid could yield tens of thousands of tons of grain. Now, after a grueling day of shoveling dung, all he had to show for it were two broken teeth.
However, there was a silver lining: his control over this body had improved, and he was no longer as sluggish as he had been at the start.
As the light faded, the day's work finally came to an end. Yagg led Raynor back to his "home"—a shack built of scrap iron and plastic sheeting, low-slung, cramped, and drafty. The iron was covered in rust and holes, and the plastic flapped loudly in the wind. A tattered rag hung over the entrance as a curtain; inside were a few pieces of cardboard and a moth-eaten blanket that smelled of mildew.
But Yagg was very satisfied. "I saved heaps of teef to get dis place!" he said proudly, pointing to every corner of the shack. "Good spot, close to work, easy commute!"
"Look at dese walls, proper sturdy! Look at da roof, no leaks! Look at da floor..." He kicked the cardboard beneath his feet. "Proper soft!"
Raynor looked at the space, which could barely fit two people lying down, and didn't know what to say. This place probably didn't even compare to the bathroom of his rented apartment in his previous life. But Yagg was serious; he truly felt this was a great place. In his eyes, having shelter from the wind and rain, a steady job, and food to eat was the definition of the good life.
Lying on the hard ground, Raynor felt like his body was falling apart. Controlling this shell was much more exhausting than using his own body. His muscles ached, his joints were stiff, and his back felt like it had been beaten with a club. Since the nervous system of this shell wasn't original to him, the feedback of fatigue was amplified. It wasn't just the feeling of being "tired and wanting to sleep"; it was the feeling of "I'm about to break."
Yagg fell asleep quickly, snoring and occasionally mumbling in his sleep. "Me teef, all mine... dat git Pico! One day..."
Raynor listened to the mumbling and closed his eyes. His consciousness began to float upward. It felt like rising from deep water as his surroundings receded—the stench of Squigs, the sound of Yagg's snoring.
On the bridge of the Peak Obsidian.
His physical body was still sitting there, maintaining the posture from when he left. Through the viewport, the faint outline of Brevis was still visible. The expedition fleet had only recently departed from the planet.
Raynor opened his eyes. Beside him, the mini-Ripper was perched on his shoulder. The little creature tilted its head, seemingly waiting for him to speak.
"How was it?" Sarah's voice echoed in his mind, tinged with curiosity.
Raynor thought for a moment. "Tiring," he sighed, then chuckled. The smile was weary and helpless.
He stood up, and the feeling of lightness in his own body gave him a true sense of having returned. He stretched and turned to look at the chronometer on the bridge. Three standard hours and seven minutes had passed since his consciousness transfer.
Only three hours.
But in that Greenskin shell, it felt like at least twelve hours had passed. From waking up and familiarizing himself with the environment, to meeting the Grot named Pico, listening to Yagg talk about the ranch, and shoveling dung all day—every detail was vivid, and the fatigue of every shovel-load was incredibly real.
Raynor leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He began to review the discrepancy in time perception. In the galaxy, only the Tyranids could rival the growth cycle and speed of the Greenskins. An Ork Boy could grow from a spore and be ready for the battlefield in just a few days—sometimes even instantly upon emerging from the ground.
That "time perception" difference might be the reason they could expand and evolve so rapidly. In their perception, time was stretched, allowing them to grow faster and learn more quickly. This gave Raynor a brand-new understanding of the horror of the Greenskin race. It wasn't just their numbers or the power of "Waaagh!"; it was the growth rate etched into their genes. They grew into individuals in one percent of the time humans did, and learned to build guns in one-thousandth of the time. Then, they surged forward in overwhelming waves to drown you in numbers.
He took a deep breath and pulled his thoughts back. Now wasn't the time to marvel at how terrifying the Orks were. He had more important things to consider.
If Itachi remained a dung-shoveling Grot lackey, he would never get ahead, even if he worked for a lifetime. He had to find a way to complete his primitive accumulation quickly and get the means of production into his own hands. However, operating in Greenskin society was much simpler than in human society. Their rules were cruder and their logic more direct; unlike climbing the ladder in the human world, there was no need to worry about outside factors like the Adeptus Arbites or the Inquisition.
But Raynor also knew that the Itachi shell wasn't perfect yet. If he exposed himself to everyone too early, he would easily draw unwanted attention. He needed someone to act on his behalf in the open—a proxy who wouldn't arouse suspicion.
And Yagg was the perfect fit.