The scrap piles are beautiful in a way, an accumulation of twisted metal as large as a town stacked into piles as large as a five story building. Every surface glistens and shines under the dim overhead lights of the windowless space, smeared in a mixture of organic and inorganic fluids and creating a slime that sticks to everything.

  Lian winces as her foot slips on an unexpectedly smooth piece of metal, slamming hip first into the ground and feeling the uncomfortably familiar sensation of gunk trying to seep through her boilersuit accompanying the bone deep pain of the impact.

  It’s beautiful in the same sense as a natural disaster. Beauty found in the scale of it all, the world showing exactly how much awfulness can be congregated into a single spot.

  Finding her feet again, the scrapper checks to make sure nothing sharp got through her suit –checks to make sure nothing sharp got through her– then stares at the goo on her suit for a few seconds, looking closely to ensure that this concoction isn't the kind that can melt things.

  Though the composition of the goo is a mystery, the manner it’s created is not. The scrap that surrounds her are the remains of all kinds of things, from old food cans, to construction debris, to old ships that had since been decommissioned.

  After the previous owner took everything they thought was valuable and sold it, it’s the scrapper's job to come in and scavenge anything left. Gathering the valuable components and metals for… an amount of money their employer considers ‘fair.’

  The more scrap she gathers, the more money she gets.

  Lian sighs through the cloth mask she’d tied over her mouth and nose as she confirms the goo covering her entire left side up to the armpit does nothing but smell awful, like rotting meat mixed with burnt plastic.

  How… wonderful.

  The scrapper drops her arm and tries to ignore the sensation of the goo soaking through her boilersuit as she gets back to work.

  Unfortunately, many of the things that the previous owners didn't want to deal with are the things that are actively toxic.

  Or corrosive.

  Or flammable.

  Or all at once, then mixed with all the other mystery fluids into an ever-changing hazard of unknown effects.

  In one spot it’s pools of liquid emitting a gas that melts lungs. A few steps over it’s a sticky black substance that ignites on contact with a boilersuit.

  Blinking rapidly to refocus, the scrapper moves forward until she spots something new enough that it hasn't been completely covered in toxic slime and quickly closes the distance.

  She’s positive her entire body is saturated with heavy metals by now, to say nothing about her lungs.

  Lian grunts in discomfort as she kneels down to the back of a fridge sized machine that looks to be…

  A giant compressor of some kind?

  She tilts her head and carefully looks over the complicated mess of half broken wires and tubing, then nods to herself before pulling a screwdriver from her hip and getting to work.

  As she does, she's once again hit by the crashing sensation of realization as she observes the complete insanity of her current existence.

  Because this is not how she’d expected death to go.

  The scrapper huffs in amusement with herself as the feeling recedes, like a wave across a beach.

  She’s thought this exact same thing more times than she cares to remember. So she multitasks, getting back to work as the tedium allows the bulk of her thoughts to follow the well worn mental path

  To an extent, she wasn't sure what she was expecting, and while reincarnation was somewhere on that list of possibilities, the exact circumstances of this reincarnation certainly weren't.

  Because waking up just over two months ago in the body of Lian the Unconquered put her far outside of anything she’d considered even remotely possible. One of the most popular recurring antagonists in Ailos, she’d seen that face cloaked in toxic power through her computer screen for so long she’d recognize it anywhere.

  Humming to herself the scrapper continues her assessment, an aimless winding tune to drown out the unpleasant ambiance of her surroundings.

  She knows Lian’s history better than almost anyone.

  Born to squalor and consigned to near certain death, the nobody clawed her way out of the scrap pits with nothing more than will and a ruthless need to survive. She grabbed power by whatever means necessary, abandoning any moral or principle to hold on to the scraps she could take. Without a sect, she cultivated the toxins of her origin into strength and turned poisons that tried to kill her into bottomless strength.

  Only to turn all that strength around to destroy the universe that tried so hard to kill her.

  The scrapper’s aimless humming trails off with a consternated grunt as one screw gets stubborn, but with a bit more effort, the resistance gives way and the humming resumes.

  Apparently the original’s survival was a very close thing in the original timeline, because when she’d woken up in this body it was in a literal hole in the wall, delirious with fever as her body struggled to work its way though some kind of toxin.

  She’d found the poison cultivation manual where the original had hidden it a few weeks later, practically dissolving paper barely legible, and while it is the optimal pick for power that method is fantastically lethal even under optimal circumstances.

  Thinking about it, that’s not really a surprise that the original’s survival was so tenuous, poison cultivators are a late game thing, requiring mountains of infrastructure to keep them alive as they constantly ingest enough poisons to almost kill them, until they get over the damage breakpoint and snowball.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Lian sighs, squinting at a bundle of loose wires to figure out if there’s a capacitor on this circuit large enough to be dangerous.

  Attempting to cultivate any poison art without a proper setup is just stupid. Especially considering the fact that poison cultivation automatically gives a reputation debuff so heavy that even before core condensation almost every merchant and station blacklists the character.

  Pulling a panel away only to be greeted by yet another, the scrapper rolls her eyes as she drags herself deeper into the mechanism.

  Lian isn't sure if it was the poisoning or the whole reincarnation thing that wiped this body's memories, but she remembers nothing this body experienced before she’d woken up. She didn't even recognize where she was –let alone who– until just over a week of living here, when she’d seen her reflection for the first time in a piece of shiny metal.

  But just judging by the complete lack of money or food inside of what passes for her home now, it's a reasonable assumption that the original Lian had little understanding of machines.

  Which would make this job… difficult, to say the least.

  The scrapper grunts as she removes a component and almost drops it as the plate proves much heavier than expected.

  Thankfully, she has a rather in-depth knowledge of mechanics and engineering, though not an expert in the field, it’s proven to be a good enough starting point on how to take things apart somewhat safely and where valuable components are most likely to be.

  There’s the sound of groaning metal somewhere above, a sound that makes Lian freeze like a wild animal, eyes flickering erratically about for signs of collapse.

  A few seconds later nothing happens, so the scrapper slowly returns her attention to her work.

  …This is despite the differences in the laws of physics here.

  Regardless, this knowledge has allowed her to sell enough junk to live.

  ‘Live’ as in she can buy enough food that her body is no longer cannibalizing itself nourishment.

  So things are looking up!

  Removing the cover to see the internals, multiple small grease pencil marks on components are a good sign that someone had properly decommissioned this thing before sending it here.

  Thank goodness.

  She’ll still need to be careful to make sure the pressurized parts are fully bled, but for a compressor this big, even in this universe, they have to be using monocrystalline blades, one of the more common high value finds.

  They’ll probably be made of a nickel dominant alloy as well…

  Lian feels saliva pooling in her mouth at the thought.

  Slowly and methodically pulling out hodgepodge tools to do the safety tests, it’s hard to avoid the long overplayed thought that this would be so much easier if she had the proper equipment. But the mental grumbling is interrupted as she feels the goo she’d fallen into beginning to sting as it touches her skin through the boilersuit.

  She pauses, looking at the dark stain on the surface of her suit and confirms again that it’s not eating through the material.

  It’s always good to double check, but she recognizes this particular sensation as just a mild acid. It doesn't feel strong enough to dissolve her skin and, with any luck, whatever else is in there won't kill her either.

  With her checks complete as well as they can with the tools available, the scrapper moves her body to be behind the thickest bit of metal as much as possible before turning the screw she’s… pretty sure will bleed the coolant line that’s as thick as her arm, then sags a little in relief as it releases a small hiss and nothing else.

  Continuing her disassembly, she pulls a chunk of electronics from deep within and blinks at the circuit board in front of her, eyes lingering on the serial number of one of the capacitors.

  If it’s undamaged…

  Quickly, she pulls out one of the few specialty tools the scrapping company gave her, a solder remover, and removes the capacitor from the board before putting it in her personal bag.

  Unfortunately, she’d found the compressor late in her shift, so she can only get about halfway to the prize at the center before a loud buzzer sounds from high above, followed by the buzzing voice of the forman.

  “Second shift, you’re done! Clear out! You’ve got till the next buzzer to get the last of your stuff to the counter!”

  Lian sighs as she stands up from her kneeling crouch, looking at the half disassembled machine in front of her, then dragging a large piece of rusted metal in front of it.

  Hopefully it’ll still be here tomorrow, it’d be a shame to waste all that effort for almost nothing.

  Getting down the two story building worth of sharp metal she’s standing on is just as hazardous as the first time she’d done it, but once more she manages it without injuring herself. As she walks to the counter, she gives a small wave at the first other scrapper she sees, answered by a fleeting glance and silence as they make their way to the front.

  The ‘counter,’ a long row of people sitting behind reinforced glass, already has a line forming. Luckily Lian gets to one of the last windows without someone already there.

  The man on the other side looks tired as he presses the button for the intercom.

  “Any large or medium items?” He asks, eyes perking up slightly as Lian shakes her head.

  “Nope. Got that done before last call.”

  He nods, pressing another button, and a chute opens on the table in front of her.

  “Deposit all small items in the receptacle provided.” He says, but she’d already done so before he could even finish his sentence, so he waits a second for her to drop anything else before pressing the same button and the hole closes. “Hold please while the system calculates your total.”

  There's a metallic chattering, muffled by the counter, before her day's current total appears on a six segment display mounted against the inside of the window. The number then flashes and reappears with the value of the newest haul added on top.

  Just over a hundred thirty marks, a bit more than what she’d expected.

  With her total calculated, the clerk opens a drawer full of coins and begins counting out her payout, but as he places the stack into the airlock for her to release them, Lian raps her knuckles on the countertop.

  “You got the count wrong.” She says calmly. Seeing he’s ignoring her, she raises her voice. “I’m owed forty marks more than what you’re giving me.”

  Looking at the small tower of coins, it looks like he tried to use a few lower value coins to make the pile as high as it should be, but swapped a few twenty mark coins for ones worth five.

  The clerk pauses, looks at her, then looks behind her where she knows a growing line of hungry scrappers are staring at him through the glass, then tosses more coins into the airlock to make up the remainder and closes the thick glass door with a huff.

  “When did they start teaching you lot how to read?” He mutters with his head down to the drawer, then looks her in the eyes as he closes the drawer and continues at a normal volume. “Clear the counter! Next!”

  Lian hurriedly grabs the coins from the airlock and complies, squeezing through the thickening crowd to get to the decontamination showers.

  She doesn't know the laws of this place, but from everything else she’s seen, she’d have to assume these showers are only here because the people in charge don't want all the toxins clogging up their air systems and forcing the business to avoid contaminating everything outside, so she gets to shower.

  With the months worth of practice, she’s able to strip her boilersuit and heavy boots and step under the chemically treated lukewarm water in under ten seconds, breathing a sigh of relief as it neutralizes most of the chemical reactions happening on her skin.

  She can't idle for long. She’s got two minutes in here and if she wants her boilersuit not to sting when she goes to sleep in it tonight, she needs it as clean as possible.

  With that thought in mind, she gets to work, using a combination of fingers and rubbing the cloth against the stained tiles on the walls to get most of the goo out of the boilersuit.

  …She’d like to say this isn't the worst job she’s ever had but, unfortunately, while working customer service comes close, the constant poisoning and risk of instant, painful death tips it over the edge.

  Two minutes later and everything is… adequate, so the scrapper wrings out as much water as possible from her suit before putting everything back on and heads to the exit.