The Graveyard of Dreams

A week.

Seven days since I had crash-landed on this godforsaken planet.

The first two had been the worst. My body had still been recovering from the landing, the stiffness of my limbs reminding me that no amount of training could fully prepare someone for a crash of that magnitude. The bruises, the soreness, the exhaustion—none of it mattered. I was here. I was alive.

And I had work to do.

Survival had become routine. My rations were limited, but I stretched them as best as I could. Water, oxygen, food—everything was accounted for with the cold precision of someone who knew that one miscalculation meant death.

At night, when the Martian cold seeped through the metal of my ship, I forced myself into a restless sleep, dreaming of Earth. Of Sienna and Camille. Of streets filled with light and sound. Of air that didn't taste like recycled systems and desperation.

But in the morning, I woke.

And I walked.

When I had first landed, after completing my event quest, I had expected something grand—some kind of revelation, a surge of new abilities that would change everything.

Instead, I had been told this:

New Job Acquisition Failed – No Job Stations Nearby

It had taken me a full five minutes to process what that meant.

I had officially become an S-Rank astronaut, which made adjusting to Mars' gravity easier, but the system couldn't generate a new job because there was nowhere to register me.

Because I was alone.

No job station. No recognition. No title.

I was a man without a world.

But the system had provided an alternative.

Alternative Reward Issued – Database Scan Function Unlocked

Unlike my normal Scan, which let me see people's jobs and skills, this Database Scan allowed me to analyze anything around me—materials, objects, even geological formations—and pull public data on them.

It wasn't flashy.

It wasn't something that would immediately save my life.

But it was something.

And right now, something was all I had.

Every day, I walked.

The ship's oxygen system, while functional, was damaged. If I didn't fix it, I'd suffocate before help could ever arrive. That meant finding materials, and Mars wasn't exactly rich with convenient supply caches.

Using Database Scan, I identified deposits of raw iron, nickel, and aluminum embedded in the rocky terrain. The issue? I couldn't process, smelt, or refine them. Not yet.

But I took them anyway.

Each day, I carried whatever I could back to the ship, stockpiling the materials like a scavenger hoarding scraps of a dying world.

It wasn't enough, but it was a start.

The worst part?

The sandstorms.

Mars' storms weren't like Earth's. They weren't violent hurricanes that would sweep me away. Instead, they were long, endless blizzards of dust, stretching for miles, making navigation impossible.

They blinded me. They forced me to rely on my sense of direction, to feel the pull of gravity and the shifting sands beneath my boots. Even with my S-Rank astronaut title, even with my refined control over my movements, I could do nothing against weeks-long storms that could erase all visibility.

When they came, I hunkered down.

And when they passed, I walked again.

On the 15th day, I decided to visit the place where I should have crashed.

Where I would have crashed had I not ignited the left booster in time.

It was a morbid curiosity. A detective's instinct.

As I climbed the sand hill, my boots crunching against fine red grains, I let out a slow breath. The landscape stretched before me—barren, endless. And yet, something felt… wrong.

A feeling crawled up my spine.

I crested the hill—

And stopped.

My breath caught in my throat.

Wreckage.

And not just one or two, but dozens of them.

My heartbeat pounded in my ears. My fingers twitched at my sides as I took slow, careful steps forward.

Rocket debris. Scattered fuselages. Shattered hulls. Some were rusted and ancient, buried halfway beneath the sand as if Mars itself had tried to erase them. Others were recent, their logos and insignias still visible beneath layers of dust.

All from different organizations.

Some were private companies—ones that still existed, still operated back on Earth. Others bore the marks of long-defunct agencies, their names nothing more than whispers in history books.

I stepped closer, my breathing shallow.

A half-buried spacecraft with a familiar insignia. Another with markings I recognized from European and Asian space programs.

My Database Scan ran automatically, feeding me information.

Names. Launch dates. Missions.

Each and every one of them shouldn't be here.

I took another step forward, my boots pressing into the soft red sand.

Then—

Something snapped into place.

A slow, creeping realization.

I wasn't supposed to survive my crash.

Neither were they.

This was planned.

All of it.

I turned in a slow circle, my gaze sweeping over the wreckage again, as if seeing it for the first time.

Some of these rockets were decades old. Others were from recent years.

And they had all crashed in the same place.

A cleanup site.

A place where disappearances could be erased with time and dust.

And I had almost been one of them.

My breathing was steady. My thoughts were not.

The crash site had given me the pieces I needed.

Now, my Deduction (Lv. 7) skill put them together.

1. My ship had a deliberate system failure.

The right booster had exploded. The oxygen leak, the misfire—it had been too precise, too specific to be an accident.

2. Every ship here had been from a major space organization.

None of these were random crashes. These were from official programs. And yet, their failures had never been reported.

3. This location was the perfect kill zone.

Far from civilization. A place where people were meant to disappear. It also made cleaning up easier in the future, since everything crashed in the same location.

4. Someone was behind this.

Someone high enough to orchestrate this. Someone who had decided who lived and who didn't.

My stomach turned.

I looked back at my own ship, perched at an angle on the sand hill. The only one still intact. The only one that had fought against its fate.

They had wanted me dead.

Just like the others.

But why?

My throat was dry.

The World President.

The title I had screamed in my madness.

Was this… their doing?

I clenched my fists. The wind howled softly around me, a cruel whisper against my helmet before turning back to the wreckage, staring at the ruins of those who had come before me.

And for the first time since landing on Mars, I felt something deeper than survival.

Rage.

Whoever was behind this had sent me here to die.

They had sent all of them here to die.

And they thought no one would ever find out.

I exhaled sharply.

They were wrong.

--------------

[SYSTEM INTERFACE]

Name: Mr. Angel (Reynard Vale, Mr. Fox, Mr. Dust)

Job Title: Jobmaster (Rank SSS)

Construction Worker Portfolio (A-Rank):

Endurance Boost (Lv. 10)

Heavy Lifting (Lv. 8)

Material Efficiency (Lv. 5)

Team Coordination (Lv. 6)

Structural Reinforcement (Lv. 7)

Precision Engineering (Lv. 6)

Fast Assembly (Lv. 2)

On-Sight Adaptability (Lv. 2)

Workforce Command (Lv. 2)

Rope Handling Mastery (Lv. 5)

Firefighter Portfolio (A-Rank):

Advanced Rescue Mastery (Lv. 8)

Fire Suppression (Lv. 3)

Heat Resistance (Lv. 3)

Command Presence (Lv. 8)

Advanced Hazard Assessment (Lv. 7)

Thermal Perception (Lv. 6)

Endurance Mastery (Lv. 7)

Detective Portfolio (S-Rank):

Observation (Lv. 8)

Deduction (Lv. 7)

Interrogation (Lv. 6)

Instinct (Lv. 7)

Psychological Insight (Lv. 5) 

Visible Job Skills:

Strategist (Lv. 4) – Improves planning and problem-solving abilities

Hand-to-Hand Combat (Lv. 1) - Enhances physical proficiency in unarmed combat, improving speed, strength, and the ability to anticipate and counter attacks.

Blueprint and Schematic Reading (Lv. 1): Increases ability to interpret mechanical diagrams, wiring schematics, and technical drawings.

Zero-Gravity Maneuvering (Lv. 4) – Improves movement and coordination in microgravity environments, ensuring efficiency when performing tasks in space. 

Spacecraft Operation (Lv. 3) – Enhances the ability to control and operate spacecraft systems, including navigation, propulsion, and communication, both in space and during re-entry.

Scientific Research in Space (Lv. 3) – Improves ability to conduct experiments, analyze data, and document findings in microgravity and space environments.

Mechanical Mastery (Lv. 4) – Enhances skill in diagnosing, repairing, and optimizing mechanical systems across various industries.

Astrophysics Understanding (Lv. 5) – Boosts comprehension of celestial mechanics, cosmic phenomena, and space weather, aiding scientific research and navigation.

Jobs:

Construction Worker (A-Rank) — Active in Portfolio

Firefighter (A-Rank) — Active in Portfolio

Detective (S-Rank) — Active in Portfolio

Astronaut (S-Rank)

Special Skill:

Scan, Absorb, Destroy, Database

Cooldown:

Skill Copy (Ready for Use)

Available Rewards:

[1 Job Select]

[1 Skill Level-Up]