Chapter 79 - I'll Make You Regret You Were Born

"What?!"

"T-the blast furnace has cooled down! All the skilled workers who were still operating the furnace have stopped working and disappeared, so it's all cooled down!"

"Are you crazy!? H-how... J-just you? Please tell me it's just your factory..."

"It's the same for other factories!! All the skilled workers who were guarding the factories until the end have run away at once!! Now all the blast furnaces in every factory in Scrap Yard have cooled down!! There's no one working in the mines either! What do we do about this!?"

Byers drops the expensive whiskey bottle he was holding.

The bottle shattered, soaking the floor with whiskey as red as blood, but Mayor Byers didn't notice.

"T-these sons of bitches... These worms have gone mad!!"

"Mayor. It's not just the skilled workers. All the workers in the city are now rushing out of the city!! The entire Scrap Yard is emptying out!!"

"Have they gone crazy wanting to starve to death? What's outside the city!!"

"Free soup kitchens and field hospitals!!"

"What?"

"The Order of Grace and Karma Company are now supplying food on a large scale outside the city! A train full of food ingredients is being evenly distributed right now! Mayor!!"

If the shock of being rejected by Duke Lima and High Bishop Rufus felt like taking a proper punch to the solar plexus, this felt like taking a full swing to the back of the head with a large construction hammer.

Mayor Byers' face turned whiter than a corpse.

"W-where!? Where is it!?"

"It's at the east gate where the train is connected!!"

"Bring the car!! I need to go see right now!!"

It wasn't just Mayor Byers who had a fire under his feet.

Heading towards the east gate, they could see the cars of various factory owners lined up.

The next moment, in the eyes of the factory owners and Mayor Byers who rushed out with escorts from Scrap Yard's police.

A terrible sight unfolded.

"There's plenty of food! Everyone!! This is vegetable soup made with fresh vegetables just brought from the south!!"

Grand Priest Yodel and priests of the Order of Grace were distributing food to the poor with very familiar attitudes.

On one side, priests were frantically treating sick patients.

"Those who want roast turkey come this way!! These are turkeys that Chairman Jonathan Karma personally brought in!! If you prefer pork, go that way!! There's plenty of pork too!!"

And the sizzling sound of meat grilling could be heard everywhere.

Hungry workers were hurriedly eating soup and meat, and employees wearing clothes with Karma Company's emblem were busily moving around endlessly making food.

Mayor Byers and the factory owners felt their minds going blank. If it became like this, there was no reason at all for workers to return to the factories.

"T-this… This... T-this..."

While Mayor Byers was stuttering.

A middle-aged gentleman could be seen approaching them with a female secretary.

"You must be Mayor Byers. I was waiting, thinking you might come this way. I'm Jonathan Karma. This is my secretary and wife, Oliviera."

Normally, Mayor Byers should have put on an appropriate mask and smiled too.

But now there was no room to wear a mask.

"What… is this now? Mr. Jonathan Karma?"

"As you can see, we're in the middle of helping the poor? My wife and I are followers of Lilia. We can't just stand by and watch the poor and sick. Haha!"

At Jonathan's glib words, Mayor Byers' eyes rolled quickly.

He desperately suppressed his emotions and forced a smile.

"Why don't we go inside and talk? How about it?"

"Sounds good. I was having trouble standing, anyway."

Mayor Byers and the factory owners took Jonathan Karma and his wife Oliviera into the city.

Heading to the Town Hall at the center of Scrap Yard, they soon entered a grand reception room.

Before Jonathan and Oliviera could sit on the sofa, Mayor Byers hurriedly opened his mouth.

"Mr. Jonathan. I'll speak frankly."

"My. I thought you'd offer at least a cup of tea? My wife and I have simple tastes. We know how to enjoy even tea that doesn't need to be steeped for a long time."

Seeing Jonathan laugh good-naturedly, Mayor Byers felt like a thousand fires were rising inside him, but he struggled to suppress that emotion.

Now was the time to persuade Jonathan.

Not to antagonize him.

"Mr. Jonathan. Why are you doing this? Do you know how many people are in this city?"

"I understand it's slightly over 1 million."

"How much would it cost per day to feed that many people?"

"Just the food I bought today was about 100,000 saled. Given the numbers, the food costs alone are enormous."

"That's right. 100,000 saled. It's an enormous amount of money. You have to spend that money every day. You're not someone slow at calculations, so you must know how big the losses will be? Moreover, it's not just food costs, right? Operating soup kitchens and treatment centers... If you think about additional costs that will be incurred, the losses will be even greater."

"Employee wages, and the cost of transporting food here, it's certainly not a small amount of money. Moreover, we hired chefs too. They're expensive. Good chefs."

At the sight of Jonathan Karma still not erasing his smile, Mayor Byers had to desperately suppress the feeling of going crazy.

"Why are you deliberately taking such losses? Huh? You and Scrap Yard have no connection at all, right?"

"I'm in the middle of helping the city's poor with my own money? I thought the mayor would be happy."

Seeing Jonathan smile good-naturedly, Byers' patience slowly began to break.

Mayor Byers tried desperately to smile while trembling with convulsions.

"You don't have to. You don't have to do this, that's what I mean. We'll take care of Scrap Yard's affairs ourselves. I'd appreciate it if you'd stop taking losses and go back."

"As I said, I can't do that."

Crunch.

The sound of teeth grinding flowed from Mayor Byers' mouth.

"Why not?"

"Didn't I tell you? My wife and I are followers of Lilia."

"..."

"The Goddess of Grace told us to spread grace in this city. So we're spreading the goddess' will. Did you see the city's workers eating turkey? How happily they were eating. Ho ho ho! It makes me smile!"

"..."

"It reminds me of when Cecilia was young. That's my daughter's name, she's doing very well in the capital's social circles these days. So many invitations come, haha! Anyway, eating well is truly important. I know very well because my daughter was very thin when she was young..."

"Mr. Jonathan. Haha. Well. I guess I'll have to speak more honestly?"

Finally.

Mayor Byers' patience snapped.

And the factory owners' patience snapped too.

"We're telling you to stop interfering with us and leave. Stop taking our workers away."

"We're telling you to stay satisfied in the capital, Mr. Jonathan."

"You. Why are you suddenly reaching into the metal field you don't know well?"

"Do you think we'll just sit still? Your companies will need the iron we produce to make cars and build factories too, right? Do you think you'll be safe after touching the empire's largest steel production site??"

Despite the raging words of the factory owners and Mayor Byers, Jonathan still had a relaxed expression.

Leisurely letting all those sharp words flow by, he took out a cigarette from his pocket.

"Jonathan Karma!! No matter how great you are, do you think you'll be safe after turning all of Scrap Yard against you...!!"

"Since you said to be honest, I'll speak honestly too. You guys. How long do you think you can hold out against me?"

Cigarette smoke was leisurely puffed into the air.

Jonathan was still smiling.

But the feeling of the smile was different.

"3 days? A week? A month? I guarantee you'll have done well if you last about 3 weeks from now."

"Ha!! Do you think we can only last 3 weeks? Jonathan Karma?"

"You won't last more than that. Because your biggest customers, the southern factory district and Magic Tower side, will refuse to pay."

"..."

"Did you forget that most people in the southern factory district are followers of Lilia? Think of it as the price for touching the Saint. Moreover, factory operations have conveniently stopped, so you can't meet the contracted quantities, right?"

"..."

"Magic metals for the Magic Tower... Well. I promised to buy up all the magic metals from the Mars Magic Tower branch and supply them to other magic towers at cheap prices. So they won't need you for a while."

"Y-you bastard... you..."

"Moreover, the blast furnaces have all cooled down by now, right? Too bad. Iron production is impossible. You'll have to demolish and rebuild them completely. Your money supply is cut off and production is gone. Oh. And you'll have to be investigated by the Pantheon and Black Fortress, right? Undergoing heresy inquisition and tax investigation at the same time. What bad luck."

Jonathan chuckled and puffed out smoke while looking at the trembling factory owners and Mayor Byers who had lost words to say.

"You just said feeding the city's workers is a loss, right? No. I don't see it that way. I think it's an investment. An investment needed to swallow Scrap Yard whole. I investigated and found you took out quite a lot of loans from Martok Bank recently? For developing new mines?"

Mayor Byers' eyes widened.

But the next moment, his eyes had to widen even more in shock at Jonathan's following words.

"Martok Bank. As of today, it belongs to Karma Company. The seal was stamped before arriving here, so I can officially say I'm your creditor from today. Since you were shouting so confidently just now, I'm curious too. How will you repay the debt?"

"..."

"Probably soon. You'll end up handing over all the factories and companies you cherish so much to me. Whether you like it or not. Forcibly."

Only then did the factory owners and Mayor Byers realize they had messed with the wrong person.

The middle-aged gentleman with a pleasant expression in front of them didn't leisurely come just to provide food for workers.

After thoroughly calculating.

He came to hunt.

"T-that kind of money... money..."

"I'm sorry, but I have that kind of money. Mr. Byers. I can feed the nearly 1 million people out there for 10 years, buy a bank in a snap, completely rebuild all the broken blast furnaces, and transform this entire city as I want with money to spare. More precisely, just this quarter's sales of Karma Company are more than enough."

Jonathan rubbed out the cigarette he was smoking in the ashtray.

"Mr. Byers."

Jonathan and Oliviera stood up.

The couple smiled.

"Do you have confidence in winning against a company where elixir gushes out of the ground endlessly and doesn't have to pay taxes for the next 10 years?"

It was a very chilling smile.