Chapter 80
"What should we do, Mayor? What on earth should we do about this…?"
Although the factory owners asked hesitantly after Jonathan Karma and his wife disappeared from the room, Mayor Byers didn't have any good answers either. But he couldn't show weakness either, so he tried hard to straighten his posture.
"Who are we? We are people who have lived in this land for at least 100 years. The history of Scrap Yard has been with us!! We won't stand by and watch Karma Company's outrageous actions! Never!! Let's fight somehow! We must fight and hold out!!"
"The day we have to pay interest is just 2 weeks away. It's troublesome if we don't receive payments."
"If the south and Magic Tower have turned their backs too, it's troublesome in many ways."
"Haha! Why are you all acting like this!? It's not like all our business partners have cut ties!! Our dealings with the north and east are still solid!! We can pay with the money received from there!"
"But what do we do about the blast furnaces cooling down?"
"We'll rebuild them!! Moreover, the regular iron blast furnaces have stopped, but the Arcane Furnaces for magic metal refining are still safe, right? We can hold out! Why are you all saying such weak things!?"
Mayor Byers desperately tried to raise his voice, but the factory owners already knew this was a finished game.
No.
Mayor Byers knew it better than anyone.
"First, we need to gather the workers again. Let's gather them again and operate the factories. We need to resume magic metal production first. We have no choice but to slowly rebuild the blast furnaces after gathering capital with that again."
"Will the workers gather again?"
At one factory owner's words, Mayor Byers clenched his fist tightly.
Normally, he would never have said such words.
But given how the situation had become, he had no choice but to make concessions.
"Let's raise the workers' wages. If we do that, they'll gather again. What else can they do? Will they abandon the jobs they've become accustomed to all their lives and go settle somewhere else?"
"...Do you think so?"
"Of course!" Mayor Byers said, but felt like he was going crazy with anxiety.
But he was desperately suppressing his anxious feelings and trying to see a positive direction somehow.
Because if he collapsed, everything would collapse.
"Let's hold out!! We can hold out!"
Just as he was shouting that.
Someone urgently knocked on the door again.
Mayor Byers really disliked that urgent knocking.
The nuclear bomb Jonathan Karma had just dropped and left was already a big enough blow.
He really wanted to avoid another burden being added here.
But reality didn't flow as he wished.
"Mayor Byers!! Someone from the police station!! Mayor!!!"
At the shout that was almost at the level of screaming, Byers had no choice but to tell them to come in.
"Come..."
"Mayor!!"
Before he could finish speaking, the door flung open and a police executive rushed in panting.
"T-the inquisitors of the Black Fortress are coming here!!"
It was as expected.
They said there would be a high-intensity tax investigation.
They were probably coming to investigate the tax investigation and why several Mammon followers came from among the factory owners.
But at the next words of Police Chief Georg.
"And the Pantheon's heresy inquisitors are searching the police station!! All the confidential documents in the station are about to fall into their hands!!"
"Ah fuck!! Really!?"
Mayor Byers had to curse again.
The secret and sticky connection between the police and factory owners.
It was the worst possible moment for the reality to be exposed that they were utilized like private service companies for factory owners rather than protecting citizens' human rights and eradicating crime.
***
The manifestation of a Demon King.
The Pantheon's response to this extraordinary matter was dazzlingly fast.
In less than a day, experienced and excellent holy knights and priests selected from each order were urgently dispatched to Scrap Yard as heresy inquisitors.
The Black Fortress also greatly increased the number of inquisitors sent to Scrap Yard.
And if there was a commonality between these two organizations, it was that they were under Iomene's command.
And Iomene was currently quite angry.
"Otto."
"Please speak, Princess."
"The Black Fortress will handle the tax investigation of the factory owners."
"We will do so."
"The Silent Order, please go into the city and investigate if there's any contamination remaining from black magic and sorcery."
"We will do as you command."
"Heresy inquisitors from other orders, go investigate the laborists. You must investigate thoroughly! As soon as you investigate what the truth was, why this situation occurred, inform me via magic communication! That's all!!"
Because most workers had left and Scrap Yard had emptied out, Iomene could openly set up an investigation headquarters in the square located in the city center.
And before long, investigation results began to come in one by one.
[There were no people contaminated by black magic or with traces of sorcery remaining among the laborists.]
[It will take some time for the workers' side because of the large numbers. We're investigating with area detection, but so far no traces of black magic or sorcery have been found. It's clean.]
There were no remaining Mammon followers.
Most had their identities exposed from the beginning by the Saint's pillar of light, and the Ketratus who were immediately deployed had cleaned up most of them and handled the aftermath neatly, so it would be more strange if anyone remained.
[And it's as expected, Holy Woman.]
[The workers' living standards are very poor.]
[Child labor was commonplace, and there are many malnourished workers.]
[There are many stories of continuous violence and threats from the police.]
[They wielded the pretext of eradicating laborists like a panacea. Unreasonable exploitation and excessively low wages. They say if you just protested to take responsibility for industrial accidents, you were immediately arrested and sent to camps as a laborist.]
[It's not just one or two cases, Holy Woman. The workers' condition is very serious. There was a reason Mammon took root.]
After receiving sufficient reports, Iomene could no longer hold back.
"Al Madai!!"
From among the Ketratus members standing guard around her, Al Madai quickly jumped out with a tense expression.
"Please speak, Holy Woman."
Iomene looked at him and smiled.
"I trust you had a good time with Grand Priest Miromel."
Al Madai closed his eyes tightly at those words.
Turning back time briefly before returning to Scrap Yard.
That was, in the brief time she returned to the capital to report to the Emperor.
Iomene returned to the White Order and showed the Ketratus who had disobeyed her words on site what the consequences were.
"Grand Priest Miromel."
"Please speak, Holy Woman."
"Shall I tell you an interesting story?"
"What is it?"
"When I was commanding on site, the Ketratus didn't follow my orders. It seems they didn't trust me."
"..."
"They said they would prioritize the Codex Prorilium over my orders, is this right? Even though according to the 7th commandment specified in the Codex, it says to absolutely obey my orders. Isn't this contradictory?"
"...We will correct it, Holy Woman."
"There's nothing to correct. It's my fault. It's natural that they didn't trust a Holy Woman who had received training for less than 3 months and was deployed to the field for the first time. My goodness! To say Dullaneer's chosen one isn't trustworthy! This sounds like saying Dullaneer himself isn't trustworthy, doesn't it?"
"I-I'm sorry. We'll make sure this never happens again."
"Yes. I believe you will."
After the conversation ended, Miromel immediately summoned Al Madai.
"Al Madai."
"Yes."
"Take off your armor and stand up straight."
A fierce noise of kicking shins and a chilling sound of slapping resounded from Grand Priest Miromel's room for a while.
"Is the Holy Woman funny to you? Huh?"
"N-no, that's not it! S-she's an inexperienced person who hasn't experienced battle yet, so we thought we should follow the Codex Prorilium instead..."
"Absolutely obeying Dullaneer's chosen one is what the Codex demands, you son of a bitch!!! If I receive one more report that the Ketratus disobeyed the Holy Woman's words, I'll throw you all in the punishment room for 1 year! Understand!!!"
Al Madai, who came out of Miromel's room, returned to the Ketratus limping.
"Gather all the kids. Oh. Tell them to come with their armor off."
And similarly, the sound of kicking shins and slapping swept through for a while, they say.
And now.
"You must not kill anyone. You can't just shoot or stab indiscriminately because you're suspicious."
Seeing Iomene's brightly smiling face, Al Madai took a tense stance at attention.
"Of course. We will absolutely obey the Holy Woman's words."
"We need to subdue Scrap Yard's police."
"The police?"
"Using violent means for private interests rather than law enforcement. Mass lynching. They are people who arrested innocent citizens just for being laborists, put them in camps, and extracted confessions through acts close to torture. Subdue them all and confiscate their weapons."
At those words, strength entered the shoulders of the Ketratus members.
"How far can we go?"
"Weapons are prohibited. Only fists and miracles. I'll only allow non-lethal subduing. If they use firearms, you may use weapons. When a facility is completely subdued, hand over on-site command to the Black Fortress inquisitors. They will handle auditing the police."
"Understood."
"Al Madai."
"Yes, Holy Woman."
Iomene smiled at him.
"Don't kill them."
"Yes. We will do so."
"Just don't kill them."
"..."
"The police here. They're very bad guys. If they resist or act prickly... just don't kill them."
A similar smile formed on Al Madai's lips.
"We will do so."
And so the Ketratus all scattered towards police facilities throughout Scrap Yard, except for a small number assigned to guard Iomene.
They didn't even need many.
Just 2-3 people per police station was enough.
"Disarm all weapons and bring them to us. This is an order from Holy Woman Iomene, the proxy of His Majesty the Emperor."
Muscle monsters over 2 meters tall.
Armor that wouldn't get scratched even if scraped with a heavy machine gun.
Pistols close to cannons and cold weapons that seemed capable of bisecting not just humans but bears.
And when they uttered those words, most police would silently gather all the weapons in the facility or station and hand them over to them without protest.
Of course, there were some who purely refused to disarm.
Scrap Yard's central police station was quite prickly.
"Block them!! You bastards!! You must block them from coming in here!! If the documents in here are exposed, you and I will all be fucked together!! Shoot to block them!! Block them by any means necessary!! Block them! Block them!!"
"Y-yes sir!"
The police chief desperately tried to block the Ketratus from entering the station.
There were too many documents and items that shouldn't be passed on still remaining inside the station that hadn't been burned or destroyed yet.
Following the chief's orders, the police blocked the station entrance while armed.
They tried to defend somehow by making barricades and human walls.
But from the Ketratus' perspective, the police's actions were just cute antics.
They didn't even need to use their fists to break through their defense.
"T-this is clearly illegal trespassing…!!
"Shoot? Then I'll shoot too?"
"..."
"Put it down."
Al Madai's language magic at the forefront was enough.
"Block them somehow! Block them..."
"Block?"
"..."
"Move aside."
Al Madai, who disarmed the police and dismantled the human wall with just a word, lightly pushed over and collapsed the clumsy barricades before heading straight to the chief's office.
"B-Block them!! Block them! Blo…"
Although the chief desperately gave orders to his subordinates until the end, the moment Al Madai entered the chief's office, he, too, had to close his mouth.
It was because he instinctively felt it was impossible to block that.
"Let's go together. Give me a tour here. Chief."
Al Madai lightly lifted the police chief with one hand, tucked him under his arm, and began walking around the station interior.
Al Madai's language magic was absolute.
"Oh! There's a safe here? Chief. Open this for me."
"I-I can't..."
"Open it."
Showing the miracle of all safes and secret document rooms opening with just a word, Al Madai walked through the station interior and soon completed the entire station tour.
"Thanks for the tour! Chief!!"
After putting down the chief he had been carrying under his arm among the disarmed police huddled together in the lobby, Al Madai patted his shoulder.
"It's a shame, but we have to go now. But don't be too sad!"
"..."
"The Black Fortress will play with you from now on! Ah! They're coming just in time! Have a fun time!!"
Al Madai waved his hand heartily before leaving with all the Ketratus members.
And his empty space was replaced by.
"This is Otto Delmark of the Black Fortress."
Otto, who entered the station interior smoking a cigarette without showing any emotion, and dozens of Black Fortress inquisitors.
"We don't want to resort to truth serums or torture either. So I hope you'll cooperate with the investigation willingly."
Otto's voice was much more polite and quiet than Al Madai's, but it was rather more terrifying because of that.
The chief felt like crying.
There was nothing he could do.