Chapter 64
If there was any name in Scrap Yard that carried the highest bounty and was featured most frequently in the local newspapers, it had to be Karl Lenaro.
He was rumored to be holed up somewhere in the mines of Scrap Yard—widely regarded as the leader of the Laborists and one of the most dangerous individuals.
No specific location or personal details were known.
Of course, that was because every Laborist in Scrap Yard employed every trick in the book to protect him.
But today, the man who almost never went out, Karl Lenaro, decided to leave his hiding place.
“Comrade Lenaro. It’s dangerous.”
“Still, I have to see it. I must see it for myself.”
A Saint of Healing.
This figure, who had achieved a monumental feat in the capital and risen to a position of utmost importance to both the Imperial Family and the Pantheon, was suddenly running a healing mission in some remote corner of Scrap Yard.
“Religion is the opiate of the workers. I need to see for myself what kind of person he is. If I don’t, the workers’ lives could be ruined even more than they already are.”
Three hundred years ago, Scrap Yard had suffered greatly at the hands of an Evil God.
Sweet-talking promises of an afterlife…
And then brainwashing and fanaticism. Thanks to them, the city was thrown into devastating chaos.
Driven by their indoctrination, the fanatics ignored law and order, forcing their doctrines upon others and severely undermining the basic foundations of family and society.
They refused to pay taxes and coerced tithes.
Firm in their belief of being in the right, they committed all manner of disturbances and atrocities.
They even attempted to spark a holy war, plunging the city into three years of civil strife.
And even after that, it took more than a decade to eradicate their roots completely. They spilled endless blood until the very final moment and then vanished.
Ever since then, the city had despised religion and magic.
After all, the so-called gods of the Pantheon did nothing to help, even though the city was in agony under an Evil God’s thumb; they merely stood by and watched as magic and sorcery transformed the entire place into something horrific.
That was why Lenaro decided to see for himself what kind of person this Saint was.
If by any chance he intended to exploit the workers’ miserable situation for missionary activities or planned to churn out fanatics, Lenaro was determined to stop him at all costs.
And so, for a few days, Lenaro remained thoroughly hidden, covertly observing the Saint’s healing work.
He witnessed the Saint treating the sick without proper food or rest.
He saw him spending his own money to feed the hungry.
There was no proselytizing.
Instead, the Saint wept alongside a woman who had lost her child and shared in the anger of the devastated workers.
He also saw how the police tried to drive the Saint away.
He watched the Saint refuse and speak out against them.
Still, Lenaro did not let himself be deceived.
In his eyes, anyone who revered religion or magic was never truly interested in changing the lives of the common people.
They were like jackals working for the gods they served, offering up “faith” as a sacrifice.
“You’re all fired!!”
When the police showed up to demolish the free soup kitchen and expel the patients, Lenaro looked on as the Saint stood by, powerless to protect them. Lenaro realized they had reached a critical crossroads.
In this hopeless situation…
If the Saint started spouting nonsense like, “Believe in Goddess Lilia, and you’ll find salvation,” then he would become someone the city needed to banish.
He’d be just another typical fraud who had no intention of fixing the fundamental social system and would only peddle religion.
No matter how terrible the events three hundred years ago had been, time makes people forget many things.
To workers whose daily lives were hell, being told that they could be happy if only they believed in a goddess in the heavens would sound tempting indeed.
‘Go on. The masses are leaving in despair right before your eyes. If you’re going to peddle your religion, there’s no better moment than this.
What will you do? Will you push that narcotic on them, or will you show you’re willing to address the far more fundamental problems?’
With a cynical look in his eyes, hidden among the crowd, Lenaro watched the Saint climb atop the remains of the destroyed soup kitchen.
‘I’ll bet anything he’ll bring up religion. In this grim, depressing reality, I’m sure he’ll say, “Let’s believe in the goddess anyway.”
He’s not going to eliminate the factory owners, nor will he show any intent to tackle the horrific problems of capitalism. He’ll just say,
“Let’s get by day to day on the drug,”
right? The moment he does, he becomes the enemy of the workers.’
Just as Lenaro was thinking this, the Saint spoke up.
Not once did he utter the name of Goddess Lilia.
Nor did he mention any of the Pantheon’s gods…
Nor the Emperor’s authority…
Nothing of the sort.
“A specter is haunting the Empire!!!!”
Instead, with a voice so sharp it was as though he were coughing up blood, he roared:
“It’s the specter of capitalism!! More greedy and cruel than any devil or evil deity ever recorded in history, this specter endlessly devours the souls and lives of workers, yet still howls that it’s hungry!!”
He practically howled in anguish.
“And just now, that specter openly declared it would devour the lives of everyone here, as it always has—and as it always will!! How long? How much longer will you submit to exploitation? How much longer will you live as self-professed slaves? Workers of the city!!”
The shout was so thunderous that one might doubt it was coming from a human throat. It felt as if it shook the very soul of Karl Lenaro.
The cynical gaze that had been fixed on the Saint vanished before anyone noticed.
As did it for every other worker gathered here.
Karl Lenaro was just as surprised.
The Saint did not resemble someone who had grown up a pampered flower under the gods’ protection.
He spoke more like someone who had been wounded and tormented for a long time under a capitalist society.
Hollow, vacant eyes.
A face utterly devoid of any hope for the future.
A demeanor that held no certainty of being able to make a living in this society.
No belief that tomorrow might be different from today.
No conviction that working hard would guarantee a better future.
They were all too familiar to me—because they were me.
Well, precisely speaking, they were who I used to be before I was reborn here.
Before, when I lived as Kim Min-gyu in the Republic of Korea, struggling to scrape by every day.
The only difference is that, at least in Korea, I could go to a convenience store and buy some ramen if I was hungry, visit an employment center to get some training, or go to a hospital for treatment if I fell ill.
But here, there is no safety net at all.
If you’re injured?
You die.
If you’re hungry?
You starve to death.
This place is hell.
And even if your body is healed in such a hell, what difference does it make if the system itself remains unchanged?
Sooner or later, you’d return to the factory to work, get hurt again, become homeless, wander around in misery, and die.
If I were to leave after only a week of providing healing, wouldn’t that be the cruelest thing of all?
I would simply be prolonging a hopeless life by force.
If it was going to be fixed, it needed to be fixed at the root.
That was why I shouted.
I screamed, pouring all my rage and fury into my voice.
“Look!! Look at those factory owners! They’ve melted human dignity down into mere exchange value and replaced human life with unscrupulous commercial transactions! Workers, reduced by division of labor and mechanization, have become nothing more than simple tools or components—slaves to the supervisors, employers, bourgeoisie, and this very state that watch over you each hour! Yes, you are slaves! Slaves with no hope and no certainty that tomorrow will be better! Slaves, all of you!!”
In response to my words, a shared emotion began to rise in the workers’ eyes.
Anger.
Resentment.
Parents who had watched their children die before their eyes began to weep.
Young people with hollow stares started to kindle a fighting spirit.
Those who were starving and had nothing left but their own bodies—people who had nothing to lose—started to see their eyes change, as my words sank in.
“Refuse to be slaves any longer!! Refuse to live merely as tools to enrich those factory owners!!! Don’t let yourselves be devoured by the specter of capitalism anymore! Workers! You are human beings!! You are not parts of a machine cranking away for the factories! You are not disposable parts to be thrown away and replaced the moment you’re hurt or broken! You are human beings!!”
I felt the rage in my own voice swell even further.
The convenience-store boss who never paid me for my work…
Those horrible memories at my first job, which I didn’t even want to recall…
And then the moment my very soul was crushed, when the deposit money I’d scraped together at the cost of my health was stolen in a rental scam—all that pain came rushing back at once.
“You’re not the ones in the wrong!! No one can say that those of you who’ve done everything you can to survive are in the wrong!! It’s this society’s norms and rules that are wrong!! So let’s reject those norms and rules!! Let’s not just sit by and take it anymore!! Reject a life as mere parts, and reclaim a life as human beings!!”
But no matter how terrible the suffering was for me in Korea, could it be worse than what they’ve endured here?
Worse than the anguish of parents who watched their three-year-old child die right in front of them?
“So it must be revolution!! Today, I declare revolution against this rotten world and its rules!! Let those factory owners and the rulers of this city tremble before our revolution!! We can’t let the specter of capitalism devour us any longer—we must become the ones who hunt the specter!!”
“How can we do that, Saint?!”
Someone in the crowd shouted the question.
How could we make it happen?
There’s only one way.
“Workers of the city, unite!! You have nothing to lose but your chains!! You have freedom and dignity to gain!! Fear neither guns nor swords, and do not be cowed by clubs!! Unite, and refuse to work!! Do not ever go back to the factories until you receive fair wages and humane treatment!!”
I sensed the crowd reaching a boiling point.
I raised my hand high.
“They will oppress you! They will brandish weapons to break you! But what do we have to fear?! Fight! And seize what is yours! Then we, who were nothing, shall become everything!!”
Thanks to the enhancements to my body, I was able to unleash a roar beyond imagination—loud enough to set the entire city ablaze.
It was a colossal cry.
“Refuse to live as mere parts—die as human beings!!! Do not pass on this suffering to your children!!!”
Someone in the crowd—I know not who—began to shout,
“Long live the Labor Revolution!!!”
And in the blink of an eye, that cry spread like wildfire.
I held my hand high toward the shouting masses.
“A general strike!! I hereby declare a general strike!! Shut down the factories and refuse to further feed that specter called capitalism!! Until we receive our rightful claims and respect, we will never stop!!”
My final outcry was the spark.
Thousands of workers gathered there began shouting in unison.
“Long live the revolution!!! Long live the revolution!!!”
“Lead us forward!!”
I did not turn away from their cries.
All of this started because I tried to save a single worker’s family by giving them a piece of black bread.
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