Chapter 75
The labor radicals in the room split into two groups.
Some stared silently at the documents from the Mammon cult, endlessly flipping through the pages without saying a word.
Others erupted with fury.
“It’s a lie! There’s no way we’d ever do this!”
“I’m supposed to become a camp warden—rounding up dissidents, brainwashing, torturing them? Me?! I would never do that! Not to our comrades—our fellow workers! Never!!”
I waited in silence.
Waited for their anger to erupt. For their denial to run its course. For their anxiety and fear to pour out completely.
For thirty chaotic minutes, the room buzzed like a storm.
And then, one by one, the labor radicals collapsed into their seats.
Silence returned.
Karl Lenaro let the papers fall from his hands, burying his face in them as his whole body trembled.
I glanced at the pages he had dropped.
A future meticulously planned:
A world where famine is engineered intentionally, where millions die of starvation.
A dictatorship, not a utopia of workers, but a country where everyone is equally poor, ruled by fear.
A future where, driven by paranoia, the leader obsessively purges anyone he suspects as a threat, eliminating one political enemy after another.
Eventually, he trusts no one.
He ends up ruling the empire through letters from a locked room, until a cerebral hemorrhage brings him down—but the guards, too afraid to enter, leave him to die alone, untreated.
His corpse, preserved in a glass coffin, becomes an idol worshiped by future generations of radicals.
It was all laid out clearly, right there on the page.
“Lies! This has to be lies! There’s no way I’d end up like this! I… I just wanted to help the workers! To improve the lives of the oppressed! There’s no way this is how it ends!”
Karl cried out, his voice cracking with anguish.
“But Mammon is gone now, isn’t he, Holy One? So this future—this future won’t come to pass either, right? The labor movement! My comrades! Me! We wouldn’t… we couldn’t turn into such monsters! Please… tell me that’s true!”
I didn’t answer.
I already had.
They just couldn’t accept it.
One of the labor radicals muttered blankly.
“It would’ve been easier if it were all nonsense. But it’s too convincing. It’s terrifying. If this plan had gone ahead... I really might’ve turned into the person written on these pages.”
Another nodded grimly.
“My past, my personality, my trauma—my beliefs… Everything’s been accounted for. Calculated. I don’t know how, but they knew everything.”
Someone suddenly started laughing.
“What the hell have we even been fighting for? If this is how it ends, what was the point of all the pain, all the effort?”
“In the end, we’re the ones who’ll cause the most suffering. We’ll be the ones starving, torturing, and destroying our fellow workers!!”
Someone snapped back.
“Mammon is gone! We must rise again for the revolution! Are we just going to sit here while workers suffer and bleed?!”
“Are you comrades, or cowards?!”
“You’d really let the capitalists trample our people without lifting a finger?!”
That, too, sparked backlash.
“Even without Mammon—can we guarantee this future won’t happen?”
“Those of us who carried the trumpet merely sped things up—but everything in this plan… it was our own hands that made it real! Our own choices!”
“Not knowing was one thing. But now we do know. And we can’t just ignore it. We have to disband. Now. We must stop this!”
“And what about the suffering workers?!”
“Better that we don’t exist. If this is what we’re going to become, then better they suffer under capitalists than be murdered by our hands!!”
“Are we really saying we want to become the ones who bring pain and death to the workers?!”
After a few more rounds of yelling, the room went silent again.
They no longer knew what to do.
They couldn’t stay still, but they couldn’t move forward either.
Faces once ablaze with conviction were now shadowed by confusion, fear…
…and most of all, despair.
The labor radical destined to become a brutal camp warden—brainwashing and torturing countless workers—had started to cry.
The young woman who had once passionately declared herself a fighter for women’s rights now stared into the void, dazed.
The man fated to become the head of an intelligence unit—a torturer infamous for inventing false charges and brutalizing innocents—smoked a cigarette, laughing bitterly at the futility of it all.
And at the center of that grim future…
The man who would become a tyrant. A butcher. An idol entombed in glass.
He looked at me.
“Holy One… help us.”
There was no confidence in his voice now.
No fire in his eyes.
The resolve to die for the cause had melted into tears.
“Where… where do we go from here?”
He asked, his face twisted in despair.
I gave the revolutionary his answer, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
I smiled at them.
They looked hopeless. Defeated.
But to me… that was a sign of hope.
They weren’t torturers yet.
They weren’t tyrants.
They weren’t the madmen who would someday kill more workers than any capitalist ever could.
They were still people who trembled in the face of what they might become.
People who still held compassion for the workers.
They hadn’t yet been warped by power.
They feared that future—and that meant there was still a chance.
“You’re revolutionaries, aren’t you? Then do a revolution.”
“But… you know what the outcome will be.”
“I do. Which is why you need to do it differently this time.”
“Differently…?”
“Join the Order of Grace. Work under them. Use their influence—and the capital of Karma Company—to change the empire from within.”
I grinned at Karl Lenaro, who looked like he’d just swallowed a bug.
“Don’t be the kind of revolutionaries who throw bullets and bombs.”
“Be the kind who use money and laws… to beat the capitalists at their own game.”
***
As expected, immediate backlash erupted.
“Are you telling us to become lapdogs for the capitalists?!”
“Karma Company is still a corporate entity! You want us to work under merchants and priests?!”
The labor radicals were fuming—but they all fell silent at my next words.
“I intend to use the power of Karma Company and the Order of Grace to have you recognized as an official administrative body under the Empire. A royal agency—one directly under the Imperial family.”
Terrorists from the shadows… becoming a legitimate branch of the Empire?
The radicals stared at me, dumbfounded, blinking as if they’d misheard.
But I was dead serious.
I explained my plan slowly, deliberately.
“Workers are still suffering across the Empire under the greed of capitalists. And their anguish, their resentment, is fueling the bellies of demon cultists and dark god worshippers. Even the match factory in the capital operated that way. And Scrap Yard you saw Mammon himself appear there. That gives us all the justification we need to move the Pantheon.”
The Pantheon wasn’t a political institution, but its widespread influence in every social sector meant it couldn’t be ignored. And most importantly, the Pantheon was an organization I could sway.
Not a single church would dare reject the premise that protecting laborers would weaken the grasp of demons and dark gods.
“On top of that, with Karma Company’s wealth and network, we can push new legislation through the Senate. With proper justification, massive public support, and royal backing, it won’t take long before you’re officially part of the Empire’s bureaucratic system.”
“That’s… absurd…”
“I have the influence to make it happen,” I said firmly. “Once you’re legalized, your new role will be to travel across the Empire, investigating labor abuse and punishing exploitative capitalists under imperial law.”
“Are you being serious?” Karl Lenaro asked.
“I am. After that, your job will be to revitalize local economies and provide meaningful, dignified employment to workers. Karma Company and the Royal Court will support you in that mission.”
My words sparked another wave of murmurs.
“You want us to work with the very powers we fought against?”
“That’s not revolution! That’s being a collared dog!!”
“Is this really the path we’re supposed to take?”
“You’re asking us to give up the revolution and become slaves to the system!”
Their resistance was understandable. The murmuring grew louder—until Karl Lenaro raised a hand. Instantly, silence fell.
“What if the Order of Grace and Karma Company start exploiting the workers?”
“Then you punish them—by law—just as you would any exploiter. And on the other hand, if you begin to show signs of falling into extremism, just as that future in Mammon’s documents predicted… the Church and Company will stop you.”
“A system of mutual checks and balances?”
“Exactly.”
I extended my hand to Karl.
“Let go of your lust for power. Let go of hatred, rage, and violence. Instead, remember your compassion for the workers. Don’t just use that compassion—act on it. Help them rise from their suffering.”
“......”
“Don’t dream of a world without capitalists. Instead, build a world where capitalists are obligated to provide fair, meaningful work. Don’t destroy them for their flaws—create a system where their strengths benefit all.”
I turned to the man destined to become a brutal prison warden.
“Use your interrogation skills not to abuse workers or uphold tyranny, but to expose the crimes of the corrupt.”
I looked at the future head of the secret police—he who would one day invent false charges and torture innocents.
“Use that sharp eye of yours to investigate worker exploitation and bring it into public light.”
I turned to the woman who had once stood for women’s rights.
“Do not incite hatred between men and women. Help build a world where their differences are embraced. Where they can love one another. Where both are treated fairly and valued for their talents.”
I looked around at all of them.
“Let your actions be driven not by hatred or rage, but by empathy and justice. The world still needs you. There are still countless workers who are suffering. So what if you use the help of capital and power? If it brings smiles to the faces of workers… isn’t that what matters? Isn’t that what you started this for?”
I reached my hand out further.
“Take my hand.”
They didn’t respond right away.
A deep, heavy silence filled the room.
Then, finally—
Karl Lenaro cautiously reached out and grasped my hand.
He turned back to face his comrades, who stood behind him.
“This is my decision. It may be the only real choice we have left. Comrades… do you agree?”
No one nodded.
But no one objected either.
It was tacit consent.
Karl gave a small, ironic smile and turned back to me.
“I never imagined I’d say this but… what do we even call this administrative body of ours? I mean, we’re basically a bunch of terrorists and criminals… Should we call it the ‘Department of Terror’?”
“Isn’t there a name that suits it a bit better?”
I tightened my grip on his hand and answered:
“The Ministry of Labor and Employment.”
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