Chapter 78
“Goddamn it!”
In the now-empty mayor’s office, Mayor Bias slammed his desk and spat out curses.
He bit down on an expensive cigar and lit it.
As the nicotine spread through his body, the burning fury in his chest slowly dulled.
“Why the hell did that bastard show up in the Scrap Yard out of nowhere and start raising hell?!”
The Saint, Amael.
Why?
Why had he suddenly appeared without warning? Bias couldn’t make sense of it.
The Saint had no visible connection to the Scrap Yard. And yet here he was—instigating strikes, interfering at every turn.
With the Pantheon and the Black Fortress inquisitors swarming the city, he couldn’t even deploy the police like before.
He couldn’t beat or threaten the striking workers into submission and force them back into the factories.
The frustration was driving him mad.
The Scrap Yard had many different companies, but its core industries were steel and magic metal production.
And the blast furnaces used for steel couldn’t afford to stop—not even for a day.
But the workers were on strike. Mammon cultists had suddenly surfaced. And the furnaces, which were never supposed to go cold, had now been shut down for days.
“If those furnaces cool even once, it’ll be a damn disaster.”
A cooled furnace couldn’t be reused.
It would have to be rebuilt from scratch—a loss too massive to stomach.
They were trying to keep things going with just the bare minimum of skilled workers, but even those few would eventually need rest.
They were already short on manpower, and the burden resting on the few skilled workers they had was immense.
If they wanted to return things to normal, there was only one answer:
The Pantheon. The Saint. The Black Fortress.
They needed to leave—immediately.
Unable to suppress his anxiety, Mayor Bias grabbed his magical communication artifact.
“Duke Lima… and the High Bishop Rufus of the Solar Order… here we go.”
It was time to pull every string he had in the capital.
“Come on… pick up. Please, just pick up already—damn it…”
He muttered under his breath, puffing rapidly on his cigar.
And just as frustration reached its peak—the magic link connected.
His frantic tone disappeared instantly, replaced by an overly smooth and confident voice.
“Ha-ha! Duke Lima! A pleasure, as always! I’m not sure if you remember me—Bias from the Scrap Yard.”
—Ahh, Bias! Of course I remember! That gift you sent last time was fantastic. A mithril golf club! The swing feels incredible, let me tell you!
“Oh, come now, if that made you happy, I’ll gladly send something even better next time! Ha-ha-ha!”
After exchanging pleasantries and small talk, they finally got to the heart of the matter.
“…And so, every factory in the city is currently shut down.”
—That’s… quite the problem.
“The Saint’s already rounded up every last Mammon cultist in the city. We’re clean. But we can’t afford to shut down the empire’s largest metal production facility any longer. Duke Lima, I know you hold great influence over the Senate and the Supreme Court. Please… if only for old times’ sake.”
Duke Lima had been an ally for years.
He had helped push through legislation favorable to the factory owners time and time again.
He was a powerful contact in the capital—and a major shareholder in several Scrap Yard factories himself.
If profits tanked, so would his dividends. That’s why Bias felt sure he’d help.
—Sorry, Bias. But this time… I can’t help you.
Still smiling, Duke Lima’s voice was calm and composed—but the words hit like ice water.
The grin on Bias’s face vanished.
“…I’m sorry—what?”
—Just yesterday, both princesses flew back to the capital via teleportation.
Not long after, His Majesty ordered every noble in the Senate to gather.
“For what reason…?”
—The Mammon cultists that popped up in your city. Turns out they messed with something they really shouldn’t have. They were planning to escalate the conflict between labor activists and capitalists to the point that it would shatter the royal order entirely. The endgame? Split the continent into two colossal factions—labor and capital—and plunge it into endless war.
Bias felt the blood drain from his face.
The Pantheon’s knights, the White Order’s Ketratus, and the Black Fortress had taken care of the Mammon cultist cleanup.
What exact documents the cultists had possessed—or what was in those plans—was never disclosed to Bias or the other factory owners.
All they had seen was what the Saint had revealed publicly the day before.
—As of this very moment, what’s happening in your city is classified as a potential rebellion against the Imperial Family.
The Black Fortress has been granted full authority.
The Senate can’t interfere.
This matter… is now out of our hands.
“Y-Your Grace… that’s outrageous!! Rebellion? REBELLION?! The Scrap Yard has served the Empire loyally for decades, producing steel and magic metals! We’re a model industrial city!”
—I know. I do know. That’s why I even appealed directly to His Majesty…
But after seeing the documents the Mammon cultists left behind… I had nothing more to say.
“That’s nonsense! You’re trusting documents made by demon worshippers?!”
—If only it were nonsense.
But no one in the court could just brush it aside. The plans were too… compelling.
Every noble in the Senate agreed.
“…”
—A continent-wide, coordinated uprising by labor factions.
An Imperial suppression order.
Massacres.
The chaos that would follow—riots, rebellion, civil war.
The Emperor deposed.
The royal bloodline executed in a public square.
That’s what they were planning.
“That’s… that’s absurd! It’s madness!”
—If you’d seen the documents yourself, you wouldn’t say that.
The Mammon cultists’ analysis… was chillingly precise.
If it weren’t for the Saint—if not for Amael—the Empire might’ve walked exactly down that path.
Mayor Bias felt a migraine surging behind his eyes.
—Sorry, Bias. This is beyond what I can help you with now.
“Y-Your Grace, Duke…”
—The newspapers in the capital are already blowing up over the Scrap Yard situation. Give it a day or two, and the coverage will hit your side too.
I’ve already dumped all my shares in Scrap Yard. I’ll miss the dividends, sure—but what’s the point when those shares are about to turn into toilet paper?
“Th-this can’t be happening… it can’t be…”
—Still, since we go way back, let me give you a heads-up.
The Black Fortress will soon be launching a full-scale tax audit. His Majesty is furious.
He actually shouted—shouted—asking how you could run a business so poorly that it drove workers to the point of revolution.
“Ah… ahh…”
—Hang in there, Bias.
Not every day can be a good one, right?
Once this all blows over, we’ll go play another round of golf sometime. That golf club you gave me? Still swings like a dream.
The call was unceremoniously cut off.
With a dazed expression, Bias ground out his burnt cigar into the ashtray.
“…Th-The Solar Order. High Bishop Rufus… he’d understand…”
He wasn’t giving up yet.
Rebellion?
That was absurd.
He needed to reach the Imperial Family—through the Pantheon.
He had to make it clear that the factory owners in this city had nothing to do with Mammon.
They’d simply been running their businesses legally.
The Solar Order mainly treated nobles and officials in the capital. Surely they could vouch for him and pass the message along.
Bias believed that.
But the moment the magic call connected, his last hope was crushed in less than thirty seconds.
—A Saint, officially recognized by the Pantheon for the first time in 300 years, was nearly killed by the incarnated Demon King.
And you want the Pantheon to pull back its forces?
Forget it. The Inquisitors are being deployed. This is no small matter.
The entire Scrap Yard will undergo a deep, aggressive investigation—for cultists, corruption, contamination—everything.
Until all suspicion is eliminated.
“Bishop! Please—Bishop!! If this continues, the Scrap Yard’s factories will collapse!!”
—You’re worried about factories right now? The Demon King physically descended into the mortal realm.
Even if we have to shut down every plant in the city, we must investigate thoroughly.
If we don’t, residual contamination could spread across the Empire again.
“W-we’re innocent!! Bishop, I swear—we’re clean!”
—Then cooperate with the investigation quietly.
A massive inquisition is coming to your entire city.
And this is not a joke.
Even a hint of heresy will result in immediate execution.
“Why are you doing this, Bishop? You know the situation here in the Scrap Yard!”
—And you should know what it means when the Demon King himself manifests in the flesh.
You’re not some fool, are you?
“…”
—Cooperate. Respectfully.
The entire Pantheon is on edge.
The Saintess of the White Order will be leading the Inquisition herself.
Whatever she says—you obey. Understood? Do not upset her.
The communication ended.
Mayor Bias slumped into his chair.
He didn’t even feel like smoking anymore.
All he wanted was water.
His throat was dry—burning.
An investigation? Fine.
An inquisition? So be it.
A tax audit? Hellish, but survivable.
But if the Pantheon and Black Fortress forces continued occupying the city, he had no way to drag the workers back into the factories.
There was no way he could club, threaten, and herd them like livestock with guns and batons—not with paladins and inquisitors watching every move.
“I’m going insane!”
He groaned for a while, then opened a drawer and pulled out a bottle of premium whiskey.
He didn’t bother with a glass—just drank straight from the bottle.
As the burn spread through his chest and up his spine, a thought anchored him:
‘This isn’t over. Not yet.’
Sure, the police couldn’t beat workers into submission anymore.
But that also meant the labor activists couldn’t incite violence freely, either.
And most of the city’s workers were poor.
It had already been days since the strike began.
Hungry, desperate people can’t live on ideology. They need food.
‘Those poor pigs don’t have many choices.’
Eventually, they’d return.
When their stomachs growled and their children cried from hunger, the workers would crawl back to the factories looking for a job.
Leave the city?
The situation wasn’t any better elsewhere.
Even if they did leave, there was no paradise waiting for them.
And the cost of travel—not to mention finding a new home—was something most of them simply couldn’t afford.
The only way to survive would be to return.
Dirty work. Bloody, backbreaking labor.
But at least it paid for a meal.
‘Let’s see how long you last, Karl Lenaro.
Let’s see how proud you and your labor rats will be when you’re standing next to a corpse that starved to death—’
“Mayor!!”
Right as Bias was spinning those dark calculations in his head—
The door slammed open without so much as a knock.
One of the factory owners burst in.
Before Bias could even scold him—
“The furnace went cold!!”
The last thing Bias ever wanted to hear.
And right then, the mayor spat whiskey all over his desk.
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