Chapter 710.3: No Battle Today

Aside from the position of mayor remaining vacant, order throughout the settlement, from defense to public security, had basically returned to normal.

For the time being, the settlement was operating under New Alliance law.

Once conditions matured, the shareholders of the Baiyue Strait Development Company would consider gathering representatives from various industries and social classes to establish a representative assembly similar to Dawn City’s, using the New Alliance’s constitution as the basis for drafting a common law suited to local conditions.

Truthfully speaking, though order had returned to Port Gallon, the efficiency of this massive machine remained painfully slow. The former Governor Nihark might have been a master negotiator, but when it came to regional governance, he was a complete amateur.

Anyone could tell just by looking at the slums spreading all the way to the Governor’s Manor. A settlement of over a million people somehow lacked even the most basic urban planning. The man would rather tolerate the stench right outside his doorstep than allocate money from the treasury to build drainage ditches in the slums.

Not only that, aside from customs and taxation departments having organizational structures somewhat worth praising, the other departments were practically decorative pieces. Some of them did not even know how many employees they had, or whether those employees still existed...

...

Harbor District, in the former Governor’s Office.

Looking at the fire department chief standing nervously before the desk, Ample Time could not help tapping the ledger on the table with his knuckles. “Where’s the money? I want to know where the money went.”

The man nearly jumped in fright, terrified Ample Time might pull out a gun and stick it against his head.

“My lord... the money... isn’t it all in your hands now?”

He had already heard about it. The first thing the iron men did after landing was seize control of the security bureau, followed immediately by the bank on Tulip Street.

The 500,000,000 Dinars His Majesty had stored there had all ended up in their pockets, along with over a 100,000,000,000 Xilande currency, all treated as war reparations.

Ample Time rolled his eyes and forced himself to stay calm. “I’m asking about before that! The ledger clearly states that the Governor’s Manor allocated 30,000,000 Xilande Coins every year to your department for firefighting in Port Gallon. That budget was spent every single year, yet when I ask how many fire stations or firefighters this settlement has, nobody knows a damn thing!”

“My lord, Governor Nihark handled that money personally! I never even saw it!” The man was sweating so hard he looked ready to cry. “As for firefighting, it was mainly handled by survivor groups in each district themselves. We had no money. We couldn’t exactly conjure a fire brigade out of thin air.”

Of course, he had skimmed a little off the top too, but nowhere near as much as Governor Nihark. The difference between them was on entirely different scales.

Ample Time glared at him. Although he had expected something like it, he still could not help asking, “What the hell do you mean they handled it themselves?!”

Too afraid to meet Ample Time’s gaze, the man shifted his eyes away and stammered softly, “Each community has its own organizations... In the more remote outskirts, elders of a clan usually arrange for a few young men to handle disaster prevention. In mixed-clan districts, it’s usually a few strong fellows collecting ‘fire fees’ together. Wherever there’s a fire, they go deal with it.”

Ample Time stared at him blankly. “... What about Tulip Street?”

The man forced out a miserable smile. “The owners of those mansions all have servants watching the property every day. How can fires possibly break out there?”

Good lord! That autonomy level was maxed out?!

Ample Time was completely stunned.

Under normal circumstances, property fees and services should be proportional. But during Governor Nihark’s era, things had become completely inverted.

There were plenty of taxes listed in the ledgers, including detailed records of firefighting expenditures. Yet the responsible departments themselves lacked funds to function, forcing authority and responsibility to be pushed down to the lowest levels. Local survivors had no choice but to organize civilian groups themselves to maintain basic public infrastructure, effectively paying twice for the same service.

In a sense, Governor Nihark was actually impressive for managing to collect taxes under those conditions. And the survivors of this settlement were impressive too. The wasteland’s matchmaking system for top-tier regions had perfectly paired them together.

If Lord Sid had ruled these people instead, then even if he introduced whatever currencies he wanted, or stuffed Director Malvern’s drawers with IOUs, Boulder Town probably still would not have gone bankrupt. Hell, it might even have been able to fight the New Alliance on equal footing during the same era.

That was not impossible at all.

These locals placed all their hopes in the afterlife and behaved as docilely as lambs. No wonder the Wislanders considered them friends.

Ample Time felt that his moral standards had probably risen somewhat because of Dori. Otherwise, he would have mercilessly squeezed those people dry by fully exploiting the game’s rules. What happened to them afterward would have been none of his damn business.

Seeing Ample Time’s shifting gaze, the man grew increasingly afraid and swallowed nervously. “Actually, the slums rarely catch fire. You really don’t need to worry too much about those people.”

After hesitating briefly, he cautiously continued, “I’ve lived here for years and barely seen any major fires, nor heard of anyone burning to death. Besides, they usually don’t even need fire to cook, nor do they use much hot water. As for the citizens, they live just fine without us. Keeping things as they are isn’t bad either...”

“Then why the hell should I keep you around if things stay exactly the same whether your department exists or not!” Ample Time rudely cut him off mid-sentence and threw the ledger straight into his chest.

Watching the man hurriedly catch it, Ample Time stood up, grabbed his collar, and stared directly into those evasive eyes. “Within three days, I want a complete list! It needs to include the actual people responsible for fire safety on every single street. I want every street accounted for, including their areas of responsibility. Even if those neighborhoods have already been demolished, find the people who handled them! And remember, don’t even think about grabbing random nobodies to fill the list. We have informants everywhere, we’re not blind!”

The man was sweating profusely, looking close to tears. “But, my lord... I don’t have enough personnel. Governor Nihark controlled all the money. Our entire department only has 10 people!”

He had even counted his underage youngest son among those people. Otherwise, the department could not even scrape together that many.

“Then recruit more! Hire 20 additional people for me! And remember, not one of those 20 is allowed to be from your family, not a single one!”

“Y-yes, yes sir!”

Watching the man stumble out of the office in panic, Ample Time let out a long breath and picked up the cup on his desk for a sip of tea.

These people...

If everyone else were not even worse, if it were actually possible to find a tall man among a bunch of dwarfs, he would have fired the entire lot of them already!

Picking up the next file on the desk, Ample Time inhaled deeply before roaring toward the office door.

“Next! The sewer guy... Prasde, are you planning to generate electricity from the shit in those cesspits?! If you don’t clean them out soon, I’ll personally throw you in for a swim! Get in here!”

That hoarse roar sounded like a death sentence from the underworld.

The officials lined up in the hallway outside all shuddered simultaneously upon hearing it, terrified their own names would be called next.

But what was coming could not be avoided forever.

“Y-yes! Yes, my lord! I-I-I’ll swim!” The man whose name had been called turned deathly pale. Under the watchful gaze of two militia soldiers carrying rifles, he shakily stepped out of the line and entered the office like a condemned man heading to the execution grounds.

The hoarse shouting soon erupted again. The officials waiting outside instinctively hunched their shoulders and shut their eyes, as though the spray of saliva were hitting their own faces.

That was because the problem was basically the same between all of them! They could already foresee what would happen next.

The two soldiers standing guard in the hallway with LD-47 rifles yawned, their eyes wandering aimlessly across the crowd.

Their officer had simply told them to bring their weapons and come over, so they did. But afterward there had been no further instructions. All they saw was a group of former officials appointed by Governor Nihark standing there trembling.

It was almost dinner time... They heard that the meal that night would finally not be beans or dirt, but something called corn, supposedly imported by cargo ship from Silvermoon Bay.

That was an imported luxury even Xilande currency could not buy, something only nobles could afford. The men’s stomachs were already growling from hunger, and they could not help muttering to themselves.

“So when the hell are we finally going to start shooting targets...?”

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