In the Green Valley Region, a group of investigators had just returned from hunting…oh, investigating clues.
They too had heard the Governor’s speech on the broadcast.
A young Judge, hesitating, opened his mouth and said, “This ‘team leader’ of ours… did he really come back to investigate clues? Why did he dump us here and disregard us, running off to give some global speech? It seems to me he doesn’t take the investigation team’s work seriously, he just wanted to come back to be the Governor!”
His question prompted a burst of light laughter from the others in the investigation team.
He was confused and didn’t know what was so funny about what he had said.
The others, too lazy to explain, were also strangers to one another. There were those from the national religion, the Sect of Mechanics, the Psychic Cultivator’s Association, the Legal Department… Formed into a temporary team, they didn’t want to engage with this clueless youth in any conversation out of turn.
Only an old Judge from the Tribunal, like him, helplessly stopped the young man who was about to speak again, pulling him aside and started muttering in a low voice.
“Why blurt out such blunt truths? If you can see it, don’t spout nonsense; otherwise, everyone will just laugh at you.”
“Why? Can’t even talk now?”
“So, Mr. Gu, the team leader, is coming back to be the Governor, and what are we doing here on Rage Owl Star?”
“Investigating clues!”
“What have you investigated these past few days?”
“Er…” he recalled that each day was spent finding different delicious things to eat. The agricultural produce here, grains, meat, and the like, were all natural.
Such natural foods were a rarity in the empire, especially in larger, heavily populated planets like Nest Capital.
Naturally bred livestock and fresh vegetables and fruits, where could they be compared with mass-produced synthetic meats, artificial fibers, and vitamins in terms of cost-efficiency?
While the high-ranking elites and wealthy tycoons certainly didn’t need to worry, these investigators were not the top figures of their respective forces; they were comfortably middle-class, hardly rich.
So, naturally, they hardly got to eat such natural foods.
As for the so-called investigation activities… he previously thought they were indeed investigative, but looking back now, it was merely hunting trips to relieve boredom.
“Come here, be treated to good food and drink, and you might as well enjoy yourself as if you were on a holiday. Still talking about investigating? The outbreak of the demonic disaster here was controlled as soon as it started, and it’s been a year and a half; what else is there to find?”
“This…” The young man found it hard to accept.
“If you can’t stand it, go investigate yourself; you can also report it when you get back. But let me tell you, don’t make trouble for yourself. If you report it, nothing will change. This is tacitly approved by the higher-ups, even the result of some exchange of interests.”
With that, the veteran Judge fell silent.
Upon returning, a familiar face, laughing, said, “Why bother with so much? A young man will learn after running into a few walls.”
“Isn’t it about not spoiling everyone’s fun?”
…
On Rage Owl Star, not only the investigation group had listened to the entirety of Governor Gu’s speech.
There were also over 250,000 interstellar immigrants.
Of those, 210,000 had come with Governor Gu during his return aboard the Korolya III; the remaining 40,000 had been brought over from Heijian Star while the Gu Commercial Firm’s ships were transporting supplies for the stationed Alliance Army.
Throughout Governor Gu’s speech, he talked about the Alliance, the development of Rage Owl Star, and barely mentioned these immigrants.
However, the immigrants were still incredibly excited after hearing the Governor’s words, filled with hopeful anticipation.
They felt the power and determination of the Alliance as the governing body of this planet through the past achievements outlined by Governor Gu.
And in the future painted by the Governor, they saw a better life beckoning to them.
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The Alliance indeed did not specifically mention what would happen to these people, but it was actually completely unnecessary.
Each of them, upon arriving at Rage Owl Star, was assigned a corresponding rank. Generally, they were all at the E4 level, which failed to reach the E5 level of formal citizenship in the Alliance, meaning their rights as citizens were not complete, and their welfare benefits were also substandard.
But… whether it’s the people from Korolya III or those from Heijian Star, there generally wasn’t any dissatisfaction.
E4 was enough, after all, the welfare and allowances received per capita amounted to 0.3 Tax Currency a year.
Wasn’t that enough?
When Korolya III treated people like livestock, having per capita expenses amounting to 0.1 was already considered generous by the overlords.
The consumption of food and industrial products had tripled at once, what did they have to be unsatisfied about?
Moreover, a bright path lay before them. Being granted the E4 rank was a start. The Alliance had allocated them corresponding work or educational opportunities, under fairly relaxed conditions, that merely required working hard for one year. Advancing to the E5 rank and gaining full citizenship rights as well as improving their own treatment was a simple matter.
Mr. Gu, the governor, spoke sentence after sentence about the Alliance, but every sentence was also about them.
The vast majority of them had already shed the fear of being far from their homeland that they had had while migrating on the starship.
Let the miserable slum areas of Nest Capital be damned! We are now part of the Alliance!
Mandoya Lucas was one of those who had quickly transformed their sense of identity.
And unlike most of her compatriots, although she came from the lower strata, she had made a name for herself through various strokes of fate. At the age of forty, she ended up in the upper district, and relying on her own studies, became a Nest Capital urban planner.
It sounded good, but in reality, she was just another worker.
Due to her poor background, her professional ceiling was limited, and many of her ideas and designs were not valued.
She had so many plans that, if realized, could greatly improve the living conditions and quality of life for the residents of the bottom city area, but those designs were always confined to the bottom of a box.
If she completely abandoned her past, perhaps she could live decently.
But she just couldn’t forget the lower city area of Fino City.
The environment there was perilous, it was rife with bad people, gangs ran rampant, cults proliferated, honest people lived in miserable conditions, yet would become oppressors given the chance…
The place was almost wholly rotten.
But she never thought the people there were to blame.
It was the environment of despair that was the root of all evils.
When the plague broke out, she was ‘back home’ conducting surveys, working on a new round of designs.
Caught in the disaster, she, like many refugees, was rescued by the military from Rage Owl Star, saved her life, and then was hazily sent aboard the starship bound for Rage Owl Star.
After listening to Mr. Gu’s broadcast speech, she was deeply moved.
This was a kind of statement she had never heard on Korolya III—the nobles there didn’t even bother to pretend to care for their subjects.
A glimmer of hope arose in her.
Perhaps her abilities could be put to use on another planet.
With a nervous heart, she found the team leader of the textile factory job she had been assigned to, revealed her capabilities, and hoped to meet ‘the people higher up’.
She thought she would face a lot of difficulties, as it was very common on Korolya III. She had even prepared many arguments to enhance her credibility.
But there were none.
She made her way up and met Mr. Parter, the mayor of Weixing City.