Spoiler
Mammon's mouth fell open.
[What the hell is that bastard?]
Such skillful agitation.
Moreover, his words didn't sound like something prepared in just a day or two.
He was a ready-made agitator, no doubt about it.
In the end, the situation spiraled into the worst-case scenario Mammon had dreaded most.
Instead of retreating from the stage, the saint had barged his way in and become one of its central figures.
[That goddamned bastard!! Why the hell won't he just leave?!]
Generally speaking, a saint chosen by a god was likely to be some naive fool who knew nothing of the world and relied solely on divine will.
Because of that, whenever their actions caused the people around them to suffer or get hurt, those saintly fools would agonize over it, leave them, or panic and try to lean on their god, and in most cases, they would ruin everything.
That was how it was supposed to be, but once again, this saint refused to move as he intended, as if to spite him.
[What on earth am I supposed to do about this.]
Mammon had to rack his brains for a long time.
He looked down at the city.
He watched the scene unfold: what had started with thousands of workers had swelled to tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands, all joining the strike and following the saint.
It was a sight he had wished for.
[I had planned to ignite an endless war between the businessmen mad with greed and the Labor Theorists mad with lust for power......]
Mammon knew the Labor Theory extremely well.
He had already read “On Capital,” which the Labor Theorists revered like scripture, hundreds of times.
As a result, Mammon understood the fundamental limitations of the Labor Theorists very well indeed.
They were a breed enraged by capitalism, calling for revolution. Yet, ironically, their ideology was one that harbored the potential to decay far more rapidly than any capitalist ever could.
The spectacle of the Labor Theorists who seized power through revolution gradually succumbing to the corruption of power, ultimately becoming fools no different from the capitalists they fought, while countless poor and penniless commoners endlessly bled and writhed in agony between the greed of such capitalists and revolutionaries.
That was what Mammon had desired.
He had intended to devour every last drop of the immense souls and resentment that would spill forth in the process.
But the variable called the Saint had appeared and thrown the whole board into disarray from the very start.
[........No. No, that's not right. There's no need to think only negatively, is there?]
But soon, Mammon changed his mind.
The saint's appearance had created a variable, but the potential to exploit him still remained.
Thanks to that saint, the revolution was burning hotter than he had ever predicted.
So why not simply use that?
The factory owners, the Scrap Yard's capitalists, and most of the upper class were already puppets who would move exactly as Mammon desired.
And, on the exact opposite side, there were also many of Mammon's puppets among the Labor Theorists.
So that when the revolution erupted, the capitalists would ruthlessly suppress the revolutionaries, and so that the revolutionaries would wage even more radical struggles, spilling even more blood.
[I had planned to put that Karl Lenaro bastard at the vanguard, but since things have turned out this way, I'll have to swap him for the saint.]
How would that soft-hearted bastard react if he opened an age of madness where people died for his sake, where terrorism and assassination ran rampant?
It was clear that Amael had no idea of the danger inherent in the Labor Theorists' ideology.
He had simply stepped forward to fight and struggle for the poor and the oppressed.
But Mammon knew full well.
That good intentions do not always yield good results.
[Do not die. I will not kill you. Jericho Amael. Become the incarnation of revolution. Reign and rule for a long, long time. And spill blood. O Healing Saint. Fight on and on for a long time. To fill my belly.]
Mammon let out a sinister laugh.
***
I knew the population of the Scrap Yard was roughly close to one million.
Being such a large city, its population naturally reached into the hundreds of thousands.
And a general strike meant having to command those hundreds of thousands of workers all at once.
Obviously, I couldn't do that alone.
I needed help.
And the people who could offer that help came looking for me before long.
"I am Karl Lenaro."
A group of people who identified themselves as Labor Theorists approached me and soon led me into the basement of a small building in a corner of the city.
There I saw a stern-looking middle-aged man who seemed to be in his mid-forties shed his disguise and step forward before me.
It was a familiar face.
A man splashed across the headlines every single day in the newspapers—there was no way I wouldn't recognize him.
The leader of the Labor Theorists.
Karl Lenaro was staring at me with an intensely excited expression.
"May I call you Comrade Amael?"
I nodded. At once, Karl Lenaro began to pour out a passionate speech, his face looking like an obsessive fan meeting their idol.
"'Workers of the city, unite!' Those words still ring in my ears. Magnificent. None of our comrades could have given a speech as magnificent as the one you gave. I had been watching you with suspicious eyes, but now there is no reason whatsoever to doubt. You are a Labor Theorist. A comrade of the revolution, finer than anyone."
Karl Lenaro grabbed my hand and squeezed it tight.
"A general strike! Under normal circumstances, we could not have pulled this off so easily. But Comrade Amael. Thanks to you, the task was accomplished with ease. The whole city is looking at you."
The middle-aged man was beaming brightly like a child.
But contrary to his smile, his eyes were terrifyingly intense.
"I wish to ask you one thing. Comrade Amael. What is the purpose of this strike? What is the purpose of this revolution? The purpose for which you rose up. I want to confirm it clearly."
Karl Lenaro and the Labor Theorists around him all wore uniformly excited expressions.
However, along with the excitement, I also sensed a slight unease.
A saint revolutionary born in a city that rejects religion.
They probably wanted me to clarify my position.
"To save the people of this city. Because no matter how much you heal and heal again, if society remains rotten with fundamental problems, they will only fall ill again."
"And what is this improved society for?"
"It is a society where the poor can live as human beings."
"Even if they do not believe in the Goddess Lilia, does that not matter?"
Now I understood what Karl Lenaro was really getting at.
These people.
I had heard their culture rejected religion, and it seemed they thought I was doing this to proselytize.
"It doesn't matter if they don't believe. I simply wish for there to be no more injured and no more suffering. After I fix the system, I will leave."
I was not the kind of person who should stay here long anyway.
Things had turned out this way, but what I wanted was merely for the workers to live a little more like human beings, not to remain in this city, establish an order, and convert the people here.
"You will leave......."
"I never intended to stay in this city for long in the first place. I only hope for the workers' living conditions to improve."
A satisfied smile spread across Karl Lenaro's lips.
"You are no clergyman interested only in proselytizing. I am impressed. To think someone like you still remained in the Pantheon. I understand well that heart of yours, truly concerned with improving the treatment of workers."
Karl Lenaro whistled.
At the signal, a group of people who appeared to have been hiding outside the room entered.
Every one of them was armed with rifles, pistols, and what looked like bombs.
"The location of the police station. The number of troops in each precinct and their armament levels. We have already fully grasped all of it. Let us join hands. Your Authority could greatly boost the morale of our revolutionary comrades. Please use that Authority, which can regenerate even severed limbs, for our sake."
Their eyes were dangerous.
Faces that looked capable of committing murder and violence without the slightest hesitation.
"The capitalist pigs and the factory owners' dogs will now fear the revolution, just as you said. The general strike is only the beginning. We will stop their factories and freeze their mines. We will dry up their capital and wage war. We will not stop until blood flows from the hearts of those pigs! Until they weep tears of fear and terror!!"
Karl extended his hand toward me.
"Let us go together! Comrade Amael!! Let us make the revolutionaries the rulers of this city! Let the vanguard and the revolutionaries seize the means of production and shape it for no capitalist! But for the workers alone!! We can do it if you lend us your strength!!"
I stared quietly at Karl's outstretched hand.
So that was how it was.
Well, I supposed it would be.
Speak of the red, and the reds would come.
I did not take Karl's hand.
The heated atmosphere began to grow strangely awkward as I showed no reaction.
Karl thrust his hand even deeper toward me.
"Comrade Amael? Is there a problem?"
I carefully pushed Karl's hand back down.
And shook my head.
"No. I won't do that."
"......What did you say?"
"This general strike will be used solely as a means to force the ruling class of this city to the negotiating table. After that, I will borrow capital from the Karma Company in the capital to purchase the factories in this city. And just as Karma Company did in the capital, I will proceed by making the jobs in this city normal."
Karl Lenaro's expression stiffened.
The gathered Labor Theorists began to murmur in confusion.
"Furthermore, I will bring healers from the Order of Grace here to establish a clinic and treat the sick of this city. They will only heal, with no proselytizing."
"......"
"And finally, I will mobilize the Imperial Household to enact laws for the workers and institutionally prevent this from ever happening again. That is my plan. I have absolutely no intention of picking up guns and bombs to commit murder. Your methods are not something I can follow. Mr. Lenaro."
At my words, Karl Lenaro collapsed into a chair as if in shock.
Some of the more hot-tempered Labor Theorists were already glaring at me as if they wanted to kill me.
"You were a capitalist's dog?!"
"A bastard even worse than the clergymen trying to convert us!! A piglet trying to hand over the whole city to his order and fill his own belly!!!"
"Comrade Lenaro!! What are you doing? He's a spy!! This so-called saint has no interest in building a paradise for the workers in the first place!! Isn't he spouting things only a capitalist's dog would say?!"
Some reached toward the pistols at their waists, their faces full of bitter resentment.
They were nineteen years old.
There were even teenagers of fifteen.
Looking at their impulsive, hot-blooded faces, full of nothing but hatred and rage, it wasn't my own life I feared for, but their safety.
A mere pistol could not kill me.
I wasn't about to make light of Time Stop and Body Modification.
I would be fine, but the moment they pulled that trigger, the Empire would bury them for life.
I silently begged them not to do it.
In the hostile atmosphere where it seemed guns might be drawn and fired at any moment, Karl Lenaro raised his hand and stopped his seething revolutionary comrades.
"What is the reason?"
Karl asked me back, his voice trembling.
"What is the reason you, who led a strike with a speech more suited to a Labor Theorist than anyone, are suddenly saying things that only capitalist pigs would say? Why? Were all your remarks about being for the workers nothing but lies?"
"......."
"I watched you treat patients, cutting back on sleep and food. Aren't you the one who knows better than anyone how cruelly the capitalists and factory owners exploit human beings!! Then why do you make such remarks! I am about to lose my reason. Mr. Amael. So please explain. I have the right to hear it."
So he wanted the spoilers, was that it?
Fine.
They all had the right to hear it.
And I currently had a title that let me give spoilers without being doubted.
"I am a Seer, recognized by the Pantheon. You must know of it. And so I know how your revolution will end. I will tell you now."
I knew all too well what these hot-blooded fools would eventually become.
"You will become fools who slaughter even more workers than any capitalist, 'for the sake of the workers.'"