Take My Hand
The reactions of the Labor Theorists in the room were roughly divided into two camps.
One group endlessly pored over the Mammon Followers' documents without uttering a word.
The other group was enraged.
"This is a lie! There's no way we would do this!"
"I'd become a camp director, rooting out reactionaries, brainwashing and torturing them? Me? There's no way I would do that! Of all people, there's no way I'd become someone who tortures my fellow workers!!"
I waited quietly for them to vent their fury.
I waited for them to rage, deny reality, and spill out all the anxiety and fear festering inside them.
After thirty minutes of chaotic murmuring that raged like a storm, the Labor Theorists began slumping back into their seats one by one.
Now, everyone had fallen silent.
Karl Lenaro had even put down the papers and was trembling, his face buried in both hands.
I looked over the contents written on the documents he had set aside.
A future where he intentionally caused a famine, starving countless people to death.
A future where he became a dictator, taking the lives of countless others until the very moment of his death, creating not a workers' paradise but a nation where everyone was equally poor.
A future where, terrified of reactionaries, he obsessively purged and purged countless political opponents under the pretext of hunting spies.
A future where he eventually could trust no one, ruling a vast empire by letter from his room before finally collapsing from a cerebral hemorrhage, but because he had become a terminal case of paranoia, his guards could not enter the room, and he died without receiving timely treatment.
And the documents faithfully depicted a future where, after dying like that, his body was placed in a glass coffin and worshipped by future generations of Labor Theorists.
"It must be a lie. There's no way I'd become like this. I... I did it for the workers. I only wanted to improve the treatment of the persecuted workers!! There is no way I'd meet such an end!"
Karl Lenaro cried out as if screaming.
"Hasn't Mammon vanished now? Isn't that right, Saint? So isn't it clear that this future won't come to pass either? Labor theory! Comrades! I!! There's no way we'd become this hideous!! Please, tell me that's true!!"
I did not answer him.
I had already given my answer.
They were simply refusing to accept it.
One of the Labor Theorists murmured as if finding it all futile.
"If it had just been full of absurd nonsense, that would have been far better. It's so persuasive it's terrifying. If it were me... if things truly unfolded according to this plan... I might really have become like the person described in these documents."
Another Labor Theorist agreed.
"My past. My personality. Even my traumas and convictions. It's a plan calculated and tailored to exploit all of it. I've no idea how they figured all this out."
Someone suddenly started laughing.
"What have we been fighting for all this time? If it's all going to end up like this, then what was the point of all our suffering and effort?"
"Isn't this an ending where, by our own hands, we cause more workers to suffer, starve, and be destroyed than anyone else ever could?!"
Someone pushed back against those words.
"Mammon is gone now!! We must fight again for the revolution! Are the workers not still suffering and being persecuted?!"
"To think my comrades in revolution would utter such weak words!!"
"Are you suggesting we just stand by and watch our fellow workers be exploited by capitalists, then?!"
Another outburst of opposition erupted in response.
"Even if Mammon is gone!! Who's to guarantee that what's written in these documents won't still come to pass??"
"The instigators were only there to accelerate these plans. Weren't all the things in these plans ultimately carried out by our own hands?! Aren't we talking about a future we'd willingly complete?!"
"If we hadn't known the future, it would be one thing. But now that we know, we can't just sit still!! We must disband! Dissolve the organization and stop all of this right now!!"
"Then what about the suffering workers?!"
"Wouldn't it be better if we didn't exist at all?! If the future in those documents comes true, they'd be better off groaning under the capitalists!!"
"You're saying we should cause countless workers to suffer by our own hands!!"
After a few more rounds of pointless shouting, silence descended once again.
Now, the Labor Theorists wore expressions that said they did not know what to do anymore.
They could not stay still, but neither could they move forward.
Upon their faces that had once burned with a sense of mission and passion, confusion and fear now settled.
And more than anything else, a sense of futility began to take hold.
The Labor Theorist fated to become a camp director who brainwashed, tortured, and killed countless workers now began to cry.
The passionate young female Labor Theorist who had declared she would fight for women's rights stared blankly into empty space.
The man who would become the head of an intelligence organization, infamous for fabricating charges and torturing people—a human butcher—was smoking and cackling with an expression of emptiness.
And then the man who would stand at the center of all those despairing futures.
The future dictator and slaughterer.
The man destined to become an idol inside a glass coffin looked at me.
"Saint. Please help us."
The voice brimming with conviction was gone.
The passionate attitude was nowhere to be found.
The eyes that had declared they would not fear death now held only watery tears.
"Where should we go?"
He asked me that, his expression one of utter despair.
I gave a natural answer to the weeping revolutionary's question.
"Isn't it obvious?"
I smiled at them.
Their faces were filled with genuine frustration, but that actually gave me hope.
Not yet.
They were not yet the camp directors who tortured people, nor iron-fisted dictators, nor mad slaughterers who killed more workers than any capitalist ever did.
They were people who feared and despaired at the sight of their own futures.
They were people who still held compassion for the workers.
They were not those twisted and broken by a mad lust for power.
They were people who feared such a future.
People who still had the potential to walk a righteous path.
"Aren't you all revolutionaries? Then you must carry out a revolution."
"But you know what consequences a revolution can bring, don't you?"
"I do. So now you must carry out a revolution in a different way than you have before."
"A different kind of revolution?"
"Come under the Order of Grace. And use the Order of Grace's influence and the capital of Karma Company to change the empire."
I grinned at Karl Lenaro, whose mouth had fallen open in disbelief.
"Become a revolutionary who strikes at capitalists with capital and law—not bullets and bombs."
As expected, immediate opposition erupted.
"Are you telling us to become the dogs of the capitalists right now?!"
"Isn't Karma Company ultimately a capitalist entity too?! To work under clergy and capitalists!!"
Though the Labor Theorists were bursting with indignation, a single sentence I spoke next silenced all of them.
"I intend to use the power of Karma Company and the Order of Grace to make you into an officially recognized administrative agency of the Imperial Household. A direct agency under the Imperial Household, at that."
Terrorists from the shadows would become one of the Imperial Household's direct administrative agencies.
At this absurd statement, all the Labor Theorists just blinked as if they had lost the words to respond.
But I was serious.
I slowly laid out my plan to them.
"Workers suffering from the greed of capitalists are still scattered all across the empire. And the resentment of those workers is being used to fatten the stomachs of Demon Worshippers and Evil God Worshippers. The match factory in the capital was being run that way, and Mammon was in the Scrap Yard as well. Using this justification, we can move the Pantheon."
The Pantheon was not a ruling authority, but considering the number of its followers spread across the empire and its activities in various social fields, it was not an organization to be dismissed lightly.
And the Pantheon was an institution I could move like my own limbs. No order would be able to reject the justification that the power of Evil God and Demon Worshippers must be weakened by improving workers' rights and welfare.
"On top of that, if we use Karma Company's connections and money, moving the Senate to create new laws won't be difficult. With an unassailable cause, strong public support, and the Imperial Household's approval, you will likely find yourselves designated as an official administrative body of the empire in short order."
"How utterly absurd..."
"With my influence, it's more than possible to make that happen. After you become a legitimate organization like that, you will spread across the entire empire, tasked with investigating violations of workers' rights and exploitation and punishing the capitalists who perpetrated it."
"Are you serious?"
"Yes. I am serious. After that, your work will be to revitalize the local economy and create quality jobs for the workers. Karma Company and the Imperial Household will assist you in that."
At my words, the Labor Theorists began murmuring once again.
"He's telling us to work backed by the powerful and the capitalists?"
"What kind of revolution is that?! We'd just be collared dogs!!"
"Is this truly the direction we should be moving in?"
"Isn't this just telling us to abandon the revolution and become slaves to the existing system?!"
They seemed to find it hard to accept, and the murmuring began to grow louder, but when Karl Lenaro raised his hand, they all fell silent.
"If the Order of Grace and Karma Company exploit the workers... what happens then?"
"If they perpetrate exploitation that warrants punishment, you punish them according to the law. Conversely, if you show signs of falling into extremism and becoming corrupted and twisted just as written in Mammon's documents, then the Order of Grace and Karma Company will stop you in turn."
"You mean an organization completed by keeping each other in check?"
"That's right."
I held out my hand to Karl Lenaro.
"Put down your lust for power. Put down your hatred, anger, and violence. Instead, recall your compassion for the suffering workers. And do not simply exploit that compassion, but help them escape their vulnerable circumstances."
"..."
"Don't think about eliminating capitalists; instead, create a world where they can offer proper, quality jobs. Rather than seeing only their flaws and destroying them, ensure that their strengths can be properly shown."
I looked at the man who was to become the camp director.
"Do not use your interrogation skills to abuse workers and maintain a dictator's power, but use them to expose the wrongdoings of capitalists."
I looked at the man who would become the head of an intelligence agency, someone capable of fabricating crimes out of thin air.
"Use that sharp eye of yours to investigate the misfortunes of workers and bring them into the public sphere so everyone can see."
I looked at the woman who had been active in the women's rights movement.
"Do not incite women to hate men. Instead, work so that men and women can wholly accept their differences and love one another. Create a world where both women and men are treated fairly according to their talents."
I looked at all the Labor Theorists.
"Move with compassion and pity, not hatred and anger. This world needs you. There are still countless workers suffering. What does it matter if you receive help from capitalists and authorities? Isn't it enough if the workers can live well and smile? Wasn't that the very sight you all gathered here to see?"
I stretched the hand I held out even further.
"Grab my hand."
The Labor Theorists did not answer right away.
A frightfully quiet silence settled deeply inside the room.
And after a long while.
Karl Lenaro cautiously took hold of my hand.
Holding my hand, he turned his head to look back at the Labor Theorist comrades standing behind him.
"This is my choice. And it is the only choice presented to us. Comrades. Are we in agreement?"
No one nodded their head openly.
But neither did anyone shake their head in vehement refusal.
It was tacit consent.
Karl Lenaro let out a short laugh at the sight, then turned his gaze back to me.
"I never thought I would ever say this... but what will our administrative body be called? Given that it's a place gathering terrorists and criminals... The Terror Department?"
"Isn't there a more fitting name than that?"
I gripped Lenaro's hand even tighter as he asked in a self-deprecating voice, and answered.
"The Ministry of Employment and Labor."