Chapter 756: The Collapse of the Star Antimony Economy
Accompanied by the long sirens, the police car stopped far away outside the boundary of Pilotti Manor.
Unlike the situation at the White Dove Opera House, this time the police station didn't extend their security fortress, the "cordon," directly to the entrance. Instead, it consisted of a few old convertibles, belching black smoke and making tractor-like noises. A few experienced police officers stood outside the barrier, constantly requesting backup.
And two streets away, a full four "cordons" completely blocked the Sifang intersection.
On one of the "cordons," a female police officer, seemingly in her early twenties, asked her senior officer, somewhat bewilderedly, "Should we just wait here? But in this position... there's no way we can keep an eye on them."
Simply blocking the intersection from a distance might be useful for ordinary Superhumans committing crimes, but it's completely meaningless for high-level Superhumans. Even if the street is completely blocked, climbing over the wall or teleporting isn't a difficult task...
"It doesn't matter."
The sturdy, bearded officer, who looked to be in his fifties, was relaxed and unnerved. "We obviously can't handle this kind of thing—do you want to dispatch the Seventh Branch of the General Administration?"
"why not?"
The young policewoman asked back, "They can handle it, right? Even if it's a fifth-level criminal, they should be able to arrest him successfully!"
Hearing this, the middle-aged police officer and the policeman next to him laughed.
They looked at the girl with some nostalgia, their eyes full of kindness, as if they were looking at their past.
"Heh...even so."
Her senior patted her shoulder heavily and said, "We still can't move. This is the Pilotti Manor, you know. He is the son of the Red Prime Minister."
"Alphonse von Pilotti, of course I know him!"
The young policewoman answered without hesitation, her voice even a little urgent: "But because of this, shouldn't we find out something quickly and give Master Pomponazzi an explanation?"
It was obvious that Alphonse was very well-known and popular among the younger generation of girls—even this young policewoman had a strong liking for Alphonse.
"Precisely because this matter involves Hong Xiang, we cannot act rashly."
In the end, it was the senior police officer who provided the answer: "The only ones who dared to attack Hong Xiang directly... were those few. If we really intend to tear each other apart and fight to the bitter end this time, we must of course side with Count Leipzig—after all, he pays our salaries. Leipzig police earn twice as much as their counterparts elsewhere in the planet, second only to the capital... and most importantly, they never delay their pay."
"But Count Leipzig is both a high-ranking member of the academy and a close confidant of the Red Prime Minister. Who knows which side the Count will side with this time? How can we act without the Count's orders?
"--To put it another way, if neither side intends to fight to the bitter end this time, and we start fighting... we'll end up being the culprits and be blamed."
"...Where did this come from?"
The newly graduated policewoman didn't have a strong sense of justice, so she understood immediately. However, she was still a little confused: "Why do you all seem to know...?"
“Because it’s been like this since the beginning.”
Someone replied, "This isn't the first time there's been a dispute—this time it was between the Red Prime Minister and the Society, and last time it was between the Association and the Society. The Society always likes to mess with others, but they do have the power... There have always been other conflicts in the past. Even the Spirit Tower would occasionally cause trouble."
"Whoever takes action will take the blame. Even if no one takes action and something goes wrong, the final impact won't be too great—because anything that becomes a big deal is not something we can solve in the first place."
The middle-aged policeman patted the young female police officer, who was younger than his daughter, and concluded: "So if you can avoid moving, then don't move."
"In other words... it doesn't really matter who the murderer is?" The young policewoman seemed to understand a little.
"It's important... but work and money are more important, kid. If you want to leave Leipzig and go somewhere else... forget it, for your safety, don't go."
The middle-aged policeman patted her shoulder and sighed. "Where I come from, the unemployed sit outside the orphanage to collect bread and salt. They fill the entire street, and the volunteers work from morning till night, with no time to rest... The orphanage even has to request security from the police station to prevent vagrants from looting the kitchen. This 'kitchen defender' might even be the only person on the street earning a salary."
"—it's all because of those damn goblins canceling the order!"
A younger policeman shouted angrily.
The middle-aged policeman pointed at him and said, "Look, Jack - this is an example. Come, Jack, tell our good girl about it."
“Hey, I’ve said this so many times…”
Jack shook his head in annoyance, but continued his story seriously: "My father used to run a brick factory. Business wasn't huge, but it was OK. Until those damn goblin merchants—they're a bunch of damn liars! They should be skinned and sent to the Ziggurat to be made into sandwiches!"
Star Antimony's high-strength bricks are a specialty. Through cooperation with the Royal Alchemy Association, they obtained a special alchemical potion that can increase the strength of the fired bricks to a level higher than that of concrete bricks. The formula of this potion is kept secret by the association.
Unlike those weak alchemists, the Royal Alchemy Association did not protect their formulas by registering patents. They used a more direct approach - they directly cooperated with assassin organizations and the police. Anyone who dared to pirate or crack their formulas would be dealt with directly.
Police Officer Jack continued, "That group of scammers paid a hefty deposit and urged my father to expedite production, claiming they were paving roads and building houses in the southern continent and needed large quantities of high-strength bricks. They promised full orders later... So my father used the deposit to expand the factory and hired a large number of employees at high salaries—high salaries were necessary to recruit people at that time, as talent was so sought after everywhere."
"In order to expand, we needed more funds, so we borrowed money from the bank run by those goblin merchants. My brother didn't go to college because the family business was booming. He dropped out of school and went back to help our father run the business... The business was indeed booming for a few years, so I was able to go all the way to college and then transferred to Leipzig after graduation. Fortunately, I was not interested in business. After graduating from college, I became a Beyonder and held the power in my own hands!
"Because it was only a few years later—business was good, so we expanded year after year. But five years later, when the first contract expired, those cunning goblins said that due to decreased demand and improved technology on the market, they had to reduce the purchase amount. But damn it, we are obviously the best brick factory in the area, and we are the only one that sells the most conscientious solid bricks!"
"...Is it possible," the young policewoman couldn't help but ask, "that those greedy goblins originally wanted hollow bricks? After all, hollow bricks are sufficient after being strengthened..."
"Who knows? But in short, my father begged and pleaded hard to secure 80% of the order volume. However, the price he paid was a 10% reduction in the purchase price. This fatal 10% caused profits to plummet, and we had to produce more bricks to maintain the borrowing. And then, those damn goblins sent us a batch of new machines... These new machines are like interest-free loans, and with them, we can produce high-strength bricks more efficiently.
"But only two years later, starting at the end of last year, we discovered that everyone else had this new machine. And then, damn it—at the beginning of this year, those goblins simply paid the penalty and forcibly terminated the second phase of our cooperation!
"—But with just these liquidated damages, we can't even pay off the loan we borrowed from them! My father wants to sell all those bricks quickly... After all, they're worthless if they're just piled up. And the warehouse costs money, and the workers cost money. The loan for the machines, and the share from the alchemists...
"But there are so many bricks on the market that no one is buying them. The few that can be sold have already dropped to less than one-tenth of their original price – even ordinary bricks are more expensive than that! Everyone keeps lowering their prices, but still no one is buying.
"In the end, we couldn't pay wages. The family factory went bankrupt, my father was killed, and my brother committed suicide... Even then, there was still no one to deal with the piles of bricks. The only thing they could do was give them to the workers to pay off their debts. But how many bricks could they carry away? The warehouse manager even had to pay for people to dispose of the bricks himself... Because they were too strong, neither machines nor low-level extraordinary people could handle them."
Jack sighed. "You know what? Our town only has about two thousand people, less than the population of a single street in Leipzig. And these unwanted bricks are just piled up on the roadside and in the streets, impenetrable to both hitting and stepping on. Some people pick them up and build houses with them, but houses are meaningless... When reinforced bricks are in stock, houses are worthless."
"And those damn goblins, they bought much more than just bricks from Xingbi. They're withdrawing orders, and they're taking our lives!"
"Do you understand?"
The middle-aged police officer patted the policewoman on the shoulder, his expression serious. "Listen to me... If you still want to stay in the 'cordon' instead of going to the White Dove Opera House, it's best not to worry about anything. You're already lucky to be able to live in Leipzig. At least our economy here doesn't rely on supplying goblins... Although prices have tripled in a year, at least wages have increased accordingly."
"...We're lucky to even get into the White Dove Opera House. The Ziggurat and the Academy are always short on supplies... In this day and age, living people are the best hard currency."
Someone else added quietly, "After all, the Count of Leipzig gave enough money—the Count is a truly good man."
Everyone nodded in agreement, obviously agreeing with it.
There is a hell of a joke: why is the Alchemy Association the poorest? Why have alchemists become the weakest of the various factions in Star Antimony?
It's a very simple truth... their alchemical materials must be obtained from botanists, and the development of alchemy and the promotion of alchemists require a large amount of alchemical materials.
But it’s much simpler for the others—they just need to get the “people.”
In this era, the price of "people" will inevitably continue to fall. Although supply is currently less than demand, it is hard to say what the situation will be like in the future.
"...The Earl is a good man? Why?"
The policewoman clearly hated the White Dove Opera House, so she frowned and asked, "Other people are also buying their lives, and he's also buying his life. What's the difference between buying one's life and buying one's life? If you enter the White Dove Opera House, won't you all die in the end?"
"Because the price is higher. You come from a better background, Liz, so you don't understand... When people are really desperate, they will sell whatever they have to sell, no matter how much money they are offered. The only difference is whether it's one person in the family being sold, or the whole family.
"Even if the Count offered less, those poor souls would still be left with nowhere to turn—they'd still have to choose between going to the opera or a worse future. Yet, he was willing to pay off their debts... When he could have bought these poor souls with less, he chose to pay more. This was a completely unnecessary, 'loss-making' deal."
“…I think this is actually hypocrisy.”
The policewoman known as Liz still frowned. "Because he's just selling fame. Although the price he paid was high, his profit was also high, so in the end, he actually made no loss. And many people turned to him for this very reason... I don't think there's any need to be worse than this. If it's really that bad, then he might as well go to Iris."
"Iris isn't that good either. We're all the same. Besides, hypocrisy is at least better than pure evil..."
The middle-aged policeman sighed: "I would rather there were more bigwigs who were willing to be hypocritical."
In a place where everyone does not hide their sins, people will even fanatically worship hypocrites whom they know are hypocrites.
——Because in this way, perhaps more people will be willing to do this for their own benefit.
But at this moment, another young policeman raised a question: "I've been listening for a long time... but, when it comes down to it, shouldn't this be the fault of those goblins?
"Why hasn't anyone gone to clean up those goblins? Is it because we can't defeat them?
"Those banks are run by goblins, right? If we take over the banks, won't these people have money?"
When he said this, everyone fell silent.
It's not that he said anything wrong, but other people really don't understand why they don't do it.
"Maybe the people above have their own ideas."
Finally, the middle-aged police officer ended the topic with these words.
However, today's conversation still planted a seed in the hearts of everyone present.
——Is there no one in the entire Xingtan who can stand up and lead them?
Is there no better choice than the Count of Leipzig?
"I think..."
The oldest police officer present said slowly, "In the end, the church won't ignore us. They can't just watch Xingti collapse, right?
"Don't forget... His Holiness the Pope is a human being.
"—Pope's mercy."
He said slowly.
I've been sleep deprived for four days straight, and I have a headache today. First chapter...
When it is restored in two days, there will be more updates!
(End of this chapter)
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