Ch.2525. Reconstruction (2)

# A Week After the Cult’s Currency Distribution

It had been a week since the Balhut Cult’s currency was distributed as daily wages.

Bahamut, the god of the Balhut Cult, was watching over the reconstruction of Gyeongju City through his Scrying Mirror.

“Wow. The reconstruction is progressing better than I expected.”

The results exceeded his expectations.

Bahamut had assumed that rebuilding the city would be extremely difficult even without zombies, but with Choi Yu-na at the center unifying the survivor camps toward the goal of reconstruction, progress was happening much faster than anticipated.

He felt satisfaction seeing proper buildings reappear in just a month and watching the currency he created functioning as money in economic activities.

“It feels like I’m playing a city management simulation. Hmm.”

Yes, it felt like a kind of city management simulation.

Of course, unlike a computer game, this was hardcore management without the ability to restart or save, and while Bahamut felt that way, he knew that countless cult members’ lives depended on his decisions.

Yes, countless lives.

He felt the fear that with just one small mistake, all those lives could disappear.

“Enough. Sightseeing. Time to work now.”

Taking his eyes off the installed Scrying Mirror, he began another day.

As soon as he woke up in the morning, he started by melting down the coins brought by the Balhut Cult and recasting them into currency.

Since the currency production process had already been automated using magic, Bahamut simply used telekinesis to bring the coins collected by the Balhut Cult into the temple, and with a single click, manufactured them into currency.

The manufactured currency would then be delivered to the Balhut Cult in the evening under the strict escort of cult executives.

“Here’s today’s purified water and charged electric batteries.”

“Thank you, Lord Bahamut.”

After starting the coin production, the next task was to provide water and electricity for the Balhut Cult to use.

He used Creator Water magic to replenish clean drinking water for the cult in the transport vehicles that arrived in the morning, and recharged the batteries they brought.

While storing water in tanks was simple enough, charging batteries required extreme care as any mistake could lead to a major accident.

However, since water and electricity were essentially necessities for urban living, Bahamut provided them free of charge to the Balhut Cult without missing a single day.

“Another productive day.”

And in the evening, he would greet the executive who came to collect the currency, drink a refreshing glass of water, use the Scrying Mirror to observe the new Gyeongju City being rebuilt by the cult, and call it a day.

That alone was enough to give him the strength to live another day…?

“Wait a minute.”

And that’s when Bahamut finally noticed something strange.

…Yes, it was strange.

Why was he living such a diligent and fulfilling corporate employee life?

He thought about his original self.

He was…

‘A gaming-obsessed basement dweller who’s turned into a normal person! This is unacceptable! I haven’t abandoned my identity!’

Wasn’t he just a basement-dwelling shut-in who only played games?!

Why was he working so diligently and spending his days like this?

Where had he hidden that basement dweller who used to troll in gaming communities and live off his parents?

The time when he was a basement troll breaking his parents’ backs was when he shined the brightest!

‘R-right! Management! I didn’t notice the disconnect because I’m approaching this with a management simulation mindset!’

Bahamut made another plausible excuse to escape reality.

His explanation was that he had grown attached to the city because a new city was being born from ruins.

‘Well… Yu-na is working hard too. And I’ve made a lot of acquaintances…’

In truth, Bahamut himself was secretly hoping this prosperity would never end, but unfortunately, as with any city where people gather, problems and conflicts were bound to arise.

“There’s been a recent surge in raiders.”

During the weekly regular report from the Balhut Cult, he heard ominous news from Jeong Dong-geon, who was in charge of military affairs.

“Are they raiding Balhut Cult members?”

“Yes.”

So someone had appeared who envied the Balhut Cult’s prosperity.

Bahamut received news from Jeong Dong-geon that raiders had been running rampant recently.

“There’s been a surge in raiders trying to plunder citizens while evading the Balhut Cult’s surveillance. The security team captured one raider and investigated, finding they belonged to a survivor camp from the northern part of Gyeongju Bridge.”

“North Gyeongju. That’s definitely… where the survivor camps that didn’t follow us gathered.”

With Gyeongju Bridge as the boundary, the Balhut Cult was in the south, and the survivor camps that didn’t follow the Balhut Cult were in the north.

Particularly, there was a reserve military training center near North Gyeongju, and if they could recover the firearms stored there, they could wield significant military power.

Of course, the trade-off was that once the emergency food stored in North Gyeongju ran out, they would have to travel quite far to replenish it.

Conversely, while South Gyeongju didn’t have weapons, it was surrounded by farmland in every direction, so if they could liberate the farmland from zombies, they could become self-sufficient through agriculture.

“Has there been any response from them?”

“Jo Sun-do, the self-proclaimed king of North Gyeongju, completely denied any connection with the raiders.”

Jeong Dong-geon shook his head with a regretful expression.

Was it directed at the raiders abandoned by their comrades, or at the survivor camp that drove them to such extreme choices?

“Since they’ve said that, punish the raiders severely according to our methods. And although I’m sorry to Hwang Seung-man who’s still creating laws and regulations, ask him to enact a temporary law to punish raiders. With so many raiders, we have no choice.”

“As you command.”

Bahamut first ordered Jeong Dong-geon to ask Hwang Seung-man to enact a temporary law that would provide grounds for punishing captured raiders, and Jeong Dong-geon followed without any doubt.

They had captured raiders but had no clear standards for punishing them.

The Balhut Cult used three laws, but those were only for ordinary crimes.

There were no established rules for how to punish raiders from outside who were causing trouble like now.

“Well, I knew this would happen.”

He knew that survivor camps would eventually transform into raider camps, but it happened faster than expected.

Bahamut sighed and listened to the next agenda.

“Is the monetary economy progressing well?”

“Of course! It’s going well, but…”

Next was the economic situation reported by Lee Hyeon-a.

Her expression was very bright, suggesting that the policies she implemented were going well.

“If there’s one problem, it’s that ordinary people don’t understand the counterfeit prevention measures.”

“I thought as much.”

But there were indeed problems.

While the counterfeit prevention measures Bahamut had implemented for the coins were excellent, they contained a critical flaw.

The same flaw that Mr. Choi had immediately noticed when appraising the coins.

“Awakened individuals can easily distinguish between counterfeit and genuine coins just by being Awakened, but ordinary people who can’t sense magical power can’t distinguish these subtle differences.”

The issue was that ordinary people couldn’t understand the counterfeit prevention magic Bahamut had prepared.

Awakened individuals could detect the magical power emanating from the coins, immediately determining whether they were counterfeit or not.

The coins were so Awakened-friendly that they could instantly identify counterfeits made with 3D printers that merely replicated the appearance as soon as the currency appeared.

“If we can’t solve this problem, counterfeit coins targeting ordinary people will continue to appear. Even now, people are using abandoned 3D printers from industrial factories to replicate just the appearance.”

“We’ve just started. We can’t celebrate yet.”

However, ordinary people who hadn’t Awakened couldn’t detect magical power or perceive its unique scent.

Without magical power, they couldn’t verify whether the coins in front of them were counterfeit or not, and they would accept counterfeit coins without suspicion and sell their goods.

As this accumulated, the value of the currency would gradually decrease, and prices would rise sharply, causing inflation.

“So the root of the problem is that ordinary people can’t identify counterfeit coins?”

“Yes. Since ordinary people don’t have the ability to detect magical power. We’re currently dealing with it by deploying counterfeit appraisers, but ordinary people can’t call an Awakened every time, and…”

“Right. Awakened individuals are valuable personnel.”

Of course, Lee Hyeon-a wasn’t just watching idly.

She had placed counterfeit appraisers in each market area to identify counterfeit coins as much as possible.

However, ordinary people couldn’t always call an Awakened, and above all, Awakened individuals were the most valuable personnel in Gyeongju.

For the Balhut Cult, which had a high proportion of ordinary people, each Awakened was precious.

“I understand for now. I’ll devise countermeasures.”

“Thank you, Lord Bahamut.”

Bahamut promised Lee Hyeon-a that he would devise countermeasures and moved on to the next topic.

Next was Yu Su-seong, who was in charge of the Gyeongju reconstruction project.

He brought both good and bad news to Bahamut.

“We’re not far from completing the reconstruction of Gyeongju.”

Gyeongju reconstruction!

The rebuilding that Yu-na had dreamed of was almost complete.

Of course, it wasn’t perfect reconstruction, but rather a half-measure of repairing or building new practical buildings where people could live, but still, the city was returning to a place where people could live.

“That’s good news.”

“The problem is that once the reconstruction of Gyeongju is complete, many construction workers involved in the rebuilding will become unemployed. Awakened individuals can join the military, security forces, or exploration teams, so there’s no problem for them, but there are hardly any jobs we can recommend to ordinary people.”

However, the moment reconstruction was completed, another problem arose.

Bahamut’s head started to ache at the statement that many workers involved in reconstruction would suddenly become unemployed.

Just when the currency issue was giving him a headache, the unemployment problem was added on top of it.

“Additionally, new construction… no, that’s not it. With our limited resources, starting new civil engineering projects would bankrupt the cult.”

He couldn’t recklessly start civil engineering projects for the unemployed.

The cult’s resources were limited, and further projects would be essentially meaningless.

“We’ve assigned homes to all cult members, and building more houses here would be unnecessary luxury. Of course, there are planned expansion projects for the Balhut Cult’s main hall and development of the Gyeongju market where economic activity is high, but those don’t require as much manpower as the reconstruction project…”

Of course, construction workers weren’t completely unnecessary.

Projects essential to the cult, such as the Balhut Cult’s main hall, Gyeongju market development, or road maintenance leading to this temple, were still ongoing.

However, these projects didn’t require as many workers as the Gyeongju reconstruction project.

In fact, for efficiency, it was better to proceed with development using skilled workers.

“Have you discussed this with Lee Hyeon-a?”

“She also seemed troubled by this issue. We can’t have all these ordinary people enter self-employment. Plus, she’s been grumbling about the counterfeit coin problem targeting ordinary people recently.”

“Any other solutions?”

Even Lee Hyeon-a, the economic official, seemed troubled by this.

Moreover, she was too busy dealing with the counterfeit coin issue to move easily.

Bahamut first asked if there were other solutions, and Yu Su-seong thought for a moment before suggesting one idea.

“There are abandoned farmlands near Gyeongju. We could deploy manpower there to produce food, but this isn’t a fundamental solution.”

“Why not?”

“Well, farming is hard work. And ordinary people, just like the Awakened, seek comfortable and easy jobs.”

‘Can’t argue with that!’

It was a reasonable point.

While there’s no hierarchy in occupations, each individual has their own aptitude and skills for different jobs.

From a worker’s perspective, they would want to do something easy, comfortable, and suited to their aptitude, and conversely, they wouldn’t voluntarily choose hard labor or work that doesn’t match their aptitude.

Right now, they were forcing people to work under the pretext of reconstruction, but there was a good possibility that some harbored dissatisfaction with their jobs.

“Unlike ordinary people, Awakened individuals have many career options. If an ordinary person can choose one profession, an Awakened can choose three or four or more. Naturally, ordinary people can’t help but feel discriminated against.”

The difference in job options between ordinary people and the Awakened was very large.

Awakened individuals could selectively do jobs that ordinary people could do, but ordinary people couldn’t do jobs that only the Awakened could do.

This could be perceived as discrimination and cause conflict.

“So once again, it’s about the difference between the Awakened and ordinary people.”

The difference between ordinary people and the Awakened.

If this wasn’t normalized, the Balhut Cult couldn’t move forward.