Ch.310Work Record 044 – Time of Farewell (2)

The holy war will end. But the discontent of the holy war must continue to burn. I do not wish for more people to die in the name of the holy war. My followers will fight against themselves with the fire of the holy war.

They must fight against their way of life before joining the order—the way that prevented them from doing truly joyful things. They must fight against selling drugs and prostitution, against the simple ways of sustaining life, to find true joy.

Therefore, the order must remain strong. And, originally, I believed El Pastor and La Roca could lead the order by themselves… but not anymore. Because La Roca has become a fanatic.

Fortunately, a candidate for the third pillar to support the order was right before my eyes. Jimena was cutting off the ventilation duct leading to the panic room, using the building structure information received from the human resources team.

She is not as fanatical as the other two. Most of the zealots were quite far from such fanaticism. In fact, most of the order believes in El Sueño for practical reasons.

In such a situation, if only fanatics were to lead… it wouldn’t be enjoyable. Since joy has now left my hands and become these people’s ideal, I had no choice but to pay rather delicate attention.

La Roca had a miracle that I bestowed upon her, or one she created herself. El Pastor will now learn a bit of truth. He has done his part, so I won’t be too sadistic.

I will show him that the El Sueño he believed in is human, but I won’t tell him that I’m a mercenary from Fitz & Morrison. I’ll tell him I’m an apostle who received a revelation from El Sueño.

It will be shocking, but it will also be the gentlest way to handle his childlike fantasy. To make Jimena the third pillar of the order, I’ll need to give her something.

I was a transparent god, pretending to have no connection to material things… but I did have one thing. Jimena walks toward me. The door to the panic room opens, and smoke leaks out.

She came out because she couldn’t stand it when I set off smoke grenades in the ventilation duct connected to the panic room. I handed her the high-frequency blade I wore at my waist. It was something worthy of being called a divine weapon.

First, it was a meticulously custom-made item impossible to find in the wasteland… and since it was made with my reinforced-suit-wearing bulk in mind, it had more visual intimidation than other high-frequency blades.

Above all, this sword contained a miracle. It had symbolic significance as the weapon used to rescue La Roca and to wipe out the clowns of the bazaar. Jimena asked with confusion:

“I, I came to tell you that the door has opened…”

“If you handle them with your own hands, it becomes the achievement of the zealots, Jimena. Take my sword. Make it the achievement of the entire order.”

When I gave a natural reason, she accepted the sword with both hands. She lifted the sword, heavy even for her full-body prosthetic, and headed toward the security team executives who had been dragged out and forced to kneel.

The broadcast system transmitting to the entire city connected, and the scene was revealed. Jimena stood facing the screen, holding up my sword. After briefly looking at her full-body prosthetic arms dyed to look like blood-soaked hands, she shouted:

“The Strip’s security team headquarters has already been annihilated, and the order’s forces remain intact! El Sueño’s opinion is that the Strip should stop its meaningless resistance and surrender, but my opinion differs. Let’s see this through to the end.”

It was Jimena’s bluff. Contrasting the good cop and bad cop has always been an effective method. Everyone in the order would know it was a bluff, but the Strip wouldn’t.

Jimena brought the corpse of the security team leader—whom I had personally crushed with my hands and feet when he resisted in front of the executive conference room—and threw it before the camera. Showing the literally destroyed and shattered human form, she said:

“Anyway, you’re a breed so steeped in decadence and pleasure that there’s no way to save you anymore. I would show mercy to people and persuade them, but if you’re beasts who can do nothing but roll around naked on alcohol and honey…”

Jimena glances toward me. Though I’ve given her my authority, her look means that I should speak the important words. I make her stop speaking by lightly clenching my fist in front of her. I deactivate my optical camouflage.

“Their sin is that they were satisfied, Jimena. Shouldn’t we show mercy to those who were not satisfied and tried to change the Strip even a little? And spare all those who lacked the ability to change things.”

Jimena nodded vigorously just from my gentle admonishment. This showed that El Sueño was the one leading the order, demonstrating how solid the command structure was, before she continued:

“El Sueño has issued a decree. The office workers of the Strip will live. However, the managers… will have to prove that they tried to change something in this cesspool of the Strip to survive.”

Cutting out only the security team and management was more for my work than for the order. It was creating space for Fitz & Morrison to enter. But it was also necessary work.

Usually, this process fails. Even after overthrowing a system, there’s no one to run the new system, so the original people are used again, the original problems resurface, and the system collapses again.

Fitz & Morrison wasn’t without issues either. They were so uncritical that they even imitated the naming conventions of weapons from the war era, showing no caution about the past, and they also had an unconditional hatred for mutants.

But at least they knew how to create new values. They had the ideal that people who are good at just one thing—just one thing—can complement each other and live together.

It will be a little better than now. And since N-Enter wouldn’t pass up a landmark like Las Vegas, they would also get involved… Las Vegas will never run out of money in the future.

Only after ending the broadcast did Jimena slaughter those executives. She grabbed the highest-ranking man by the collar and lifted him effortlessly. With a face radiating light, she faced him.

To be precise, only I could see it. For him, it was just blinding light. I whispered to him in the leisurely voice of El Sueño, the voice of a god:

“I am the spirit of vengeance.”

The security team executive who held real power in the Strip sneered at me mockingly. Humans who have survived long in places like this often develop the ability to make even slightly human sounds. It’s nothing special.

“Seeing you spout nonsense about vengeance, I can tell the order won’t last long either. Who did you come for?”

“But I won’t take revenge. Because that’s not enjoyable. If a pathetic murderer like you dies like a pathetic murderer, you’ll laugh as you die, saying, ‘Yes, the world is just like this anyway.'”

He becomes somewhat flustered. My revenge was quite businesslike. Revenge wasn’t about beating him to death; it was about helping Fitz & Morrison methodically tear down Las Vegas and rebuild it.

“But I don’t think that way. The wasteland will establish its own laws, and the order will prosper. I’ll build your grave where it can witness that achievement. To eternally insult your pathetic existence.”

With those words, I released the executive. Two order members took him away and made him kneel, and Jimena recited his crimes. It wasn’t exactly rational, modern rule of law, but there were at least rules.

His crime was being absorbed in decadence and pleasure, turning the wasteland—which could have been a better place—into a barren land that only produced dust. I won’t deny that this was, at best, on the level of a modern religious trial.

But that pathetic procedure breathes life into the order’s ideals. The fact that it’s not El Sueño tearing him apart, but someone who received his authority following rules established at least in scripture.

Jimena turned on the broadcast system again after collecting the executives’ bodies. Papers listing their crimes were placed on their body bags. This allowed people to infer what had happened while the broadcast was off.

“Those who chose war, who tried to stop the order with guns, will die in war. If you didn’t choose that, there’s still a chance for all of you. Although El Sueño is not a capricious person…”

Jimena skillfully stood before the camera and held up a sheet of paper. She showed a pre-prepared paper listing the crimes in detail to the broadcast system as she continued:

“He’s also not one to show mercy to the worthless. So it’s better to choose quickly. Don’t worry. The Strip will remain the Strip. You’ll just be liberated from decadence and pleasure to find joy.”

With her final words, she made it clear that the order, which advocates joy, had no intention of shutting down the Las Vegas Strip. She truly was a person worthy of being the third pillar to support the order.

Perhaps because of that broadcast, the Strip’s resistance quickly crumbled. The order didn’t take prisoners, but they didn’t harm the office workers either. For now, all office workers were spared, but the process wasn’t over yet.

The purge of the management remained. The important thing here was to follow procedure… and to not appear as murderers to the Strip’s office workers.

It’s not a difficult method. Just pretend to give them a choice. We placed the security team’s management in the middle of the security team building, in front of the office workers.

If the office workers wanted to hide in the crowd, we let them hide freely. Then, I simply asked. With the voice of a god that made skin sting and bodies ache just from hearing it, I asked:

“I ask all gathered here! How many of these people tried, with their own power, to make the Las Vegas Strip a slightly better place for you and for customers? Of course, even attempting and failing counts as trying.”

Some of the managers gathered here, those still holding their heads high, had no doubt that other office workers would call out their names. After a moment of silence, a voice came from the crowd:

“Um, Security Section 1’s Manager Lamarckus… he, well, tried to make the security team not openly display their guns because it’s ominous to have people standing with guns behind customers who are gambling…”

“Tried to?”

“He failed, actually. They said security handles the company’s force, so they should look threatening on the outside too. But, well, he knew that what we do isn’t creating a gang but providing a service…”

The first people named are always the best people. Or at least those who try to appear that way to others. After clapping my hands heavily, I said:

“Knowing that, he is worth saving. Knowing that security isn’t about controlling customers but protecting them, he is worth saving. Rise, Lamarckus. What should security protect?”

At those words, a man with one of the few living gazes among those sitting like lambs led to slaughter rose to his feet. His shirt was torn, perhaps from being beaten during the process of being dragged here.

“The safety of customers and… the reason people should come to Las Vegas. If we can’t provide even minimal enjoyment, no one will come to this sewer full of prostitutes and drugs, and then… the Strip is finished.”

I walk over and bring him out myself. I send him back into the crowd. Now there’s a glimmer of hope in the eyes of those lambs in the slaughterhouse. They begin to hope someone will testify for them.

The testimonies continue. People who tried to change the security team’s liquid lunch to something slightly better for the same price by requesting it from superiors, or those with the will to understand and change the organization, are filtered out.

They are people who help just by existing. I build more faith in Jimena as I watch her slowly note down their names and positions, and hand them over to zealots to be kept safe.

After that… there were people who essentially pursued self-interest but created benefits as a result. Like those who placed synthetic coffee machines they liked in break rooms that previously only had fishy-smelling pseudo-food snacks.

They were people who were at least slightly better to have than not. I didn’t mind if they acted on their own. If they could achieve even slightly better efficiency as a result, they could be selfish.

And the crowd began to flow as I expected. At first, they were afraid we would make them conduct a people’s trial… but now, voices close to mockery leaked from the crowd:

“But honestly… aren’t only the dispensable people left now? I mean, the coffee machine is funny too… but at least it let us have real coffee and biscuits in the break room. If they can’t even do that much…”

Layer by layer, as you peel away valuable people… what remains eventually looks shabby. They become intoxicated with the fact that this peeling away is their job, and they begin to wield power.

Now was the time to guide them. Until now, I had them select people who were beneficial just by existing, but now it would be the opposite. I opened my mouth in a leisurely voice:

“No, every person has the right to live here just by being born. You cannot be held responsible because you had no power, and not all of you had the will like Lamarckus.”

At those words, the mockery from the crowd disappeared. In their silence, I leisurely opened my mouth. I began to select people who needed to die.

“So now I ask the opposite. Are there any among these who have harmed you? If there are any who have caused you pain and distanced you from joy, speak. I am listening.”

There were as many trash people as there were valuable ones. As soon as I finished speaking, someone in the crowd began to denounce. They pointed out those with reasons to die.

“Section 6 Manager, you bitch! What did you say to me? You said men who buy prostitutes with personality adjustment devices are idiots, right? You said they don’t understand that it’s enjoyable to suppress someone against their will, right? You fucking…”

More important than whether this testimony and accusation were true was whether everyone present could accept it. If it was a truth they could accept, that would be best, but it was enough if they could just accept it.

“It’s still just testimony. Who will second it? Are there any from Security Section 6 who can vouch for this testimony?”

Several Security Section 6 employee badges popped out from the crowd, and testimonies poured forth. People who couldn’t speak up in front of their manager began to wield their own power, seduced and deceived by the power of the crowd.

I won’t say it’s bad. Thanks to that, from the position of killing those who were better not to have than to have, there wasn’t much to complain about.

I didn’t even need to kill that Section 6 manager myself. The Section 6 manager, who had somehow kept her mouth shut and hoped that I, not knowing the employee roster, would confuse people, was dragged out by Jimena’s bloody hands.

El Sueño’s sword began to vibrate like a beast licking its lips before prey, and the real purge began as Jimena cut off that woman’s head.

The unqualified, the free riders, and the criminals were slaughtered as they always had been. No one mourned or felt guilty.