Chapter Ten: Undercurrents of Civilization

  Thanks to the unexploded delayed-action incendiary grenade, Marlon and Ayster were forced to linger outside the devastated Echelia's Light restaurant until high noon.

  During this time, reporters from newspapers such as the White Sand Morning Post, the White Sand Daily and the Message of God's Oracle Post appeared one after another. They were like hungry wolves searching everywhere for news leads worth writing about in their respective papers - after all, this was a bank heist that had blown up even the most secure banks and made off with large sums of cash.

  As a passerby who happened to witness the scene, Ma Long and Aisite were also inevitably interviewed. Fortunately, Ma Long had anticipated this situation earlier and reminded Aisite in advance, so she didn't say anything she shouldn't have said.

  However, after the reporters who thought they wouldn't get any valuable news left, Aizte looked at a fat man surrounded by a large group of reporters in the distance, seemingly and apparently a high-ranking police officer, and muttered with some annoyance.

  "Brother, those bank robbers were actually so easily taken down because of our doing, but now I can't say it out loud, it's killing me!"

  In the eyes of the indignant Minotaur youth, was reflected that fat man wearing a full police uniform.

  At this moment, the fat man was flushed with excitement as he gave a blow-by-blow account to the reporters of how the police officers reacted swiftly, cleverly and bravely, wiping out all the bank robbers in one fell swoop.

  There is no doubt that this bank robbery which has just occurred will become a political achievement for the high-ranking officials of this police station.

  Ma Long, who also witnessed the scene, remained silent because after filtering out the boasting of the fat police officer about the Baisha City police system, he noticed something very crucial.

  Those seven robbers who blasted and robbed the Sol's Bank were all... disabled veterans.

  Although compared to those who fell into the slums and died, these seven people's war injuries were much lighter, but they had indeed been soldiers.

  Even veterans who should be able to support themselves have taken a desperate road, how much longer can other veterans endure?

  This discovery made Ma Long feel a chill run down his spine.

  This feeling of sitting on a barrel of gunpowder that has been ignited, yet still being oblivious to it... is really terrible!

  "Ai Si Te, ask you something."

  But he could only imagine and Ma Long couldn't guess how serious things were, so he needed to get more detailed intelligence from Aisite for verification.

  "What?"

  The young man with a cow's head is still indignant, he is the real young man.

  "Your home is in Oshana district, if I'm not mistaken, most of the factories in Baisha City are concentrated in Oshana district, right?"

  Ma Long asked.

  Memory told Malong that most of the factories in Baisha City were located in the Oshan District, where two air defense regiments of the Lorin National Defense Army were stationed.

  "That's right, it was because of the Helios Empire's transoceanic bombing two years ago. My old man said that if factories are concentrated together, even the government can't help but arrange heavy troops to protect them on all sides, and in case something happens, they can also rescue each other more quickly and conveniently, so it's actually safer than building them scattered about."

  The young man with a cow's head was indeed knowledgeable and spoke without hesitation, blurting out everything his old father had racked his brains to figure out.

  "Are there many demobilized soldiers among the workers in these factories?"

  Ma Long nodded and continued to ask, actually this question was what he wanted to ask about.

  "How many retired soldiers are there?" The cow-headed youth blinked his round, bulging eyes and said in a strange tone: "Brother, have you gone crazy? The rough and dirty work is done by the slaves brought over from the Svia continent, the heavy and fine work is done by the steam puppets, and the factory only needs to hire a few clever and educated citizens as managers. Who would bother to bring these troublesome people who only know how to kill into their own factory?"

  "Slave?!"

  Ma Long's eyes widened in surprise; he had never thought that the root of the problem lay here.

  "We're still relatively good here, if we go further inland, those people in the colonial farms, except for the farm owners, are all Sviyan slaves."

  The young Minotaur didn't think it was strange at all, and after thinking for a moment, he even added: "Ah, right, in our city, most of the slaves used are agile Dorellians, while in rural areas, they mostly use strong and docile Anmael horse slaves."

  "Steam puppet, can you do delicate work?"

  After listening to the Minotaur boy's explanation of slavery, Ma Long nodded and then asked about the steam puppet.

  "Can I?" The young Minotaur replied with his mouth open, but immediately corrected himself: "Oh... except for those too delicate ones, the kind that only artisans can do."

  Ma Long weakly patted his own forehead, because in his heart, uncontrollably, there emerged a scene of fully automatic robots and slaves wearing collars with slave brands, sitting in rows on an assembly line, continuously manufacturing steam-era industrial products.

  With these two kinds of extremely cheap laborers, how could the factory owners who are driven by maximizing profits still be willing to recruit vagrant veterans?

  Working in the service industry?

  Not to mention the third industry, in this era of a hundred schools of thought contending, is there enough employment opportunities? Just talking about hands that are used to holding knives and guns, taking up something else again, how easy can it be?

  It's possible that the prolonged global war that lasted for decades was largely caused by a lack of job opportunities, while labor forces were severely oversupplied under the pressure of mechanical puppets and slave workers.

  Now that the world war is over, this contradiction has immediately re-emerged with a vengeance.

  Just then, a small newsboy, about ten years old, with a great bundle of papers under his arm, appeared in sight, waving them and shouting in a shrill voice.

  "Get your paper here! Get your paper here! Sir, want to buy a paper? Miss, want to buy a paper? Today's big news: the Serpa Alliance has suddenly announced the development of an extended-range delayed-curse missile with a range of up to White Sand City, becoming the second country after ours to possess such technology! Fernando, chief instructor at the National Agricultural Academy, has successfully developed improved varieties of oats and corn, with yields reaching 1,500 and 1,700 per mu respectively! The National People's Congress is deeply divided, and the national minimum living guarantee scheme is once again indefinitely delayed..."