Chapter 334: 334

〖 The goal this time is to collect enough information to discern Great Magus Stim Allenz’s true intentions 〗

〖 Naturally, I will also have the others from the Hermit Order to cause disturbances and draw attention away from me 〗

‘Negary’ thought to himself.

‘Negary’ was analyzing the circumstances in the Academic City. He didn’t inherit any of Negary’s power, nor much of his knowledge, furthermore, in order to prevent exposure, he would also restrain himself from utilizing certain spells that had too much relation to Negary. However, his thought process was exactly the same as the original Negary, at most, there would be some computational limits due to the restraints of his brain and soul.

〖 Sediments, especially those Sediments at the bottom level, belong to the class of people that are the most heavily exploited. They eat a meal today without knowing if they’ll get another tomorrow, always on the verge of starvation, and are the main source of evil cultists’ sacrifices or spell casting ingredients 〗

〖 These people are either losers who had lost everything or the offspring of previous Sediments 〗

‘Negary’ looked up at Jimmy and Pilo, who were in the second camp.

…

There were a lot of Sediments in the Academic City, many of them were runaways from other places, some were natives whose businesses went bankrupt for one reason or another, but most were children who were born from the entertainment districts, also known as brothels.

There was a great amount of dissatisfaction from people at the bottom rung of society, and the general ways of relieving this dissatisfaction included alcohol, gambling and women.

Women were rare commodities here, the act of prostitution itself was under complete restriction from Sediment gangs, forbidding women from selling themselves without being regulated. Most women had no choice but to work within these entertainment districts, some women who didn’t work as prostitutes even had to face the constant danger of being raped while on their job.

Furthermore, as soon as news of them being raped on the job spread out, the various other jobs working for the Uppers that would have been available to them would immediately become null. For the Uppers, any maid or nanny that brought shame to their families would face immediate expulsion, they wouldn’t care that the woman was the victim in the affair.

All in all, this caused the women who didn’t work such jobs to be extremely rare in the Academic City. The majority of current Sediments in the city were born from such entertainment districts with these children being considered assets and belongings since birth. A small portion of them was sold to evil cultists or women who used children’s blood as a form of cosmetics, while the rest were raised like cattle in pens.

Once they grew a bit older, some of them would be selected to have their arms or legs broken, creating disabled children who wandered the main streets begging for money. The students who came here to study were generally young, so they usually had a lot of sympathy for these children. Some who didn’t care would also occasionally give them something to display the upper class’ pity for the weak.

Out of the remaining ‘lucky’ ones, the boys eventually become pickpockets or goons, while all girls were added straight into the entertainment districts as new blood. The Sediments who were always full of dissatisfaction wouldn’t know to be gentle or pity the women; in fact, they were always violent during the act. Women were indeed rare commodities, but as assets, they were considered to be disposable.

Men were no different either, as all sorts of fetishes existed here. Or rather, human lives in general were considered to be disposable among the Sediments, with almost no chance to rise, and with very few who ever actually managed to escape their identities as Sediments. Furthermore, even if there were such people, it wouldn’t necessarily be a good thing for the other Sediments.

The concept of becoming exemplar by proxy didn’t exist here. The Sediments who managed to climb up society by displaying their value resented the ‘Sediment’ label they previous bore more than anything else. To fully become part of upper society, they would do anything in their power to escape that label and everything that had anything to do with that label.

For such people, having relations with Sediments was humiliation itself, so any illegitimate children, women, and useless subordinates must be gotten rid of one by one, only then would he be considered ‘clean’ and be a qualified ‘gentleman’.

Jimmy and Pilo were both born in the entertainment district, their mothers both died shortly of diseases after giving birth to them due to lack of post-pregnancy rest. After they grew up a bit, Jimmy became a pickpocket, while Pilo became a goon.

They had no choice, not working meant they were going to be killed. The Sediments gangs generally didn’t care about the lives of their subordinates. Considering their lives were also worth next to nothing, there was no reason for them to respect the lives of others.

Being a pickpocket was a dangerous job because their targets were always the Uppers or Sediments who had a little bit of money. It wasn’t a big deal as long as they managed to steal from normal people, but if the people they stole from had some authority, or they happened to steal something important, the matter would become inflated, and the pickpocket would be thrown away to redeem his mistake.

Being a goon wasn’t much better off either, as the gangs of the Academic City were always fighting, a turf war was a daily occurrence to them, a part of their daily lives. They could die a dog’s death at any moment, their corpses then dragged away to be fed to cattle.

Originally, this would have been how Jimmy and Pilo died as well, up until a certain day. They accidentally discovered a gang big shot trying to dispose of an Upper’s corpse, which forced them to flee. From that point on, they fell to the absolute lowest rung of society, doing jobs that even the gangs looked down on in order to survive. For example, scurrying through sewer trash to barely maintain their livelihood day-by-day.

…

〖 This is a potential point of breakthrough, the profits of a new kind of food will require manpower to maintain and protect 〗

‘Negary’ had already made such a consideration, the thoughts of this body’s original owner right after he was modified was still too naïve, as a few Sediments wouldn’t amount to much at all. The city’s gangs were a bunch of hyenas who could resort to anything, no matter how insane it was, as long as it was for the sake of benefits.

Those who lived in such environments all had very severe mental disabilities, there were no ‘normal people’ here, even if there were, they would have already died or were already broken.

〖 Rousing a rebellion is also a possibility 〗

‘Negary’ lightly rubbed the black substance in his hand. Every once in a while, the Sediments would cause a rebellion, but what awaited them would be casual suppression from either the House of Mages or one of the seven Churches.

To Negary, humans with supernatural powers were children playing house, but to the Sediments who didn’t even have proper weapons, they were essentially gods who held the lives of every Sediment in their hands. As such, a true rebellion had never actually occurred.

“It’s edible, it’s actually edible!!”

Finding out that they were still fine after eating the dirt-infused algae for a while, Jimmy and Pilo exclaimed with excitement. Dirt-infused algae could be found in abundance in the Academic City, and so were the black horn rocks that could be grounded into black horn powder, in other words, they had just found an inexhaustible source of food in an instant.

〖 Enough, unless you’re not afraid of drawing bad attention, shut up 〗’Negary’ shouted at them without any reserve, then stared straight at them with considerable pressure: 〖 Now, pledge your allegiance to me, and I shall bring you glory! 〗

‘Negary’ kept a tiny piece of black jelly in his hand. Currently, he wasn’t in a position where he could easily use supernatural powers, not even the thought guidance magic invoked through hypnosis should be utilized, so he was relying on pure psychological suggestions, which held a small chance of failure against two people with severe mental disabilities.

The will to live they displayed earlier was worthy of praise, but that didn’t mean that they were actually good people. The chances of there being ‘good people’ in the purest sense of the word among the Sediments weren’t that much higher than Japan’s chances at winning the football World Cup.

They were a bunch of trash and losers, even if they were forced to become this way through circumstances, that didn’t change the fact that they were trash and losers.

And the black jelly in ‘Negary’s’ hands was his preparation against that. Under circumstances where he had no supernatural support, it became a critical bit of preparation.

Jimmy and Pilo exchanged glances, then slowly half-knelt down, their answer was to accept.