Chapter 526 – Success

Chapter 526 – Success

Weeks passed, and Kugelblitz didn't try anything shady.

In fact, it seemed like they had given up.

'Aria said that she dealt with it, but I'm still not certain,' Nick thought. 'Would Kugelblitz give up this easily?'

Kugelblitz was a bit too quiet for Nick's liking.

He had expected that there would be some kind of conflict, but there was just nothing.

A couple more months passed, and the blood donation system worked without any major problems.

Sure, there was the occasional guy who tried to sneak out of paying, but those were quickly dealt with.

The city was producing a lot of Zephyx.

Even though the city was earning much less in taxes, the Specters the city owned and Ghosty's research easily made up for that.

And then came all the shares the city now owned by "advancing" middle-layer businessmen.

Lastly, thanks to the blood donation system, the city now earned more than enough to increase the tribute paid to Aegis.

In total, the city earned about 35% more than before Nick took over.

The goal had been to pay 20% more after five years.

Instead, Nick managed to increase it by 35% within two years.

Naturally, Nick wasn't willing to increase the tribute by that much.

He would be fine with a 20% increase for now.

The remaining extra money would be invested back into the city.

Nick wanted to make Crimson City bigger.

All the changes Nick had implemented had the side effect of improving birth rates.

Children no longer needed to pay the blood tax.

There were more orphanages, and more children survived to adulthood.

More people in the Dregs managed to advance in their careers, giving them enough money to consider starting a family.

However, as fewer people died and more were born, the prices of houses increased.

In the past, everyone could basically just grab any random house. There had been far more houses than people.

But now, it was a bit more difficult.

It was not a problem yet, but it could turn into a problem in the future.

Nick decided to spend the extra money on expanding the city towards the west.

To the west of the city were the carbon fields that created carbon for the steel the city made, and Nick wanted to include the carbon fields in the city.

However, this also meant that the city would directly border the Land of Desires, the home of an Elder that no one had suppressed yet.

Yet, the reason why no one had suppressed it yet wasn't because it was difficult to suppress.

The main reason was that the city had strictly prohibited experimentation on the Specter.

The Land of Desires was used as a defensive measure for the Carbon Fields.

With the Land of Desires covering one side of them, all the black slimes would run into the Land of Desires instead of the Carbon Fields.

'We can capture or kill the Land of Desires when we got a new wall,' Nick thought.

Nick and Aria ordered the expansion, and within a couple of months, the Carbon Fields had been fully engulfed by the city.

The city walls had expanded to include a two-by-three-kilometer area to the west of the old city.

This gave two square kilometers of additional building space and four square kilometers of fields, which could now be tended to by normal people.

This opened up quite a few new jobs since the plants grew very quickly and had to be harvested almost weekly.

As soon as the new wall was secure, Aria rescinded the protective order on the Land of Desires.

He regularly left the city's headquarters on his own.

He had been prepared for a potential assassination attempt for a year now, but it never happened.

'What did Aria do to them?' Nick thought.

The meeting passed without any incident, and Nick went back to his office.

One additional month passed, and it was finally time to pay the yearly tribute.

Huge crates were transported from the Inner City to the Outer City.

The people watched with interest as the crates were transported by powerful guards.

By the end, there were 24 crates stacked on top of each other.

Aria and Nick also arrived and stood in front of the grates.

Then, they waited.

About half an hour later, three people flew in from the outside and landed in front of Aria and Nick.

"Governor," the man leading them said with a nod before turning to Nick. "Liaison."

"Agent," Nick and Aria greeted back.

The leading Agent looked at the crates behind them.

"Why are there 24?" he asked.

"Because I have done my job as Liaison," Nick said. "My job as Liaison is to increase the productivity of the city without increasing the misery. I had five years as a deadline, but I managed to finish it in a bit more than two. From now on, Crimson City's tribute will be 20% higher. Instead of 20 tons of Zephyx, we deliver 24 tons now."

The Agent furrowed his brows and looked at the crates.

The next moment, he gestured for one of his people to go to the grates.

Someone stepped forward, retrieved a device, and inserted it into a hole in one of the crates.

She repeated the same thing for all 24 crates.

Finally, she nodded in confirmation to her leader.

The leader nodded with an impressed expression.

"Seems like the project was a success," the leader said to Nick. "Good job, Liaison."

"Thank you, Agent," Nick said politely.

"We are going to report back to our Judge, who will send a report to the headquarters. As far as I am aware, even though you managed to achieve your goal early, the deadline of five years still exists. Use the remaining three years to improve the city even more."

"The better the city is, the better your impression will be."

"Thank you," Nick said politely.

The Agents put the crates away and left the city after saying a couple more things.

Nick and Aria watched as the Agents left.

They had done it!

They had fulfilled their mission!

The Dregs were becoming cleaner and richer as more days passed.

The number of deaths was reduced drastically.

The birthrates were up.

Corruption was at an all-time low.

The city was growing.

The upper layer didn't dare to try anything shady.

Kugelblitz was surprisingly cooperative.

They had done it!

They had succeeded!

They had transformed Crimson City!