Chapter 4: Guilty (4)

“That… That…”

“Well, I’m an outsider, but shouldn’t you be lying so shamelessly? Huh?”

I could sense that he, John, was afraid.

I felt a little sorry, but it was necessary.

“Mr. John. Don’t come in tomorrow. This is your severance pay.”

I took a thin envelope out of my pocket and threw it at him.

No, I scattered it in front of him.

“This, this…”

“I’m resigning for personal reasons. Don’t ask the company for severance pay or re-employment. And don’t tell them how much you spent. Do you understand?”

“Oh, no! I worked so hard to get here… I worked so hard.”

Even though it’s a production job, it’s still a company in Hansan.

It’s a world where even an ordinary poor person would have a hard time being treated like a working machine even if they worked their whole lives.

They must have no criminal record and be physically fit.

They must not be involved with gangs and must pass a difficult test.

Considering that the poor in this city can’t live without crime, it wasn’t such an easy task.

“Just once, just once, give me a chance! I’m actually a night shift worker… and I couldn’t help it when they suddenly called me to clean!”

He screamed loudly.

The moment of becoming unemployed in an instant must not have been easy to accept.

“Because the CEO is coming! Somehow, that… to show them a little bit of a clean appearance!”

I completely hid my aching heart and smiled bitterly.

“So?”

“That… That’s why, we just voluntarily came out and finished it up! Of course, we didn’t receive overtime pay either…”

“You came out voluntarily? No, you punk. Should I have you sign to check the CCTV of your dorm? Why are you trying to cover up a lie with another lie? Huh?”

“If I get kicked out like this, how am I supposed to live? I have a family at home. Boss, please forgive me just this once.”

“Ha, really. You’re annoying people.”

I ran a hand through my hair and lightly grabbed his collar.

“Sir. You don’t seem scared when I say it for real. Shall I really show you?”

“Ugh…”

“I can show you even your in-laws’ 8th cousins, and if I find just one corporate bastard or gangster, I can immediately send them over for sabotage. Do you think I can’t do it?”

“P-please…”

“Take that and get out. I put it in a place where you won’t feel bad, so don’t try to cause any more trouble.”

Only then did John, who had given up, wipe away his tears and grab the envelope I had dropped.

He must have been desperate now.

He probably wouldn’t have thought that the ordinary envelope he had crawled around like a dog would contain so much money.

The envelope, which contained a few bills, didn’t seem like it would contain enough money to start a new life, let alone a severance pay, if he had received it as allowance or a bonus.

He probably thought it was a hundred dollars at most.

“Get out. Let’s not look at it again.”

“Ha, just this once…”

“Go away.”

But that was a trick.

He had put a card between the bills, and he had put in money that was hundreds of times more than the amount he had thought it would be.

A quick-witted person might have felt a sense of discomfort at the fact that the ‘CEO of Hansan’ had ‘deliberately prepared an envelope’ and thrown it away, but the people here were looking at John with pitiful eyes.

After he left, I looked around the factory with greedy eyes again.

Having created a scapegoat and controlled the atmosphere, all that was left was the massacre.

“I’m sorry. There are some people who are too ambitious…”

While the commotion was going on, all the workers who had been working overtime unintentionally had all left the factory.

However, the factory did not stop.

I leisurely walked around here and there.

“Damn, why on earth is that guy here doing this?”

From a little distance away, I could hear one of the factory managers whispering to the factory manager.

It was probably a prudent choice, since my secretary had just shown me how to gain authority and control everything in the factory.

It was common sense in this world that if you had a secret conversation, you should use brainwave communication connected to a machine, but electronic communication always carried the risk of being eavesdropped on.

“I heard you had a fight with the president of our company. You, watch your mouth. I don’t know when or how they’re listening.”

It was a very small voice, but my ears were sharper.

I realized that things were going according to plan and let out a sigh of relief.

“Let me see… These are rubber gloves. Do they have holes in them?”

“That’s right, the order has been placed, but it hasn’t been delivered to the site yet…”

“This is a real mess. I personally respect Mr. JangGuhan, but don’t you think the people working under him are any different?”

I could see the factory manager’s face distorting.

If I came here and started to act violently, the president of Hansan Foods would have no choice but to formally hold the person in charge of the site accountable.

However, if a specific problem was discovered, the severity of the disciplinary action would have to change.

“Wow, he’s too kind. The site is a mess, and he can’t even cut it off.”

There was someone who had to leave the company because of what I said, so they wouldn’t be able to take my words lightly either.

And now, it was time to get to the point.

“…Hey, he doesn’t have implants?”

“What do you mean?”

“The people working in that position. They have to wear reinforced implants in their arms, right?”

The factory manager trailed off.

As is often the case with the violence I’ve caused here, it was an excessive criticism that didn’t fit with reality.

In a country where public power is properly in place, these rules would be somewhat followed.

However, at least on this continent, such rules were not followed.

It was a factory that made cheap food for the poor.

It would not have been strange if food had been made in a much more dangerous and dirty factory than this.

Stella City had its own rules, and its own prices.

I guarantee that processed foods produced in factories that follow all of these rules will be several times more expensive than processed foods produced here.

“That… It’s not realistically easy, so I couldn’t help it.”

“No, if you get caught in that, you’ll die. Are the safety devices properly installed? Can I put my hand in there?”

“Oh, no! That…”

“That’s weird. Is it because I’m not interested in the food business? If you look at the video taken at the factory in Gyeongju, they’re just putting their hand in there. They’re doing a safety inspection.”

“That’s… The machines are different! After all, the machines available in Stella City often don’t include such options…”

“Oh, so that’s why they’re making them do this work without even installing safety devices. Is that it?”

Even if it’s a little gloomy, this worldview is a worldview of the future. It’s a place where technology is much more advanced than the world I was in.

Naturally, the safety devices had to be much more advanced. There was a device that would stop the machine if a foreign substance entered it, and there was even a rule that workers doing dangerous work had to wear mechanically reinforced implants or steel exoskeletons on their arms.

That’s not the rule in Stella City. If you get sucked into the machine by mistake, it’s not just your arm that gets crushed, but your entire body gets sucked in.

At that time, people with body-enhancing implants or exoskeletons can quickly escape and continue their daily lives by replacing their arms.

“Hey, you’re working. I’m not being too intrusive, am I?”

“No!”

“Then tell me honestly. When was the last time someone died?”

“That…”

“Well, they went to the hospital in an emergency, but they died because they didn’t have money for the surgery. Including all that. When did they die?”

The worker who was doing the work with his bare hands sweat profusely at my question.

“Pfft, it’s not easy! I’m a day shift worker, so I don’t know about accidents that happen at night, and… vacations and stuff…”

“You don’t have to be exact, so tell me. There must have been someone who died in this factory recently. When?”

In fact, it was easy to find out if I had my secretary check the accident management database. It wasn’t impossible that they were hiding the accident, but it was extremely unlikely.

“About, so… a month ago.”

It was so easy for people to die in a factory like this, and they didn’t even feel the need to hide it.

“Okay. A month. A month, that’s it…”

I roughly kicked his leg. The worker’s body jerked forward. Before his palm could be sucked into the machine, I grabbed his body and pulled him back.

“Ugh!”

“You’ve been working in this dangerous situation for a month, right? This kid almost fell over and died. Huh?”

Everyone fell silent. I made a distorted expression and threatened the factory manager.

“Stop the machine! It looks like I’m joking around!”

“But if you stop the machine now, your quota…”

The factory manager came running urgently. I took a pistol out of my pocket and fired into the air.

“What, what!”

Even the workers who had forced their ears to close had no choice but to react to this explosive sound.

“If you don’t want to get left behind, stop the machine! You did all this crap…”

Actually, I know. That factory manager is someone who really cares about this factory.

In Stella City, the treatment of ordinary factory workers was much worse.

It wasn’t just the managers who didn’t want to follow safety or hygiene rules. Even the workers who wanted to work quickly and rest were equally ignoring the rules.

“Our sales!”

“If you say one more word, I’ll put a gun in your head.”

In fact, all of this was half-for-show. My secretary had control over most of the affiliates of Hansan Group. It was easy for her to turn off the machine just by moving her brain and touching the computer.

“Ah… I understand.”

“Safety, hygiene rules! Repair it properly and report back to me. Until then, don’t even think about coming back here. Understood?”

“That is…”

“Do you understand?”

The factory manager reluctantly nodded, perhaps because he was so scared by my demanding appearance.

Then, he immediately gave the order to stop all the machines.

It was an obvious abuse of authority.

It wasn’t even my official job, and it was an act that infringed on the interests of Hansan Group.

So I made it look like an act of personal anger and opinion.

If it was revealed that I was doing this outrage for the sake of the workers’ safety, even though I was a member of Hansan Group, others would check me.

However, if other Hansan Group members misjudged this as work interference due to personal anger, they would acknowledge it as that crazy guy is going to go somewhere and do something again!

People are cheap.

There was no official rank, but the lives of the workers here were cheaper than my anger.

“Let’s go!”

My secretary followed me.

When I got back in my car, I was able to relax a little.

“The elders of the family might be angry.”

“I have to accept that.”

This was a game world. I had some future knowledge.

“I think I prevented one accident.”

Of course, the citizens of Stella City weren’t angry because one person died in the factory.

Death was too common and natural in this city to be angry at the company for something like that.

You could be shot by a gang while walking down the street, or you could die in a construction accident or a car accident.

Drugs, robbery, machine malfunction, assassination.

Suicide or cancer were surprisingly rare.

There were too many other reasons for people to die for such an easy reason.

One death would not cause any incident.

Even if you played the game for hundreds of hours, it would be an ordinary day in Stella City that you wouldn’t remember.

One death would be like that.