The Real Manager

Outside the iron door, Rovi stopped and turned to look at Old John.

Old John's expression was grim.

He was trembling slightly, both with anger and fear.

"What's going on?" Rovi's face darkened at once.

Old John swallowed and explained in a low voice, "Advisor, this is... the rule around here."

Through Old John's halting account, Rovi came to understand how the laborers at the bottom survived.

Young women were not only labor; they were also a kind of "resource."

When they had husbands—legal "protectors"—they were safe, belonging as private property to a family unit.

The moment their husbands died, they instantly changed from "private property" into "ownerless things."

So-called community elders, district foremen, idle thugs, and gangs would seize the opportunity to move in.

Under all sorts of high-sounding pretexts, such as "housing reallocation" and "insufficient productivity," they would extort them.

They would even forcibly "assign" these unprotected women to bottom-feeding scum who could not be assigned spouses because of disabilities, genetic mutations, or old age, trading them for the meager supplies and money those men had hoarded over the years.

Some were simply reduced to prostitutes in the underground Black Market.

The despair of these three widows was not because they had lost their husbands' love.

It was because they realized that with their husbands' deaths in battle, the umbrella shielding them had collapsed.

What awaited them was a fate of being devoured clean.

Rovi fell silent.

This was Granary Seven under his rule.

Even though he fought desperately above to maintain order.

Even though he had just brought back life-saving supplies.

In corners untouched by sunlight, the most primitive and brutal laws of the jungle still prevailed.

Ever since he had crossed into this world, Rovi had constantly reminded himself to become cold and ruthless.

Yet when he truly faced reality, his heart still ached.

"Advisor, should I go drive them away?" Old John asked tentatively.

"Drive away one group, and another will come." Rovi pondered. "As long as those 'unspoken rules' remain, they'll always be sheep waiting for slaughter."

He pushed open the half-closed iron door and stepped inside.

The noisy argument in the room stopped abruptly.

The narrow Pigeon Cage was packed with people.

A middle-aged woman with a fleshy face stood with her hands on her hips.

A bald man was reaching his filthy hand toward a can of meat.

Three delinquent-looking youths stood in the corner as well.

They wore leather jackets caked with grease, with rough tattoos visible on their arms.

The emblem of the Rust Gang from the front district.

One of the youths was toying with a switchblade, a lewd, mocking grin on his face as the tip swayed before the youngest widow.

With Rovi's intrusion, everyone's eyes converged on him.

The air instantly froze.

In Granary Seven, some people might never have seen the Governor, but no one failed to recognize that face.

This was the man who had let more refugees drink Green Soup, then led people to seize Fuel back from Granary Four and made the heating run warm again.

"L-Lord Advisor?!"

The bald man's knees seemed to lose all their bones at once, and he dropped to the floor with a thud.

The middle-aged woman was so frightened that her hand jerked. The half-piece of synthetic starch she had been clutching fell to the floor and rolled to Rovi's military boots.

The three hooligans, once so arrogant, now looked like rats that had seen their natural predator.

The youth playing with the knife trembled, and the switchblade clattered to the floor.

He panicked and tried to pick it up, but under Rovi's icy stare, his movements froze. He could only tuck his hands behind his back and desperately shrink toward the corner.

The three young widows huddled at the edge of the bed raised their heads as well.

Their faces were streaked with tears, their swollen red eyes full of fear and shock.

They could not believe that such a lofty figure, like a god above them, would truly appear in a Pigeon Cage too filthy even for cockroaches.

Rovi ignored this bunch of trash and walked straight to the three widows.

Three cans of meat sat on the table. One had already been forcibly pried open, its lid twisted out of shape.

Clearly, it bore the marks of the violence this group had just used.

"Your husbands traded their lives for these." Wearing black gloves, Rovi pointed at the canned meat. "No one but you has the right to touch them."

"M-my lord, we don't dare eat..." One of the widows trembled, her voice barely louder than a mosquito's buzz. "They... they said those were the rules. They said we weren't qualified to live here, and that we had to pay protection money..."

"Who said that?"

Rovi turned around and demanded coldly.

"M-misunderstanding, it was all a misunderstanding!" The bald man desperately kowtowed, his forehead thudding against the floor. "I just felt sorry for these widows and orphans, so I asked these gentlemen to... to help maintain order..."

"Maintain order?" Rovi drew the Bolt Pistol from his waist.

He did not point it at anyone. Instead, he slammed it onto the table.

Thud.

The heavy metal impact rang out like a hammer blow against everyone's chest.

"You maintain order with knives?"

Rovi had no intention of putting on some tenderhearted show of sympathy.

If he merely backed up these three widows today, then once he left, these hyena-like gangs would only intensify their cruelty and tear them apart even more thoroughly.

What he needed was to establish a new "rule."

An iron law forged in blood, tied to the military authority he had just established.

"Old John."

"Here." Old John immediately answered from outside the door, followed by two armed guards.

The moment Rovi had entered, Old John had hurriedly called for nearby patrolmen.

He did not want anything happening to Rovi.

"Pass on my orders. Issue a notice to the entire district."

Rovi swept his gaze across the room, his eyes sharp as blades as he declared with authority:

"First: beginning today, the housing rights and ration allotments of the families of soldiers killed at Granary Seven will be forcibly retained for three months."

"During those three months, anyone who dares harass, evict, or extort them for any reason will be deemed guilty of disrupting military morale."

"Second: all widows of fallen soldiers will have priority recruitment rights. The Logistics Department's mending workshops, cafeterias, and laundries will recruit from among them first."

"They are part of the military. They fall directly under the Defense Force's jurisdiction—not the community's, and certainly not some fucking gang's."

By this point, the three thugs had gone white as sheets.

Rovi paused, then continued speaking to the three youths huddled in the corner.

"Third: as for the scum who stabs soldiers in the back, drag them all outside. Since they're so full of energy and strong enough to bully women, they can go to the front lines."

He raised a hand and pointed at the three thugs and the bald man.

"Assign these four to the vanguard unit of the next Armed Scavenger Squad. In other words... the Suicide Squad."

"No, my lord, spare us!"

"We're from the Rust Gang! Our boss knows Father Simon! This isn't according to the rules!" the knife-wielding thug screamed desperately, trying to invoke his backing.

Rovi sneered.

"Father Simon of the Ecclesiarchy? Fine. Let him come to me if he wants his men back. As for the rules... here, my word is the rule."

The two guards charged in like wolves and tigers, smashing the butt of a rifle viciously into the shouting thug's mouth and knocking out several of his teeth.

Then they dragged them outside.

The bald man let out a pig-slaughtering shriek, both hands desperately clutching the doorframe. His fingernails broke, leaving bloody streaks behind, but he was still mercilessly dragged away.

The room suddenly became empty.

The middle-aged woman had been so frightened that she collapsed to the floor and wet herself.

Rovi frowned in disgust and put his hat back on.

"As for you..." he snarled at the woman, "if you dare step through this door again, or if I hear that you've bullied them in any way, your fate will be worse than those four."

After leaving the apartment building, the cold wind made Rovi feel a slight chill.

"Advisor, that was brilliant." Old John followed behind him, sighing sincerely. "Now who would dare bully a soldier's family? Once those recruits hear about this, they'll probably fight even harder for you."

"This wasn't for me." Rovi stopped and looked toward the towering grain silo in the distance, his tone indifferent. "It was for efficiency."

"If soldiers are risking their lives on the front lines while still worrying about their families being preyed upon back home, then this war can't be fought. I'm not doing charity work, Old John. I'm maintaining my tools."

Old John froze for a moment, then lowered his head deeply.

Perhaps he did not understand the cold administrative logic behind the phrase "maintaining tools."

But he knew perfectly well that if he followed this new Advisor, he could at least live like a human being.

"Oh, right."

Rovi suddenly stopped and asked in a low voice:

"I want to assign the three widows a secret mission. It may be life-threatening—perhaps even more dangerous than going to the front lines. Would they be willing?"

"Of course, Esteemed Advisor."

Old John answered with almost no hesitation.

A fawning, ingratiating smile spread across his aged face.

Then, in the slick, tacitly understanding tone men used with one another, he said:

"Not only did you save their homes just now, you gave them a way to live. Forget some dangerous assignment—tonight, if you merely crooked a finger and told them to wash up and report to your office for a 'night shift,' they'd kneel on the floor and thank you for the favor."

At that, Rovi turned his head.

There was no anger at being offended.

Nor was there the lecherous grin men wore when hearing a dirty joke.

There was only cold indifference.

A layer of cold sweat instantly seeped from the wrinkled back of Old John's neck.

Only then did he realize what a foolish mistake he had just made!

He had actually used the standards by which he judged that fat pig Kais to guess at the man before him.

Though he had not yet been promoted back then, he had still heard plenty of rumors about Kais.

When that fat pig saw pretty widows, all he thought about was the filth between the sheets.

But when this new advisor saw them, he thought only of labor, order, and how to squeeze out every last bit of value.

That absolute coldness frightened Old John.

Yet what surged up immediately afterward was an unprecedented sense of relief.

Granary Seven was finally no longer ruled by a breeding boar that knew nothing but rutting and stuffing its face.

This was a true manager.

One who was not like a beast—or rather, not quite like a "person."

The slickness vanished from Old John's face, replaced by heartfelt awe.

He hurriedly bowed and gave himself a sharp slap across the mouth.

"I'm sorry, Esteemed Advisor... I forgot. You're different from Kais."

"Since you know we're different, put away those unnecessary thoughts." Rovi withdrew his suffocating gaze.

"Lord Advisor, what exactly do you want them to do? I'll relay every word without leaving anything out."

Rovi said calmly:

"Save Granary Seven. Save Fertility II..."