And the workers...
Aska supported an elderly miner with impaired legs and feet, quietly observing everything.
He watched the regiment commander who said he would treat them as people and give them fairness, as well as the warriors around him who were willing to lend them a hand. He watched their happy expressions.
This was unlike any faction he had ever known.
On payday, Alru Group overseers would dock workers' wages and lash those who demanded an explanation with Power Whips.
The private soldiers of the Adons Knight Family would seize the property of residents in settlements and towns under the pretext of collecting protection fees—even the residents themselves.
The masters of the Khomo Psionic Family regarded ordinary people as ants. When they were in a bad mood, a single thought from them could drive someone mad.
The mechanical priests of the Cult of the Machine Thought... did not care in the slightest whether flesh-and-blood people lived or died.
But these people were different.
They fought, but not merely to plunder.
They were strong, but they did not bully the weak.
They even... treated workers as people.
"Uncle Aska."
A young worker beside him whispered, "Is the base they talked about real?"
Aska looked into the distance.
On the horizon, the morning light was slowly tearing apart the curtain of night.
A smile appeared on his face.
"It must be real."
Aska murmured, "The regiment commander wouldn't lie to us."
At noon.
The blazing sun of the Crimson Bright Wasteland began scorching the earth again, but no one complained about the heat now.
Because everyone—the squad led by Wang Zhong and all 2,137 workers—stood before a stone wall three and a half meters high.
The wall had been built from wasteland rocks gathered on-site and fixed together with some kind