This Game Is Too Realistic-Chapter 544.4: 5th City?

Casting a final glance at the miserable wretch curled on the ground, Lorette sneered. "Consider those fists your lesson. Assaulting someone in public, especially right in front of a guard, under the Crisis Committee, we could’ve flogged you."

He helped Elisa to her feet and instructed the doctor to take her to rest. Then, grabbing a megaphone, he stepped in front of the inner city residents.

He shouted loudly, "Residents of the inner city, listen up!"

"This is a joint decision made by the militia, the Worker's Union, and the Crisis Committee. You now have two choices."

"The first allows you to voluntarily disclose your assets in Boulder Town, surrender everything you took from us, and restart your lives with us as equal citizens. There will be no more inner or outer city distinction from now on!"

"Or, if you don’t trust us, then pack your bags and get out of here. Go find your utopia out in the Wasteland!"

"Of course, we’ll audit your assets. You’ll need to explain the source of every large deposit in your account and where it was spent. We won’t let thieves slip away. You will either pay a fine or serve time in the new prison!"

After speaking, Lorette waved his hand. Staff from the Crisis Committee set up a desk in the square, letting those who had lost their black cards decide their fate.

Bonnie’s eyes were red from crying.

The upheaval had almost stripped her of everything.

Her husband was dead. Her brother too. Her family... Over half of the high-ranking officers in the militia were killed the night before.

Clutching her youngest son, Kumiter’s, hand tightly, her tear-blurred eyes were full of despair and confusion about the future. "Why do they have to be so ruthless..."

What was she supposed to do now?

Outside was the man-eating wasteland...

Kumiter wasn’t doing any better. He had lost all his friends, and the arrogance and youthful pride were gone from his face.

He looked around in panic, his teeth chattering from fear.

Just the night before, his father had called him to the council hall in the Boulder Grand Building. He had watched with his own eyes as S coin’s value collapsed in an instant. He was too scared to even go in.

He hid under his blanket, trembling in the dark until dawn. Only then did he hear from his mother that his father had died.

Perhaps his father was the real smart one, departing along with that so-called glorious era to join the other lords in the afterlife.

Maybe he should’ve died in that collapsed building too, but he simply didn’t have the courage.

Watching the whimpering assholes, the electrician standing beside Lorette couldn’t help but curse. "Fuck, just put them out of their misery. What a bunch of cowards!"

Lorette shrugged. "I get how you feel. But think about the outer city residents who hid in the inner city too."

The electrician frowned. "What do they have to do with this? They were hostages. We already decided not to go after them."

"They only became hostages after the militia joined our cause." Lorette looked at him and corrected, "Before that, they were accomplices of the inner city nobles, licking the boots of the Stephans there and their whip. Otherwise, how do you think they got in? You think the lords just let them in out of the kindness of their hearts?"

The electrician fell silent. He felt that it made sense. Logic was never one-sided, there was always another angle.

Lorette sighed, "To settle accounts with them, you’d have to settle with an endless parade of people. First we’d have to settle with the guards who accidentally killed civilians in the riots, then those who did bad things but stopped halfway. Then the ones who didn’t fully take sides... the ones who stood silent while the Stephens committed atrocities.”

“It’s enough. We’re not saints either. We stayed silent too. We almost became them."

"We’ve wiped out all the Stephens in Boulder Town. But now they’ve become ghosts that haunt us. Let it end here. You and I both don’t want those filthy things nailed in coffins to crawl back out."

That was also why he hadn’t killed Wolfur.

He had every right to do so. At most, Elisa would cry again, but many more would cheer. Even those who felt it was wrong wouldn’t say a word. They would just silently accept the correct Boulder Town.

He understood a simple truth. Nutrient paste and cake both existed in their world.

They weren’t metaphors. They were real. It wasn’t about ideals or fairy tales, just how accessible they were.

But wishing for both sweetness while staying full at once... That was the real fantasy.

One could only chose whether they want to cross the line or not. Doing both was a fool’s illusion.

Bore had a hundred chances to become Stephen. He had the strength, but there was only one chance to be himself.

Lorette understood a lot that Elisa didn’t.

The militia didn’t switch sides because of her tears or how cute she was.

Most of the guards in the militia had proposed a month ago to be paid in Dinars or silver coins. The refusal was what drove most of them to side with the outer city.

There were bad eggs in their ranks. Some had looted during the riots. But most, upon realizing those residents were just poor like themselves, let them go with awkward smiles.

That was what led to the mutinous soldiers and the final New Alliance.

The Worker's Union had said it on the radio. They would forgive the past, and they would honor their promise.

The militia never said anything, but that didn’t mean the guards were blind. Those watchful eyes held more than just hope... They held suspicion.

The soldiers supported settling scores with the nobles. They hated the lords too. They didn’t mind looking the other way.

But if there was a first reckoning, there might be another. Where would it end?

Would they be next?

No matter what, it wasn’t a good sign. A crack in trust could breed far greater disaster.

Lorette remembered every word he had spoken. They needed laws, laws that everyone would follow.

They had to make a clean break with the past.

In the future, everyone would live under the sunlight of the new era, and guard against the settlement becoming another dark jungle.

Just then, a guard walked up. "Comrade Lorette, someone at the gate wishes to see you."

Lorette looked at him and asked, "Who?"

"Malvern. He brought five trucks of grain and supplies. Looks like he bought them from the New Alliance. He’s begging us to spare his family."

Lorette narrowed his eyes. "Is he trying to make a deal?"

The guard shook his head. "Doesn’t seem like it. He delivered the food first, then dropped to his knees begging. I pulled him up, he looked like he was going crazy."

Lorette stayed quiet for a while before his expression softened. "Tell him, we haven’t forgotten the fire five years ago. And we haven’t forgotten the things worse than that the others had done. We’ll nail all of them to the pillar of shame, along with that collapsed building."

"But the reckoning ends here."

Even if they killed every Stephen, it would only add one more corpse to the streets, and a few more flies.

But now? They were united. And that meant every Stephen would fear them!

Lorette had no doubt. He believed it with all his heart.

...

With the reckoning of the inner city complete, Boulder Town’s great upheaval had finally drawn to a close. People began cleaning up the mess.

Under the noonday sun, they dragged frozen corpses out of the snow.

There were men, women, children, and even the elderly. Some were found in the streets, others pulled from alleys.

Besides mourning, the only thing they could do was carve the bitter memory onto gravestones, and move forward with those memories.

Then someone suggested. Since Boulder Town lacked food, why not go one step further... They would let the dead truly become part of them?

It was a vile suggestion that was disgusting beyond belief.

But viewed through the lens of cold reality, the city of over half a million really had few options.

Slime Mold offered almost no nutrition, and winter made it impossible to hunt those things in large numbers.

When starving, humans did desperate things.

In a way, that was all marauders were. They were people who had gone mad in the Wasteland.

They hadn’t become new lords, but they risked becoming something else.

Fortunately, there was a new turning point.

They weren’t as isolated as people were a century and a half ago. Their nearest neighbor was just 20 or 30 kilometers away.

And just as people hesitated, wondering if they really had to feed the dead into the nutrient paste converters, a message suddenly arrived from beyond the gates.

The New Alliance had come!