Chapter 3: Tyrant and Slaves

After exchanging pleasantries—or rather, after Natasha finished her professional duties—she turned to business.

"Now, about the last request. Did you manage to learn anything, Venti?"

"Regarding the Supreme Guardian? I’m afraid the situation is even worse than you imagined."

Since Venti frequently traveled between the upper and lower districts and often used his earnings from performances to help the children of the lower districts, Natasha had deemed him trustworthy after an initial evaluation period. She had tasked him with investigating the Supreme Guardian’s current attitude toward the lower districts.

This topic was taboo in the upper districts. Ordinary citizens couldn’t provide answers, as all related information was tightly controlled by those in power.

Only Venti, with his singing skills and approachable demeanor, could easily infiltrate the nobles’ social gatherings in the upper districts.

For him, gathering this information was effortless and risk-free. The upper-class nobles would never suspect that the perpetually tipsy bard lingering near the wine tables at their parties was secretly gathering intel.

After becoming a familiar face, Venti soon learned some secrets from a naive noblewoman who blindly worshiped the Supreme Guardian.

When Venti shared what he had discovered, Natasha’s expression darkened.

She anxiously twisted a strand of hair hanging over her forehead and murmured, "To the Supreme Guardian… are the people of the lower districts not her subjects to protect?"

"That’s hard to say, but there’s a more fitting term in the books."

Venti looked at her and whispered,

"—Slaves. Or sacrifices."

Neither term carried a positive connotation, and both were sharp enough to provoke instinctive rebuttals—even from Natasha.

She frowned, clearly dissatisfied with the description.

"Be careful with your words, Venti. Though she imposed the lockdown on the lower districts, she hasn’t forced people to labor for her. There’s no slave master lording over us with a whip."

"But the reality is, since the lockdown began, the life and death of the lower districts have been entirely in her hands, haven’t they?"

Just as a slave owner could arbitrarily decide which slaves to sacrifice, the Supreme Guardian had placed the upper and lower districts on opposite ends of a scale.

She stole the "weights" of the lower districts to add to the upper, weaving lies to maintain the upper districts’ false peace while quelling potential unrest.

As for the lower districts’ suffering? It was inevitable the moment they were marked for abandonment.

She believed any sacrifice was "valuable" and "meaningful" in pursuit of her grand goal—even if it betrayed the city’s founding principles.

The unspoken implications left Natasha silent.

In the original Belobog, the city was structured as two interconnected tiers: the upper district handled administration and trade, while the lower district supplied energy and mined resources. Objectively, it was a division of labor.

But under the Supreme Guardian’s rule, the relationship had warped.

In the upper districts, people dressed in finery, walked on snow-free roads, rode public trams to administrative zones, and paid to sit in grand theaters watching performances glorifying the "Supreme Guardian."

They enjoyed basic safety. Though the Fragmentum’s erosion troubled them, they wouldn’t die senselessly. The Silvermane Guards protected their bodies, and the Supreme Guardian provided spiritual comfort. Living as obedient believers, they could cling to this delusion until death.

The lower districts were another world.

Due to past industrial planning, the lower districts were filled with mining equipment, not residential zones. The underground environment made self-sufficiency impossible. Most plants and creatures here were inedible—consuming them led to organ failure, a death sentence in a place with scarce medical supplies.

To survive, people mined copious amounts of ore, transported it to the upper districts via pipelines, and exchanged it for meager supplies.

This might sound similar to the past, but it wasn’t.

First, the Supreme Guardian had issued a mobilization order, recalling the Silvermane Guards for a "frontline counterattack." Ten years later, there was still no sign of their return.

She then fully sealed off the lower districts, leaving its defenseless people trapped like lambs for slaughter.

The lower districts’ situation was akin to boiling a frog slowly. Minor retreats became lost mining zones, and former homes turned into monster-infested wastelands.

Even with civilian groups like Wildfire and Svarog’s mechanical settlements establishing defensive lines, the Fragmentum’s erosion was unstoppable.

People lacked basic supplies, constantly hungry, forced into vagrancy or banditry. The roads were shrouded in dead silence, the sky above replaced by dark, oppressive gears.

With no security or hope, people still had to work—mining ore to send upward, "contributing" to Belobog’s spirit.

The mobilization order, printed en masse before the lockdown, still littered the streets of Rivet Town.

Now, as supplies dwindled and rations shrank to starvation levels, anger turned to numbness.

Imagine tearing a single loaf of bread into pieces to last a week. The torment of hunger, once experienced, is unforgettable.

To survive, the lower districts had no choice but to meet the upper districts’ ever-growing ore demands.

This meant that from the day of the lockdown, lower district residents could only scrape by mining ore for paltry supplies.

Even if they met short-term needs, prolonged exposure to ore dust, crystals, and noise caused severe miner’s disease. Under the lockdown, most couldn’t afford treatment, relying on sheer resilience or dying unnoticed in corners.

To the tyrant, how were these people—stripped of freedom, toiling in mines for scraps—any different from slaves?

She didn’t even need to fear rebellion.

One-sided information control and an eternal ruler’s authority made her every word divine. People wouldn’t question deceit, instead blaming the lower districts for laziness and divisiveness during humanity’s crisis.

With the upper districts’ stockpiled ore, a week of lockdown would plunge the lower districts into chaos and starvation. Any resistance would end tragically. Survivors would "return" to the Supreme Guardian’s embrace, reduced population stretching resources further, securing her rule.

The cruelest irony? The Supreme Guardian herself was once the lower districts’ rising star. Born and raised here, she studied in the upper districts, gained glory, then forgot her roots.

Thus, Venti never hid his disdain for her. He believed the lower districts lacked only a spark.

But even Wildfire wouldn’t act rashly now.

People starved of hope and change clung to fragile stability, too afraid to demand more. Even Venti couldn’t urge them to risk their lives for freedom—

Though some seethed with hatred, needing only a spark to ignite an inferno, such a blaze would reduce everything to ashes. Even if they "won," it would just be the lower districts overthrowing the upper.

But what had the upper district people done wrong? They too were trapped lambs.

Executing the tyrant wouldn’t free those trapped behind Belobog’s walls. The planet’s crisis—the Stellaron—remained. To truly save Jarilo-VI, the Stellaron must be contained, controlled, or destroyed.

Thus, Venti hatched a bold plan.

Though Barbatos’s divine power as a god didn’t rely solely on a Gnosis, his own strength had eroded over millennia, scattered like a wisp in the wind.

But if he could use a Stellaron as a "Gnosis," might he regain—or even surpass—his former power?

Then, scattering storms, cleaving mountains, saving the world… perhaps it wasn’t impossible?

Though it clashed with his lazy nature, even a bard might dream of being a hero!

But first, he needed what every hero’s tale required: companions.

And the best place to find them?

Wildfire, of course.