?'Help me?' Nick repeated in his mind.
He became agitated when he thought about that short phrase.
Help?
Did he even deserve help?
'I don't deserve help,' Nick thought as his emotions calmed down again. 'I have done too many terrible things.'
'The time of receiving help is over.'
'I can only give help from now on.'
Nick slowly shook his head.
"I don't want any help," he said.
Albert raised an eyebrow.
"Want or need?" he asked.
"Does it matter?" Nick snapped back with some annoyance.
Albert just silently looked at Nick with a worried expression.
The more Albert looked at him, the more Nick felt guilty for his outburst.
"Sorry," Nick answered. "It's fine. I can manage on my own."
Albert took a deep breath but hid it from Nick.
"What's on your mind?" he asked. "Even if you don't need any help, you can tell me at least, right?"
Nick looked at Albert.
The caring expression on Albert's face felt like a twisting knife in Nick's heart.
Nick just wanted to run out of the house.
Everything was already over and done with.
Albert would soon die.
What was the point of staying here and talking to him?
Yet, when Nick saw Albert, he just couldn't run.
"What do you think of this city?" Nick asked.
Albert's expression changed to interest at the question.
"There are things that could be improved," he said. "I would say there's a bit too much waste going on in general. There's also quite a bit of corruption, but there's not much you can do about that."
"Is there really not?" Nick asked.
"Not what?" Albert asked back.
"Is there really nothing you can do about the corruption?" he asked.
"I mean, you can do a little bit, but if you do too much, it might go in the other direction," Albert said.
Nick just silently looked at Albert, waiting for him to continue.
"You see, there are individual interests, commercial interests, and class interests."
"Individual interests are what individual people and their families want."
"Commercial interests are what a company wants."
"And class interests are what a class of people want."
"When you go against someone's individual interests, you have to contend with that individual and their family. Of course, for the city's government, that's not very difficult."
"Going against commercial interests is much harder, but the city can still do that."
"You run into trouble when you go against class interests."
"For example, everyone knows that the Manufacturers are not squeaky clean. They are definitely doing illegal things below the guards' noses."
"If you stop one of these things, you can stop it, but if you try to stop all of them, you make an enemy out of all the Manufacturers."
"At that point, an entire class is against you, and the city needs that class."
"In a protest, the Manufacturers might deliberately cause damage to the city."
"Oh? You want to stop me from this illegal deal? What if I kill a couple of people? What if I start secretly ransacking the homes of the people in the Outer City? Is that what you want?" Albert said, imitating an executive from a Manufacturer.
"It's difficult, Nick," Albert said with a sigh. "You can have all the veggie cubes in the soup, but if you don't give others some of the broth, you will suffer."
"The examples I named are not even that extreme. If things go really badly, the Heroes of Kugelblitz might decide to kill the governor outright in a rebellion."
"The governor is the connection between the city and Aegis. While the city can't resist Aegis, everything that happens inside the city is still under the city's control."
"What can Aegis do if every single person in the city says that the governor died heroically against an invading Demon?"
"Aegis can't just execute all the Heroes on a baseless suspicion."
"So, all in all, yeah, the city could be better, but there's not much you can do to improve the status quo," Albert said.
Nick looked at Albert with furrowed brows.
All of that made a lot of sense.
However…
"What if the governor were a Protector?" Nick asked.
"Well," Albert answered. "The revolution wouldn't be an issue anymore, but the silent crimes and the refusal to help the people would still persist."
"What if the governor has total surveillance over the city and deals with anyone that isn't willing to help the city?" Nick asked.
Albert looked a bit uncomfortable. "That would make him worse than the Manufacturers."
"That would take all the freedom from the people, essentially turning them into nothing but productive machines."
Nick narrowed his eyes.
"How is that different from having laws?" Nick asked. "The only difference would be that criminals wouldn't be able to get away with their crimes."
"You still have your home, your belongings, your power, and so on."
Albert obviously wasn't the biggest fan of this thought.
"Fine," he said. "For the sake of the argument, let me concede that fact."
"Another issue would be that the city's destiny would be in the hands of one single individual, and if only a single individual had power, only that single individual would have their desires fulfilled."
"You can't just put all of the power into the hands of one person. People are flawed. What if that person has some kind of unreasonable hatred for people from the Outer City? What if that person wants to kill all the Specters? What if that person is power hungry?"
"Sure, dictatorship makes it easier to implement sweeping changes, but when only a single person decides all matters of a city, they are bound to make huge mistakes."
Albert's words didn't do anything to deter Nick's determination.
"All of your arguments are based on the weakness of the person."
"What if that person is very altruistic and wants to improve the lives of as many people as possible while also being very competent in leading a big group of people?" he asked.
Albert rolled his eyes.
"Sure, if all of these things actually happen, and if such a good and nice person actually manages to climb to such a high position, it might prove to be a good thing for the city," he admitted with some annoyance.
"But these people are basically nonexistent, and betting on a person to be one of these people without perfectly knowing them is a surefire way to lose your bet."