A man in pure white robes walked out of his beautiful house with a smile and went over to his mailbox.
The mailbox was made of beautiful wood, just like his house.
This was one of the richest people in the upper layer.
He opened the mailbox and looked inside.
There were a couple of letters in there.
Most of them were from his various businesses, but there was one letter that was different from all the others.
It was blood red and had the emblem of a fungus on it.
The man took a deep breath to suppress his annoyance.
'Another change of laws?' he thought in annoyance.
"This is outrageous!"
The man looked at his neighbor, who had just shouted.
He was reading an identical letter.
"Is it that bad?" the man asked his neighbor.
"See for yourself!" the man shouted in anger as he tore the letter into pieces before throwing it to the ground.
Then, he stormed back into his house.
The first man took another deep breath and opened the letter.
'Due to the loss in tax revenue from the Manufacturers, the tribute to Aegis is in danger of not being paid. Therefore, the nature preservation program will receive no more funding from the city. Signed, Liaison Nick Dusk and Governor Aria Light.'
The man's eyes shot open.
Then, he looked around.
At the trees.
The insects.
The birds.
The animals.
The crystal clear water.
The pure air.
The upper layer.
The nature preservation program was what made all of this possible!
Without the nature preservation program, everything here would die out and turn into a floor filled with nothing but infertile mud and dirt!
The letter also specified that the people living in the upper layer could pay for it themselves if they wanted to, but the city would no longer pay for it.
Just like his neighbor, the man almost exploded in rage.
What were they paying so many taxes for if the city wasn't willing to pay for anything?!
Within the hour, the entire upper layer was in an uproar.
"I demand to speak with the Governor!"
"I want to talk to the Governor!"
Several people had gathered in front of Markus' old castle, complaining and demanding to speak to the Governor.
The Extractor standing guard could just helplessly tell them that the Governor and the Liaison could be found in the new headquarters on the lower layer.
Even though the guard was a Veteran, he was quite intimidated by the furious people in front of him.
He could easily kill all of them, but every single one of these people had control over something vital for the city.
Angering them could very easily become dangerous for the guard.
Most of the complaining people thought about going to the lower layer, but just imagining the dirty metal everywhere made them decide against it.
However, some of them still left.
Sadly, they were all turned away at the gate of the new headquarters.
Neither the Governor nor the Liaison were willing to meet with them.
If they had any complaints, they could write letters.
For the entire day, the upper layer was in an uproar.
They wouldn't stand for this!
The shady groups started to recruit more and more people, and they demanded to speak to Mr. X.
Mr. X just said that they should be patient and make their own nature preservation program.
If they had the power over it, they could also change its design.
Mr. X was essentially telling them that he wouldn't do shit in a very nice way.
Naturally, the businessmen were not happy with that and started to gather in separate groups.
Mr. X wouldn't be helping them, but that wouldn't stop them.
They were the owners of all businesses inside Crimson City!
They were the economy of this shithole!
This was their fucking house!
In the end, the groups decided to write and sign a collective letter.
All of them decided to make their displeasure known in the letter and signed it.
The letter was signed by over 20 people.
Then, someone from their group delivered the letter to the headquarters.
On the surface, the letter looked like they were just asking the government to reconsider, but there were a couple of subtle threats.
"The bad environment would make it difficult to focus on our businesses, which would impact our profits and, therefore, the taxes."
Stuff like that.
Aria opened the letter and read it to Nick inside her office.
Compared to the old Governor's office, Aria's office looked like an actual office.
It wasn't very big, and it was mostly filled with shelves and paper.
"Mhm," Nick uttered as he retrieved a small black booklet.
"Who signed?" he asked.
When Aria saw the black booklet, she took a deep breath.
This was something they had confiscated from Markus' office.
It was a book that detailed all the illegal activities the people did.
Under Simon's supervision, Markus hadn't been able to get rid of it, which was how it ended up in Nick's hands.
Aria calmly read out the first name, and Nick flipped through the booklet.
"He used grass trimmings from the upper layer to make the veggie cubes he produces heavier. He has been paying Markus over 100,000 credits in bribes per month," Nick said.
Aria nodded and read the second name.
"She is buying and hoarding steel to artificially increase the price via scarcity," Nick said.
Aria read out the next name.
"Clean," Nick said.
A couple minutes later, Aria finished reading out all the names.
23 people had signed.
13 of them had shady dealings with the Governor.
"Alright," Nick said as he stood up from his chair. "Let's clean a bit."
Aria looked with a bit of worry at Nick.
He had already made himself the enemy of the rich people, but with this act, he would truly enrage them.
Aria left the room while Nick looked through the black booklet a bit more.
Outside, Aria called Herman Reichert.
As the former CEO of Ghosty's Lab, Herman was the most suitable person to lead a big chunk of the guards.
Herman was responsible for around 100 of the guards, and his title was general.
Aria gave her orders to Herman, who just looked at her with raised brows.
"Sure, I'll gather my men right away," he said.
After gathering his men, Herman told them what they were about to do, and the men became quite nervous.
They really didn't want to anger the elite of the city, but orders were orders.
Some minutes later, over 50 guards left the headquarters and traveled to the upper layer.
The gate guardian looked at the guards in surprise, but when the guards produced an official arrest warrant and an exception to the dressing code, she had no choice but to let them through.
The people in the upper layer watched as tens of guards walked through the gates of the upper layer.
Initially, the people were a bit nervous, but when they remembered that they were invincible within Crimson City, they became annoyed.
This city was truly turning to shit if even these lowly guards were allowed to walk around here.
The guards split up into thirteen groups and walked in different directions.
KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!
Three powerful knocks came from the door of a wooden house, and a man opened the door with annoyance.
It was the same man that had screamed earlier this morning about the change.
"What?" he asked with annoyance.
"Dirk Mendelwitz?" one guard asked with a serious voice.
"This is my house, yes," the man answered with annoyance.
"You're under arrest for illegally poisoning the veggie cubes your company produces," the leader of the guards said.
Dirk's eyes widened in shock.
What?
Under arrest?!
He wanted to protest, but one of the guards roughly grabbed him and pulled him out.
Dirk was just a normal human, and he couldn't even hope to resist an Extractor.
"Search for evidence," the leader said to his guards.
"Yes, sir!" the other guards answered, swarming into the house.
Shortly later, the screams of children echoed throughout the house.
Dirk had a family, which was quickly picked up by the guards for interrogation.
Over the next hour, the entire house was taken apart in search of evidence.
In the end, they found a shed filled with fresh grass trimmings.
There was literally no conceivable reason to keep grass trimmings.
Citizens of the upper layer had to hand the grass trimmings over to the city so that it could turn them into fertilizer for the soil.
Similar events were happening all over the upper layer, and once more, the upper layer was in an uproar.
Everyone shouted that these people were innocent and that the government was tyrannical.
The guards just ignored the loud people and continued their investigation.
In the end, the guards only found evidence for ten of the thirteen people, but that didn't matter.
Nick was using the black booklet as evidence for their conviction.
Just minutes later, the guards went to the businesses of these people and investigated them.
Naturally, more evidence was uncovered.
People kept protesting, but the guards did as ordered.
Of course, the people of the upper layer weren't stupid, and they quickly realized the connection between the arrests.
Everyone who had been arrested had signed the letter.
The government was silencing people who were peacefully protesting!
This was tyranny!