Jenny puked.
"I said, focus on information gathering," Nick said with a cold voice to the Dreamer. "You can have your torture after we're done."
This was the second time Jenny had puked while inspecting the gate guardian's dreams.
"I don't want this to happen a third time," Nick said with a serious tone.
The Dreamer didn't acknowledge Nick's words, but Nick could see that Jenny was calming down.
"Just make her go through the last month of her life. She planned the assassination attempt, and I'm sure that she had accomplices. I need to know who they are."
Nick waited at the side.
An hour passed, and Nick was getting impatient.
Finally, Jenny pulled her hands back from the gate guardian's head, and she released a shaky breath.
"I got it," she said with difficulty.
"Good work," Nick said.
Then, he turned to the Dreamer. "Now, you can do whatever you want with it. Just make sure that she doesn't get rid of her hand. If she does, she can regenerate her Zephyx, and I'm certain that she will kill you first if that happens."
The Dreamer didn't seem to react, but a couple of seconds later, it moved one of its talons to the gate guardian's arm and stepped on it.
"Since we can't have you do this forever and stop all Zephyx production, you get one month or until you kill her. That should be more than enough," Nick said.
For the first time, the Dreamer looked at Nick.
It probably was annoyed, but that was only a guess.
The next moment, Nick walked out, and Jenny followed after him.
The two of them went past a couple of Extractors and entered Jenny's office.
Nick waited for Jenny to calm down.
"I don't have the names," Jenny said, "but I know their faces and what they do roughly. As long as I see them face to face, I will recognize them."
Nick nodded. "That can be arranged."
The next moment, Nick asked some of Sky Dream's Extractors to get some kind of cloak that could keep Jenny's identity a secret.
Nick did not want Jenny's identity to become public while she was identifying people in the upper layer.
Some minutes later, the two of them left Sky Dream and walked towards the upper layer.
As soon as they reached the entrance, they saw six Veterans guarding it.
"Liaison! Glad that you are alive!" the leader of the guards said with a salute.
"How's the situation?" Nick asked evenly.
"All the citizens have been put into their houses. Several guards are patrolling the upper layer, and every citizen found outside their home will be apprehended. There have been no arrests so far," the guard reported.
Nick nodded and walked past the guards.
The guards threw interested glances at the cloaked person following Nick.
They had never seen this person before.
Who was that?
"We're not changing our clothes," Nick said, walking through the locker room.
"We have to change our clothes?" Jenny asked. "I mean, usually."
"Usually, yes," Nick said, opening the door to the upper layer.
Jenny had never been to the upper layer before, and when she saw the green paradise, she became shocked.
She had imagined many things, but she couldn't have imagined that.
It looked so… peaceful.
It looked nice.
It was beautiful.
"Did you get the names?"
Aria arrived in front of Nick and Jenny.
"No names, but faces and auras," Nick answered. "She can recognize them."
Nick gestured to Jenny, who looked at Aria.
Aria furrowed her brows.
"Who's that?" she asked.
"One of Sky Dream's team leaders, Jenny. She has the Dreamer's ability and can look through dreams. I put the woman under the Dreamer's influence and had her read her dreams."
Aria raised an eyebrow.
This ability might not be useful in battle, but for investigations, it was extremely useful.
She didn't know that Sky Dream had such a good information gatherer.
"What about Susan?" Aria asked.
"The Dreamer gets to have its fun with her for the next month. If she's still alive by then, we'll execute her," Nick said.
Aria frowned a bit.
She preferred clean executions.
However, she realized that she would also be quite angry if someone tried to assassinate her.
So, she didn't comment on it.
"We're going through all the households and have them introduce themselves to Jenny. Anyone she says is guilty will be executed," Nick said coldly.
Aria took a deep breath and stepped to the side.
'Seems like more people will die,' Aria thought as she watched Nick and Jenny walk past her.
Just to make sure that nothing happened to Nick, Aria ordered a couple of guards to protect him.
In the end, Nick, Jenny, and five Experts were walking towards the first house.
Nick took out a city register and loudly knocked on the door.
"All members of the household, come out and identify yourselves," Nick shouted.
Half a minute later, the door slowly opened, and Nick saw a man with a wife and three children.
"Liaison," the man nervously greeted.
"Names," Nick ordered.
"Jerry Hendren," the man said before looking at his wife.
"Lena Hendren," the wife answered with a shaky breath.
Then, she gestured to her three children and said their names.
Nick marked the people he had talked to in his register and looked at Jenny.
"Not involved," she said.
Nick nodded and turned back to the family. "You can go back inside. You're free to come out of your houses tomorrow."
When Nick said that, the entire family released sighs of relief, and the wife even collapsed onto her knees.
She had never been so afraid in her life.
Nick closed the door and walked to the next home.
"What will happen to the guilty ones?" Jenny asked.
"The one directly involved will be executed and all their assets seized. Their spouses will be sent without belongings to the Outer City. Any children will be put into orphanages in the lower layer for now. If the remaining spouse can prove that they managed to earn enough money to take care of the children, they can request to get custody back," Nick explained.
Jenny took a deep breath.
"Why punish the spouses?" she asked.
"It's not exactly punishment. Most of the time, it's one of the two spouses who earns all the money, while the other one is just along for the ride. If the spouse earns enough to remain in the upper layer or anywhere else in the Inner City, they will not be thrown out."
"This is simply a consequence of relying on the wrong person. If a Manufacturer goes bankrupt, all their Extractors lose their jobs. It's just how things are," Nick explained.
Jenny didn't answer.
She didn't like destroying the lives of innocent people.
However, corrupt criminals needed to be apprehended.
As someone also born in the Dregs, Jenny also had some dislike for the people in the upper layer, but her dislike couldn't be compared to Nick's undying hatred.
The next three houses were clean.
But when they arrived at the fifth house, things became different.
As soon as the door opened, Jenny focused on the man inside the house.
"That's one of them," Jenny said.
The man became terrified. "W-what? I didn't do anything!" he shouted.
His family became terrified.
"Take him to a cell," Nick ordered.
One of the guards walked forward and apprehended the man.
There was a lot of crying and shouting from the family, but they couldn't stop the arrest.
In the end, Nick looked at the family. "Someone will come to talk about your futures in the next couple of days," he said evenly before closing the door.
Over the next two hours, Jenny and Nick visited every household.
In the end, 18 people had been apprehended.
Finally, in the evening, the guards announced that everyone was free to move again and left the upper layer.
Yet, not many people left their houses.
The mood could only be described with the words despair and defeat.
It was over.
There was nothing they could do anymore.
Nick had won against the upper layer.
There was no one left who dared to oppose him.
However, just to make sure that the upper layer got the point, he called one member of every household of the upper layer to an open plaza behind the building that had once belonged to Anatomy.
Everyone was gathered there.
There was not a single person that wasn't nervous.
In the end, the 18 people Nick had apprehended a couple days ago were led to the plaza.
Nick also arrived, and he pulled one of the criminals with him to the front.
"This is what happens to people that resist Aegis," Nick said coldly.
Then, he grabbed the neck of one of the criminals, lifted them into the air, and squeezed.
The man couldn't breathe anymore, and he started to kick around.
However, Nick just ignored him.
Nick choked the man for five entire minutes before casually breaking his neck.
The people in attendance were absolutely terrified.
Nick looked at them.
He saw defeat.
No one from the upper layer would oppose him again.
Then, Nick grabbed the second prisoner.
17 more to go.