Weeks passed, and Kugelblitz didn't try anything shady.
In fact, it seemed like they had given up.
'Aria said that she dealt with it, but I'm still not certain,' Nick thought. 'Would Kugelblitz give up this easily?'
Kugelblitz was a bit too quiet for Nick's liking.
He had expected that there would be some kind of conflict, but there was just nothing.
A couple more months passed, and the blood donation system worked without any major problems.
Sure, there was the occasional guy who tried to sneak out of paying, but those were quickly dealt with.
The city was producing a lot of Zephyx.
Even though the city was earning much less in taxes, the Specters the city owned and Ghosty's research easily made up for that.
And then came all the shares the city now owned by "advancing" middle-layer businessmen.
Lastly, thanks to the blood donation system, the city now earned more than enough to increase the tribute paid to Aegis.
In total, the city earned about 35% more than before Nick took over.
The goal had been to pay 20% more after five years.
Instead, Nick managed to increase it by 35% within two years.
Naturally, Nick wasn't willing to increase the tribute by that much.
He would be fine with a 20% increase for now.
The remaining extra money would be invested back into the city.
Nick wanted to make Crimson City bigger.
All the changes Nick had implemented had the side effect of improving birth rates.
Children no longer needed to pay the blood tax.
There were more orphanages, and more children survived to adulthood.
More people in the Dregs managed to advance in their careers, giving them enough money to consider starting a family.
However, as fewer people died and more were born, the prices of houses increased.
In the past, everyone could basically just grab any random house. There had been far more houses than people.
But now, it was a bit more difficult.
It was not a problem yet, but it could turn into a problem in the future.
Nick decided to spend the extra money on expanding the city towards the west.
To the west of the city were the carbon fields that created carbon for the steel the city made, and Nick wanted to include the carbon fields in the city.
However, this also meant that the city would directly border the Land of Desires, the home of an Elder that no one had suppressed yet.
Yet, the reason why no one had suppressed it yet wasn't because it was difficult to suppress.
The main reason was that the city had strictly prohibited experimentation on the Specter.
The Land of Desires was used as a defensive measure for the Carbon Fields.
With the Land of Desires covering one side of them, all the black slimes would run into the Land of Desires instead of the Carbon Fields.
'We can capture or kill the Land of Desires when we got a new wall,' Nick thought.
Nick and Aria ordered the expansion, and within a couple of months, the Carbon Fields had been fully engulfed by the city.
The city walls had expanded to include a two-by-three-kilometer area to the west of the old city.
This gave two square kilometers of additional building space and four square kilometers of fields, which could now be tended to by normal people.
This opened up quite a few new jobs since the plants grew very quickly and had to be harvested almost weekly.
As soon as the new wall was secure, Aria rescinded the protective order on the Land of Desires.
Immediately, all the Manufacturers started to race to suppress the Land of Desires.
Except for Kugelblitz.
The Land of Desires was an Elder, and Kugelblitz was only interested in Fanatics and stronger.
Within a single day, one of the Manufacturers managed to suppress and capture the Land of Desires.
It was one of the new Manufacturers. The one that had 15 Experts.
By the next day, everyone knew how powerful the Land of Desires was.
Late Elder.
A Late Elder Force Specter.
That Specter was almost as valuable as Gemini's main Specter, the Distortion.
This was also the most valuable Specter of the new Manufacturer, and they decided to rebrand.
Desire.
That was their new name.
With 15 Experts and six Elders, Desire now produced a bit more Zephyx than Gemini and Sky Dream.
Gemini and Sky Dream had six Experts each, but they also had over 30 Veterans.
They also had six Elders, but with only six Experts, they couldn't work with all of the Elders.
Because of that, Desire managed to earn more money with the same number of Elders.
If judged by income, Desire was now the second biggest Manufacturer, the city itself excluded.
The Land of Desires vanished from the west of the city, and the city guards guarding the wall no longer needed to constantly fight the desire to consume all the tantalizing things in the Land of Desires.
And like that, the third yearly meeting arrived since Nick had become Crimson City's Liaison.
The Manufacturers were prepared for another heavy hit.
Yet, nothing really happened.
Sure, there were a couple of changes, but they were all rather small.
In fact, there was something that the Manufacturers liked pretty much.
The city now offered help in searching for Specters.
Any Manufacturer could pay the city a certain amount of money to rent volunteers from the guards, who were willing to assist in searching for Specters.
And the most important part was that this service could partially be deducted from their taxes.
The reason for this change was that the city had way too many guards.
They had over a hundred Newbies, 200 Johns, and 60 Veterans.
Around 3% of the entire population was working as guards.
That was a crazy high amount.
So, Nick decided to give the guards something to do.
The city would be earning even more money, and the volunteering guards would get to earn a bonus while gaining experience.
Most importantly, the number of captured Specters would increase, which was a good thing for everyone.
More Specters meant more Extractors meant more money meant more space meant more people meant more money and so on.
During the meeting, Kugelblitz was surprisingly silent.
They didn't even say anything that could be viewed as uncooperative.
'Did they really stop resisting?' Nick thought.
An entire year had passed since Nick had announced the blood donation system.
Except for that one incident near the beginning, nothing had happened since then.
If Kugelblitz wanted to kill Nick, they could have tried so anytime within the past year.
Nick wasn't really keeping himself hidden away.
He regularly left the city's headquarters on his own.
He had been prepared for a potential assassination attempt for a year now, but it never happened.
'What did Aria do to them?' Nick thought.
The meeting passed without any incident, and Nick went back to his office.
One additional month passed, and it was finally time to pay the yearly tribute.
Huge crates were transported from the Inner City to the Outer City.
The people watched with interest as the crates were transported by powerful guards.
By the end, there were 24 crates stacked on top of each other.
Aria and Nick also arrived and stood in front of the grates.
Then, they waited.
About half an hour later, three people flew in from the outside and landed in front of Aria and Nick.
"Governor," the man leading them said with a nod before turning to Nick. "Liaison."
"Agent," Nick and Aria greeted back.
The leading Agent looked at the crates behind them.
"Why are there 24?" he asked.
"Because I have done my job as Liaison," Nick said. "My job as Liaison is to increase the productivity of the city without increasing the misery. I had five years as a deadline, but I managed to finish it in a bit more than two. From now on, Crimson City's tribute will be 20% higher. Instead of 20 tons of Zephyx, we deliver 24 tons now."
The Agent furrowed his brows and looked at the crates.
The next moment, he gestured for one of his people to go to the grates.
Someone stepped forward, retrieved a device, and inserted it into a hole in one of the crates.
She repeated the same thing for all 24 crates.
Finally, she nodded in confirmation to her leader.
The leader nodded with an impressed expression.
"Seems like the project was a success," the leader said to Nick. "Good job, Liaison."
"Thank you, Agent," Nick said politely.
"We are going to report back to our Judge, who will send a report to the headquarters. As far as I am aware, even though you managed to achieve your goal early, the deadline of five years still exists. Use the remaining three years to improve the city even more."
"The better the city is, the better your impression will be."
"Thank you," Nick said politely.
The Agents put the crates away and left the city after saying a couple more things.
Nick and Aria watched as the Agents left.
They had done it!
They had fulfilled their mission!
The Dregs were becoming cleaner and richer as more days passed.
The number of deaths was reduced drastically.
The birthrates were up.
Corruption was at an all-time low.
The city was growing.
The upper layer didn't dare to try anything shady.
Kugelblitz was surprisingly cooperative.
They had done it!
They had succeeded!
They had transformed Crimson City!