Nick traveled to the next city, which was about 300 kilometers northeast of Black Mine City.
Entering the city wasn't very difficult since it just used tall walls and Extractors, similar to Crimson City.
When Nick arrived for the first time, he didn't immediately see the influence of Gluttony on the city.
Sure, the city was pretty poor, by the looks of things, but it didn't look like it was in a constant state of starvation.
In the beginning, Nick hadn't even been sure if this city was truly influenced by Gluttony.
What if Wrath just sent him to a neutral city that no Corruptor had taken control of yet?
But then, he noticed a couple of peculiarities.
There was no plumbing system in the city.
People had to shit in boxes.
Additionally, people were urinating very rarely.
Nick didn't immediately notice these things since he wasn't paying attention to people's bathroom habits, but he noticed it by looking at a strange piece of equipment in almost everybody's home.
'Distillation?' Nick thought.
There was a huge pot above a reflective indent on the metallic ground. There was a glass lid on top of the pot, which narrowed into a tube. The tube went over to the side and pointed into another pot.
It wasn't difficult to see how this device worked.
Contaminated water entered one pot, and the reflective indent below the pot gathered and reflected the light onto the pot, heating it up.
Due to the rarity of flammable materials, making a fire was not feasible for the average person.
The contaminated water would evaporate and get funneled into the other pot.
The contents Nick saw in the first pot were disgusting.
Yellow sludge and yellow dust, depending on the state of distillation.
A lot of people also had brown sludge, which pointed to kidney failure.
That made things quite clear to Nick.
These people were being dehydrated.
Meanwhile, Nick saw the rich swimming in pools.
However, despite all of this, the people did not seem as desperate as the people in Black Mine City had been.
Sure, they were still suffering, but it wasn't as bad.
For the next couple of days, Nick gathered information on the city.
This time, finding the location of Gluttony's servant was actually the easiest part.
Gluttony's servant was the city's main Specter.
Compared to Black Mine City, the Specter here was not hidden at all.
Everybody knew about it.
It was just that nobody knew that it was related to Gluttony.
This made this city very different from the last one.
After all, killing the Specter meant destroying the city's identity and a big chunk of the Zephyx it produced.
Naturally, a list of all of the Specters was sent to Aegis every year, and the fact that this Specter was still there meant that Aegis permitted the existence of this Specter in the city.
However, Nick was certain that Aegis didn't know that the main Specter was Gluttony's servant.
Solving this issue required different tactics.
First, Nick focused on learning more about the owner of the Specter, the biggest Manufacturer in the city.
Over the next several weeks, Nick kept shadowing the city's elite.
He wanted to get rid of the corrupt people first.
Yet, despite shadowing them for over three months, Nick didn't find even a single sign that any of them knew about the Specter's true identity.
But they had to!
It was impossible for a city to be conquered by one of the Corruptors without anyone finding out.
After three months, Nick decided to change his approach.
He found a very corrupt Peak Specialist and kidnapped her.
Then, he put her into darkness and used his ability to manipulate the Nightmare's influence to siphon information out of her.
Yet, even after several minutes, Nick didn't find anything concrete!
This Specialist didn't even know who or what Gluttony was!
Nick killed her and left the city.
Leaving and entering the city was not difficult.
He retreated into a deep cave and built a Greater Relay.
After building it, he contacted Wrath and told it about what he found.
"The city serves Gluttony," Wrath said. "It might not know, but it does."
"What do you mean?" Nick asked.
"The Water Pillar might or might not be one of Gluttony's servants. In the end, it doesn't matter."
"The city is a hub of gluttony and famine. You do not need a servant to create such a city. Sometimes, it just happens," Wrath said.
"Gluttony's influence does not require someone to guide it, just as mine doesn't. If there is war in a city, it is under my influence, even if there is no servant of mine present."
"Your job is to get rid of the influence. Your job is not to get rid of foreign servants, but if that is required to do your job, you still have to."
"Do your job or die!"
Then, Wrath cut the connection.
Nick furrowed his brows.
'So, this city might not be ruled by one of Gluttony's servants,' Nick thought.
'Maybe nobody knows about Gluttony's involvement since Gluttony actually isn't actively involved.'
'It just so happens that the city has a primary Specter that aligns with Gluttony's values.'
Nick looked at the city from a distance.
The city had a gigantic pillar of water in its middle.
The pillar absorbed the water in the atmosphere and converted it into small droplets of water, which were infused with rich Zephyx.
In essence, it was converting water into Zephyx.
On a baseline, this was actually not even bad. It was just a tool.
However, in the hands of a greedy few people, it caused tremendous suffering.
Nick scratched his chin as he looked at the gigantic pillar in the distance.
'It would be easier to solve this as a Liaison. If I were here as a Liaison, I would just need to break the elite apart, force the strongest Manufacturers into submission, limit the Water Pillar's production, tax the rich, jumpstart the economy, and things would be solved.'
'But right now, I can't appear in public. I don't have a way to hide my true identity as a Specter.'
'This is not easy.'
'How am I supposed to deal with a political issue without having any political power?'
Nick was not a fan of the current situation.
Technically, the city was not breaking Aegis' laws.
But on the other hand, Crimson City also hadn't been breaking Aegis' laws.
Nick hadn't been sent there because Crimson City had broken Aegis' laws.
No, he had been sent there to increase the Zephyx output by using the method of improving the overall happiness he had developed.
Nick focused on the poorer people in the city again.
Their skin was rather dry, and the water they distilled themselves was probably not very delicious.
There was definitely quite some suffering going on.
'What am I even thinking about?' Nick thought as his eyes regained their determination.
'There are people suffering, and Aegis needs Zephyx to resist the Specters. That's all that matters. That is the very core of what it means to be good. We need to protect humanity as a whole, and we need to be fair to the weak people.'
'Humanity must survive, but humans must be able to live their lives as well.'
'It does not matter what I do. As long as I can achieve that goal, I will have done the correct thing!'
Then, Nick turned into mist and entered the city again.
He would do what he was supposed to do as a Liaison.
He just couldn't do it legally.
The city had not yet noticed that a Peak Specialist had been killed, and Nick took advantage of that.
He went to the Peak Specialist's home and conjured a message.
Then, he left.
A day later, someone went into the Peak Specialist's home to investigate where she had gone to.
Naturally, they found the message and delivered it to their leaders.
Almost immediately, the elite of the city went into an uproar.
"Increase the availability of the poorest 10% of people by ten times, of the next poorest 10% by eight times… otherwise, more people being involved in the current water industry will be assassinated."
The actual message was several pages long, but this was what it essentially boiled down to.
The message did not mention the top 10%, but it was obvious that the water for the poor people had to come from somewhere.
Of course, the death of a Peak Specialist was big news, and the atmosphere turned oppressive.
The most powerful Extractors were suspicious of each other.
After all, they were the only ones powerful enough to pull something like this off.
Somebody among them had to be the one who did all of that.
Lots of meetings and accusations flew around, but nothing was changed.
They were just investigating.
They would find out who had killed the Peak Specialist!
Five days later, the owner of a water reseller was killed, and the same message was left behind.
More outrage.
Five days later, the new owner of the company was killed.
Horror.
The third owner bunkered up and was protected by the strongest Manufacturer inside their building.
Five days later, they were found dead in the Manufacturer's building.
The fourth owner was extremely nervous when they took over the business, but they decided to take a risk.
The first thing they did was to drop the water price by half.
Five days later, another person was killed, but this time, it was the owner of a different water reseller.
Their prices had now been higher since the other company had lowered theirs.