After talking with the Champion of Light, Nick went back to the Technician and asked him for a couple of upgrades to his Barrier.
The Technician had been very careful with how many rights he gave Nick's Barrier.
It wasn't that he didn't want to help Nick but that giving him too many rights might make the Champion suspicious.
However, with the new directive from the Champion of Light, the Technician finally had an excuse to upgrade the rights of Nick's Barrier.
He did just that, and Nick left the headquarters.
'Well, I have to contribute some more. As long as I keep contributing, the Champion won't care what I do.'
'Although,' Nick thought with furrowed brows. 'I still have to be careful. Nobody really knows this person, and there must be a reason why the aliens chose him out of millions of humans.'
'He must have some kind of talent or something that makes him exceptional and perfect for the job.'
'I should not distinguish between free time and work time anymore. Instead, I should work slowly and just sneak some learning in. I'll just deliberately report my results later.'
'The fact that the Champion of Light believes that I am a Specter that's interested in their own gain is a good thing. Working too much for humanity would be suspicious for a Specter.'
'Instead, I should appear a bit lazy. Nobody trusts an overeager Specter.'
'Laziness… how very fitting,' Nick thought as he kept flying to the northwest.
The Champion had told Nick to contribute, but he hadn't said how he should contribute.
So, he just decided to free a couple of cities from the Corruptors' influence.
Of course, the first question was which Corruptor Nick should deal with.
Going after Wrath was not a good idea since it was the last servant of War. If War got pushed too far into the corner, it might decide to recruit more Fallen to join its cause.
Going after Gluttony also wasn't necessary since it was fighting with Sloth, Lust,and Wrath over territory in the Grand Continent.
Nick couldn't go after Greed for obvious reasons.
He also decided to avoid Envy.
While Envy's abilities were probably not as powerful as the other Corruptors' abilities, it had an insane number of them.
It probably had over a hundred different abilities, and there was a possibility that it might be able to see through Nick's disguise with one of them.
Envy was most likely the most versatile Specter in existence, and that was exactly the thing that caused the most issues for Nick.
Nick generally won engagements by using his wide array of tools to change the situation in his favor, but against Envy, he wouldn't be able to do that.
So, that left Lust and Sloth.
The two controlled almost all of the Grand Continent and were allies, making them the most stable Corruptors.
Nick decided to go after Sloth due to its geographical location.
There was just a little bit of ocean between the northeastern corner of the Grand Continent and the Northwestern corner of the Great Triangle.
Even more, the Fiend of Darkness was in the stronghold in the northwestern corner of the Great Triangle.
Envy was already slowly advancing towards the Great Triangle, but it was doing so from the south.
Sloth was a more immediate threat.
As Nick continued flying, his ability eventually reactivated.
It hadn't been active all this time since Death had still been looking at him.
Of course, due to Nick's new advancement, he knew Death's approximate location.
'But what's the point of that?' Nick thought as he glanced towards the southeast.
'The guy is inside the ocean. Even if humanity knew its precise location, the Adversaries in the ocean would use this chance and attack the Shields. In order to get to Death, we need to deal with the ocean Adversaries first.'
Nick's brows furrowed in annoyance. 'Also, I doubt the Champion would even be interested in fighting Death. As far as I know,the two of them are just putting up a show. After all, they are working for the same master.'
'The only ones that can truly kill Adversaries are the other Shields since they are actually on humanity's side.'
'…Hopefully. There might be a second traitor.'
Nick flew past the stronghold in the northwest of the Great Triangle and reached the ocean.
After he reached the ocean, Nick changed his appearance.
He turned from a tall and muscular man into a small but slightly athletic man.
His skin also changed from a healthy and thick one into a very white and unhealthy one.
In essence, Nick wanted to look like a poorer person who was very experienced.
He didn't want to imitate a high-profile person, but he also didn't want to get into any contact with robbers.
A moment later, Nick activated his Barrier and looked at some local copies of database entries from Aegis' main database.
Naturally, these entries were about cities close to the northeastern corner of the Grand Continent.
The entries were old and barely had any information in them. After all, almost all of the information in them came from local Governors who just introduced their cities.
As Nick read through a couple of them, his eyes fell on a particular one.
'Skygarden City. A prosperous city that produces an average amount of Zephyx. The Governor is highlighting how good the people have it in the city and that they take care of everyone.'
'It also has a megastructure. Not every city has a megastructure, and if a city has the funds to build one, they most likely could contribute more to Aegis.'
'I should check that one first.'
Nick followed the coordinates in the entry and quickly reached Skygarden City.
As soon as he arrived, he realized where the name came from.
Nick saw a gigantic round plateau.
It was around a kilometer high and three kilometers wide.
The walls of the plateau were perfectly smooth, with no openings to use for climbing.
On top of the plateau was a city,and when Nick saw it, he grew surprised.
'So much vegetation!' Nick thought.
Nick almost couldn't believe it, but the entire city looked very similar to the Upper Layer of Crimson City.
There was grass everywhere, and Nick saw a ton of trees.
There were even a couple of small lakes.
While there were a couple of skyscrapers, the majority of buildings were homes that could house no more than five families.
The megastructure was the plateau itself.
The plateau was not natural, and it had been created with a lot of metal and stone.
As Nick looked at Skygarden City from the sky, he furrowed his brows.
'This can't be,' Nick thought. 'There has to be some bad stuff going on in the underground for these people to live in such luxury.'
Nick did a rough count of the houses and estimated the number of people living there.
'Should be anywhere between 4,000 and 8,000 people,' he realized with shock.
'This city manages to let so many people live in such luxury?'
'I have to investigate.'
Nick approached the city as a cloud of mist.
He didn't directly fly in but went to the bottom of the plateau.
Then, he slowly floated up, searching for an entry point.
While the megastructure was almost perfectly smooth, there were still a couple of places that had deteriorated a bit due to time.
The smoothness of the surface still remained, but the layer of stone on the top had just become thinner and not as dense.
Nick entered through one of these spots and found himself in a crawlspace for maintenance staff.
The crawlspace was completely dark, but that wasn't an issue.
He rapidly moved through the underground of the city, searching for the city's dark secret.
Yet, despite searching for several minutes, Nick didn't find anything.
There was no hidden underground city.
There were no people living in the underground.
Nick almost couldn't believe it.
'Seriously? Everyone in the city lives in an environment similar to Crimson City's Upper Layer?'
'That's crazy!'
Nick felt quite humbled.
Not even he could create such a utopia!
Nick decided to change his appearance to a healthy one and materialized in a random empty alley inside the city.
As he stepped out, he entered a busy street with several shops.
People were walking around, eating random snacks, and chatting amongst themselves.
The conversations were quite lighthearted.
Nick saw people entering shops and paying with cards, but almost nobody talked about money.
It was like money just wasn't a big concern for them.
The atmosphere was quite lively, and Nick decided to spend several hours walking the streets.
It was difficult for Nick to believe, but he didn't find any big signs of suffering.
Sure, some people had a bad day, but their idea of a bad idea was the idea of a perfect day for most people living in this world.
Eventually, Nick decided to follow the money.
He entered one of the food shops and looked through their finance documents.
'That's a lot of tax,' Nick thought. 'Over 60% of their profits are getting taxed.'
Nick found the company that supplied the shop's ingredients and paid that company a visit.
That company got its wares from another company.
The other company existed solely to trade with caravans, which was where all the food came from.
That was when Nick saw something interesting.
'Almost no export. They are almost exclusively importing.'
'That means the city is spending a ton of Zephyx on the caravans.'
'And despite all that, the city still produces an average amount of Zephyx?'
Slowly, an image started appearing in Nick's mind.
'There has to be a Specter that produces a crazy amount of Zephyx in this city. Either the Heroes and Specialists are working overtime, or the entire city is feeding the Specter.'
As Nick looked at the city, an idea popped into his head.
'Can living comfortably and not wanting for anything be associated with the concept of sloth?'
And very quickly,Nick was put before a choice.
If this city was truly controlled by Sloth…
Should he actually change it?