Nick found himself facing a difficult decision.
'This is the utopia I always wanted to create. The people here are happy, and everyone can do what they want with their lives. People don't seem to starve or suffer a lot.'
'Yet, this is the result of a Specter that actively works against humanity.'
Nick shook his head.
'Thinking about this right now is pointless. I should make sure that I am actually right in my deduction and check.'
'I have to see if this city is truly controlled by Sloth or not.'
Nick sighed and decided to gather some intel about the Manufacturers of Skygarden City.
If there was one of Sloth's agents in this city, it was most likely operating in one of the Manufacturers.
Nick transformed into a normal human again and started to walk the streets.
Nick started a conversation with the random person and just talked about general things.
Eventually, their conversation landed on the guy's job, which was related to supplying building materials.
Due to the plateau, the building materials had to come from outside, and Nick used that part to change the topic to the Manufacturers.
He got a bit of information about the Manufacturers, and he very quickly heard something very interesting.
"Other Manufacturers?" the guy asked with confusion. "Did they make a new one?"
"Wasn't there another company that everyone talked about in the past? I swear I heard something about another Manufacturer or something like that," Nick said.
"Not as far as I know," the guy said with a shrug. "It's always only been Equilibrium. I mean, they technically own the city. It would be strange if there was another Manufacturer."
Nick got the location of Equilibrium from the guy by changing the topic to the guy's job again.
He simply complimented Equilibrium's building without really knowing what it even looked like,and the guy filled in the blanks.
Nick brought the conversation to a close and continued walking.
'Only a single Manufacturer,' Nick thought. 'I've never been in a city that only has a single Manufacturer.'
'Usually, even if the main Manufacturer does a wonderful job, there are plenty of Extractors that want to make it big by creating a Manufacturer of their own.'
'But this city doesn't seem to have any of that.'
Nick quickly went to Equilibrium.
Surprisingly, the building wasn't in the center of the city but near the edge of the plateau.
Even more surprising was that the building wasn't very big.
Well, it was over a hundred meters big, but for the sole Manufacturer of an entire city, this definitely couldn't be considered big.
After a bit of investigating, Nick assumed the appearance of a Veteran whose shift just ended.
Nick found one of the rare guards and started a conversation with them.
Apparently, all the guards were from Equilibrium as well.
The more Nick heard about Equilibrium, the stranger it got.
The Manufacturer was rather small.
The Governor also worked for Equilibrium, and the entire city only had two Heroes.
They had an Early Hero, who was the Governor, and an Initial Hero, who was the CZE of Equilibrium.
Two Heroes was not a lot for an entire city.
On average, cities had around four to five Heroes.
But when Nick heard about the number of Specialists, he became even more shocked.
Five!
Only five!
Experts?
Twelve!
Veterans?
15!
There were less than 50 level three Extractors and stronger in the entire city!
Crimson City had over 500!
Even more, Equilibrium wasn't even searching for new members.
'But why?' Nick thought. 'A city attracts a lot of Specters, and they should have access to way more Specters than that. Are the Specters just not being worked with?'
'Such a small number of Extractors could barely produce the Zephyx necessary for the tribute,but the city has enough Zephyx to splurge on caravans.'
'This means that there has to be one Specter that produces an insane amount of Zephyx in the city.'
Nick decided to start another conversation with another guard, and in the middle of the conversation, he asked why they were not hiring more people. Wouldn't it make sense to have more people to produce more Zephyx?
The guard just looked at Nick like he was an idiot.
Then, he gave arguments as to why that was a bad idea.
First, the city was already producing enough Zephyx. They just didn't need more.
Second, 90% of Specters were horrible to work with, and it would be unconscionable to force people to work with these kinds of Specters.
'90% are unworkable?' Nick thought. 'It's more the opposite. You can work with 90% of Specters. Specters that you can't work with are in the minority.'
Then, Nick heard something shocking.
What did the city do with the unworkable Specters?
They killed them!
They didn't even contain them!
They literally just killed them!
Naturally, that was bad.
Killing an Adult created several Hatchlings all over the world.
Killing a Specter was only okay if that Specter caused an insane amount of suffering and was truly unworkable.
For example, a Specter directly working under a Corruptor.
Another good example would be a Specter that grew more powerful by causing suffering to a great number of normal people or one that uncontrollably killed swathes of humans.
The Crimson Sea was a good example of such a Specter. The only reason why it wasn't killed was its ability to consume other Specters, which made it usable as a Zephyx storage.
Yet,the Extractors of this city killed Specters just because they didn't live up to their high standards of workability!
Killing a Specter that grew more powerful by causing suffering to one Extractor could give birth to several Specters that would cause suffering to many more people!
This was actually extremely dangerous!
Eventually, Nick asked about the most powerful Specter in the city.
"I mean, the Equalizer is great," the guard said. "The more content everyone is, the more Zephyx it produces. Seriously, we're so lucky to have it. It's all thanks to it that we can live in such a great city."
'The more content everyone is?' Nick thought as he took note of the word content.
'It's not about happiness but about being content.'
'Content means you are fine with what you have.'
'In one way, you could call it happiness, but you could also call it stagnation.'
Nick thought of a person with an average job who had a small family in a small house.
Many people wouldn't feel content in such a situation. They wanted more.
Yet, there were also people who could be fine with living a life like this.
Was it wrong to be content in such a situation?
No.
Was it good to be content in such a situation?
Probably.
Wasn't every human searching for happiness?
As long as a human found happiness and felt content, they had essentially already reached their goal.
However, this was only true in a vacuum.
What if the content father had a child who wanted more in life and wanted to have an expensive education for their future?
In a way, a person was not responsible for another person's happiness, but it wasn't that easy.
Humans needed to work together, and some people needed others' help.
In this case, Skygarden City was the father, and the remainder of the world was the child.
Skygarden City was happy and content, but their actions negatively affected the remainder of humanity.
'And that's where Sloth's threat appears,' Nick thought. 'In this case,it makes people happy and takes away their desire to grow. If this were expanded to the entire world, humanity would never be able to break free.'
'Everyone would be happy with the status quo, and there would barely be any powerful Extractors left who can fight the Specters.'
Nick was reminded of the other city that belonged to Sloth, which he had visited a long time ago.
That city had been extremely powerful, but none of the powerful Extractors were willing to help or join Aegis.
'Sloth is creating small utopias for humans.'
'It is essentially bribing them.'
'You get to be happy, but you must not help your kin.'
Nick gritted his teeth.
'I hate this.'
'Happiness for everyone is what I want to achieve, but in this case, it is actively damaging humanity.'
'But what am I supposed to do?'
'Are humans not allowed to be happy?'
'Is an individual not allowed to be happy and content with their life?'
'If I want to help humanity as a whole, I would need to destroy the lives of thousands of content and innocent people!'
'They didn't do anything wrong! They are following the rules and are living their lives!'
Nick was unsure how to proceed.
He couldn't deny that the city's policy was damaging humanity as a whole, but getting rid of Sloth's influence would transform this paradise of a city into just another miserable city.
'What do I do?'
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