Wasn’t This a Night Game

Declaration of a General Strike

If there was one bounty that hung highest in the Scrapyard, one name that graced the local newspapers more than any other, it was undoubtedly Kal Lenaro.

Widely considered a leader of the labor agitators, a danger of the highest order, he was rumored to be holed up somewhere within the mines of the Scrapyard. But his precise location, his personal details, remained shrouded in mystery.

It was understandable, for all the labor theorists of Scrap Yard were using every trick in the book to protect him.

But today.

Karl Renaro, a man who rarely ventured out unless absolutely necessary, had decided to make an excursion.

“Comrade Renaro. It’s dangerous.”

“I still must see. I absolutely must see.”

The Saint of Healing.

The one who had achieved incredible feats in the capital and risen to prominence as a key figure in the Imperial Court and the Pantheon was, without warning, conducting healing activities in the corner of Scrap Yard.

“Religion is the opiate of the masses. I must go and see for myself what kind of person he is. Otherwise, the lives of the workers will be even more devastated than they are now.”

Three hundred years prior.

Scrap Yard was a city that had been badly burned by an evil god.

Smooth-talking words and promises of the afterlife.

And thanks to those who led people with brainwashing and fanaticism, the city fell into utter chaos.

Brainwashed fanatics disregarded the law and rules, forcing their doctrines on people and seriously undermining the fundamental order of families and society.

They did not pay taxes but demanded tithes, and under the conviction that they were right, they committed all kinds of nuisances and atrocities.

They even tried to start a holy war, plunging the city into a civil war for three years, and even after that, their roots could not be eradicated for more than ten years. They ceaselessly shed blood until their last moments before disappearing.

Since then, the city had come to hate religion and magic.

The so-called gods of the Pantheon had not offered any help even when the city was suffering under the evil god, and they had clearly witnessed the entire city being horribly transformed by magic and sorcery.

So, Renaro decided that he had to go and see this so-called Saint for himself.

If he was going to exploit the workers’ bleak situation to engage in proselytizing or intended to produce fanatics, he would stop him by any means necessary.

Thus, for several days, Renaro hid thoroughly and secretly observed the Saint’s healing activities.

He witnessed him treating the sick without properly eating or sleeping.

He witnessed him using his own wealth to feed the hungry.

He did not proselytize.

Instead, he wept with a woman who had lost her child and sympathized with the lives of the destroyed workers, expressing his anger.

He also witnessed the police trying to chase him away.

He saw him refuse and retort.

But Renaro was not fooled.

Those who believe in religion and magic are not those who truly try to change the lives of the common people.

They were jackals who acted for the sake of the god they served.

Only to offer the god a sacrifice of faith.

“All of you are fired!!”

As the police appeared, smashing the soup kitchen and trying to drive out the patients, Renaro watched the Saint stand there, helpless to do anything, and Renaro realized a crucial turning point had arrived.

In this desperate situation…

The moment the Saint dared to spout that bullshit about finding salvation by believing in the Goddess Lilia, he needed to be driven out of the city.

Because without any thought of fixing the fundamental problem, this societal system, he was just another con man dedicated solely to selling religion.

No matter how much the calamity of 300 years ago was suffered, time makes one forget many things.

To the laborers, whose lives were hellish and immediate suffering, the notion that believing in the Goddess in the sky would make them happy, was bound to sound incredibly sweet.

‘Fine. The people, having lost hope, are leaving before your very eyes. If you’re going to hawk religion, there won’t be a better moment than now. What will you do? Will you deal in dope, too? Or will you show the will to solve a much more fundamental problem?’

Renaro, with a cynical glint in his eye, watched the Saint climb atop the ruined soup kitchen, hidden amongst the crowd.

‘He’ll push religion, nine times out of ten. He’ll tell us to just believe in the Goddess, even in this bleak and depressing reality. He won’t get rid of the factory owners, and he won’t show any will to solve the terrible problems of capitalism, and he’ll just tell us to live day by day, popping pills. The moment you say that, you’re an enemy of the laborers.’

Just as Renaro was thinking that,

The Saint opened his mouth.

The name of the Goddess Lilia did not come from his lips.

Nor the names of the gods of the pantheon.

Nor the authority of the Emperor.

Nothing of the sort came out.

“A spectre is haunting the Empire!!!!”

Instead, he shouted in a sharp voice, like he was spitting out blood.

“It is the spectre of Capitalism!! More greedy and cruel than any demon or evil god recorded in history, this spectre thirsts and howls with hunger even after endlessly grinding down the souls and lives of the laborers!!”

The Saint was almost weeping.

“And just now. That spectre declared it would grind down the lives of you all gathered here!! As it has done until now!! It has shamelessly revealed its rapacious intentions to continue doing so!! Until when!! Until when will you be exploited! Until when will you live as self-proclaimed slaves!! Laborers of the city!!”

The roar, so immense it seemed impossible to come from a human mouth, seemed to shake the very soul of Karl Renaro.

The cynical gaze fixed on the Saint had vanished in an instant.

As with all the other laborers gathered here.

Karl Renaro, too, was astonished.

The Saint didn’t seem like someone raised like a hothouse flower under the care of the gods.

He spoke as if he had been hurt and suffered for a long time in this capitalist society.

*

Hollow and empty eyes.

A face utterly devoid of hope for the future.

An attitude devoid of any certainty of truly surviving in this society.

Nor faith that tomorrow would differ from today.

Creatures lacking belief that diligent effort and work would assuredly bring improvement.

They were all too familiar.

They were me.

Or, more precisely, how I was before my transmigration here.

My former self, Kim Min-gyu, living a life of anxious trepidation in South Korea.

The one difference was that even as a human being in South Korea, Kim Min-gyu could at least grab ramen from a convenience store when hungry, receive training at an employment center, and seek medical treatment when ill, whereas these folk possessed no safety net whatsoever.

Injured?

They must die.

Hungry?

Then they were doomed to starve.

This place was hell.

And even if their bodies were healed in such a hell,

what could possibly change if the system itself remained unchanged? No matter how much better they feel, they are going to go to the factory to work, get injured again, become homeless and wander around before dying in the end.

Just to heal them for a week and then leave?

That would be the cruelest act of all upon them.

For it would be to forcibly prolong a life devoid of hope.

If one were to mend things, it had to be done thoroughly, from the root up.

And so, I roared.

I roared with an outrage and fury more profound than anyone else.

“Look! Look at those factory owners!! They’ve melted the dignity of man into exchange value, replaced the lives of men with shameless commerce!! Through division of labor and mechanization, the worker has become a mere tool, a component, a slave to the ever-watchful manager, the employer, the bourgeois, and the state!! Yes! You are slaves!! Slaves without hope, without any faith in a better tomorrow! Slaves!!”

A shared emotion began to stir in the eyes of the workers at the sound of my voice.

Rage.

Resentment.

Parents who had lost children before their very eyes began to weep, and youths with lackluster eyes began to ignite with resolve.

The eyes of those who were starving, hungry, and possessed nothing but their bodies, those who had nothing left to lose, began to change gradually upon hearing my words.

“Refuse to be slaves any longer!! Refuse to live as mere parts of the factory owner, tools to swell their fortunes!! No longer be devoured by the specter of capitalism!! Workers!! You are human!! Not mere parts turning in service of the factory!! You are not parts to be discarded and replaced when broken and ruined!! You are human!!”

Without realizing it, my own voice became infused with indignation.

The convenience store owner who stiffed me.

Truly, I wished not to recall those wretched memories from my first job.

The agonizing pain of losing my deposit – earned through blood, sweat, and tears at the cost of my life and soul – to a housing scam all came rushing back at once.

“You are not wrong!! Who dares to say that you, who have struggled more than anyone to survive, are wrong?! It is the norms and rules of this society that are wrong!! Therefore, let us reject those norms and rules!! Let us no longer stand idly by!! Let us deny a life as mere cogs and reclaim a life as humans!!”

But, could the pain I suffered in Korea possibly be greater than theirs?

Could it be worse than the heartache of parents who watched their three-year-old child die before their very eyes?

“Therefore, revolution!! I declare a revolution against this rotten world and its rules!! Let the factory owners and the city’s rulers tremble before the revolution!! Let us no longer be consumed by the specter of capitalism, but become the beings who hunt the specter!!”

“How can we do that!! O Holy One!!”

Someone from the crowd cried out.

How to do it, you ask?

This is the only way.

“Workers of the city, unite!! You have nothing to lose but your chains!! You have freedom and dignity to gain!! Do not fear guns and blades, do not yield to batons!! Unite and refuse to work!! Never return to the factories until you receive fair wages and treatment!!”

I could feel the atmosphere gradually heating up.

I raised my hand.

“There will be oppression!! The enemies will brandish weapons and attempt to destroy you!! But what is there to fear!! Fight!! And conquer! Then we, who were once nothing, shall become everything!!”

Thanks to my body modifications, I was able to unleash a roar of unimaginable magnitude.

Enough to engulf the entire city in flames.

It was a colossal roar.

“Reject a life as mere cogs and die as humans!!! Do not pass on this suffering to your children!!!”

Someone, I don’t know who, began to shout from the crowd.

“Long live the Workers’ Revolution!!!!”

And that cry spread in an instant.

I raised my hand high towards those who were shouting.

“General strike!! I hereby declare a general strike!! Stop the factories and stop fattening the specter of capitalism any further!! Until we are given our rightful rights and treatment!! We will never stop!!!”

My final cry was the catalyst.

Thousands of workers gathered there and began to shout in unison.

“Long live the revolution!!! Long live the revolution!!!”

“Lead us!!”

I did not ignore their cries.

All of this happened because I tried to save a worker’s family with a loaf of black bread.