Chapter 959 (1/2)
“So…” Randidly frowned at Tatiana and Tykes. The two both wore extremely depressed expressions as they explained what Erickson Steel endured over the last few months. “They want us to move the headquarters?”
“Maybe at the beginning, but now that they own our debt they have gotten greedy,” Tatiana said grimly. “They want control of production; luckily they can’t change the terms of the mortgage without us having a legal out, but they’ve done their best to eliminate our options. And as long as everything runs under your name-”
“They… own our debt?” Randidly looked over at Tykes. “Are we deeply in debt? I guess the new expansion is pretty big… Well anyway, if they are so obviously refusing to be civil, why do we even bother paying this targeted tax?”
“If we don’t, the suppliers can’t do business with us,” Tatiana said. “In addition, the government would take any excuse to send ‘investigators’ to Erickson Steel headquarters and look over the process. When they talk about the Erickson Steel formulate, they treat it like a national treasure that we are selfishly using for our own gain. If we even stick a toe out of line-”
“Do we truly fear them that much? How strong are they?” Randidly asked, his eyebrows rising.
Tykes immediately chuckled and Tatiana just looked at him with wide eyes. After cracking his knuckles, Tykes seated himself in one of the two wide leather couches along the wall.
“Randidly… with all due respect.” Tatiana said slowly. She spread her hands wide. “It’s not about strength. Or at least, it's not about fighting strength. This is our government. If we take an antagonistic stance, there are a thousand ways they could harass us and make our lives difficult. They have the ability to make laws. In addition, military bases are a significant portion of our sales; they buy some of our specialty drones in bulk. Without them, it will be difficult to make enough of a profit to pay the tariffs.”
“So we don’t pay the tariffs. Isn’t that what I said?” Randidly cracked his neck in irritation. Of course, as soon as he left Donnyton with a bitter heart, he would encounter a pointless situation like this. While he was away, it seemed that the threat of Randidly Ghosthound meant less and less in Zone 1.
If they think I’ll remain passive because I did in the past, they are fools. Neither of my images will allow this disrespect to go unpunished. Randidly barred his teeth at his hands. It wasn’t ideal, but Randidly felt like there was no point in being civil if Zone 1 was willing to rely on the heavyweight of contracts and societal pressure to bind him.
Hell, even if Tatiana had sold the soul of the company to the devil, I would just head to hell and kill him to take it back. Randidly thought darkly. I acted previously to stabilize society because that’s what I thought I needed. But now I know we need to stop playing these games and work on growing stronger. If Zone 1 refuses to take the hint...
“I’m not sure if you understand-” Tatiana tried again, but Randidly waved her silent.
Randidly did understand. He understood that his disrespect for the rule of law on Earth was dangerous and subversive. On the one hand, he might be able to get away with it due to his status as the Ghosthound. But if other organizations became aware of it, they would wonder whether breaking those bonds of decency would be worth it.
That could lead to more infighting and weakening the Earth even further. What Randidly was considering now was extremely risky. And yet…
In his heart, the heavy image of the Grim Chimera stirred just slightly. Immediately, Randidly released a breath and forced that part of him to relax. After seeing the collapse of Tellus, Randidly had no hope that he could completely maintain the stability of Earth in the face of the Calamities.
Better to risk it and protect the valuable portions. And to him, and to the forgers of Earth, Erickson Steel was extremely valuable.
“This is going to be hard for you to understand… I actually believed your method was the better one until not long ago. But now…” Randidly looked down at his hands once more. Although Randidly was very careful not to allow his images to stir again, his arms still warped into the wicked weapons of the Grim Chimera before his very eyes. The air smelled like ashes and dried blood. “We don’t have to play nice. We are going to refuse to pay their taxes and ignore their agents.
“Plus… if they force the issue, we can always leave.” Randidly finished.
The other two people in the room just looked at him for several seconds. Finally, Tykes flexed his hands with a grin plastered on his face. “Thank god. I’m so tired of just letting these slugs crawl all over us without doing anything about it.”
Sighing, Tatiana asked. “Where will we get raw materials then? Our process will grind to a halt without a constant stream of materials.”
Randidly sent Helen a message to keep an eye out for any sort of ore veins. And if she couldn’t get any results in a short amount of time, he could just move himself to search. “I’ll handle it. When it comes to locating things within the ground, I have a fair amount of confidence. Is there anything else? Any other way they are messing with us?”
“It’s not so much messing with us…” Tykes said as his lip curled upward. “But most of our workers get rather constant headhunter calls. Most need to leave their cell phones in their locker so that they don’t get distracted while working.”
Certainly, Zone 1 is much closer to the way Earth used to be… Randidly thought to himself. Spam callers and cellphones…
Then he shook his head to dislodge his idle wonderings about the dangers of technology and instead focused on the issue at hand. What did he actually want to accomplish? If he would only spoil the image of Earth with his interference, then his focus on helping Earth could either shift into general instruction or by providing powerful materials. However, when Randidly saw his Paths that would enable him to instruct individuals earlier, he hadn’t felt any sort of desire.
Instead, Randidly found himself smiling much more widely as he imagined stealing away this entire factory and becoming an independent provider.
If he didn’t have to remain close to civilization, it was better to maintain some space. Randidly had absolutely no interest in creating some sort of super martial artist school, to help teach the people of this world how to fight. Even if all Randidly attempted to do was raise the strength of some teachers, it would still be incredibly time-consuming in the short term. And a hassle to improve the power of these teachers without relying on images.
No, it was better if he could use images freely. And the only way that would be safe was to isolate Randidly’s base of operations from the other emerging images. If he ran away from taxes and tariffs at the same time… well, that was just a happy coincidence.
“I already planned on calling over some friends to apply some pressure… I’ll get them to stop the calls. But also… How easy would it be to simply move?” Randidly asked.
“Impossible,” came Tatiana’s immediate answer. “That debt you seemed so dismissive of earlier was spent reinforcing the ground in the surrounding area so we could expand in the future. It was an investment. In addition, we’ve done a lot of groundwork here to ensure that Erickson Steel can accomplish everything on sight. Without the ability to simply lift up the land and carry it away with us, Erickson Steel will lose a lot by moving.”
“Something like that…” Randidly tapped his cheek. There was a thing layer of stubble there, he noticed. He should shave soon.
Randidly could forcefully pick up and move the facilities it with Mana, but it would become a constant drain on his attributes. Still, he thought it would be rather interesting if he could manage to turn Erickson Steel into a mobile business. Although Randidly didn’t want to casually use the Skill, maybe spending some time refining a Soulseed for that purpose would be for the best…?