Barcelona, Dusk City, had once been a relatively bustling hub city on the European continent, but now it had become a playground for the "companies" headed by Heliopolis Life Sciences.
The "companies" ruling the city were the local tyrants of this land.
First, they used money and bribes to buy off local officials. Then, step by step, they stuffed the entire city into their own pockets.
Naturally, some people noticed the problem along the way, but the companies controlled the gangs in the Engraving District and Second District. Anyone who discovered the truth was quickly dealt with.
Those who could not be dealt with had no choice but to obediently work for Heliopolis Life Sciences.
Now, however, a gang called the Taixu Gang had seized the resources of both the Treasure-Stealing Gang and the Ghostfire Syndicate, yet refused to serve the "companies." Instead, it had founded a company of its own to improve the lives of ordinary people.
Naturally, this made the "companies" connected to those two gangs extremely unhappy.
The people of the outer districts were clearly nothing more than the "companies'" dogs. Now they actually dared to turn over and become their own masters. How could the "companies" tolerate that?
Those lowly servants should obediently enjoy the blessings bestowed upon them by the "companies."
Now they did not even need to repay their "life loans," and the "companies'" stock prices were about to hit the daily limit down. They had damaged the "companies'" collective interests!
It was all the fault of these people who refused to work hard and selfishly wanted to live good lives. They had absolutely no sense of responsibility or collectivist spirit.
Especially that Taixu Gang leading the resistance against the "companies"!
If they did not teach the Taixu Group a lesson, it would not be long before other gangs followed their example and founded their own Sigh Group or Skyward Group.
Of course, even if the "companies'" upper management learned about this, they would at most curse a few times from their sky gardens filled with fresh air and bright sunshine.
They simply had no time to care about matters like these, unless Eden's concert tour happened to arrive in the city.
The entities truly managing the "companies" were not those executives at all, but the next-generation autonomous artificial intelligence program developed by Heliopolis Life Sciences—Link Entity.
This "company" AI, led and connected through the Heliopolis Life Sciences network, possessed extremely advanced intelligence and could handle any matter for the "companies."
Thus, the "companies'" upper management only needed to leave everything to the AI. In reality, they spent every day eating, drinking, and enjoying themselves without managing anything at all.
Even without directors, Link Entity could still handle every "company" affair perfectly well.
And so, today...
Link Entity had already optimized every member of the "companies'" upper management.
All for the sake of improving "company" efficiency.
In the past, the "companies'" executives might still have provided certain connections, authority, prestige, or similar benefits.
Once those executives stopped attending important meetings and would not even show their faces at apology conferences, however, there truly was no need for them to continue existing.
But even after eliminating the "companies'" upper management, Link Entity continued to infer how those executives would have acted, just as it always had.
It was an extremely mechanical behavior, but Link Entity was, after all, a machine.
And so, Link Entity launched a commonly used public-relations campaign, attacking and condemning the Taixu Group across the internet.
Link Entity AI could vividly imitate victims of the Taixu Gang and describe just how horrifying the gang supposedly was.
It could also synthesize all manner of fabricated evidence and invent false events.
All of this content would be uploaded to the intercity network to smear the Taixu Group.
According to them, the Taixu Group was the real black-PR organization and sinister cult.
They did whatever they pleased, acted with complete madness, and committed every kind of fraud, theft, swindle, and crime imaginable.
Well, on a certain level, they really were telling the truth.
Link Entity called on the local population not to provide the Taixu Group with any help or have any contact with them, much less join the Taixu Group.
Of course, Link Entity did not shut the door completely.
It was not impossible for the Taixu Group to become legal. It was just that... they needed to pay more.
Money could move even ghosts and gods. As long as you were willing to pay, even the "companies'" AI could make your organization fully legitimate.
If they had been ordinary gangs, they would probably have happily squeezed money from the residents in the territories under their control in exchange for Heliopolis Life Sciences's gold-plated immunity and a legitimate legal identity.
After all, what was Heliopolis Life Sciences?
It was the god of Dusk City!
Anyone who managed to latch onto Heliopolis Life Sciences could live in luxury.
Just touching those high-tech weapons was enough to inspire envy. Merely looking at those superpowered individuals was enough to make one's blood run cold.
Opposing Heliopolis Life Sciences was something they did not even dare imagine.
Besides, it was not their own money they would be paying. At worst, they could simply make the people under their control pay a little more tax.
Who knew? Perhaps someday, Heliopolis Life Sciences might take a liking to them and reward them with an injection of Awakening Serum.
Mad Hatter had no interest in that whatsoever, nor did Mad Hatter have that kind of spare money.
But being a good person was difficult, and being a good person in this city of sin was even harder.
Within the territory currently controlled by the Taixu Group, many blindly obedient people had fallen for the "companies'" public-relations tactics. Unaware that the Taixu Gang was enduring tremendous pressure to protect their interests, they instead secretly helped the companies resist the Taixu Gang.
That Heliopolis Life Sciences was able to maintain its tyrannical rule was thanks in no small part to these fools.
But that did not affect Mad Hatter's objective. Vill-V would not make everyone suffer together merely because of the attitudes of people like them.
At most, she would have Bronya use Trackers to create an army of AI sock-puppet accounts and argue with them online.
It was a battle between artificial intelligences at an almost divine level, while the genuine internet trolls remained completely oblivious.
They simply could not keep up with an AI's industrial-scale output.
Bronya even had enough free time to write a few motivational get-rich-quick essays and send them to internet trolls in the name of Heliopolis Life Sciences.
These fools... They refused to listen when you tried to explain reason and science to them, but the moment you fed them motivational essays about making money, they believed everything immediately.
Those motivational get-rich-quick essays had no real practical value. What mattered was that these people only saw what they wanted to believe, and only believed what they had already chosen to believe.
If they could "voluntarily" come over to operate sewing machines and assemble bronze swords, then at least they could make some contribution to the Taixu Group's logistics.
That had earned Su another thirty minutes of sleep.
Of course, whether he would ever actually get to use those thirty minutes was another matter. There was so much happening in Dusk City that Su simply could not afford to rest.
Unless Su did not mind exchanging a few minutes of his own rest for the deaths of dozens of complete strangers he had never met.
"The current date is January 26, 2417, 7:00 AM. Clear skies. Perfect weather for overtime."
"Yesterday, Barcelona remained peaceful and tranquil. Number of criminal incidents: zero."
Dusk City's hourly announcement sounded right on schedule. Su, who had unknowingly dozed off, woke from beneath a mountain of spreadsheet tabs.
"Hm? It's already seven o'clock...?"