lpffa Chapter 181: One Man’s Foundation
Chapter 181: One Man’s Foundation
To be honest, Gideon did not fully trust Piggy.
That was exactly why he reviewed every policy she proposed many times. He was not an economist, but he knew enough to tell whether a policy benefited both the territory and its residents or unfairly favored one side over the other.
If she ever tried something like that, he would throw her out without hesitation and probably feed her to an aberrant while he was at it.
For now, her movements were heavily monitored by everyone living in the house. Not only that, every major policy she drafted was reviewed by Jade, Kanna, and Delilah.
They might not have the same economic knowledge as Piggy, but experience was just as valuable as theory. In some areas, Jade and Kanna’s life experiences were worth more than any textbook could ever teach.
"Well, while you’re working on it, why not?" Gideon said.
"And I don’t mean free healthcare for everyone. Just for people who already have chronic illnesses that Elaine can’t treat with our current stock. Most of the medicine I’ve given her is for external injuries and essentials like antibiotics."
Piggy immediately looked like she wanted to scream again.
"And just do what I said. Aren’t you technically my captive? I’m already being generous by not handcuffing you to a table and sending someone to torture you every time you sigh."
"Still!" Piggy pointed at the papers covering her desk.
"Do you think all these calculations fall from the sky?! I don’t even have a calculator, for God’s sake. Do you know how many things I’ve had to calculate by hand?"
She grabbed her hair and aggressively messed it up even further.
"And all these reports! Every single one has to be written by hand!"
"Fine," Gideon shrugged. "I’ll get you a calculator."
He was kind of glad she didn’t see him as some kind of predator anymore. Maybe too furious to even get nervous in front of Gideon. But still, progress is still progress.
Piggy groaned loudly. Then she started pacing from one side of the room to the other while muttering incomprehensible complaints under her breath.
Occasionally she would stop, stare at a random sheet of paper, shake her head, and continue pacing again.
After several rounds of that, she finally seemed to reach some kind of conclusion and collapsed back into her chair.
"Ask your people to make a list of every resident with a chronic illness that requires treatment," she said.
"As for healthcare, I understand why it’s important, but medicine is expensive. If we try to fund everything through taxes, the burden on residents will be ridiculous."
"It all comes from my power anyway. You don’t have to worry about the budget or taxes that much. Honestly, I don’t think I need to follow normal economic rules too strictly."
That statement was not arrogance. It was simply reality.
Most of the fangs and scales he had obtained from killing the Verdant Devourer—specifically all the parts of the aberrant he got from the system—were still sitting inside his storage. He only sold some of it back to the system so he could pay the Paylatter bill.
Even the cores he earned from selling half of those materials—the one Freebound helped to salvage from the corpse—were enough to support him for the rest of his life if he lived alone, or kept a small territory running for nearly a decade.
Gideon was rich. Money was not the problem.
As far as he was concerned, the best use for his wealth was investing it back into the territory. He wanted to spend those cores, Love Coins, and Satisfaction Points building infrastructure until the economy could eventually sustain itself without constant intervention.
Surprisingly, Piggy did not argue. The frustration that had been driving her earlier seemed to cool down, replaced by something more serious.
"But are you sure you want this territory to depend on you that much?" she asked. "If you’re gone one day, everyone here dies with you."
"Do you think I’ll be killed that easily?"
Gideon immediately disliked where the conversation was heading.
Piggy shook her head. "Don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying you’re weak."
Her fingers absentmindedly moved a few papers aside. "I just know someone who built everything around a single person. Trust, authority, responsibility, hope. Everything was placed on one set of shoulders. In the end, it became a disaster."
Gideon remained silent. Something about the way she said it made him wonder whether she was speaking from personal experience.
"Are you talking about Elaine and Victoria?"
Piggy nodded. "I knew Elaine before the apocalypse. Victoria too. We went through a lot together. What do you think destroyed that familial bond in the end?"
"I don’t know," Gideon admitted. "Different goals?"
"Goals and ambition." Piggy let out a tired breath.
"People change, Chief. Sometimes they change because the world keeps proving them wrong over and over again. Nobody stays exactly the same forever."
The room became quieter.
"Don’t tell me you’d never become that person," she continued. "You have people following you now. Victoria had people following her too and she still changed for the worse."
***
Night finally came, and Gideon found himself sitting on the rooftop.
A heater stood near the bench he had placed there, along with a shade and a barbecue grill. Summer loved meat, and barbecue was her favorite thing to eat, so they used the place every once in a while whenever everyone had time to relax.
Even with the heater running, snow still continued to gather across the rooftop. Some of it slowly slid down the sloped edges before disappearing into the darkness below.
Tonight, however, Gideon was not there for a barbecue.
He wanted to see what kind of aberrants would appear during winter night.
One had already shown itself yesterday, and there was a chance more would emerge in the coming days. When the King slept, the White Death became a land without a master. Aberrants that normally stayed away could now wander into territories they usually would not dare enter.
Of course, if observation was his only goal, he could have stayed inside the Guard Tower.
The real reason he was sitting on the rooftop was much simpler.
He wanted a drink before moving to the tower.
Ever since arriving in this world, he had gradually become accustomed to alcohol. Beer especially had become something he genuinely enjoyed.
On nights like this, when winter seemed endless and the cold never truly left, the warmth spreading through his body after every sip was difficult to resist.
At the same time, Piggy’s words continued to echo inside his head.
He wanted to ask Elaine about them. The problem was that she became strangely emotional whenever the topic came up. She was just like an explosive that suddenly exploded.
The rooftop door suddenly opened. Gideon glanced over his shoulder and immediately recognized the figure stepping outside.
It was Elaine.
Her dark purple hair was loose tonight instead of tied into its usual braid. She was still wearing those fake glasses she insisted on keeping, though Gideon was becoming increasingly suspicious that she genuinely needed them.
’She’s way too young to be farsighted, isn’t she?’
He took another sip from his beer. The moment Elaine spotted him, a grin appeared on her face.
"Speak of the devil."