Arknights : Final Rebirth - Gladius Belii

[E] Chapter 34 - The Sankta Contract and Vacation? Yeah I guess.

"Mono/Dialogue"

'Inner thoughts'

Narration

[Message/communication apparatus]

Date: Late April 1084

Location: Northern Rim Billiton.

POV: Narrator

The sound of heavy and perhaps gargantuan machinery had caused an ashen-haired figure to stir awake from their slumber, the cracks of light that shone through the curtain also encouraged the figure to stretch themselves. The figure had been driving for days on end, thus they decided to take things a lot slower than usual.

"... Morning already?" Said figure is none other than the Grey Serpent. After stretching some more, she stood up from her comms link chair turned the bed, and opened up the vehicle' curtains. There she sees a megacorporation' landship that is scouring the lands for minerals. Her eyes can also see several smaller vehicles coming in and out of the landship.

"This is Rim Billiton huh?" She is amused with this land of theirs, the Cautus' homeland was what she kept being told it was. She then tried to recall another lecture by none other than Doctor Kal'tsit, a complete motor mouth who can't shut up, and Kal'tsit herself doesn't deny Nyx's opinion. She did however add several extra paragraphs of monologue that made the Grey Serpent thankful and irritated.

"Let's see... Rim Billiton is Terra's primary source of minerals export, originium or otherwise." Despite Nyx's growing annoyance at how long the Feline doctor keeps on talking, Nyx is still beyond grateful that the busy and now really grumpy Feline even deigned to teach her what to expect in Rim Billiton.

Kal'tsit had drilled into her skull a fact that Rim Billiton is a nation that relied on the export of Originium and is hungering for manpower in its mining sectors. When Nyx asked about how the infected were treated there, Kal'tsit's answer was complete silence and a barely restrained scowl full of disgust.

That's enough as an answer for Nyx, the infected miners are not under indentured servitude but instead full-blown slavery using a lot of things she can think of. One of them is surely the promise of medication and healthcare, something that would be jacked up to high hell. Then there is also the matter where actual slavery happened, but they are then "freed" and slapped with bills they must pay off by working in the mines.

There are still a lot of things in mind, but she decided that the rest is hardly better anyway. What Nyx also comprehended from her lecture was that Rim Billiton is some kind of Megacorporation that acted like a nation, this megacorporation also donned the same name or perhaps Rim Billiton was taken from said megacorporation.

"If that's like that then... ugh... the corporate warfare between its subsidiaries and competing landships would be ugly as all hell..." Nyx theorized that the corporate warfare between them would require a lot of mercenaries, thus causing an even more convoluted mess of a situation that made the Victorian Grand Dukes' feud to be an easy-to-understand mess.

It doesn't mean that she believes that every single one of them is some mustache-twirling villain and tyrannical overlord. There should be people who understand that mistreatment will only cause problems further down the road, it is just that those people would be trying to blend in since it can be perceived as a weakness.

One particular warning also stuck with her, however.

Flashback

"Nyx, there is one thing you must be careful with when you're in Rim Billiton."

"And that is?"

"You must be cautious when dealing with them. Especially when the economy and financial venues are concerned. You're not invincible, and Rim Billiton has more than enough to exhaust you in a battle of attrition. That whole region is filled with landships that are tirelessly excavating for resources, not to mention their actual mobile cities. These landships can be turned into mobile headquarters and fortress."