Chapter 507 – Construction
After saying a couple more things, Aria and Nick retreated back into the megastructure.
Aria looked at Nick with furrowed brows. "You were quite aggressive."
"I'm the bad guy," Nick said. "You're the good one. I will be making most of the policies that the elite hate. I will be their enemy, not you."
"Why do you have to be like this?" Aria asked with a bit of annoyance. "I thought we agreed on working on this together."
"And we will be," Nick said, "but I need the elite to hate me. If they realize that you support me in many of my decisions, you will also be a target."
"They know of my background, and they know that I am only an Initial Expert. In their minds, getting rid of me is not associated with an awful lot of risk. Getting rid of you requires them to unite the entire city and get Kugelblitz as an ally."
"Instead of gathering everything for one ultimate and devastating attack, they will only invest a little at a time. I am going to use the very thing that holds me in its grasp."
"The sunk cost fallacy."
"They will keep investing and investing a little at a time, believing that they just need to add a bit more to take care of me."
"And before they know it, they will not have enough resources anymore to be a threat to you."
"At that point, our rule is secure," Nick explained.
"Nick, that might work on the people of the Outer City, but the people of the upper layer have decades of experience in these things," Aria said.
"Aria, how intelligent was Julian?" he asked.
Aria furrowed her brows. "What are you trying to say?"
"I'm saying that even the most intelligent and scheming person can die to greed and arrogance. Being underestimated is one of the most powerful blessings," Nick answered.
Aria remained silent for a while.
She could see where Nick was coming from, but she didn't think it would be so easy.
She remembered how Nick had said that he would be betting with his life, and he hadn't lied about that.
Nick made himself the target of the elite.
Aria hadn't been sure if Nick would actually go through with his extreme mindset, but when it happened, she felt a bit nervous.
"You're risking your life," she said.
"I have to," Nick said. "Things only got this bad because Markus wasn't willing to risk his life."
"We have both done things that are against the law," Nick said.
Aria didn't answer.
"In this city, there is a game of politics, economics, and scheming. Either the people act by the rules, or they try to break the rules without being noticed."
"I am going to eradicate this game."
"I am not going to be a player."
Nick and Aria had already talked quite a bit about their upcoming plans.
In fact, for the past week, they had done basically nothing else.
However, there were things that Nick didn't talk about.
For example, how he was planning on dealing with opposition to their new policies.
"Quite a speech."
Nick looked to the side and saw a middle-aged man approaching.
He was wearing the uniform of a Zephyx Extractor working for the city.
The emblem on his uniform identified him as a Specialist.
"But I'm a bit disappointed that you didn't introduce us," he said with some feigned annoyance.
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