Blackstone Code-Chapter 450: The Price of Cheapness
The entire next day passed without incident. Although the young men were somewhat reluctant, they followed the deputy manager’s instructions and explained the situation to the girls.
Until just before dinner, everything seemed normal. Both the deputy manager and Nail breathed a sigh of relief. But as night fell and they were about to get something to eat, a young man—about twenty-four or twenty-five—stood before them.
He looked embarrassed, and a local girl stood behind him. Nail immediately sensed something was wrong.
Before the deputy manager could speak, Nail stepped forward and gently asked, “What happened?”
He knew this young man—just four years older than Lynch—already a husband and a father. Due to the Federation’s unusual age laws, people could marry before finishing high school, and many did, perhaps truly out of love.
It was common. Getting married at twenty-one or twenty-two was the norm, a silent trend. If Lynch hadn’t been rebellious, and if Katherine’s mother hadn’t disapproved of their relationship, they might already have had children of their own.
The man standing before Nail bore a heavy burden: he had to support his wife, child, and mother. He came from a single-parent household, raised by a woman alone. His motivation to work here wasn’t just for his own family but also to ease his mother’s burden.
But after just a month abroad, this somewhat shy man had gotten involved with a local girl.
“This is…” he began, introducing the girl beside him, then scratched his head with visible frustration. “She’s pregnant.”
Before he could say more, Nail interrupted sharply, “Get rid of it.”
The young man looked up at him, stunned. He had imagined many reactions but hadn’t expected such a decisive demand to abort the child.
Most languages in the world derive from a common root, which is why there’s an international standard language. With foreigners arriving in Nagaryll, the use of this standard tongue had spread.
The same words, spoken in different accents, can form different languages. The Federation’s pronunciation was relatively standard, making it easier for Nagaryll locals to understand. In contrast, their version of the standard language was so infused with slang that foreigners struggled to follow it.
The girl understood Nail’s words and recoiled in fear, taking several steps back as if Nail might harm her and the baby.
The young man stepped protectively in front of her. “I’m a believer, Mr. Nail.”
The largest church in the Federation, worshiping the Lord, opposed abortion. In key districts, the church had pushed for laws banning the practice, labeling abortion and the doctors who performed them as criminal.
To believers, abortion was murder—an unforgivable crime.
Nail frowned. “Do you plan to bring this woman and child back to the Federation?”
“Have you thought about how your wife, your child, and your mother would feel when they see these two? They believed you came here to earn money and give them a better life. Instead, you’re not only sending money home—you’re bringing back extra mouths to feed. Is this the good life you promised them?”
“I think they’d rather you never came here at all!”
Nail’s tone was grave. Lynch had warned him about this just yesterday, and today it had already happened. If this had gone unnoticed any longer, the child might’ve been born. That would be a far bigger problem.
Luckily, it was still early. They could fix this. Get rid of the baby, offer some compensation—these girls loved money; they’d be quiet after that.
While Nail and the young man were locked in what looked like a heated argument, the girl suddenly fled. By the time they noticed, she was already gone. 𝘳ÃΝỗ𐌱Ěȿ
“I’ll give you another day off tomorrow,” Nail said. “Find her and explain everything. I’ll give you a thousand privately—enough to make up for the harm.”
His expression was firm. “This is for your own good. I could ignore all of this, but you came here with me. I want to bring you back with me.”
The next morning, trouble erupted.
A group of local youths armed with sickles and hoes surrounded the camp’s entrance and exit.
The so-called camp was just a perimeter of prefab panels and a large gate—cheap and quick to assemble. Real steel or rebar was too valuable in Nagaryll, where steel was a scarce commodity. Using it to build a camp was as absurd as building a house from cash.
By morning, the camp’s gate was blocked off entirely.
Locals shouted in dialects mixed with broken standard language—partially understandable, but hard to interpret. The tone made it sound like they were cursing.
When Nail was informed, he rushed to the gate. Outside, the angry crowd was shaking the metal gate and banging on the panels with tools. The atmosphere was tense.
“What’s going on?” Nail asked as he adjusted his tie—trying to hide the sweat in his palms with the gesture.
Just then, the girl from the night before appeared outside the gate, flanked by two similar-looking companions.
She spoke up, using standard language Nail could understand. “Hand over that man. Give him to us, and we’ll leave.”
The deputy manager arrived and whispered something into Nail’s ear. Nail turned to look. In the nearby dorm, the young man stood frozen with fear.
Nail shot him a fierce glare, then whispered to the deputy manager, “Call Lynch and the sergeant.”
He began walking toward the gate. As a foreigner, he didn’t believe they would hurt him—unless they were ready to spend the rest of their lives in prison.
He raised both hands in a show of peace and approached the crowd slowly.
“I’m the manager here. Everyone, calm down. This is not how we resolve problems. If there’s an issue, let’s talk it out.”
His calm tone seemed to work—the crowd quieted. Nail looked at the girl. “If something’s wrong, you can speak with me. There’s no need to make this more complicated.”
The girl looked nervous and clutched her companion’s hand. “I don’t want anything else. Just hand him over. Let me take him away. That’s all. This has nothing to do with anyone else—we don’t want to hurt anyone.”
Nail sighed. “Where exactly do you plan to take him?”
“Marry me and come back with me,” the girl said firmly. The people around her shouted in agreement, and Nail guessed they were cheering her on with things like, “Well said!” or “That’s right!”
Nail could only try to explain calmly, “He doesn’t plan to stay here long. He’ll return to the Federation soon. And…”
He felt incredibly unlucky. This wasn’t even his problem—well, maybe it had a little to do with him—but it shouldn’t have fallen on him to clean up someone else’s mess. “And he doesn’t intend to marry you. Forgive me for being blunt—he’s already married and has a child.”
The girl froze. A few seconds later, the rest of the crowd seemed to realize what he’d said. Then chaos erupted.
Faces red with rage, they shook the gate and swung their tools wildly, striking at the walls and metal. Nail stumbled back in fear.
The girl rushed to the gate, gripping it tightly with both hands. She shouted, “If he didn’t want to marry me, then why did he sleep with me?”
Everyone fell silent—Nail, the deputy manager, the crowd. No one had an answer.
You couldn’t just yell back, Because you women are cheap—who would say no to something free? Even if that’s what some might think, it wasn’t something anyone could dare to say out loud.
And that one sentence was what cornered Nail completely.
His silence only made the locals more furious. But whether it was genuine rage or just mob hysteria, no one could tell.
The gate anchors bolted to the prefab wall began to loosen. The panels cracked, and the gate shook harder and harder.
As the noise escalated, more and more locals arrived to watch the spectacle.
For the people of Nagaryll, life was about surviving and loafing around. Watching chaos unfold was one of their few entertainments.
Soon, a rumor spread through the crowd: a foreigner had raped a local girl and gotten her pregnant.
The girl was about to marry someone else, so she had to reveal what had happened. That was what led to this public outburst.
Nagaryll was a primitive and backward society, but it placed extreme value on a woman’s chastity. A woman who failed to preserve her virginity before marriage might be beaten and cast out, or even drowned in secret to appease the husband’s fury.
So when word spread that an ordinary girl had been raped and impregnated, the crowd, overcome with righteous fury, swelled into a dangerously uncontrollable mob.
