Extreme Cold Era: Shelter Don't Keep Waste-Chapter 514 - 484: Does All This Make Sense?

After the construction projects got underway, the people in New Shaker City who found work quickly settled down just like the people in the Empire’s heartland.

In fact, the needs of the people at the bottom are quite simple: a stable job that can support their families. As long as they can get by, they won’t cause trouble.

Many people think that the common folk are difficult; always wanting this and that, unwilling to work, always full of resentment and dissatisfaction. However, they never consider whether they have gone too far in exploiting the people.

It’s a simple concept. If you let Palu work eight hours a day, five days a week with two days off, and provide free lunch every day, then even if the pay is a bit low, Palu would still be willing to work for you, even voluntarily working overtime when needed.

But conversely, if you make Palu work twelve hours a day, from Monday to Saturday without even time for lunch, and pay them a pittance, how could Palu possibly be willing to work for you?

Perfikot is not a cruel person, but she can’t be considered kind either. After all, she is someone with the blood of millions on her hands. To say she worries about harming ants when sweeping the floor or cherishes moths around a lamp is just wishful thinking.

She simply feels compassion when seeing others in suffering and is willing to lend a hand when she can.

This world is indeed a mess, a cesspool where capitalism has developed but feudalism hasn’t retreated, and the entire world is suffering from apocalyptic catastrophes with ancient gods about to make a comeback.

In this cesspool of a world, the common people endure the dual exploitation of feudal nobles and capitalists, soon to be added by the churches of the old gods.

What have the people done to deserve the oppression of these triple burdens?

Perfikot could have ignored everything, pretended not to see, and remained indifferent to the fate of those unrelated to her.

This is not difficult for her, not even as hard as her decision to burn millions with a thermobaric bomb during the Seventeen Day War, as she only needs to do nothing.

But she can’t get past her conscience.

She can persuade everyone to abandon all territories and populations outside the Northern Territory.

This is not difficult; just one sentence about how the Northern Territory cannot accommodate so many people, and under the apocalyptic winter, we cannot save them anyway, would suffice.

No one would think it wrong, no one would find fault, for they are just commoners, merely a burden in the eyes of nobles and mere cogs in the production line for capitalists.

In their eyes, what sustains the Empire are always these nobles and capitalists, these elites.

Commoners? Aren’t they just the burdens of this vast Empire....?

The answer is definitely no, because a great person once said: It is the people, and only the people, that are the driving force of world history.

Without the people, relying on a handful of nobles and capitalists? Perfikot isn’t naive and ignorant to that extent.

When she can manage it, Perfikot still hopes to save as many people as possible; otherwise, she has no reason to take on this burden, she could have lived freely by herself.

But just like three years ago when she agreed to take on this mess, she ultimately couldn’t bear to watch countless people in this world die due to her neglect.

Killing is the active deprivation of other people’s lives, and she can do it without hesitation after preparing herself mentally.

But standing by as others die is truly against Perfikot’s principles as a person.

Because of this, Perfikot did not hesitate to take on all matters of the New Continent colonies when she could help, even though all of it had nothing to do with her and she wasn’t obligated to bear any responsibility. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

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"Do you think I’m doing all this unnecessarily?" Perfikot looked at the person in front of her, asking the question weighing on her mind.

"Why do you say so? Without your help, many people would have died! You saved them, how can that be unnecessary?" Kallen faced Perfikot, answering her question seriously.

Kallen represented the dominion in talks with Perfikot about post-war cooperation. Although both sides originally belonged to the New Continent colonies, they needed to renegotiate many matters after the split.

However, specific issues can be left to subordinates to discuss, allowing high-level figures like Kallen and Perfikot to talk about other things.

For some reason, Perfikot suddenly talked to Kallen about whether spreading the revolution was meaningful.

Kallen was somewhat baffled. In her view, it was precisely because of Perfikot’s help that the Revolutionary Army achieved its current success, though from another angle, it seemed like Perfikot was playing a game.

It was she who spread revolutionary ideas, uniting workers to form the Workers’ Federation; it was she who advised Kallen to seize the moment when the Empire announced the apocalypse to start an uprising, forming the Revolutionary Army and sparking chaos; and it was also she who entered midway through the Revolutionary Army’s fervor, bringing everything to a halt.

From Kallen’s perspective, all this wasn’t meaningless; it was indeed because of Perfikot’s actions that they could break free from their original exploited daze and understand the need to resist.

As for other aspects, Kallen understood the current environment; Perfikot couldn’t possibly allow them to grow large enough or overthrow the Empire.

So, while the current situation isn’t the best result, it’s an outcome Kallen and the Revolutionary Army can accept.

But for Perfikot, doing this amid already tense times and situations makes it hard for those in the know not to suspect her intentions.

Even though no one but Perfikot knows what she’s done, she occasionally reflects on whether her actions are right.

In fact, if following "the correct way," she should disregard everything, killing anyone who dares to defy and replace all workers with robots, pursuing the most efficient solutions.

This is not beyond Perfikot’s capabilities. With the mechanical logic technology she possesses, she can create Alchemy Puppets that completely replace human labor.

In other words, besides the true social elites, Perfikot doesn’t really need ordinary people.

Yet she ultimately didn’t choose this "efficient" approach; instead, she opted for a less efficient, seemingly chaotic method, prompting her self-reflection. Is this indeed meaningful?