I! Cleaner!-Chapter 1029 - 948: Ointment (Part 2)

"Hmm?"

Watching the sudden change of topic, with the Serpent Director starting to criticize his ideas about the Cleaning Bureau, Leon's eyebrows slightly raised.

"Why are you so agitated?"

"I am not!"

Alright, definitely agitated.

Staring at the Serpent Director, who let out a loud noise before his Heart Lake started to overflow, Leon blinked his eyes, then understanding dawned on him as he said:

"You seem... very reluctant for me to continue on the previous topic?"

"?!"

"So besides that half-length rein, what else have you done to me?"

"?!!"

"Could it be something like the [Scale of Truth]? Where, after a debate, the loser has to pay a price and perhaps even be enslaved by the opponent?"

"?!!!"

"Alright, I understand now."

He understood! He understood!

Seeing the Heart Lake of the Serpent Director almost collapsing, Leon's lips slightly curled up into a gentle smile amidst the look of despair in the director's eyes.

"Then let's change the topic to the Cleaning Bureau!"

Ah?

"I do have many thoughts on how to reform the current world, such as resource allocation, environmental restructuring, governmental changes, consciousness construction, conflict resolution... and so on."

After counting on his fingers, Leon grinned and said:

"But these are just ideas, and I can't guarantee their correctness. They must be rigorously tested and improved; enforcing them might cause issues, so changing the topic is also fine... By the way, what do you think of the Cleaning Bureau as an organization?"

"The Cleaning Bureau... are the guardians of humanity!"

Seeing Leon really abandoned his "advantage," not pursuing him further, the Serpent Director, who was still scared, let out a sigh of relief and said righteously:

"Although I think the Cleaning Bureau is already rotten, with its strength declining generation by generation, and now is indecisive and incompetent, unworthy of being the guardians of humanity.

But the relative stability maintained over thousands of years proves that the model of the Cleaning Bureau itself doesn't have major issues; it just needs some 'new blood,' so your idea of overthrowing the whole Cleaning Bureau is definitely wrong! Without the Cleaning Bureau, then..."

"When did I say I wanted to 'destroy' the entire Cleaning Bureau?"

"???"

Under the confused gaze of the Serpent Director, Leon patiently explained:

"What I said was there's no need to take over the Cleaning Bureau's affairs, not to completely erase it, but to change this model that completely excludes ordinary people and try to involve them too."

"Involving ordinary people... are you crazy?!"

Upon hearing this, the Serpent Director couldn't help but shiver and then, with anger and surprise, questioned:

"Do you even know someone in the bureau has tried this before? Do you know the consequences it caused? Do you know..."

"The Eighth Generation Serpent Director, yes, I heard about it from Lord Taurus."

Leon responded calmly:

"He allowed the Blood Moon to shine upon the earth, significantly raising the Leon Value of many citizens, intending to cultivate a batch for the Cleaning Bureau, but it resulted in many disastrous abnormal events with massive casualties, after which similar actions were halted."

"You know that?"

"I do know about this, but I believe the problem isn't in letting ordinary people have Leon Value, but that their lives are too tough, often birthing drastically harmful abnormal items, and upon gaining power, they retaliate against society instead of attempting meaningful things."

"How can you be certain it's..."

"Alright, this issue is being verified by the bureau right now, let's talk about something else when the results are out."

Interrupting the Serpent Director's words with a wave of his hand, Leon looked into his eyes and said calmly:

"In your eyes, the Cleaning Bureau is the guardian of the human race. I admit this statement is not unreasonable, but have you ever considered, what is the cost of this 'guardianship'?"

"The cost... is... having to confront crises?"

"The cost is the vast number of dead and injured Cleaners."

After glancing at the somewhat dumbfounded Serpent Director, Leon began to explain:

"Among the more than eighty divisions of the Cleaning Bureau, large divisions have one to two hundred Cleaners, while small divisions have ten or more. In the history, even at the peak, the total number never reached twenty thousand.

Yet, these mere thousands of cleaners are responsible for dealing with all sorts of abnormalities birthed from the suffering of two billion people, naturally leaving them overstretched. Just within the two and a half months of constructing the Underworld Division, over eighty deceased cleaners reported in.

Based on this probability, the annual deaths of cleaners range from four to five hundred, so since the inception of the Cleaning Bureau, the number of cleaners who have died due to their assignments may have reached millions."

Millions... that many?

"Indeed, that many, and perhaps even understated."

Reading the doubt in the Serpent Director's expression, Leon continued:

"According to my statistics, although the number of cleaners sometimes rebounds, the overall trend is continuously declining. Back when the Thirteen Kingdoms only had four established and the population of the world wasn't even six hundred million, the total of cleaners was around sixteen thousand.

But as the seventh kingdom was established and the Watcher's Palace could essentially block the True God's arrival, the cleaner count started to decline annually. While the population of the world has tripled or quadrupled since then, the number of cleaners has shrunk to less than one-third of that time.

Even during the period when the situation was the best under the third bureau director's leadership, the annual casualty rate of cleaners was consistently over 6%, and in recent centuries it has exceeded 10%, silently approaching 11%, so the total death count is undoubtedly substantial."

"..."

To think there were truly so many...

Faced with the facts Leon laid out, the Serpent Director remained silent for a while before retorting:

"But most of the deceased were likely secondary or tertiary cleaners, right? And they..."

"And many of them were criminals in the first place, joining the Cleaning Bureau as a form of atonement, dying to protect humankind could also be seen as dying with a purpose?"

"Isn't that so?"

"Yes, if that's how you want to put it."

Leon glanced at the Serpent Director, then asked pointedly:

"So, the critically important, meritorious, and indispensable 'guardians of humanity' you're talking about, are essentially a group of ruthless criminals who deserve to die?

And this indispensable organization chooses to have a group of inmates, who have committed heinous crimes and possess radical abilities, stand at the forefront, shield the entire human race from danger?

Even the surviving individuals among these 'criminals,' as they grow stronger, eventually become branch leaders, turn into the Twelve Directors, and then gain enormous power, de facto controlling the fate of all humankind?"

"?!!!"

Watching the Serpent Director in front of him slowly widen his eyes, mouth agape, and starting to emanate a strange oily fragrance, Leon could not help but genuinely comment:

"To be honest, when I discovered this, I thought, considering we humans haven't perished until today, our luck is extraordinarily good."