This Game Is Too Realistic-Chapter 543.2: Collapse

At dawn the next day...

The snow had finally stopped. The thick clouds parted, and a golden ray of sunlight gilded the snow-covered streets of Boulder Town.

After the manifesto was announced, the Workers’ Union used the radio to call on residents to unite and assist the militia in distributing supplies stored within the city.

After discussions, the Worker’s Union and Boulder Town Militia agreed to jointly form a transitional organization for the new government of Boulder Town.

The first order of business was to address the immediate crisis.

To fill the stomachs of every resident, some workers returned to their posts under the Union’s call.

The nutrient paste factory resumed production. The welfare center, which was formerly Boulder Town Prison, also opened to the public.

Even so, material shortages remained dire.

Even with the batch of goods Malvern had intercepted that were originally meant for the New Alliance, food and daily necessities were still critically low.

Whether or not to requisition food from wealthier citizens became a point of serious dispute between the Union and the Militia.

Some called for harsh laws in chaotic times. Others said it was outright robbery. Some proposed compensating the owners... However, any compensation they could make had to be in chips, and by then, everyone knew chips were worthless.

No one acknowledged them anymore.

Paying in chips was daylight robbery!

The Union could mobilize the workers. The Militia could rally the soldiers who sided with the outer city. However, Boulder Town was more than just those two groups.

Who would mobilize the civilians? Who could command the mercenaries?

With looting being outlawed, some mercenaries shouted about leaving the city. Some civilians wanted to leave with them, claiming even begging in the New Alliance was better than starving in Boulder Town.

If the night before, every resident stood proudly on the side of ideals, once the sun rose, they had to face a cruel reality,

The bastards in the inner city had left them with a massive mess.

Boulder Town which had returned to the hands of its people had been riddled with rot and decay...

In an office inside the City Hall, Elisa carefully flipped through an account ledger and compared it to the documents spread across the table.

As the youngest member of the newly formed crisis committee, she was responsible for calculating what assets the city still had at its disposal.

Some had doubted her experience and political stance, but the workers were backing her up completely.

All those workers held simple values. Better an honest, inexperienced girl than a slick-talking scheming bastard.

If the numbers were wrong, they would simply correct them. They weren’t unreasonable barbarians.

Elisa didn’t disappoint.

The first thing she did was confiscate her family’s assets in the outer city. Then she confiscated the holdings of her brother’s scummy friends.

Boulder Town Bank’s computer recorded every chip transaction. It was easy to trace where the nobles had hidden their wealth.

Every single part of it was ill-gotten. It should belong to the people.

As she stared at the thick stack of ledgers, Elisa’s face was full of worry. Only then did she begin to understand what her father had shouldered for both their family and their settlement.

The economy was just a means of distributing goods. It couldn’t create them out of thin air.

As her father had said before leaving, he had tried everything he could think of, but still couldn’t stop their runaway train.

Thinking of her father’s weary face, Elisa couldn’t help grumbling about the administrator. "You... You were too ruthless..."

Sighing deeply, she closed the ledger.

The breach-of-contract fees owed to private factories were already a mess. No matter how the New Alliance complained, all they could do was apologize.

Chips were already worth nothing. Orders priced in chips meant that they were working for free.

The bosses who signed those contracts had all fled as well. Surely the workers, who were also owed a bunch of money, couldn’t be expected to pay the price for those crooks?

Of course, they would also write off any chip debts owed to the New Alliance... Chips were completely useless.

Boulder Town had to survive the winter with what little it had. Foreign trade would have to be suspended for the time being.

Yet the problem remained... Boulder Town relied entirely on imports for raw materials!

For both industry and food.

They could stop selling to outsiders, but outsiders wouldn’t just give them things for free.

Suddenly, Elisa had a wild idea. Maybe... Maybe everyone should try growing vegetables in flowerpots?

But where would they get seeds?

She once heard that farming wasn’t simple, and the New Alliance was the best example.

They cultivated seeds in their northern nurseries and shelter farms, paired with fertilizer from their industrial zones. Only then could they sustain the high yields in their farms around Linghu Lake.

Even then, they couldn’t meet all the residents’ needs.

Recently they had converted some external farmland into seed farms, run by their Research Department. The seeds and fertilizer were then exported to Sunset Province in exchange for basic crops, enough to feed the whole New Alliance for some time.

There were countless invisible details behind their system.

Just the topic of food could fill a book. And though she had gone to school, none of the teachers had ever explained anything like it in depth.

Elisa felt her mind begin to fog.

AHHHHHH! This is too difficult!

She hadn’t slept in a day. Even though her spirit was high, she was running out of energy.

She lay her little hands flat on the desk, face pressed into the account books as her mind drifted into silly thoughts.

Maybe... Maybe she should go and ask the administrator of the New Alliance?

It wasn’t a bad idea. Maybe, he would give it to them on account of her cuteness?

She would do anything if it meant getting her people through the winter. Her family owed those people too much.

The people had forgiven her because of how kind they were deep down in their hears, but one-sided charity was just pity. She wanted to do something real. She wanted to repay the debts her parents and siblings left behind.

It was all she could do...

Thinking further, Elisa’s face flushed. She shook her head violently, banishing those unrealistic thoughts from her steaming brain.

She couldn’t be like her father... Begging didn’t work.

"... He said I will be an outstanding person one day!" Muttering softly to herself, she lifted her face from the ledger and sat up with renewed resolve.

That one line from Chu Guang had inspired her. It gave her the courage to stand up in that moment where the fate of everyone in Boulder Town hung in the balance.

If she had turned away, and everyone else had done the same, they would’ve missed their one-in-a-million chance to live.

Her eyes regained clarity. Wisdom shone in them as she humbled to himself. "We’ve already started it... I can’t give up now and disappoint everyone. However, it shouldn’t be completely hopeless to interact with the New Alliance now, even if it’s just through the merchants traveling between both settlements..."

The New Alliance wouldn’t want to see hundreds of thousands of refugees destroy the fragile order they had built. Helping Boulder Town was helping themselves.

The emergency housing they built in the past which had been in preparation for the fall of Boulder Town could hold 40,000 people at most, and it was already over half full.

Clearly, they had underestimated how shit Boulder Town was.

That administrator must also be fretting over how to defuse the powder keg right next to their homes.

Mmhmmm.

Seeing a path forward, she revealed a faint smile.

"Resepcted Sir Administrator, we’ll close our doors obediently and get everyone to wait patiently for Spring to arrive and for the Tide to blow over. During this time, we hope that the New Alliance can help us out with some daily necessities and nutrient paste to help tide us through this winter. We sincerely beg you to give us a way to live."

This should be possible... Right?

If necessary, they could even call it a loan.

The new government of Boulder Town could borrow an emergency loan from the New Alliance Central Bank to buy nutrient paste and other relief supplies.

She had heard nutrient paste tasted bad and wasn’t nutritious, but she would eat it with everyone else until things got back on track.

As for the future...

Elisa's eyes were filled with confusion.