In the spacious and bright office, a man in a brown Brunas suit tossed the report in his hand onto the table and massaged his temples.
The office housed six desks arranged facing each other, most of them piled high with documents, while several bureaucrats busied themselves with work. However, their busyness didn't keep them from gossiping amongst themselves.
He looked exhausted and complained to the man sitting across from him, "Can you believe it? Just a week ago, Brunas had only 650,000 people. Now, it has a population of 700,000."
"There are too many outsiders here, native Brunas residents account for less than ten percent of the population," the man opposite him said, continuing to sort through his documents without looking up.
Managing a large city is not as easy as it seems, with a myriad of jobs that are overwhelmingly complex.
It requires a vast number of management talents, and countless officials and clerks working diligently every day. One should not underestimate these trivial tasks; missing even one could throw the entire city into chaos.
In many respects, modern metropolises are formidable, unmatched by the small cities of the past. They possess countless superior qualities that can push human productivity to its peak.
Conversely, such large cities are fragile; just one minor issue can paralyze a place inhabited by thousands or even millions.
Obviously, constructing a sewage system for millions is far more complex and troublesome than building a medieval castle.
While pounding his other shoulder with his hand, the complaining man pulled out another form, "Can you imagine? Over half a million workers. In this city, the workers who go to work every day make up seventy-five percent of the total population!"
Their job is to carry out statistics, to daily track the city's development, to foresee the necessary improvements, and then to provide the municipal development department with sensible suggestions.
It may seem like a peripheral task, but this kind of forecasting is a critical part of supporting the city's development.
If you wait until the population has grown to a certain level and then discover that the water supply can't keep up, the consequences would undoubtedly be disastrous for a city approaching a million inhabitants.
Brunas is already facing many problems; some residential areas can only rely on groundwater for their supply, and while pressure wells remain the mainstay, the water system only covers some important streets.
The city is developing too quickly, so much that many aspects can't keep up with the pace of development. With the increase in cars, whether or not to install traffic lights has also become a vexing issue.
Another colleague said with a laugh, "If it weren't for our continuous migration to Dragon City, the population here would have been close to a million."
They have already migrated 100,000 workers to Dragon Island, and with their voluntarily relocating families, the total population has now exceeded 200,000.
Dragon City is now also a large city. Judging by the size of the port and the residential area plans, its future scale is going to be larger than Brunas.
Several people felt a great sense of accomplishment, and one of them remarked emotionally, "Can you imagine? How many cities in the world have a population of a million? And we are in the process of building a new city with a million people!"
As he spoke, he spread his arms with pride, "And from scratch! To reconstruct a city with a population level of a million!"
"Do you know that the Immigration Bureau is going crazy? They cry every day when verifying identities. Most people have only a name, without any records."
"They have refugees, craftsmen pillaged from other countries, and even slaves, as well as spies that Shireck has planted to gather information and other spies sent by different countries," the man who first complained said with a mixture of jest and scorn, "No one can investigate thoroughly."
"Yeah, have you heard? About that case with the telegraph machine talking nonsense." As they spoke, the conversation turned to gossip as they continued their work.
"Of course, I heard about it, it's said that a case involving a cipher occurred at Silver Fox Company." Someone quickly began explaining the whole story.
With the increasing number of telegraph users, some have started to openly challenge the Great Tang Group's monopoly on telegraph intelligence.
A man spent money to send a string of meaningless gibberish through the Great Tang Group's telegraph, thus pioneering the use of the Great Tang Group's communication system to transmit encrypted intelligence.
Obviously, smart people had figured out how to encrypt their telegraphs, making legitimate use of the rules and starting to prevent Silver Fox's intelligence system from easily acquiring information.
"A bunch of cunning fellows." It didn't take long for a civil servant in the office to offer their own assessment.
Most of the time, work is just this monotonous and boring, yet it must continue day after day.
They compile the most recent population numbers, then calculate a relatively precise figure and, based on it, compute how many resources need to be invested in the city to support these new inhabitants.
Including how many kilometers the water pipes are, the heating pipeline for some luxury districts, newly built power plants, and the corresponding sewerage systems.
Additionally, they had to calculate how much meat and vegetables were needed to replenish their supplies, so the price of food and poultry in Brunas wouldn't surge.
Consequently, the production of salt and sugar had to be increased, as did the output of other spices, and the availability of daily goods such as furniture and kitchenware also needed to be ensured.
Similarly, to accommodate these incoming populations, they had to construct corresponding kindergartens and schools, increase the number of nighttime training institutions, and ensure that these populations could become productive in a short time.
It's commonly known that Brunas doesn't keep idle people, possibly a too cold-hearted fact, but that's the truth.
As long as you have hands and feet, you must work in Brunas. And Brunas doesn't accept those who are non-working and without value.
The development of the city, accompanied by cruelty and bloodshed. How many skeletons piled under the neon light shadows, was not Tang Mo's concern.
"There is good news, you could never guess," said a civil servant, picking up the newspaper and pointing at an advertisement to recruit workers, "You wouldn't even imagine that the rise of Brunas actually eradicated all the slave trade within the Leite Kingdom."
"Ah?" Indeed, those who hadn't bought a newspaper looked at the speaker in astonishment, waiting for him to continue.
Although he had heard that the number of slave traders within the Leite Kingdom was decreasing, he never imagined the day when the slave traders would vanish.
The man dressed in a brown Brunas suit expressed his disbelief, "Are you saying, what the City Defense Forces and the King couldn't accomplish, Brunas did. Its rise has completely eradicated the slave trade?"
"Yes," admitted the official holding the newspaper with a sly grin.
Someone curiously asked, "Why?"
"Because those slave traders found that the efficiency of plundering slaves was too low. They've now switched professions, with the new job title called 'middlemen'. These scumbags who trafficked people have now turned into 'Believers' who introduce jobs and take commissions," said the official, proudly snapping the newspaper in his hand.
Now, many cities have specialized institutions responsible for recruiting workers for Brunas or Dragon Island. Some even cover travel expenses—successfully introducing a family to migrate, and they can earn a commission of 5 Gold Coins from Brunas.
In return, these intermediary institutions also take a cut, taking away the workers' first three months' wages, so it's fair to say they are making a killing.
And the workers who arrived in Brunas don't feel cheated at all; they are grateful to those once despised slave traders for bringing them to Brunas, a paradise.
Therefore, the old brutal methods of plunder and deceit, forcing someone to become a slave, obviously could not willingly make people follow them to Brunas. So, these old villains changed their modus operandi.
Their tactics became more justified, the process more legal, kinder. There was only one goal: to pass the scrutiny of Brunas's qualification review smoothly.
If the immigration office of Brunas ever discovered any actions that harmed Brunas City's reputation or affected the Great Tang Group's image, that would indeed turn a celebration into a funeral.
"Huh? Believers?" Soon, someone noticed his adjective and asked curiously.
The official holding the newspaper could hardly contain his laughter, showing off how his big boss had become a divine figure: "That's right, they all worship Mr. Tang Mo, considering him a god in charge of money and business."
"..." Everyone didn't know what to say, many having seen Tang Mo themselves and attended his lectures, so they found the matter rather amusing.
Because they knew Tang Mo was not any god; he was a businessman, one who never claimed to be a good person.
Seeing everyone stifling a laugh and not speaking, the official with the newspaper asked, "What's wrong?"
"They might not know that this god also traffics in death," said an official, trying to hold back his laughter.
"Ha! Of course, they know!" scoffed the one with the newspaper disdainfully.
"Then why do they still think Mr. Tang Mo is a god of wealth?" a young official, who had not attended a few night classes from outside areas, asked curiously.
The man with the newspaper replied sarcastically, "Because no matter what you sell, as long as it makes money it's fine... Trafficking death is nothing to a bunch of slave traders, they only care about how much 'death' costs per kilogram."