Working a job in Nabistin was truly a peculiar experience.
At nine in the morning, Harvey, Igola, and Annan arrived at Ark Plaza in front of the city elevator platform. True to its name, the city elevator platform was an elevator system connecting the lower layer, middle layer, and ground level. While there were elevators elsewhere, Ark Plaza possessed by far the greatest number, capable of transferring thousands of people within half an hour.
Ark Plaza was the subterranean city's largest "talent market," but amusingly, there was not a single staff member here—only rows of "doors."
Beside each door, requirements and wages were listed. For instance, next to a door set up by Berdette Happy World was the following notice:
"Requirements: 7 hours of work, height 170 cm, appearance score 67 or above, physical fitness score 70 or above..."
"Wages: 30 copper per hour, totaling 210 copper. Accumulating 70 hours of work time yields an additional 1 Gospel point."
When a laborer meeting the criteria crossed through the doorway, they automatically became a Gospel employee sent to work at Berdette Happy World. Only after seven hours would they return to Ark Plaza, with 210 copper added to their account.
Thus, when Harvey and the others arrived at Ark Plaza, they saw countless people queuing to pass through the doorways. Not a trace of dread or workplace anxiety showed on their faces. They stepped through the doors with relaxed expressions, which then smoothed into complete placidity. In unison, keeping the exact same rhythmic cadence, everyone marched into the elevators to travel to work elsewhere, like parts of a grand concerto.
At the same time, countless people who had finished their shifts returned from the elevators. They instinctively avoided the flow of people and sat on the benches around the plaza. Then, as if waking from a dream, they stood up, checked their balance in their Books of Gospel, and walked away contentedly.
People came and went without pause. Add to that the fact that the subterranean city knew no distinction between day and night—someone was clocking in or out at practically any hour—and Ark Plaza drifted through this human ocean, carrying the three cities toward a future woven by Gospel.
They were free human beings, yet also hyper-efficient tools. They embraced the mercy of Gospel, yet were steeped in Gospel's cruelty... To Harvey, this Ark Plaza was just like the Blood Moon Trial; artistic flair practically seeped from the crevices between the stones. Every individual was a precision gear artfully driving the social machinery, and the entire system was suffused with a ruthless aesthetic that sucked marrow from the bone.
However, the Blood Moon's marrow-draining was physical, whereas here, it was the total replacement of free will. Though Gospel Country was more civilized and developed, Harvey considered neither superior to the other; both were works of art tailored to local conditions by different gods.
Every time he came to Ark Plaza, higher inspirations surged through his mind. Just as he could trace the ideological imprint of the Blood Moon Sovereign from the Blood Moon Trial, looking at Ark Plaza now made Harvey feel as though he could faintly grasp the supreme realm of the Omniscient Weaver.
"I've been meaning to ask since yesterday, Harvey. How do you... look completely fine?"
At three in the afternoon, sitting on a bench in Ark Plaza and fighting back dizzying waves of nausea, Igola noticed that Harvey was actually watching the flow of people with keen interest. He could not help asking, "After recovering your memories, didn't your soul feel suffocated?"
The work itself had seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. Aside from physical fatigue, Igola and the others had felt virtually nothing, not even realizing they had lost any memories.
The sooner memories were restored, the better, and Annan did not want Banjie to see her miserable expression when her memories returned. Thus, Igola had promptly used a sorcery spirit to awaken the work memories locked away by the Contract.
Even though this was already his second time recovering work memories, Igola was still overwhelmed by the suffocating sensation that hit him full force from the memories.
Cramped.
Confined.
Oppressive.
There was good reason to block out work memories. When Igola recovered them, he felt as though his soul were trapped in a cage called the flesh. The cage was so narrow that his soul had no room whatsoever to maneuver, unable even to take a deep breath. He could only remain inside this claustrophobic shell, his ears filled with Gospel's high-frequency commands that bordered on noise, helplessly watching this flesh-and-blood machine work under Gospel's drive—working efficiently, working endlessly—
Even though the working environment was up on Nabistin's sunlit surface, Igola was still suffocated to the point of breathlessness. Being able to relieve the pressure through vomiting was already the result of his profound attainment in the mind faction. Beside him, Annan was so distressed that she bit her index finger until it bled, using pain to force her focus away.
Compared to them, Harvey was so relaxed that he simply lit a cat grass smoke. Igola even suspected he had no need for cat grass smoke to soothe any suffocation at all; his mouth was just idle and wanted something to puff on.
"Hm?" Harvey blew out a smoke ring. "What suffocation?"
"Didn't you recover your work memories?"
"I did."
"And you didn't feel anything strange? Like suffocation, oppression, despair?"
"No." Harvey cast a thoughtful glance at the two of them. "I was wondering why your expressions were so agonized... I thought you were appreciating the artistry of Ark Plaza just like me."
Igola lacked the energy even to mock him. "How are you immune to the negative backlash of restoring those memories? Didn't you find yourself in those work memories utterly... inhuman?"
"Oh." Harvey finally grasped what he meant. "You mean that feeling of being an involuntary puppet, like maggots are burrowing all through your body?"
"Ugh—hurk!"
The necromancer's description was so vivid that the Swindler couldn't help gagging again. Looking up weakly, he asked, "Exactly... How do you handle that feeling?"
"I didn't handle it. I'm just used to it."
"Used to it?"
"Yeah." Harvey nodded. "Remember during the battle at Berdette Manor, when I merged with Alice? When my soul fused into Alice, what she felt like was identical to those work memories.
"Or rather, undead corpses are always in that state; I merely step inside occasionally to experience it. Besides, compared to being inside an undead body, the negative effects of the work memories are at most like flies buzzing around rotting flesh—nowhere near the level of writhing white maggots."
"Then what about Gospel's noise?" Igola asked. "Doesn't it make you feel sick and irritated?"
"That's still the mindset of the living," Harvey shrugged. "Only the living try to decipher whether noise contains usable information, which is why you feel irritated and sick... The undead lack such advanced information-gathering capabilities. To an undead, noise and silence are indistinguishable. As long as you treat yourself as undead, you can get used to both work memories and Gospel."
How the hell is a living, breathing person supposed to treat himself as undead?!
Do you think everyone is a freak like you who enjoys sleeping in a coffin with corpses?!
Igola and Annan turned their heads in disappointment, left with no choice but to endure the aftereffects of the work memories. After resting for quite a while until they had somewhat recovered, they stood up to leave. Turning around, they saw Harvey staring fixedly at Ark Plaza, his expression blank, lost in thought.
"Time to head back, Harvey," Igola said. "Or do you want to stay here and watch a bit longer?"
"Undead... Gospel... Heh, so that's how it is." Harvey whispered softly, then stood up with a smile. "No, I understand completely now. Let's go back."
Chapter 471