Lord: Starting with Biological Modification

It was the third day since the new regulations were implemented.

A group of idle men had appeared at the quarry.

Their leader was a burly man named Grom, formerly a mine foreman from Broken Stone County.

They didn’t speak, nor did they work. They just swept their cold gazes over every worker who entered the quarry.

It was a look that seemed to be taking stock of their own property.

They called themselves the "Iron Fist Gang."

An unwritten rule spread among all the workers through various channels.

You wanted to work in the quarry? That was fine.

At the end of each day, you were to go to Grom’s camp of your own accord and hand over a pound of rye bread.

This wasn’t an order, more of a "suggestion."

No one dared to speak of this openly.

The farmer Lars had personally seen the consequences of ignoring this "suggestion."

Just yesterday, a tough kid from the interior bunking next to him had been complaining to some guys from his hometown during dinner, asking why they should have to hand over their own rations for nothing.

That night, Lars was woken up by a muffled noise.

Through a crack in his shack, he saw several dark figures drag the young man out, his mouth gagged, into a dark corner in the distance.

There were no screams, only a few dull thuds and suppressed whimpers.

This morning, people found the young man by the roadside.

One of his legs was bent at an unnatural angle. His face was a mass of purple and blue bruises, swollen beyond recognition. His merit point card, which he used to exchange for food, was gone.

The city watch came to look and asked around, but no one dared to say they had seen anything.

In the end, they could only carry him to the simple medical station, and the matter was dropped.

When Lars led his son into the quarry, one of Grom’s men stopped him.

The man didn’t speak. He just rubbed his thumb against his index and middle fingers, then pointed in Grom’s direction.

The meaning was clear.

Lars clenched his fists, then slowly relaxed them.

He glanced at his son, whose face was pale with fear, then at the other workers around them, all with their heads down, pretending to see nothing.

Finally, he nodded and silently led his son toward the quarrying area.

He knew that a portion of the bread he earned through his hard work today would not be his.

In this way, this group of miners calling themselves the "Iron Fist Gang" had silently "contracted" the entire quarry.

Their members no longer needed to scramble for tasks on the mission board; instead, they directly collected a "tax" from everyone working in the quarry.

In other areas of the construction site, copycats soon appeared.

Some hunters from the interior banded together, calling themselves the "Wildfire Gang," and used the same methods to control the nearest logging forests.

Several unseen pustules had formed on the construction sites of Minas Tirith.

People no longer enthusiastically discussed merit points and their future belongings.

Instead, there were cliques and factions, and secret struggles over more productive mining pits or easier-to-fell trees.

Armed brawls were strictly forbidden, but violence lurked everywhere in the shadows.

The group Kane belonged to, formed by immigrants from Little Seagull Port, was also forced into the chaos.

They didn’t stir up trouble, but for self-preservation, they occupied a small area near the cliffs, where they were responsible for dumping waste rock into the sea.

Lars and his son later joined them.

It was better to have a group to rely on than to be bullied while all alone.

...

「City Hall.」

Barrett walked in, looking exhausted.

He handed a report to Velin, his eyes filled with confusion and anger.

"My lord, this is today’s report."

"The garrison recorded thirty-one private brawls, but by the time we arrived, both sides claimed they just took a fall. Twelve people were seriously injured, and none of them could explain how they got hurt."

"Our investigation found that members of the Iron Fist Association broke a worker’s leg. It started because they discovered the bread he’d handed over was homemade with rye flour mixed with sawdust, and it was underweight."

"The scribes have calculated that overall construction efficiency has dropped by thirty percent! Everyone is busy picking sides and carving out territory. If this goes on, this place won’t be a construction site, it’ll be a battlefield!"

Velin took the report and read it carefully.

On the massive sand table before him, the black stones representing the miners from Broken Stone County had merged into a large cluster.

They firmly occupied the quarry’s position on the sand table and were even beginning to seep into the area of brown stones representing the lumberyard.

"My lord, we have to dispatch the garrison," Barrett said, looking at Velin. "Arrest that leader, Grom, and hang him at the city gates! Use his head to show everyone who’s in charge here!"

Velin straightened up and put down the report.

"The garrison only handles reported and verified murder cases."

"What?"

"The city watch is not to interfere in any conflicts of interest between gangs, as long as there is no clear chain of evidence leading to a murderer."

Barrett couldn’t understand the order. He felt a tightness in his chest.

"My lord, you’re condoning this! Those thugs will only get more outrageous! Are you waiting for things to get completely out of hand before you deal with them all at once? The fire has already started! If you let it keep burning, morale will completely collapse!"

"What will the honest workers think? They’ll think that anyone who follows the rules is a fool, and that might is the only right!"

Velin walked to the window, looking down at the clamorous sea of light formed by countless torches.

"Barrett, if you wanted to open a window for some fresh air, but everyone around you felt it was too cold, what would you do?"

"I’d persuade them, of course."

"No. That would only make them think you’re a nuisance. You should propose tearing the roof off. In their haste to talk you out of it, they’ll naturally suggest opening the window."

Barrett fell silent. He didn’t quite understand what his lord meant.

Velin turned around and pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose.

"I am observing."

"I need to know what the craving for order can create once suffering reaches a critical point."

"I also need to know the limits of chaos in the absence of external intervention."

"Tumo and his people have already infiltrated all the largest gangs." Velin pointed at the sand table. "The number of daily conflicts, the flow of merit points, the change in membership for each group, the emotional state of the lowest-level workers... all of this data is compiled and sent to me."

"My lord..." Barrett’s voice was hoarse. "You’re playing with people’s hearts."

"I’m not playing with people’s hearts. I am laying the foundation for a more stable system for the future."

"This is the foundation being laid for the future systems of Minas Tirith, and even the entire Grey Marsh Territory. A small price is necessary."

"I don’t want to be a patriarch who handles everything personally. That would require a massive administrative body, and the larger the institution, the more fertile the soil for corruption. The more the City Hall manages, the more resources are consumed by intermediaries."

"What I want is a self-regulating system. A structure of ’pluralistic, collaborative governance’ where residents and administrators can interact bilaterally. To achieve this, first, everyone must personally experience the immense ’pain’ that disorder brings."

"Only when they feel the pain will they genuinely crave order and be willing to pay the price to maintain it."

"This process will also help me weed out the most unruly elements and, at the same time, test the upper limits of ’self-governance’ for this uncultured populace. This data is a crucial basis for me to adjust future management models."

Barrett said no more.

He couldn’t fully agree with this almost cruel approach, but this was indeed Velin’s style.

One week later, the conflict escalated.

The Iron Fist Association’s monopoly on the quarry led to a severe shortage in stone production.

Many projects that required stone for their foundations were forced to halt, which in turn left the carpenters responsible for building scaffolding with no work, causing their merit points to plummet.

The focus of the conflict naturally shifted to the only resource point still operating normally—the lumberyard controlled by the "Wildfire Gang," a group of hunters.

Grom needed a victory and more resources to placate his increasingly dissatisfied subordinates and solidify his "Iron Fist" reputation.

One evening at dusk, two members of the "Iron Fist Gang" got into an argument with two "Wildfire Gang" lumberjacks at the edge of the logging forest over a log of high-quality hardwood.

The argument quickly turned into a shoving match, and finally escalated into a bloody brawl.

A logging axe slipped, striking a miner in the chest.

A murder had occurred.

At that moment, the entire construction of Minas Tirith seemed to grind to a halt.

Everyone stopped what they were doing, watching from a distance as the city watch quickly cordoned off the area. People’s faces showed a mixture of fear, shock, and a strange, inexplicable agitation.

Inside City Hall, a scribe burst in and placed an urgent report on Velin’s desk.

"My lord! Someone’s been killed! The Iron Fist Gang and the Wildfire Gang had an armed brawl in the logging forest, and one person is dead!"

Velin picked up the report, glanced at the record, then looked at another chart hanging on the wall, which showed the fluctuations in various data points of the merit point system over the last half-month.

On the chart, the curve representing total production value had been declining for a week straight, while the red line representing violent incidents reached a peak today.

He nodded.

"The stress test... has reached its critical point."

He looked at Barrett.

"Notify the garrison. Seal all camp districts and arrest Grom and all other gang leaders."

"It’s time to pull these weeds."