Play [Steel Sweeper] long enough and there were times you discovered valuable items in a heap of garbage.
These items were divided into five tiers according to value, and glowed in the color matching each tier.
Green, blue, yellow, red, rainbow.
Those were the colors corresponding to Tier 1 through Tier 5.
The machine Woojin had just found was Tier 2.
It was glowing blue.
“Daphne. Can you tell what this is?”
<It appears to be a specially built compact computer. However, the connection terminal has been destroyed.>
“A blue computer, huh.”
Ordinary computer parts were green at best.
Tier 1 items.
But this computer was Tier 2.
It glowed blue.
The reason was probably information.
If valuable information was stored inside a computer, the color changed accordingly.
That was why a computer that should have been green was glowing blue.
Selling this computer would bring a considerable profit.
Depending on what the data inside was, Woojin might make use of it himself instead of selling it.
“I got lucky.”
Woojin grinned and set the compact computer down on the garbage truck's passenger seat.
Then he cleaned the surroundings and emptied the garbage bin.
Off to the next district.
Did luck have a flow to it?
Woojin found an item at the next garbage bin as well.
A revolver glowing green. The SC―6.
Empty casings were seated in all six chambers.
Something sticky was smeared on it, but apart from that there was nothing broken about it.
The SC―6 had low destructive power and was an item you used briefly in the early game, but it was better than nothing.
Of course, Woojin intended to sell this one too.
‘This much should let me buy some decent gear.’
Woojin continued his work in a satisfied mood.
―[Hauling] has risen to Level 4.
―[Sweeping] has risen to Level 3.
The hour when the sky, stained red with sunset, was turning dark.
7:17 p.m.
Woojin arrived at the incinerator on the outskirts of Lemming City.
The incinerator smokestack towering toward the sky belched acrid smoke, and the garbage piled up like a mountain inside the refuse bunker gave off the stench of rot.
A crane lifted the bunker's garbage onto a conveyor belt, and the belt carried the garbage to the incinerator.
Woojin backed the garbage truck up in front of the bunker.
When he pressed the discharge button at the driver's seat, the loading bed began to tilt with a heavy mechanical sound.
The bed's discharge hatch opened and the machinery inside pushed the garbage out.
Garbage compressed into rectangular blocks tumbled down into the bunker.
THUD-THUNK.
And with that, the day's work was over.
Daphne evaluated the day's shift.
<Well done. You have completed today's work without incident.>
<Total work time: 15 hours 17 minutes. The work time was greatly exceeded. I have no choice but to dock your performance rating.>
<2 performance rating points have been deducted. Your current performance rating is 43.2 points.>
“…Merciless.”
A work time of 15 hours meant he had clocked in at 4 a.m.
“I start work at 4 a.m. and finish at 7 p.m., and instead of overtime pay you dock my performance rating?”
<It cannot be helped. The standard working hours are a criterion built on results calculated by the superintelligent AI of the Lemming City Integrated Management System. They are designed for the most efficient use of the city's public service resources.>
“Ah. Right. ‘Efficient,’ is it?”
There was no such thing as welfare in Lemming Hell City.
All that existed was efficiency achieved by grinding humans down.
No wonder Senior Paul fell into drugs.
<Still, there are many positive aspects. Your work time decreased considerably after the combat with the hoodlum ended. By the original calculation, work was projected to end past 9 p.m.>
“Ugh. Clock in at 4, clock out at 9.”
What a horrifying thing to hear.
Subtract an hour of commuting and there were only six hours out of the day's twenty-four that he could use for himself.
“Leaving at 7 was heaven. I should get home fast.”
<That is recommended. You have to come in to work tomorrow as well.>
“Ha ha ha. Work…….”
Woojin's shoulders shuddered at the inhumane civil servant exploitation system as he climbed into the garbage truck.
***
The sanitation civil servants of Lemming City lived lives little different from the underclass, but there were still benefits given to them.
One of them was the dormitory.
In a neighborhood with fairly decent public safety, there was a dormitory for civil servants.
<Next to the dormitory there is also a dedicated garage for the garbage truck. Your commute takes less than five minutes!>
“In other words, they can work their employees even harder!”
<Work efficiency improves!>
“You're not denying it…….”
After parking the garbage truck in the garage, he headed for the dormitory.
He rode an old elevator up to the seventeenth floor.
The dormitory was a corridor-style apartment block, neither newly built nor upscale.
How long had it been since he had seen an apartment like this?
Clack.
Beep-beep.
He unlocked the iris-recognition door lock and opened the front door.
It was home, at least, and the strength went out of his shoulders.
‘So this is my — Jinwoo Martinez's — home…….’
It was a two-room unit about the size one person could live in.
Laundry that might have been clean or might have been dirty hung haphazardly around the room, and boxes and plastic trash sat here and there.
Jinwoo Martinez's memories surfaced one after another.
When he first moved into this dormitory he had felt good, with the sense of achievement at having climbed in status.
Before that he had been living in a back-alley shantytown.
“He did well to pass the sanitation civil servant exam.”
He seemed to have managed it because Jinwoo Martinez didn't do drugs.
Perhaps because he was suffering from heart disease, Jinwoo Martinez had a strong sense of purpose about surviving.
Even as his family and acquaintances fell apart from drugs and violence, he had set his mind hard and devoted himself to studying.
In the end he succeeded in escaping that hell.
“Impressive.”
Woojin acted according to the memories that dimly surfaced.
First, he started the food processor.
The food processor was a machine that made meals automatically.
Put a freeze-dried food block into a machine shaped like a capsule coffee maker, set a bowl underneath, and the machine made the meal on its own.
Next he turned on the ventilation fan and gathered up all the laundry and put it in the washing machine.
When he came out of the shower, some strange smell he couldn't place was spreading.
Something like the smell of vegetable porridge with artificial flavoring in it?
“It is vegetable porridge with artificial flavoring.”
The bowl he had set under the food processor was full of green pig slop.
Was it all right to eat this?
Woojin's face crumpled as he carefully spooned up the pig slop.
“Bleh. What is this?”
A taste like protein powder and porridge and vegetables all mixed together with some strange artificial flavoring thrown in.
The box the freeze-dried blocks had come in bore the advertising line, “Packed with nutrients! A convenient meal!”
“…At least they don't claim it's delicious.”
Woojin spooned up the conscientiously advertised pig slop.
There was nothing to be done about the taste.
It was the menu Jinwoo Martinez had chosen to save on food costs.
The taste might be bad, but the nutrients were properly in there.
“Ah. I want sweet crispy fried chicken and cola.”
Lemming City was a world more technologically advanced than Korea.
If you wanted to eat sweet crispy fried chicken and drink cola, you could.
You just had to have a lot of money.
The same went for the artificial heart that might break down at any time.
With enough money he could have a real heart transplanted.
He could even have an artificial heart implanted that performed better than a real one.
‘But it's not as if money solves everything.’
Lemming City was a class-based society.
Citizens were divided into grades from A1 to C3, and the occupations, information, and qualifications each grade could access were restricted.
Grades A1~A3 were the city's ruling class, who would never fall.
Grades B1~B3 were the elite class, drawing wages in the hundreds of millions.
Grades C1~C3 were all the common people, ground down in the name of efficiency.
Beyond those there were also the unregistered.
The unregistered received no protection at all from the city system; kill an unregistered person on the street and no one would hold you responsible.
They weren't treated as human, you might say.
‘I need to climb to at least Grade A3.’
Woojin was currently Grade C1.
Being a civil servant, it was a high grade among the underclass at least.
The problem was that [Steel Sweeper] had no status-advancement system implemented.
Woojin knew Lemming City's status system only as background knowledge of the setting.
Since [Steel Sweeper] wasn't an RPG where you could roam every corner of the world but a stage-clearing game, the knowledge available to the player was limited.
“How do I become Grade A3……?”
It was a mutter he had let out unconsciously.
But an unexpected party answered.
<Shall I tell you the method for rising to Grade A3?>
“Daphne? I'm off work, so why are you here?”
<Lemming City civil servants can receive support from the city AI at all times. It is a basic welfare benefit provided to civil servants!>
Welfare benefit, huh.
Wasn't this just monitoring civil servants even after they clocked out?
“What exactly can you do for me, Daphne?”
<Information searches, financial management, utility bill payments, automatic ordering of daily necessities, applications to use public facilities — I can handle a wide variety of chores for you. You can use the city's finest AI service for free!>
She seemed to do the work of an AI secretary.
“Hmm……. I thought all you did was watch me work and dock my performance rating.”
<That is a misunderstanding! I raise your performance rating too! And I drive the garbage truck!>
Daphne raised her voice as though she were sulking.
If she had been a person, she would have puffed her cheeks out round.
Why had they set an AI's personality to be this cute?
“Which means you're monitoring me after hours too, doesn't it?”
<I am able to monitor you. But the likelihood that I actually will is very low.>
“And the reason?”
<Because there is no reason to monitor you, Officer Woojin. The computational power of the city AI is not infinite either. If all civil servants were monitored without particular cause, other important tasks could not be carried out.>
Woojin was an ordinary sanitation civil servant.
Which meant there was no need to spend electricity monitoring someone like him.
“What if I commit a crime? For example, I killed a person during work today, didn't I? There could be cases where I kill an A-grade or B-grade citizen who's interfering with garbage collection.”
<Most friction arising in the course of duty is regarded as self-defense, and liability is waived.>
So this was the power of a civil servant.
Sure enough, however low the rank, it pays to put on the official's hat.
<However, please exercise caution when dealing with A-grade citizens. A-grade citizens have a very high importance value, so self-defense may not be recognized.>
“What if I didn't know the other party was an A-grade citizen?”
<You would still be at a disadvantage, Officer Woojin.>
“I figured.”
Lemming City was a thoroughly stratified society.
Didn't she say A-grade citizens had a high importance value?
Which meant a common C1-grade citizen could be sacrificed any number of times for the sake of an A-grade citizen.
Turned around, it also meant that if Woojin climbed to Grade A3, he would gain that much of a powerful shield.
“So what do I have to do to rise to Grade A3?”
<In your case, Officer Woojin, promotion, acquiring certifications, and raising your credit rating are important. It would be even better if an A-grade citizen became your status guarantor.>
“Specifics.”
<Promotion can be achieved by raising your performance rating and having your cleaning ability recognized.>
Woojin roughly knew about that part.
Play long enough and the character's title rose from Probationary Crew Member all the way to Special Waste Officer.
<Certifications are reflected when you acquire certifications useful to your duties. There are waste handling certifications, robot operation certifications, and others.>
Certifications, huh.
The certifications he had to earn gave off a strong whiff of the sciences, but it was still studying, so surely he could manage somehow.
<A credit rating requires a record of credit transactions over a long period. You need a record of faithfully repaying loans, or of paying various utility bills and insurance premiums without delinquency.>
“So just having a lot of money doesn't raise your credit rating?”
<Asset value is important as well, but you need a steady transaction record. In your case, Officer Woojin, I recommend first switching your insurance to a more expensive type.>
“By the way, what's the average monthly insurance premium for an A3-grade citizen?”
<Searching……. Total monthly average insurance expenditure across the various policies is approximately 250 million credits.>
“That's insane…….”
250 million drained automatically every month?
How much money did you have to have for that?
Even late in the game, 250 million was a lot of money.
<For your information, Officer Woojin, you are in a financial crisis situation.>
“What? Why?”
<Because of the loan taken out for your heart surgery. The outstanding balance is 295,570,000 credits. You must repay 2,810,000 credits every month.>
“Ah.”
<Your essential expenses, the civil servant dormitory fee and your insurance premium, add up to 1,000,000 credits. Since your salary is 2,000,000 credits, that alone produces a deficit of 1,810,000 credits every month.>
“Fuuuck…….”
Some people paid 250 million a month in insurance premiums, while others went bankrupt trying to repay 290 million in heart surgery costs.
“Haah……. Financial management is on hold for now.”
Woojin pushed the headache-inducing problem to the back of his mind for the time being.
Instead he set the blue item he had picked up today on the table.
The specially built compact computer.
“What kind of data is inside this?”
Woojin examined the computer's connector closely.
The pins for the cable connection were bent every which way.
It looked as though someone had made it this way to keep anyone from picking the computer up and using it.
If Woojin hadn't found it, this computer would be getting torn to pieces at the incinerator right about now.
“Looks like I could connect a cable if I just straightened the pins…….”
―[Observation] has risen to Level 2.
Woojin fetched an awl and a pair of long-nose pliers and straightened the bent pins.
It was work Woojin, a humanities man, had never once attempted…….
―You have acquired [Machine Repair (Level 1)].
―[Machine Repair] has risen to Level 2.
He got used to it quickly and repaired the connector.