The four mercenaries, who were currently invisible as they walked through the streets of the snakemen village, continued their way through the city to see many scenes similar to the ones before.
It appeared that the work was being heavily overseen by what was likely some sort of military police force, and eventually the group came to a certain square in the center of a large plaza.
The buildings seemed to rise around the four as they looked around in astonishment.
If it were to be compared to any human society on earth, the buildings would be most similar to ancient Egypt, however this created a strange contrast with the clothing that many of the people wore, which seemed to be much more similar to something from world war 2, particularly the outfits of the soldiers.
What stood out the most in this plaza, however, was not the enormous buildings, but rather a large banner which was at the front of the plaza. A stairway led up to an altar which was in front of the enormous banner, and on this banner was an image of a King Cobra with green eyes.
Now, in the world of Yolenos, there was no concept of religion.
The very aspect of worship, churches, or religious beliefs were concepts which were foreign to the people of this world, and as such, Melody and the other three who saw this did not think anything along the lines of 'It must be some sort of local deity.'
Instead, they thought 'It must be an image of the leader of this village.'
Looking around, the four witnessed that there were a large number of men in military uniforms who seemed to be standing at attention in almost every corner of the plaza.
As of right now, the sun was high in the sky. It was early afternoon.
The four walked through the square, careful not to come into contact with anyone, and made their way to an alleyway which Melody was about to walk down before she noticed something.
Snake people seemed to be gathering within the plaza for whatever reason.
They lined themselves up into a perfect row, filling in until a large number of people formed a rectangular formation.
Each person was bowing their head, and not a single person spoke a single word. The military policemen seemed to be watching from their posts as this orderly event took place.
When the plaza was almost completely filled with people, lined up in perfect order, a certain man stepped to the front.
His outfit was black, slightly different from the navy blue outfits of the other members of the military. On his side a baton was strapped, and the four pointed star on his hat glimmered in the sunlight as he made his way to the center, standing in front of the stairs.
"The offerings will now begin, starting from A1."
Another member of the military slithered over next to this snakeman, and the two escalated the stairs in sync before taking positions on either side of the altar.
"A1. Please proceed.", the man said in a voice which was not excessively loud, but carried the weight it needed to reach all the people in the otherwise completely silent plaza.
Melody at this point was interested in what was happening here, and so instead of continuing on to what would likely be a residential district, she had stopped the other three in their tracks so that they may watch.
'If this is some sort of local ceremony, then we should witness it and gain that information on the culture of the snakemen. We can't afford to miss such a massive event.'
The person who was labeled 'A1' stood forward, and with his head still bowed, made his way up the stairs reverently before reaching into his own pocket and taking out what seemed to be 5 pieces of gold.
He came before the altar, standing in front of it, and spoke.
"The provider has granted myself with the gift of 5 gold coins. That which has been provided to us must be returned to he who provided it, and as such I offer three of the five coins in exchange for this generosity."
The man in the black uniform seemed to stare into the soul of the man standing in front of him before nodding.
"The provider will graciously accept your gift, for it has been offered in earnest. Return to your place and allow the provider to continue working through you."
The man, A1, kept his head bowed before turning himself around and returning peacefully to a spot at the back of the rectangle. Each person seemed to move forward by 1 spot exactly, shifting the order of people in a slithering manner.
"A2. Proceed.", the man with the black outfit stated.
A similar scene repeated itself, with almost the exact same words as before.
This same scene repeated over and over for almost every single person, until almost all of the people had presented their offerings.
They would first ascend the stairway reverently, present the entirety of their earnings, and then they would proceed to give exactly half of their earnings as offerings to the 'provider'.
In the case that their earnings were odd, they would always round up. The man who had earned 5 gave 3. If someone had earned 7, they would give 4. There were no exceptions.
Melody took notice of this pattern, but more importantly she took notice of the fact that each person's earnings were slightly different.
Thus far, the lowest earnings of any given person was 5 pieces of gold. The highest earnings for a given person was a total of 20 pieces of gold.
'So there are two possibilities here. Either certain jobs make more money, or people are paid differently based on the quality of their work. Perhaps people who produce more are rewarded with the fruits of their production, but then taxed in this manner. In a business, one cannot merely reap all the rewards of the net revenue. Some must be used to pay the initial investments off, and to pay for improvements in equipment. Only a small amount of the profit is actually used to pay the workers themselves. I'll assume that this is something along those lines.... however, I'm not too sure why they would have an entire ceremony for such a thing.'
When the parasite was removed from the brain of Melody, the man had actually done some digging around within her brain.
Due to his own skill as a black market surgeon, that man who worked on her was the type of man who was willing to tweak with the bodies and minds of people in extremely risky and experimental ways. Essentially, he held no concern for his patients and did not care in the least about killing them, for that would only mean that he would have a corpse to sell off to collect the payment.
However, in the case of Melody, despite his tweaking, she did not die. Instead, he had rewired her own optic nerve in such a way that her own sight was somewhat amplified.
Before Melody was tweaked, when the parasite was living inside her, her own sight was slowly beginning to deteriorate. Glasses were something which existed within this world, however they were extremely rare and something which the rich could only afford, so when she was younger she had no way of obtaining such lenses.
However, due to the surgery, her own sight ended up even better than the average person.
This helped her greatly in her work as a black market assassin, as she was unusually perceptive about things.
Right now, despite the fact that she was standing far away from the altar, she witnessed something which the other three were too far away to notice- and that was the golden coins.
At first a human might think something along the lines of 'How did these snake people get ahold of such riches? There are so many golden coins circulating within this economy it's almost ludicrous.'
Yet Melody noticed something which gave her at least part of this answer.
The coins were not the same currency as that which was used in the Empire, nor any other nation of the human realm.
Among the four nations of humans (Including elves and dwarves), there were four different types of currencies, however the values of these currencies had been united under a single system.
That is to say, the Empire would have their own design for coins, however at the end of the day a gold coin was a gold coin. A gold coin created by the Empire could be used in any other country, and held the same value as the native currency.
Gold was gold. Silver was silver. Copper was copper. These values remained constant, and it didn't matter to anyone which symbol was present on the coins, so long as they were paid.
However, Melody noticed that the symbol on these coins was far different from that of anything she had ever seen before.
It was a picture of the same king cobra who was being displayed on a banner.
'So then, that snake must be 'the provider.' Furthermore, these snakemen must be in possession of some sort of gold mine which they use to produce their own currency- they did not obtain their own money from pillaging humans, but rather from producing it on their own.'
Melody came to this conclusion, and continued to watch the event with a confident grin, though this could not be seen by anyone as she was currently invisible.
She was truly satisfied that she would be able to present the antiheroes with a report later which had some detailed information on the culture and practices of the snakemen.
"For if we are to take anyone over, we must first understand who we are taking over. Anyone who does not try to first understand their subjects is a failure as a leader, and will never be able to properly rule."
-Trevor.
As Melody reminisced on the words of his excellency, a disturbance seemed to take place in the plaza.
A certain snakeman slithered up the stairs, his head low.
He seemed to be biting his own lips in remorse, his mind clouded with fear.
'That one seems a bit different from the rest. The others seemed to peacefully come up without so much as flinching, but this one right here seems far more distressed than any of the others...', Melody thought.
The man walked up, and was promptly addressed by the man in black.
"The provider.... has granted me the gift of..... 1 gold coin...."
The man reached into his own pocket bitterly, taking out the single coin.
The man in black looked to him seriously, watching as the man struggled to get the following words out of his mouth.
"That which has been provided to us.... must be returned to he who provided it..... and as such I offer....."
The man choked up on these last words, unable to spit them out.
He held the single coin forward, staring at it with fear.
"As such..... I offer....."
The man bowed his head further, and closed his tear filled eyes.
"P.... please..... just this once..... I understand that it is out of the graciousness of the provider that I have been presented with even this coin, however if I am to offer this up here.... my family will have to go an entire week with nothing to eat..... I was struck with a sudden illness, and as such I was unable to earn enough for my family this round...."
The man begged in earnest to the soldiers in front of him.
"Please.... I beg of you.... I will pay the provider back two times over if his graciousness extends to allow me to keep this single coin that my wife and children may eat....."
The begging man looked up desperately, hoping to see a face of compassion in the man who he pleaded to, yet he was met instead with a disturbing glare.
"You have spoken out of line and disturbed the sacred ritual. You have offended the provider, and have shown us that your loyalty lies not with the provider, but instead with your own goals. Not a single person here has so much as hesitated to pay what is due to the provider, and yet you come before us begging so that you may cheat the provider out of that which he is rightfully owed?"
The man grabbed his own baton from his side, and swung it at the head of the snakeman who was begging.
"If the provider were to hear of this, you would be executed immediately. Therefore, punishment must be rendered. Dissidence will never be tolerated."
The man reeled back in fear at hearing these cold words.
"P-please..... forgive me..... I will give it.... I will offer this gift back to the provider..."
The man held out the golden coin, placing it on the altar with the other coins.
"Please... forget this.... forgive me for ever saying anything..."
The man wearing a black suit merely nodded.
"Even if you have now given your gifts, all you have done is return to the provider that which is rightfully his. The fact remains that for a moment you decided to put yourself above him. Therefore...."
"Please wait.... I never once said that I am above the provider.... do not do this...."
This fearful plea was met with another smack to the head with the baton.
The man in black took out two pairs of handcuffs from his own coat pocket, placing them on the hands and feet of the begging man.
"Please!!! Stop this!!! I will never again say anything-"
"What you have said has already been said. There is no taking it back now."
The military snakeman kicked the man down the stairs.
He tumbled to the ground, being covered in bruises and injuries all over before he reached the bottom.
Melody found her own hands being tugged.
It was likely that her companions wanted to do something about the situation, however Melody made sure to quickly grab the hands of all three people, holding them firmly.
'We cannot afford to expose ourselves carelessly, no matter how much you all wish to help that man.', she thought.
The tension she felt from holding the other three ceased after she gripped her comrades hands firmly. Her intentions had been clearly perceived.
The man in the black hat made his way down the stairs after bowing before the altar, walking up to the front of the crowd where the man was now laying on the ground.
"Such disrespect to the provider is completely unacceptable. As such, I sentence him to one lash from each and every person present here, and he will be placed under arrest. A1. Step forward."
The man who was called A1 made his way through the crowd, and the military man handed him the baton.
"Do not hold back on him, for that would only show that you hold no loyalty towards the provider. With all your strength, hit him, in proof of your own loyalty to the provider."
The man named A1 grabbed the baton, brought it all the way back, and brought it down on the snakeman who was cuffed in front of him.
He smacked the man's side with full force, causing the man to yelp in pain before handing the baton back to the military officer.
"A2. Come forward."
A2 came forward as well, and followed the same process, this time aiming for the stomach of the man.
The process repeated itself with every single person present in the entire lineup.
500 people- men, women, and children- ended up giving this man a lash at full force. Not a single person dared to hold back, for fear of being put into the same position as this man.
The mans body was left bruised. Almost every bone in his body had been broken, and his face was left a mess. He was on the very brink of death, and would likely never be able to work again.
Throughout this entire scene, Melody felt tension in her hands as her comrades tried to convince her to let them go and do something about it, but she stood firm and did not let go.
'This man is nothing of importance compared to the goals of their excellencies. While their excellencies might have been able to save him without worry, we are not infinitely strong in this world. We cannot afford to save him right now. That is all there is to it. I believe this is the same decision that Theo would have made, had he been in my position.'
Even despite these cold thoughts, Melody looked on the man with sadness.
She understood that he had done almost nothing wrong, and been deeply punished for it.
Yet, she could not feel too much pity for him, as she could imagine this happening to someone in the Dictatorship one day, should they go against the antiheroes.
'However, the thing that truly irks me is the fact that the leader of this village is viewed as some sort of untouchable being.... the real question is, just how powerful is this 'provider?' Is he the leader because of his power, or is there some other reason in which he has so much control over the military and these people? Everyone is currently under the hive mindset that resistance is absolutely unacceptable. Then, it must be that the leader is too powerful to rebel against?'
The four watched as the ceremony was continued, and the rest of the people gave their offerings with no complaint.
It was then that Melody dragged the other three off into the alleyways of the city, leading them through an area which seemed to be empty. Perhaps all the people of the village had gathered for that event, or perhaps there were many like it going on all around the city.
'Either way, this potion will run out soon enough. We should find a place to hide and discuss things there.'
And so, Melody led the four to a back alley where it seemed like no people would ever come by before tapping Lance on the shoulder.
Understanding her signal, Lance drank a potion and then handed it off to the other three to drink, and as they did so, they all became visible once more.
Next to them was a garbage bin which they could hide in, should anyone come by.
"Why did you stop us, Melody?", Lance asked, with a completely serious face.
"We had the power to stop those people from doing such a thing.", Pierre said, agreeing.
"I couldn't bear seeing that man be beat like that.... why, Melody?", Charlotte said with a sniffle, clearly saddened and teary eyed.
Melody merely shook her head.
"It was not the proper time to get involved. Remember the words of their excellencies. We are to first infiltrate and gain information. Then we are to make contacts, and study the people of the city. And finally, we are to do what is necessary to prepare them for takeover. Going out of order would put a damper in the plans of their excellencies. Or are you telling me that saving a single man is more important?"
"Well... no...."
"That isn't the case... it's just.... so heartless...."
Lance and Charlotte were looking down sadly, but Pierre looked up with understanding.
"I see, Melody. If we are to give a man a fish then we feed him for a day, but if we teach him to fish, we feed him for life. That is, if we do things properly and destroy the system in place, then no more people like that man will have to suffer in the same way. But if we got involved and saved him then and there, the plan might fail, or even worse, more could end up like him before we have the chance to do anything about it."
Melody nodded.
"If we just barged in, do you think that the man being beaten would be the only one to suffer? Even if we succeeded in fighting the members of the military off, that 'provider' might go nuts and start blaming the people around us for the disturbance. We might have even had to fight every single person in that plaza if they were too scared to go against this provider. Is that what you would have wanted? To be forced to beat up, and potentially even kill, every woman, child, and man in that entire plaza?"
Lance and Charlotte looked up, with serious faces.
"No, that's not what I would have wanted."
"I'm sorry, Melody. I didn't understand why you stopped us, but it looks like you thought this through quite a lot. I won't doubt your judgement again."
And so, the two came to peace with the decision.
Melody seemed to be thinking to herself as these two said this, and she turned around, pacing back and forth.
"Alright. I think I know what we should do next. We wait until night, when all the people will be returning to their homes from work. We'll make our next move at that time."