Chapter 104 Slave Owner: From Beginner to Master
The "good slave owners" mentioned by Piltover historians and the "good slave plantations" imagined by the uncle at the snack stand may not be false or may not not exist.
After all, just like in the Noxian warlord slave-owning family, there are outliers like Meir Midalda...
There may be good people among slave owners.
Just like there are good people among nobles, good people among landlords, good people among business owners, and even some dogs that don't eat shit... yes, these are all true.
"But the good or evil attributes of an individual are not necessarily related to the advancement or backwardness of the class to which he belongs. This is the core of Janna's theory of ideological classes."
Levi started talking again, words that Zeli couldn't understand.
But then he immediately understood what he said:
"Yes, there may be good people among the slave owners. They may prefer to earn less but let the slaves live more comfortably."
"Uncle, little girl, you can try to think about it now..."
"Among Zaun's alchemy barons, how many are such good people?"
Zeli: “…”
The question sent chills down her spine.
Even a three-year-old child in Zaun knows that the Chem-Barons of Zaun are the cruelest, most terrifying, and most immoral scum in the Twin Cities.
Sinking them into Zaun's alchemical sewers is just polluting the environment.
"Of course, few of these alchemy barons are good people."
"Because in Runeland, there is a huge gap in strength between the strong and the weak, between the Alchemy Barons and ordinary people. So even in the face of such cruel oppression, the slaves cannot, dare not, and will not resist."
"This resulted in low security costs for slave owners to manage slaves, and the benefits of oppressing slave labor were higher than those of hiring workers."
"So most of Zaun's chem-barons are actually engaged in the evil business of raising slaves and oppressing slave workers - they are just slave owners in the guise of business owners."
Levi slowly opened the "Zaan Investigation Report" and turned to the pages that recorded the living conditions of Zaun slaves.
He originally thought that when it came to oppressing slaves, the Iron Fist Gang in Piltover was invincible.
Unexpectedly, Zaun's Alchemy Baron is even more ruthless than them.
"These Zaun industrial and commercial slave owners mainly use a system of measurement and negative incentives on their slaves."
"That is, using measurement to adjust the punishment of slaves, so as to increase the slaves' 'production enthusiasm', and force the slaves to find ways to improve their production efficiency, so as to continuously break through the bottleneck of production efficiency."
Performance appraisal + negative incentives, this is the "scientific management method" commonly used by slave owners.
When it comes to specific operations, these alchemy barons are really like the Eight Immortals crossing the sea, each showing their magical powers. There is nothing they can't do, except what you can't think of.
The "Investigation Report" in Levi's hand can be directly renamed "When the Humanoid Stars Shine" in this chapter.
"For example, Countess Voss, who runs a mine in the trench area..."
"She adopted a scientific 'target management method', which determined specific performance targets for each slave production team in advance and regularly checked the progress of achieving the targets."
"If the performance of a slave production team fails to meet the standards, Countess Voss will happily take action herself, using her exquisite skills of torture to show all employees the consequences of not working hard."
"This..." Zeli's face turned pale when she heard it.
The uncle at the snack stand, after a moment of discomfort, questioned in confusion: "Just because the performance did not meet the standard once, she killed the slave worker... Isn't this destroying her own property? Wouldn't she lose money by doing this?"
"No." Levi explained: "Because she doesn't need to kill them all."
"We will randomly draw a lottery among the slave labor teams whose performance does not meet the standards. We will pick one out of every ten people and kill a few of them."
"Of course, the rest of the people can't escape corporal punishment. Countess Voss is a master of punishment. She has a hundred ways to make people suffer while maintaining the slaves' ability to work."
As long as the performance of his production team does not meet the standards, he will be captured and killed by the Alchemist Baron.
The rest of the people, even if they managed to survive, would still be subjected to corporal punishment.
In this case, wouldn't the slaves have to work hard?
Ze Li, Uncle: "..."
If they just put themselves in their shoes for a moment , they could imagine how desperate those slave workers must be.
"Under this advanced management concept that combines the 'Eleven-Draw Method' with the 'Target Management Method', the work efficiency of the miners under Countess Voss is no less than that of the free miners."
"Among the Zaun chem-barons, her methods are not so bloodthirsty and murderous, and are more 'conscientious'."
Levi continued to flip through his booklet.
Every name recorded in this booklet is a kind-hearted person that the Weapon Master can't wait to kill.
"For example, Baron Takeda Saito who runs an alchemy potion factory and a biological weapons factory."
"He adopted an assessment management method that combines the 'alternating ranking method' and the 'last-place elimination method'."
"That is, first, according to the performance evaluation factors, the slave workers are ranked from the best to the worst, and finally the last batch of slave workers are regularly 'optimized' out of the factory."
Freelancers are optimized by their bosses, and the result is nothing more than being sent to society as talents.
But if slaves are optimized, where will they be sent?
"Don't forget, Baron Takeda's business is alchemical potions and biological weapons." Levi said faintly:
"His alchemy laboratory has always needed a large number of living 'volunteers'. Eliminating the slaves will not only not cause a loss, but can also create profits by 'recycling waste'."
If their performance is not good enough, they will be sent to the alchemy laboratory as consumables. How can these slaves have no motivation to produce?
Ze Li, Uncle: "..."
The previous eleven kills had already made them shudder.
This time's last-place elimination plus "waste utilization" gave them both goosebumps.
"Most of the chem-barons who enslave in Zaun use the methods of the above two."
"In addition to these more violent and direct management methods, the Alchemy Barons also have some more creative methods."
"For example, our Zaun Godfather, Hilco..."
Hilco himself did not keep slaves.
He is relatively conscientious among the alchemy barons. He is just an ordinary "Old English-style" business owner who runs a meat grinder, and he is not so cruel as to oppress slaves.
But his subordinates, vassals, and those small alchemy barons are not so bound by principles.
"Silco's men, the alchemist baron Finn who runs the Glimmer Potion business, and others."
"They creatively used the glimmer potion they produced to manage slaves in their own factories."
"The specific operation is——"
"Feed the slaves low-concentration glimmer potion for a long time to make them addicted to it."
The Glimmer Potion has a strong addictive effect. Once a slave becomes addicted to it, he will be transformed into a walking corpse controlled by others on a physiological level.
A proper amount of glimmer potion will not only not make people lose their minds and be unable to work, but will also make people more energetic and physically strong, so that they can move bricks more efficiently than those who do not take drugs.
Therefore, these alchemy barons fed the slaves a fixed amount of glimmer every day while they were working, and after work, they let the slaves, whose bodies were drained by the drugs, go back to lie down and rest.
"Using this method, not only did the slaves' work efficiency improve, but their 'production enthusiasm' also increased."
"There's no need for slave owners to force them. They just beg to work hard to satisfy their drug addiction."
Ze Li, Uncle: "..."
One of them was still a child, and the other was a self-employed businessman who had never worked in a factory. The cruelty and shamelessness of the alchemy barons had completely exceeded their imagination.
"But..." The uncle at the snack stand was still a little hesitant: "Doesn't the Glimmer Potion have side effects? If an ordinary person continues to take Glimmer, he will probably become a cripple in three or four years..."
"Zuan workers don't live for many years," Levi sighed, "not to mention slave laborers."
"For the Alchemy Barons, as long as they can efficiently extract the value of slave labor in these three or four years, they don't care whether the slaves will become useless..."
"Just scrap a batch and buy another batch."
"In Runeterra, people are too cheap."
Hearing this, Zeli could no longer sit still.
Eleven draws, last-place elimination, drug addiction control...these stories seem to come from hell.
But they were happening right in Zaun, right next to her.
"Chuck..." Zellie suddenly thought of her good friend who was sold into slavery: "Chuck went to Baron Renata's factory..."
"Levi!" People from Zaan rarely use honorifics.
She didn't call him "sir" or "brother", but raised her head and asked Li Wei:
"What about the Alchemist Baron Renata? Levi, do you know how Golask Industries treats slave workers?"
"This..." Levi closed the book in his hand.
The investigative report did not record the living conditions of the slave workers at Golask Industries.
Even most of the situations other than this are not recorded.
Because Golask Industries did such a good job of security and confidentiality, when the Leader Investigation Team returned to Zaun to investigate, they couldn't even get close to the factories owned by Renata.
"Janna." Levi couldn't help but ask the goddess in his heart: "Do you know what the factory run by Renata Golask is like?"
Janna has been wandering around the Twin Cities for over two hundred years. There is basically no place she has not been to and no secrets she does not know.
But Janna replied: "Gorsk Industries... I did go there by chance."
"Although I didn't take a close look at it at the time , but... in my impression, the atmosphere at the Gorask Industries factory was pretty good."
"Atmosphere?" Levi was puzzled.
"That is to say..." Janna's answer was somewhat unexpected: "Although the work in Renata's factory is also heavy and the environment is bad, I have not seen the abuse of workers or slavery there."
"Everyone seems to be very motivated. They work very actively without the foreman forcing them... Moreover, their mental state is not hyper, and they don't look like drug slaves controlled by a faint light."
"What?" Levi was stunned.
There is no need for coercion or control; the slaves themselves are motivated.
Is this still a slave factory?
Could it be that Renata is really a good person who cares about the lives of slave workers and makes them willing to follow her?
"No, there is definitely something wrong here!"
"If she had such kindness and charisma, why did she keep slaves instead of hiring free men?"
Levi tried hard to recall the background story of the hero [Alchemist Baron Renata] in the game, as well as some of the details.
Then he suddenly realized that among these "humanoid stars" in Zaun:
"This Renata Golask..."
"I'm afraid this is the most terrifying thing!"
