THE GOD EATER Novel Chapter 70: Crime Tax

Chapter 70: Cri Tax.

From what Jim told him, he learned that beast tides occur frequently, about once every year. The only difference is the scale of the beast tide.

The accommodation that was prepared for him was in a large tower in the fourth ring. The environnt and property value were about average. This was because there were a total of seven rings in the city.

So an area in the fourth ring is halfway between the city walls and the central market. This made the accommodation he was given not particularly valuable. But the fact that it was free also made it a welco developnt.

The tower had four floors of apartnts and ten apartnts on each floor, so it had a total of 40 apartnts. Each apartnt was about the size of his lodgings in the initiation program. It had two rooms, one for sleeping, the other for eting guests, working, etc.

As for his bath, excretion needs, and cooking needs, he will have to use the communal facilities for them. He can also do all three things in his apartnt, but that is not advised.

His apartnt is shabby to say the least. But he couldn’t complain about it because he had experienced worse living conditions in this world, and because this one was free.

After settling down, Jim left him to do whatever he wanted to do. What Loki wanted to do was to advance to rank 2, so he went out looking for rank 2 slaves of the Forging Pathway and gambling houses.

If he can buy a rank 2 cultivator of the Forging Pathway, he won’t mind finding a way to make more money and buying that slave rather than killing them. This is because killing cultivators is no longer free for him.

He can kill a lot of mortals, and the sect won’t bat an eye. But if he kills a single cultivator, he will have to pay the sect for it.

There is also the fact that people keep most of their wealth in their accounts, and cultivators usually detonate all of their tacs as they die, so that their murderers won’t get anything from them other than their bodies and remnant souls.

All of these reasons make the option to kill soone less appealing than it was. For sure, killing soone and paying the sect for their value is less expensive than buying a slave, as he would need to pay both the sect and the slave owner for the slave. But if he is going to pay money anyway, he would rather not risk his life by fighting.

To top things off, there is still the fact that if he kills soone, he will still need ti to devour their Core tac. After being interrupted many tis during this process in his previous tilines, he has beco more inclined to the option that won’t cause much stress and poses less risk of sothing going wrong.

Jim told him that the city is not cri-free, but is generally safe because the city lord has a police force that patrols every street and responds to any cri.

The job of the police force isn’t to prevent cri or save people, though. Their job is to capture the perpetrators of cri and fine them. As long as the culprit of a cri pays the fine, they will be free to go.

Jim had said this with envy and jealousy at the ease with which the city lord was earning money. He also said, "The city lord does this in order to get his cut out of all the cri in the city. It is why we call the fines the cri tax."

"If you don’t have your cri tax, then make sure you’re not caught for the cri. If you’re caught for the cri and can’t pay up, you will be captured and sold into slavery."

Apparently, the first city lord who established the police force was jealous that people could earn a lot of money through cri. He didn’t think that it was fair for him to build a nice city that attracts a lot of people and business, only for so people to use his city as their hunting ground.

The city lord wanted his cut of the money earned from cris, so he established a police force. This police force ans that if he dares to kill anyone in the city, he would likely be interrupted before he can finish devouring the Core tacs.

This makes his options either going out of the city to kill and paying the sect for the value of the person he killed, buying a slave, or killing soone in the city and paying both the city lord and the sect for the value of the life of the person that he killed.

These are the reasons he decided to prioritize making money and finding a place to buy the slave he wants. For this, he took a book with him. The book is ant for recording the successful gambles that he will witness at the gambling houses.

This is a habit he picked up during the initiation program. With a record of the best gambles, he can morize them before he reverses ti.

While Loki went to gambling houses, Jim went to the first ring. This is the ring of roads around the central market.

The headquarters of the Death Claw Society is in this central market. It is a seven-story building, which is a pretty common sight for buildings in this part of the city.

The closer a building is to the center of the city, the taller it is. This is to maximize the valuable and limited space at the center of the city.

Jim didn’t go to any of the floors of this seven-story building. His destination was the third underground floor. This is where the leader of the society, Death’s Envoy, lives.

He didn’t stumble his way here by mistake. He ca here intentionally and with a purpose.