Witch Special

As for why Saitama is so short of money, the answer is that due to his heroic activities, Saitama cannot find a proper full-time job, and can only earn a meager income from odd jobs. His only extra income comes from capturing wanted criminals with bounties on their heads, but without a source of intelligence, his efficiency is extremely low and basically unreliable. If it weren't for the extremely low rent and no utilities, and his frequent trips to the nearest supermarket to buy discounted food, Saitama would even have a hard time surviving.

"Being a hero is my hobby, but it doesn't make any money." Saitama picked up a piece of kelp from the hot pot and said so while chewing it.

Hayashi Maki labeled Saitama as uninformed, making him look more like an uncle.

This was actually good news for Lin Zhenxi, as she wasn't short of money, at least not small amounts. She had made as much preparation as possible before coming to this information-poor world, and precious metals were a common currency in most other worlds, so it made no sense for Lin Zhenxi not to prepare.

Besides, even without the gold and silver bars brought from the Overworld, Lin Zhenxi wouldn't be short of money. Gold and silver were just a starting point; Lin Zhenxi's true source of income lay in her magic. Now that she had found the general direction for her business, she had even completed theoretical verification and was ready to commercialize it at any moment.

"Uncle, you can be my bodyguard from now on. Follow me and you will have a good life." Lin Zhenxi leaned forward and patted Saitama's shoulder, saying with great generosity.

Of course, it is unrealistic to want to support a superhero with a strong sense of justice, even if Lin Zhenxi is really a world-class rich woman. What's more, she is only a reserve rich woman now, and the only valuable belongings on her are those small pieces of precious metals.

However, Saitama was quite happy to have someone to eat and chat with him. After all, humans are social animals. He had to live alone before, but now he finally had a neighbor. After chatting, they seemed to get along well. Wouldn't it be fun to have hotpot together in the future?

The more important reason is that Lin Zhenxi said that she would prepare the ingredients for the hot pot next time.

It wasn't that Hayashi Maki disdained the ingredients at Saitama's hot pot restaurant; she simply found the selection too monotonous. It was all vegetables, with only pork and lamb as the meat, and the seasonings just sesame paste and soy sauce. But considering Saitama's financial situation, this was probably just hospitality. Hayashi Maki wasn't short of money, at least not for the hot pot. If he could use the hot pot ingredients to offset his protection fees, it would be a fantastic deal.

Perhaps Saitama already regarded Hayashi Maki as his neighbor, but Hayashi Maki's desire to cling to the boss remained unchanged. From the beginning, she approached Saitama with this goal in mind.

After establishing a friendship with Saitama over a hot pot meal, Hayashi Maki's lingering feelings of insecurity finally dissipated. At this point, she naively believed that Saitama would carefully protect his home and, by the way, include her in his protection. However, she hadn't considered that Saitama might become a source of danger, causing even more trouble.

With her safety concerns resolved, Lin Zhenxi began planning her own business, aiming to expand her influence. She had already completed the design of her sleep-inducing magic seal and successfully produced a prototype of a rechargeable sleeping pillow. The next step was to build a factory to manufacture the product.

For this matter, Lin Zhenxi spent two days dealing with government officials in City Z.

City Z, where Lin Zhenxi currently resides, is a small city where almost half of its area has become a wasteland. Just from the description of this sentence, you can tell how big its problems are.

To understand why such cities exist, we first need to understand the current state of human interaction with the natural environment in this world.

The problems in this world are huge. It can even be said that although human civilization is still very glorious, in fact, mankind is on the brink of extinction.

Under normal circumstances, humans, as the top existence in the food chain of this planet, should have spread all over the planet long ago if there were no natural enemies.

In the past, this was indeed the case. However, since the emergence of monsters, humanity has faced its natural enemies. The appearance of monsters is completely random and impossible to prevent. However, the heroes capable of destroying monsters are limited and cannot be evenly distributed to every village and town. Even if a city is only guarded by one or two low-level heroes, if a powerful monster appears and defeats the heroes, the city will fall, and everyone in the city will become the monsters' toys and food. This is something that humans cannot accept, whether for emotional or practical reasons.

Therefore, to protect themselves, humans could only migrate to large cities with large gatherings of heroes, gradually forming dozens of super-large cities around the world. However, areas outside of these super-large cities with populations of tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions, were completely abandoned by humans.

Can you imagine that billions of people and billions of mouths to feed around the world have to be fed by only a small amount of food produced in such a small city?

Even though this world has developed a wealth of cutting-edge farming technologies to feed a larger population, such as dome farms, vertical farms, and underground farms, the output from the limited area still seems meager compared to the massive demand. For people in this world, it's quite difficult to have a good meal.

In the suburbs of these megacities, without human intervention, those places seem to have been reset by nature. The traces of human civilization quickly disappear and become vibrant primitive jungles.

It felt like humans were the virus of this world, and the monsters were the scavengers who eliminated the virus from the planet. By clearing out humans, the planet could return to its most pristine and healthy state.

Humanity certainly wouldn't sit idly by. After all, trying to support such a large population with such a small amount of land would severely degrade everyone's quality of life. The pursuit of a better life is a human instinct, and whether ancient or modern, humanity has always been guided by this desire. Therefore, after consolidating the defenses of their megacities, humanity has resumed its efforts to expand its sphere of activity. City Z, where Lin Zhenxi currently resides, is humanity's latest attempt on this continent.

Unfortunately, while expansion was easy, defense was even more difficult. Humanity struggled to establish a foothold here, but constant attacks from monsters eroded the city's appeal and its potential for continued development. Ultimately, it became little more than a base for food production, devoid of any distinctive industries. The people here might survive, but only barely.

Such a city is really not important to human beings today.

Many people in this city are trapped in a city without a future because they cannot afford the high cost of intercity flights.

It could be said that this was a city without hope, and those who remained here could only live from day to day. Before Lin Zhenxi's arrival, the city had been operating at a very low efficiency, maintaining a relative balance between no outflow and no inflow, struggling to maintain itself.

So, when the government officials learned that Lin Zhenxi was actually planning to open a factory here, they were extremely surprised. Ever since the decline of City Z, how long had it been since anyone came here to invest and start a business?

Lin Zhenxi was treated exceptionally well. Even the deputy mayor in charge of the economy showed up, wanting to know what Lin Zhenxi planned to do in the city. Because he had to wait a long time for the leaders, the documents that should have taken half a day took two days to complete. This was even without Lin Zhenxi's plan to take out a bank loan, which would have taken even longer.

After all, banks don't need dreamers. Compared to officials who still have feelings for their city, banks will only coldly examine whether Lin Zhenxi's project has a future. A city that is slowly dying will obviously cast an indelible shadow on the development prospects of this startup.

The samples brought by Lin Zhenxi amazed the officials who wanted to know what kind of factory Lin Zhenxi planned to open. Because of the heavy burden, poor sleep quality troubles almost everyone in this world, but Lin Zhenxi's sleep-aid pillow can make people fall asleep almost instantly. Every night when people tossed and turned in bed with a lot of thoughts seemed to have become a thing of the past and would no longer bring them distress.

After trying the samples brought by Lin Zhenxi, the officials gave Lin Zhenxi the green light and approved her business license.

After obtaining her business license, Lin Zhenxi began searching for a suitable location for her factory. Her first choice, of course, was the vast abandoned urban area. She didn't want to be too far from Saitama, so she thought it would be best to locate the factory near her home, so she could easily handle any unexpected situations. For this reason, she even rejected the offer from City Z officials to help her choose a site.

When the older official heard that Lin Zhenxi was planning to open a factory in the abandoned urban area, the expression on his face was very complicated, with sadness, emotion, and memories, but in the end he fell silent.

He moved his lips, but looking at Lin Zhenxi's energetic face, he didn't say anything in the end.

For the pioneers of City Z, the abandoned city area is an eternal pain in their hearts.