Vivi was a princess born and raised in the highest echelons of nobility. From childhood, she'd lived surrounded by courtiers, advisors, and the endless protocols of royal life.
Now, sitting in the gondola listening to Marcus discuss what amounted to revolution, her mind was spinning like she was on the most intense roller coaster. Every word he spoke challenged everything she'd been taught.
A country without its people, could it even be called a country anymore?
But that would mean... everything she'd been raised to believe was wrong?
She stared at Dalton, seeing her own struggles reflected in his confusion.
"Can I... can I really do something like that?" she whispered, though she wasn't even sure if she was asking about Dalton's situation or her own.
Marcus sighed, noting the doubt in her voice. "If you want to watch the people of Drum Kingdom continue living in misery, then just pretend I never said anything."
"I... no, I mean..." Vivi struggled to find the words. "What should we actually do?"
She was speaking, but her question was directed at Dalton. Both of them were grappling with the same question.
Marcus leaned back in his seat. "First, you announce that Drum Kingdom is completely dissolved. Hand over the guilty parties, declare their crimes publicly, and at the same time announce the founding of a new nation. Proclaim its future plans under your leadership, like what goals you want to achieve in ten years, twenty years. Basically, lay out a roadmap for development."
"For you specifically, the best path forward is to continue as a medically-focused nation. Your older generation isn't all dead yet, you can pass down their knowledge, establish schools, teach children proper skills. Sure, you'll lose your World Government membership status temporarily, but once your medical standards return to their former heights, you'll naturally regain recognition."
"As for the pirate problem, your guard forces should still have decent strength left. Of course, the ideal solution would be building proper ports and defenses. But honestly, your country has been around for a long time, handle pirates the same way you always have before Wapol screwed everything up. I can lend a small hand if needed."
He explained his ideas.
Hearing this breakdown, some of the confusion about the future began to clear from Dalton's mind. The path forward was starting to make sense.
"You're really a pirate?" Dalton couldn't help but ask. "It's hard to imagine someone like you choosing that life."
As someone raised from childhood to be loyal to country and king, both Dalton and Vivi found Marcus' words more convincing than anything they'd heard from actual political advisors.
Marcus saw their reactions and sighed internally. One of the biggest problems in the One Piece world was the monopolization of knowledge and the isolation of individual islands.
For common people, education barely existed. If you could recognize your own name and read a newspaper, that was considered sufficient. Anything beyond basic literacy was reserved for survival skills.
Even nobles probably received only limited education compared to what he was used to.
This was essentially a policy of keeping people ignorant, monopolizing knowledge at the very top of society.
Alvida had been watching this conversation with growing interest. She crossed her legs and fixed Marcus with a sharp look.
"You keep saying you're not nobility, but you're definitely lying about something. You must be the heir to some major kingdom, right?"
Marcus felt cornered by her and could only sigh helplessly. "Well, you're not wrong. I guess I am an heir to a distant country."
"A distant country? What kind of place is that?"
"A place where people aren't born into their stations. Where a fisherman's son can become a doctor, and a noble's daughter can choose to be a carpenter if that's what she wants." Marcus gave a simplified explanation, avoiding anything too specific. "Where the land belongs to the people who work it, not to whoever happened to inherit a crown."
"A country of equality for all..." Vivi listened in a daze. After all, as a member of the nobility, her education had taught her that such ideas were essentially a betrayal of her entire social class.
"But how would that even work?" Dalton asked. "If there's no king, no nobles, who makes the decisions? Who owns the land and resources?"
"The people who actually use them," Marcus explained. "If you're a lumberjack working a forest, that forest should belong to you and your fellow workers, not some distant lord who's never held an axe. If farmers tend the fields, the harvest should be theirs to decide what to do with."
Understanding began to dawn in Dalton's eyes. "So the tools, the land, the workshops... they'd belong to the people who work with them..."
His heart began burning with something he'd never felt before.
Seeing this transformation, Marcus patted him on the shoulder. "So the first thing you need to do is declare the fall of Drum Kingdom. You need to become the next leader, though you can call yourself whatever you want. Leader, president, whatever sounds right for a new era."
Dalton nodded immediately.
Only Vivi remained lost in confusion. Watching this rising new star about to ascend, she felt speechless, like if she said anything she'd immediately be branded a traitor to progress.
The gondola reached its destination and everyone disembarked.
"Dalton, you should gather the villagers now and deliver the news," Marcus said as they stepped onto solid ground.
"Alvida, which direction is our ship?"
Alvida stepped forward to lead the way.
Marcus' first stop was naturally the Merry. He spent a lot of time tinkering in the ship's storage room, exchanging various materials and resources for some EMC. When he finally came out, his inventory was stuffed with different types of fruit and supplies.
"Let's go. Dalton should be ready by now."
Vivi followed in silence the entire time. She looked like she wanted to say something but kept hesitating. He noticed her internal struggle but didn't press the issue, he simply waited for the right moment to present itself.
Alvida witnessed everything, of course. She might not understand politics or statecraft particularly well, but she knew Vivi was a princess, and Marcus had deliberately brought her along to witness all this.
The meaning wasn't lost on her, and her curiosity only grew deeper. Still, she kept quiet, waiting to see what would unfold next.
Snowflakes continued to fall, but something was changing in the gray sky above Drum Kingdom. As if the land itself could sense the rise of a new star, the heavy clouds began to thin. Shafts of sunlight broke through the sky for the first time in what felt like years.
When Marcus and his companions reached the main town, people from several nearby villages had already gathered. Word had spread quickly through the community networks that had survived Wapol's oppression.
A temporary platform had been constructed in the town square, and Dalton now stood upon it. When he saw Marcus and the others arrive, his eyes were completely different from before, now they burned with fire.
Marcus smiled and brought the unconscious Wapol onto the stage, dumping him where everyone could see.
The moment people noticed their former king, murmurs broke out across the crowd, some fearful, some enraged, but most simply numb. Under years of brutal tyranny, their spirits had been broken so many times that apathy was their default response.
If Dalton had announced that Wapol was resuming his rule, most of them probably would have accepted it helplessly and suffered in silence.
But this time, everything was different.
Standing on the wooden platform, Wapol slowly regained consciousness to meet the eyes of his former subjects. He saw their anger, their fear, and their crushing numbness.
"The Drum Kingdom as we knew it is finished!" Dalton's voice rang out across the square. "Former King Wapol ruled us with cruelty and brought nothing but suffering to our people. But now it's all over! Here and now, I formally declare, Drum Kingdom is dissolved! As for the crimes of the past, Wapol must pay for every single one!"
He then laid out Wapol's misdeeds in detail.
The destruction of their medical infrastructure.
The exile of qualified doctors.
The extortion of families facing medical emergencies.
The starvation policies designed to make people more compliant.
The more he spoke, the more grief filled the crowd. Some began to weep openly as they remembered loved ones who'd died from treatable conditions. The angriest shouted for Wapol to be executed on the spot.
"My friends! I feel your anger burning in my own heart!" Dalton continued. "But please allow me to say this, while everything was ultimately Wapol's fault, we all played parts in this system. The doctors he drove away, the doctors who remained, all of us were forced into becoming something we never wanted to be. I was part of that system too. I enforced his orders. I failed you."
"If it's possible, I want to give everything I have to build a better future! The dream of our medical kingdom should not die with our generation. We can rebuild what was lost. We can become something better than we ever were."
His words were sincere, but fear weighed heavy in his heart. He truly feared that the people would not, could not, forgive him.
The crowd fell silent.
Then, a single laugh broke broke the silence.
"What are you talking about? If it wasn't for you, many of us would already be dead!" The voice belonged to an elderly woman near the front of the crowd. "And besides, do you really think any of us believed the doctors or the royal guard served willingly?"
"That's right!" another voice called out.
"Exactly! The one who's guilty isn't you, it's Wapol!"
"We've seen your efforts with our own eyes! You've risked your life for us more times than we can count!"
"My son was in the royal guard. He came home and wept about how unbearable it all was. None of you had real choices."
"So, you don't need to apologize to us. The one who should be apologizing is him!" Someone pointed a finger at the still-groggy Wapol.
"Yes! He should apologize! Not you!"
One by one, voices of forgiveness and support rose from the crowd. Tears streamed freely down Dalton's face.
And in that very moment, as if responding to the will of the people, sunlight fully pierced the clouds and spilled down upon the land, bathing everything in golden light.