The Royal City of the Deep Forest Kingdom, somewhat like the constructions of the Indian Tribe in Sage's memory, especially the Royal Palace, had massive stone steps leading up to squarely carved buildings.
It gives one the feeling that there might be lots of treasures here.
After dealing with the hundreds of gathered soldiers, Sage marched straight into the interior of the Royal Palace, with about ten pirates spreading out to search for the wealth stored in the palace.
At this moment, within the stone-cast Royal Hall, atop the high steps, Sage sat in front of the stone throne, one foot on the armrest, lounging sideways and holding his head with his hand, watching Gin inspect the boxes one by one.
"It's male."
Gin turned over a box and said, then continued with the next box.
"It's male."
He turned over another box and moved on to the next one again.
"Can you really tell the gender of boxes?"
Renedia showed a curious expression, ran over, and opened a wooden box, finding it empty inside.
"It's empty!!" She popped a vein on her forehead.
This scene caused Sage on the throne to twitch at the corner of his eyes.
The treasure chests were found, but they were all empty.
They were all empty!
Not a single Belly was found. The subordinates were busy for half a day, only finding some supplies whose total value was not even as much as the king's corpse. At least the corpse was adorned with quite a few gold ornaments.
"Captain, we found a guy claiming to be the butler!"
A pirate dragged in a middle-aged man draped in a cloak and wearing exquisite feathers, throwing him to the ground in front of the hall.
"No, please don't kill me!"
The man knelt on the ground, his butt raised, trembling with his hands over his head, "I'll tell you everything, please spare my life!"
"Butler Gadri, long time no see." Marika smiled softly.
Hearing the voice, the butler looked up and exclaimed, "Ma-Marika! Is it your revenge?"
"You could say that. In short, I am about to join this Pirate crew with a bounty of seventy million, and this Captain Sage is troubled because he can't find the treasure..."
Marika maintained her smile: "So can you please tell us where the treasure is?"
Sage gave Marika an approving glance.
After killing that king, it seems this woman has made up her mind to board the ship.
"T-Treasure..."
The butler stammered: "There's no treasure; all the collected money was handed over to the World Government by the king."
"What?!"
Sage was stunned: "So much money handed over? None left at all?"
Sage didn't know how much the Celestial Gold was worth, but he did know, with how the king was always collecting money, it's unlikely he couldn't gather the funds for the Celestial Gold.
"N-No, Captain. The king thought his kingdom was too poor and lacked resources, so he wanted to change to another country, thus handed over a lot to the World Government, hoping it would swap him to a new, wealthy country to be king."
The World Government is indeed a behemoth, but this behemoth doesn't encompass the entire world, just about half of the countries...
There are still more than half of the Non-Adhering Countries worldwide. Even in the East Sea, half the countries don't belong to the World Government.
It's not that people don't want the World Government's protection, such cases are rare, belonging to countries with strong national strength, disdaining to join the World Government and paying a large sum of Celestial Gold.
The majority of countries simply cannot afford that much money...
These countries are unprotected and lack the 'human rights' within the World Government's domain, and can thus be conquered at will.
But within the World Government's domain, there aren't many powerful presences, most are equally matched or even not as strong as those Non-Adhering Countries. The sea is so vast that the World Government doesn't necessarily know all the Non-Adhering Countries' locations.
Even if a country is truly found, relying on a single kingdom's power, even an expedition would be challenging.
After all, homeland defense is surely more advantageous than an attack from afar.
This king of the Deep Forest Kingdom was thinking that since he couldn't do it, he might as well hand it over to the World Government, paying extra money each time in hopes that the World Government could swap him into a wealthy Non-Adhering Country, thereby becoming that country's king.
The Deep Forest Kingdom is indeed poor, with fruit being the only abundant resource. The king squeezed every bit and sold people off to the Bridge Kingdom, which is why there was leftover money. This portion of money was also given to the World Government, so naturally, no surplus wealth was left.
Sage clicked his tongue: "Handed over to who, do you know where they are?"
"N-No, just know it's handed over to government officials along with the Celestial Gold escort every year." The butler replied.
Well, that's gone.
Government officials...
What good could such a thing be? It's just two kinds, one who embezzles themselves, the other turning it over truthfully and then being embezzled by higher-ups. But whichever it is, it has nothing to do with Sage anymore.
"What about the nobles in your country?" Sage asked persistently, "They've got to be rich."
A country can't possibly have only a king; surely there are nobles too.
"The nobles are in the villages, their money was also collected by the king, but there should still be some left. I'll lead the way!" the steward shouted.
"Forget it... too much trouble." Sage pondered for a moment and dismissed the idea.
In a continent, there are many villages and towns, but the nobles must be scattered around, taking time to raid and not necessarily having that much money.
Besides, he's a pirate, not a bandit. Their ship is still docked on the shoal, lingering too long may lead to the Navy discovering them.
Bam!
Sage stood up and kicked the stone throne into pieces, glaring down at the steward kneeling on the ground, he expressed his displeasure: "So I traveled half a day to get here, and the most valuable thing is the gold on the king's corpse?"
"We, we can start taxing the commoners now! No, I'll go tax them right away!" the steward responded immediately.
"Forget it, I'm not interested in the poor, and..."
Sage walked down the steps, glanced toward the door, and said, "Whether you can still collect taxes, that's hard to say... let's pull out!"
He stood up and walked straight out of the Royal Palace gate, in the town below the palace, commoners holding pitchforks and wooden sticks spontaneously gathered together, seeing Sage appear, they automatically split into two rows to make way.
"Lady Marika..."
The commoners spotted Marika behind Sage and were about to speak, but Marika blinked and put her index finger to her lips, making a silence gesture.
The street leading to the door froze in that moment.
Only after Sage walked out of the Royal City gate did he turn back to ask, "No greeting?"
"Ah, soon to be a pirate like me, better not to greet, otherwise if people in the city are considered in collusion with pirates, it would be troublesome."
Marika smiled and said, "You did what you said you would and I will agree to your request, to become your crew member."
In her eyes, Sage fulfilled his words, killed the king, broke the national barrier, and allowed the people to return.
Without the king, there's no heavy taxation, hence everyone can have enough to eat.
As for other matters...
"Whoa!!"
The Royal City behind them suddenly erupted with a thunderous cheer.
"Why so loud?"
Renedia looked back and asked, "So happy because the king died? Well... seems true, I was pretty thrilled when Murdoch died myself."
"Not the same, yours was revenge, they're celebrating liberation from heavy taxes, no need to go to Bridge Kingdom anymore."
Lily commented and then paused before adding, "Perhaps..."
Whether they can resist completely and change the status quo, or be suppressed back to how things were, no one could say for sure.
"What do you think, Sage?" she asked.
"None of my damn business."
Sage sneered, "I'm just here to loot as a pirate. Their situation doesn't concern me, anyhow the chance has been given, if they're capable they'll make their lives better. But..."
He sighed, "What a waste."
"Waste?" Lily asked, puzzled.
Sage firmly replied, "Absolutely, if I had such a large territory with so many people, I'd definitely iterate new strategies around specialty products, align on granularity, promote information seamlessly, leveraging distribution power to unlock vertical domains, ultimately achieve value transformation, and make big money!"
Lily: "..."
She didn't quite understand, but had a feeling Sage's ongoing entrepreneurial failures might not just be bad luck...
She switched topics, "Not considering recruiting them? They don't seem opposed to pirates, especially with Lady Marika..."
"Even with Marika, if she spends two years playing with sand, these people aren't suitable to be pirates."
Sage shook his head, "Besides, I've walked out, and not a single one followed, meaning they don't want to be pirates, let's look elsewhere."
"As for crew members..."
Marika thought it over and raised her hand, "Captain, I have a suggestion, we can try Bridge Kingdom."
"Oh?"
Sage's eyes lit up, a smile curled at his lips, "That's right, Bridge Kingdom... I've got a plan!"
"What plan?" Lily asked instinctively.
"To Bridge Kingdom!"
Sage waved grandly, "I'm sure there are the subordinates I want there!"