The royal city of the Deep Forest Kingdom is a bit like the buildings built by the Indian tribes in Sag's memory, especially the royal palace, which has square buildings carved on the huge stone steps.
It gives people a feeling that there are many treasures here.
After dealing with the hundreds of soldiers who had gathered, Sag marched straight into the palace. A dozen pirates dispersed and searched for the money stored in the palace.
At this time, in the royal palace made entirely of stone, on the high steps, Sag sat in front of the stone throne, with one foot on the handrail, his body lying sideways, his head supported by his hands, watching Ajin checking the boxes one by one.
"Male."
Ah Jin turned over a box, said something, and continued to turn over the next box.
"Male."
He turned over another box and looked at the next one again.
"Can you tell the gender of a box?"
Renetia on the side showed curiosity and ran over to push open a wooden box. It was empty with nothing inside.
"It's empty!!" A vein popped out on her forehead.
This scene made Sager's eyes twitch on the throne.
The treasure chest was found, but there was nothing inside.
All of them were empty!
Not even a piece of Bailey was found. After working for a long time, the men only found some supplies, which were not as valuable as the king's body. At least the body was still wearing a lot of gold ornaments.
"Captain, find a guy who claims to be a butler!"
A pirate brought a middle-aged man wearing a cloak and exquisite feathers to the front of the hall and threw him to the ground.
"No, don't kill me!"
The man knelt on the ground, his butt sticking up, holding his head with both hands and trembling, "I will tell you everything, please spare my life!"
"Butler Gadari, long time no see." Marika smiled softly.
Hearing the sound, the housekeeper looked up and said in surprise: "Ma, Marika! Is this your revenge?"
"You can understand it this way. Anyway, I am about to join the pirate group formed by this 70 million bounty, and this Captain Sager is distressed because he can't find the treasure."
Marika kept smiling: "So can you please tell me where the treasure is?"
Sager gave Mallika an approving look.
After killing the king, the woman seemed determined to get on board the ship.
"Wealth, treasure."
The butler stammered, "There is no treasure. All the money collected was handed over to the World Government by the King."
"What?!"
Sager was stunned: "Pay so much money? Nothing left?"
Sager didn't know how much the heavenly gold was worth, but he knew that with the king's style of asking for money everywhere, it was impossible for him not to be able to raise the money for the heavenly gold.
"No, it's not, Captain. The King thinks the Kingdom is too poor and has no resources, so he wants to change countries. That's why he pays more money to the World Government, hoping to become the king of a new wealthy country."
The World Government is certainly a behemoth, but this behemoth does not encompass the entire world, but only nearly half of the countries.
There are still more than half of the countries in the world that have not yet joined. Even in the East China Sea, half of the countries do not belong to the World Government.
It's not that they don't want to be protected by the World Government. There are only very few cases like this, where a country is so powerful that it is unwilling to join the World Government and pay a large sum of money.
The vast majority of countries, simply because they cannot afford to pay so much money, are not protected and do not have "human rights" within the scope of the world government, so they can of course be conquered at will.
However, there are not so many powerful countries within the scope of the World Government. They are all the same size. Some are even worse than those non-member countries. The ocean is so vast that even the World Government may not know the locations of all non-member countries.
Even if we really find a country, it would be difficult to launch an expedition with the strength of a single kingdom.
After all, local defense is definitely more advantageous than attacks from afar.
The king of the Deep Forest Kingdom thought that since he was incapable, he might as well hand it over to the World Government and pay more money each time, hoping that the World Government would replace him with a wealthy non-member country so that he could become the king of that country.
The Deep Forest Kingdom is indeed very poor. The only productive resource is fruit. The king squeezes the people to death, even kidnapping and selling them to the Bridge Kingdom, and only then does he have some money left. This money is also handed over to the World Government, so there is definitely no surplus money left.
Sager clicked his tongue and said, "Who did you give it to? Do you know where the person is?"
"No, I don't know. I only know that it is handed over to government officials every year along with the escort of heavenly gold." The butler replied.
Well, that's gone.
What's so good about government officials? There are only two kinds of things. One is that they are corrupt themselves, and the other is that they hand over the money truthfully, and then the higher-ups take it away. But no matter which one it is, it has nothing to do with Sager.
"What about the nobles in your country?" Sager asked without giving up: "There must be rich ones."
How can a country have only a king? Of course there will be nobles too.
"The nobles are in the village. The king has also demanded their money back, but there should be some left. I will lead the way!" the butler shouted.
"Forget it. It takes too much time." Sager thought about it and gave up the idea.
There are many villages and towns on a continent, but the nobles are definitely scattered. Not only is it time-consuming to rob them, but they may not have that much money.
Besides, he was a pirate, not a bandit. Their ship was still anchored at the shoal, and if it stayed there for too long, it would be easily discovered by the navy.
Bang!
Sager stood up and kicked the stone throne to pieces. He looked down at the butler who was kneeling on the ground and said unhappily, "So I walked for a long time to get here, but the most valuable thing is the gold on the king's body?"
"I, we can collect taxes from civilians now! No, I will collect taxes right away!" said the butler immediately.
"Forget it, I have no interest in poor people, and..."
Sager walked down the steps, looked towards the gate, and said, "It's hard to say whether you can collect taxes. Withdraw!"
He stood up and walked straight out of the palace gate. In the town below the palace, the civilians gathered together spontaneously, holding dung forks and wooden sticks. When they saw Sager appear, they automatically divided into two rows and made way.
"Marika-sama"
The civilians saw Marika behind Sager and were about to speak, but Marika blinked and put her index finger to her lips, making a hushing gesture.
The street leading to the door came to a halt at this moment.
It wasn't until Sager walked out of the gate of the royal city that he turned around and asked, "Don't you want to say hello?"
"Ah, I'm about to become a pirate, so I'd better not say hello. Otherwise, if the people in the city think that I'm colluding with pirates, it will be very troublesome."
Marika smiled and said, "If you do what you said, then I will agree to your request and become your crew member."
In her eyes, Sager had fulfilled his words, killed the king, broke through the country's borders, and allowed the people to return.
Without a king, there would be no heavy taxes, and everyone would be able to have enough to eat.
As for the other things
"Oh!!"
Suddenly, thunderous cheers rang out from the royal city behind.
"Why are you yelling so loudly?"
Renetia glanced back and asked, "Are you so happy that the king is dead? Yes, it seems so. I was also very happy when Murdoch died."
"That's different. You're seeking revenge, but they're celebrating being freed from the heavy taxes. No one will have to go to the Bridge Kingdom anymore."
Lily said, paused, and added: "Probably."
Whether they can resist and change the status quo, or will be suppressed as before, no one can tell.
"What do you think, Sager?" she asked.
"None of my business."
Sager sneered: "I am just a pirate who came to rob. I don't care what happens to them. Anyway, the opportunity has been given. If you have the ability, you can make your life better. However."
He sighed, "What a waste."
"Waste?" Lily was puzzled.
Sager said confidently: "Of course, if I had such a large territory and so many people, I would definitely iterate new strategies around featured products, align granularity, promote information barrier-free, rely on distribution capabilities to leverage vertical fields, and ultimately achieve value conversion, and then I can make a lot of money!"
Lily: "…"
Although she didn't quite understand what he said, she had a hunch that Sager's failure in starting a business might not just be due to bad luck.
She changed the subject and said, "Why don't you try to recruit them? They don't seem to be opposed to pirates, and there's Miss Marika."
"Having Marika, and then forcibly dragging her to play with sand for two years, these people are not fit to be pirates."
Sager shook his head and said, "Besides, I've already walked out, and no one followed me. That means they don't want to be pirates anymore. Look for somewhere else."
"If it's a crew member"
Marika thought about it, raised her hand and said, "Captain, I have a suggestion. We can try going to the Bridge Kingdom."
"oh?"
Sager's eyes lit up and he smiled: "Yes, I have a plan for the Bridge Kingdom!"
"What?" Lily asked subconsciously.
"To the Bridge Kingdom!"
Sager waved his hand and said, "There must be the men I want there!"
(End of this chapter)