"What?! Are you insane? You want to go against the World Government?" Alvida looked at Marcus in disbelief, her eyes full of shock and confusion.
As a pirate, she was occasionally hunted by Marines, and every time it happened she was scared out of her mind, that alone was already stressful enough for her.
But if they went up against the World Government itself? She couldn't even imagine how dark and hopeless her world would become. By then, she wouldn't even be able to spend their money in peace without constantly looking over her shoulder.
Marcus forced a sheepish smile. "I said it was just an idea, didn't I?"
But Alvida shook her head firmly. "Don't even think about ideas like that. We're talking about the World Government here, people like us can't afford to mess with them."
Marcus hadn't expected her to react so strongly to his suggestion.
Seeing his expression, Alvida sighed helplessly.
"No matter what you're thinking, don't even consider becoming a Revolutionary. Do you know about the 'Devil Child'?"
"I know about her. That's Nico Robin, right?" Marcus was a bit surprised that Alvida brought this up, but he answered anyway.
"I don't know exactly how she managed to piss off the World Government, but she's a perfect example of what happens, being hunted by both the World Government and the Marines."
"She's that famous? Even people in the East Blue have heard of her?"
"This isn't about being famous or not," Alvida said with a bitter laugh. "There's even a rumor going around that if you hand over her alive to the World Government, you can get pardoned for being a pirate."
"Seriously? That's actually a thing?"
Marcus kept working with his hands as he spoke, his eyes showing doubt. After all, in the original story, he didn't recall seeing anything exactly like this, though there had been plenty of short scenes showing Robin being betrayed, many of them involving bounties or Marines showing up at her door.
"Don't know if it's true, but whether it is or not, if someone ran into the Devil Child, they'd probably contact the World Government right away to hand her over, either for the money or to get rid of their pirate status. For many small-time pirates, that's an opportunity you can't pass up."
Marcus understood immediately, this was a form of psychological warfare. Whether the rumor was true or false, it would push the vast majority of pirates to stand against Robin, making it impossible for her to trust other pirates, let alone anyone from any country.
Both the criminal underworld and the law-abiding side were essentially closed to her, Robin had almost nowhere to turn for help.
It was a brilliant and cruel strategy.
"By the way, why did you want to become a pirate in the first place?" Marcus asked curiously.
Alvida stretched lazily, her gaze drifting into the distance.
"That's a long story..."
She began telling him about her past.
In short, her parents had been ordinary farmers, nothing special, just trying to make an honest living from the land. But because their country had to pay the Heavenly Tribute to the World Government, every household was required to contribute money and labor to meet the quota.
Her family, with little savings to begin with, tightened their belts and scraped by on less and less food. Yet in the end, despite all their sacrifices, her parents simply starved to death at home, leaving her an orphan at a young age.
From then on, she survived by stealing and petty crime. Because she'd experienced true hunger, she developed an obsession with eating and never being hungry again.
To fill her stomach, and because of her natural constitution, she quickly became overweight. At the same time, her physical strength grew along with her size; as her body mass increased, so did her raw power.
But eventually, petty theft could no longer sustain her growing needs.
She became a local thug, starting with collecting protection money from shopkeepers and merchants. A few years later, she was wanted by the authorities for her crimes. In the end, she had no choice but to go to sea.
She became a pirate.
It all happened naturally, there was no dramatic moment of "choosing" to be evil. She was forced into it by life's circumstances, gradually pushed toward criminality until she ultimately became a pirate.
When Marcus heard this story, he immediately spotted the real problem at the heart of it all.
The root cause of the collapse lay in the Heavenly Tribute system itself.
In many countries, ordinary people were probably cutting back on food and clothing just to pay the Heavenly Tribute, gradually falling into hunger and desperation. When too many people simply couldn't survive under these conditions, the only choice left was to turn to crime.
As the population shrank due to death and people fleeing, the Heavenly Tribute itself didn't decrease proportionally, so the pressure on the remaining people only grew heavier, creating a vicious cycle.
In the end, those who fought back became pirates, those who didn't resist starved to death, the population withered away, and the country would eventually lose its status as a member nation, only to be destroyed by the very pirates they'd helped create.
And when other countries witnessed this pattern, they naturally became even more determined to remain member states, no matter the cost.
Thus, the pirates of the seas could never truly be eradicated. And with pirates constantly harassing the seas, more countries would desperately want to become member states to avoid total destruction.
They said the Great Pirate Era was started by Gol D. Roger's final words, but more than that, it was because accumulated resentment and desperation had reached a tipping point, and the explosion was inevitable.
"Damn, why am I thinking of Waterworld right now," Marcus muttered.
"Huh?"
"Nothing. Just saying your sunscreen's all applied." Marcus clapped his hands clean, walked over to the ship's railing, and looked out at the distant sea with a thoughtful expression.
Alvida turned her face toward him. In the sunlight, Marcus' eyes were fixed on the horizon, as if he were envisioning possible futures, but she could sense the weight in his mood.
After all, what she'd just told him was hardly a cheerful or uplifting story.
"Don't worry about it," she said, trying to sound reassuring. "We've got plenty of gold now. What I just described won't happen to us."
She believed that her family's tragedy had been caused purely by poverty and lack of resources.
Marcus didn't say anything more in response. After all, in this world there was no such thing as universal education or widespread literacy, and Alvida was actually among the lucky ones, she could at least read and write. Many people living under the World Government couldn't even recognize their own names, much less reflect deeply on the reasons why they'd ended up desperate enough to become pirates.
Most people only knew the immediate cause and effect: they had no money, so they stole, and eventually they became pirates.
Step by step, it all looked like personal choice and individual moral failings, but in reality, in this era, ordinary people never truly had meaningful choices.
One Piece told a story of free adventure and pursuing your dreams, but it was precisely because of such a background that freedom was so precious.
It was like being in complete darkness, even the faintest glow of a firefly would shine brilliantly.
Taking a slow, deep breath, he sorted through his thoughts and gradually realized the path he needed to take.
Become a Revolutionary?
He dismissed that idea.
After all, joining the Revolutionary Army was a choice you made when you had no other options left.
Choosing to join them now would be like sealing off all other possible paths for himself, walking one road to the bitter end with no way back. Still, he had to admit, his abilities would be very well-suited for Revolutionary Army operations, and when the time was right, he wouldn't mind offering them some assistance.
Then what about becoming a Marine?
That was certainly possible, his record was completely clean, so joining up would be relatively easy. But he wouldn't choose that path either.
Not because the Marines' ideals of justice were wrong, but because their actual actions often contradicted those ideals.
"Alvida, I'm planning to become a pirate."
"Why?"
With his incredible abilities, he could join any nation and become nobility, or even found his own country and rule as king. At the very least, he could live comfortably as a wealthy civilian. She wouldn't even have been surprised if he'd said he wanted to join the Marines.
After spending these past few days together, she had a clear understanding of Marcus' character, he was fundamentally a good person, naive about the ways of the world but genuinely kind-hearted.
She could sense that he didn't actually want to be a pirate, which made his decision even more confusing.
"Why?" Marcus repeated her question. "What do you think of this world?"