After sending Ethan back to his cabin, Zephyr stayed alone with his notebook.
The more he read over his notes, the more engrossed he became, until he ended up staying awake the entire night.
From Adam's words he had extracted a vast amount of insight about the nation and the people's livelihood.
He had never imagined that a young man could see through the structure of the world so clearly.
It was astounding.
From then on, every day on the warship, Zephyr would deliberately make time to consult this young man.
Each conversation brought him new gains.
His respect for Ethan's depth of knowledge grew until he practically worshipped him.
In Zephyr's eyes, this was a scholar of true wisdom.
When they were about to reach Drum Island, Zephyr chose to bring up a few extremely sensitive topics.
One was "recruiting bandits," the other was the "tribute convoy."
The former was because, recently, there was an internal proposal circulating within the World Government: the Seven Warlords of the Sea system.
Recruit seven great pirates, form a legal group of Seven Warlords, and use pirates to suppress pirates, while officially allowing them to plunder.
This was a vision of "justice" Zephyr absolutely could not accept.
"For example," he said, "just for the sake of argument… if the World Government decided to use pirates to suppress other pirates, do you think that would work?"
"Using pirates to suppress pirates would require ceding both benefits and official status to them," Ethan answered calmly.
"And those benefits would almost certainly be extracted from common civilians.
I do not think much of such a plan.
The nature of pirates is not something you can easily control.
The greater the pirate, the greater the ambition.
In the end you would only create a world where the only ones who suffer are the common people.
That is far too absurd."
Zephyr deeply agreed.
To think that just by hinting at the outline of the idea, the entire plan had already been dissected.
He even had the sudden urge to pull Ethan's persona into the Marines.
Giving him a headquarters staff rank would not be excessive at all.
The "tribute convoy" topic was even more sensitive.
The tribute convoy in Water Margin was almost identical to the Celestial Dragons' Heavenly Tribute.
Both were about squeezing wealth out of the common folks, scraping together vast riches to present to a tiny handful of people.
Many member nations of the World Government had experienced uprisings during the collection of Heavenly Tribute.
The pattern of "official oppression forcing the people to rebel" was practically the same every time.
After the uprisings, large numbers of pirates would take to the seas.
Many were forced into it by circumstance.
Zephyr had captured many such pirates himself, and it pained him deeply.
That was why he wanted to ask Adam if there was any solution.
"In essence," Ethan said, "under the current World Government, this problem cannot be solved.
Even if Heavenly Tribute were not paid, those countries on the verge of revolt would still revolt.
Do you really believe the rulers take no cut for themselves while collecting the Heavenly Tribute?
That is impossible.
At most, they would simply change the method of extraction.
It might be a little less violent on the surface, that is all.
In the end, the only mercy the meat eaters grant is that the common folk who cannot survive get to die a little later."
He did not dig deeper into the root of Heavenly Tribute.
There was no need to say more.
Instead, he steered the conversation toward whether it was actually possible to refuse paying Heavenly Tribute altogether, while also testing Zephyr's heart.
He shifted his posture slightly, choosing a stance that would allow him to respond to any sudden crisis at a moment's notice,
such as a roaring iron fist flying his way.
"It is not impossible to refuse Heavenly Tribute," Ethan said.
"Oh? And how would that work?"
Zephyr immediately pressed him.
Even though this was not strictly within the Marines' jurisdiction, justice was, by nature, "meddlesome."
"If all the nations of the world stood together," Ethan said lightly, "then Heavenly Tribute would cease to exist.
Or rather, if all the people of the world were to unite… and do something…"
The moment Zephyr heard that last line, every hair on his body stood on end.
He shot to his feet as if a spring had gone off beneath him.
Just picturing Ethan's final words filled him with a kind of terror.
If everyone stood up, what would they do?
Continue letting the noble lords drain them dry?
Continue numbing themselves and waiting for death?
Even ants struggle to survive…
If it truly came to that, every corner of the seas would be consumed by war.
"Relax," Ethan said calmly. "I was only speaking casually."
"Yes," Zephyr echoed stiffly. "Just speaking casually."
The two men silently agreed to avoid the subject.
Zephyr also abandoned his thought of inviting Adam to join the Marines.
He could not stop thinking about that single line.
…
The next day, they arrived at Drum Island.
Once the warship was docked, Zephyr personally escorted Ethan to the gangplank.
Ever since that talk about Heavenly Tribute, Zephyr had not discussed theory with him again.
Every time he saw Ethan, that line would echo in his mind:
"Let all the people of the world unite."
Like a nightmare, it had tormented Zephyr's heart for the past two days.
If Ethan were simply talking nonsense, that would be one thing.
But when Zephyr thought it through, he realized something horrifying.
If Ethan's words were actually carried out, they really could change this sea and bring about the ideal form of justice.
For someone who had spent his entire life maintaining order on the seas, that was far too frightening.
Because that was an answer.
He had always wanted to bring fairness and justice to the sea.
From a boy who played hero and defended the weak,
to a man who had climbed step by step to the position of Marine admiral.
No matter how fiercely he struck at pirates, he could not stop the tide of the Great Pirate Era.
At best, he could pour his strength into maintaining a fragile stability.
And now, someone seemed to have offered him an answer.
Break the old order, and it might finally be possible to bring true fairness and justice to the sea.
That possibility was not yet an overwhelming temptation,
but he could not allow himself to think about it too much.
Because he had already felt his own fear.
It was like a kind of magic.
Seeing Ethan and Robin disembark on Drum Island allowed Zephyr to finally breathe a sigh of relief.
He waved away the nearby Marines.
"Adam," he said quietly, "you are not just a writer, are you?
For a mere author, you know far too much about the World Government, about the people's livelihood, about certain… ideas."
"Then, Zephyr," Ethan replied, meeting his eyes head on, "do you think what I said was correct?"
The two of them stared at each other in silence.
…
"Yes," Zephyr finally answered.
Ethan smiled.
He took a book from Robin and handed it to Zephyr.
"This is a book I wrote while traveling through the Four Seas a few years ago," he said.
"It contains some of my thoughts.
I am giving it to you as a gift.
If you ever feel troubled, you can open it and take a look."
The title read: Reforming the Four Seas Starting From Small Things.
Zephyr tucked the book into his coat but had no intention of opening it.
He was afraid of being tempted by the knowledge inside.
This book was very likely filled with a beautiful, illusory future constructed by this troublemaker.
He was a former Marine admiral.
He would not fall for such a sweet trap.
"Phew…"
Watching the warship sail away, Ethan and Robin both let out a long breath at the same time.
Spending so many days aboard a Marine warship as wanted criminals had been stressful, to say the least.
When he had chosen to pass on the "fire," Ethan had not been sure whether Zephyr would arrest him.
With his current hard power, he was no match for an admiral.
The gap between them was like heaven and earth.
But it would have been a shame to waste such a perfect opportunity to make contact with Zephyr,
so he had taken the risk.
Luckily, the result had been good.
Dragging their luggage behind them, they stepped into the world of ice and snow.
"So this is the climate of the Grand Line," Ethan muttered, looking at the white landscape.
"It really is strange."
(End of Chapter)
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