Chapter 1186 - 696: A New Plan

O’hara certainly cannot be considered a Pirate Realm.

The realms governed by pirates are all peculiar.

As a pirate, Sage is merely powerful, but not without other forces occupying the Kingdom.

Those famous pirates active on the sea, after capturing a country as their territory, implement governance strategies that cannot be described with a single phrase; they are at least inhuman.

Long ago, in the first half of the Grand Line, ’Paradise,’ there was a nation of islands. After pirates stormed in, the locals were sold as slaves except for the pirates, forming a country in this manner.

This nation adopted a city-state system, where leaders of each city were elected. In theory, this should have worked, but only pirates could vote, and the indigenous population was entirely enslaved.

The way this nation survived was by controlling nodes around the islands, relying on pirate looting and collecting ’protection money’ from passing merchant ships, while also conducting raids to capture slaves for survival.

Later, this island nation was reported by the surrounding kingdoms to the Navy, who sent forces to extinguish it, causing its disappearance.

There was also a pirate alliance previously active in the North Sea. It emerged during a civil unrest in a large Kingdom, where numerous unemployed sailors gathered, occupied an island, forming a pirate alliance similar to Blackbeard’s.

From a pirate’s perspective, the alliance championed egalitarianism and a captain’s council. The distribution of loot was such that crew members received nearly as much as the captain, providing significant cohesion at the time.

They didn’t sell slaves but engaged in smuggling.

However, as pirates, non-productive pirates always need items to smuggle, right?

Since these items weren’t produced by them, they had to be stolen from neighboring countries.

To pirates, this was fair; to neighboring countries, it was disastrous.

Eventually, the Navy dispatched warships to annihilate this pirate alliance.

The West Sea also has similar situations, even ones nurtured by the Kingdom itself.

For instance, the Flower Country under the powerful West Sea Kingdom has a fleet called the ’Eight Treasures Navy,’ which is essentially a pirate fleet affiliated with the Kingdom. Rather than robbing, they seized certain sea trade networks, using trade to earn money while suppressing foreign merchant ships within this network.

They came with a mission.

Rather than calling it a strong pirate organization, it should be said it is the will of the Flower Country.

The Navy cannot interfere in the specific internal affairs of the Kingdom, so for now, there is no choice but to offer bounties.

No matter what kind of pirates they are, wanting to govern a territory cannot achieve the normal mode of a Kingdom.

Even if one could earn the title of ’Ideal Country,’ under Big Mom’s rule of Totto Land, it fundamentally relies on Big Mom’s will and the capabilities of her numerous children to maintain.

Even so, they regularly need to loot materials from neighboring islands.

Now that Big Mom has died, Totto Land is considerably diminished, and even with Sage ruling it, it cannot match the ideal level of Totto Land under Big Mom’s governance.

At that time, Totto Land, apart from having only a ten-month lifespan per year and only eating sweets, everything else could be described as paradise.

But in Kuzan’s view, it was less real than it is now.

At least now, one can see vitality, not those illusory absurdities and castle-in-the-air instability.

What Sage has created is not a pirate nation, and it’s incomparably better than any Kingdom he’s seen.

Here, he can witness vitality, see the hope of the common people, see everyone working diligently, achieving subsistence, and still having personal pursuits.

If not for the threat from the World Government...

Then O’hara, even if Sage were gone, would still be able to operate well.

The upper and lower limits of power concentrated on a single person are absolute. Before the strong and perceptive Sage, O’hara will reach new heights, but if his successor is too weak, the nation will fall into chaos.

But even in chaos...

To ensure safety, not become slaves, and have enough to eat, that is enough!

Kuzan, having worked for many years, has seen too much absurdity. For O’hara, no matter how poorly he views it, it is far better than the people of those other realms he encountered.

In fact, before O’hara appeared, if someone told him a country’s lowest situation was merely being exploited, repeating meaningless labor, only able to get by with food and shelter, he would consider that person idealistic.

As long as there’s subsistence, what’s there to want?

Not becoming a slave, right?

Not having one’s life taken at the whim of a pirate, right?

Not starving to death, right?

Preventing these three, that’s already a good country.

"Of course, it’s not a normal pirate realm..."

Kuzan raised his glass and toasted Issho, then looked toward Sage, sitting on the throne at the top of the long main table, being served by maids, laughing heartily at the lively atmosphere below.

"But the more it’s like this, the more frightening it becomes..." Kuzan said.

"Then let’s do it ourselves."

Issho said: "I am the Security Officer, protecting the overall safety of O’hara, with a wide perspective. From a Kingdom’s standpoint, O’hara is a very beautiful place. It is not perfect, but its imperfections make it real, and its imperfections make it vibrant."