Chapter 86: Wallace Returns Home

A week later, in the waters of the Kingdom of Goa.

A gigantic warship came cleaving through the waves, its towering mast flying a banner emblazoned with a dazzling golden greatsword.

This was the luxurious flagship Galen had taken over from the Creek Pirates: the Fearless Vanguard Sabre.

The ship lived up to the name of a dreadnought. Floating upon the sea, it was like a moving island, with sails filling the sky and artillery lining its decks; there were more than three hundred sailors aboard alone.

Nami, dressed in a cool and revealing swimsuit, lay lazily beneath a large parasol set up on deck, sipping chilled juice made by the ship’s cooks and savoring a rare, idle life.

When she heard that Galen was going to sign a cooperation agreement with the Wallace family and, as chief financial officer, naturally seized the chance to latch onto him and insist on going to the Kingdom of Goa as well, she had ended up taking an impromptu, expense-account holiday.

Back at sea once more, Nami was plainly far more spirited than she had been as finance chief.

She set her juice lightly on a small table beside her and lifted her hand, fingers spread, feeling the damp sea breeze blow toward her. With obvious delight, she said, “I’m finally free!”

“I really should have stayed a navigator!”

Seated beside Nami and sharing in the pleasures of a decaying ruling class, Galen could not help saying, “Wasn’t it you who fought to become finance chief in the first place?”

“And how long has it been now? You don’t like money anymore?”

At the word money, a dark, iron-gray shadow immediately crossed Nami’s pink-white face.

“Don’t talk to me about money!”

Miss Nami, who used to have golden eyes at the mere sight of bellies of treasure, now declared with righteous indignation, “The financial staff taking over my post has almost been recruited.”

“I am the most gifted navigator in the East Blue. My dream is to chart the seas of the entire world. How could I waste my talent on worthless money?”

When she had first become finance chief, Nami would be thrilled at the sight of the enormous sums listed on financial statements.

Rushing to the company vault to roll in seas of banknotes was, moreover, one of her favorite forms of entertainment.

Yet after the sums she handled kept growing larger and larger... after the numbers grew greater and greater...

Money had completely become nothing but a number.

Nami, whose hands had cramped from counting cash, could no longer find that old, happy feeling of laboring like a squirrel to save her coins.

“So...” Galen looked toward the coastline, where its shape was already faintly visible in the distance, and asked, “Navigator, have we reached our destination?”

“Yes.”

Nami answered without even looking, having long since calculated the sailing time.

“If we didn’t deviate from the route I set, we should now be on the eastern coast of the great island of the Kingdom of Goa.”

“According to the chart, this place should be called...”

Nami thought for a moment, then used her genius mind to reconstruct the great island’s terrain map of the Kingdom of Goa.

“Windmill Village.”

“We need to go around to the southwest side of the great island. That’s where the royal city’s harbor is.”

Galen paid no mind to Nami’s sailing plan, and instead focused all his attention on Windmill Village.

Before coming to the Kingdom of Goa, he had already thought of making a detour to see Windmill Village.

“Wait...” Galen suddenly looked out toward the coastline, which was growing ever clearer.

With his present eyesight, a glance was enough to achieve the effect of a telescope.

On that shoreline, he saw a massive warship no smaller than his own Fearless Vanguard, with a huge dog-head ram at its prow.

He was quite familiar with that warship, because it was the private vessel of Vice Admiral Garp, on which he himself had once sailed.

“Garp hasn’t returned to headquarters yet?”

Galen exclaimed in surprise, and Nami, drawn by his reaction, also picked up a telescope in curiosity.

Running into Garp, that epic-level boss, again in the East Blue beginner’s village was rather unexpected for Galen.

But on second thought:

Less than two months had passed since their last parting.

Garp was already in a half-retired state at Marine Headquarters, so two months of leave was hardly strange.

As for Galen himself, when he had last seen Garp, he had been a lone trainee knight; now he was, in practical terms, the “overlord of the East Blue.”

“Let’s go to Windmill Village first, and head to the royal city later.”

Realizing Garp was there, Galen’s interest in Windmill Village only deepened.

“Okay.”

Nami nodded. She had quite favorable feelings toward Garp as well, the navy hero who had changed the plight of her hometown with a single word.

“By the way...” Galen suddenly turned to Nami and said, “Before we dock, there’s one very important thing!”

“What thing?”

Nami’s expression grew serious at the sudden gravity in Galen’s voice.

Galen carefully examined Nami’s current attire:

A bikini swimsuit so revealing it was almost scandalous, orange hair grown a little longer and draped carelessly between her delicate collarbones, large stretches of fair skin exposed from head to toe...

It was a scene overflowing with temptation.

Looking at that sunlit, lovely picture, Galen said with utter righteousness the words he had wanted to say ever since his previous life, when he read comics:

“Who goes sailing half naked?”

“Put your clothes on!”

Not long after, at the harbor of the royal city of the Kingdom of Goa.

Although they had temporarily decided to go sightseeing in Windmill Village first, Galen still remembered to send word ahead to the Michael family so they would not be left waiting in vain.

The envoy sent was none other than Wallace, the direct heir of the Michael family and Galen’s devoted follower.

He had taken a small boat detached from the Fearless Vanguard and arrived first at the royal city of the Kingdom of Goa.

Watching the royal harbor draw nearer and nearer, Wallace was filled with emotion.

Ever since he had struggled, years ago, to obtain that reporter position in front of his father, he had never returned to this country he detested so deeply.

The brazen system of segregation, the cold and heartless hierarchy, the arrogant and ignorant nobility, the brainwashed citizens...

The Kingdom of Goa was divided, from within and without, into three ring-shaped regions:

the royal city, the upper town, the central street, the outer town, and the lawless land beyond the city.

To make a rough comparison, it was first ring, second ring, third ring, the suburbs, and the garbage dump.

After becoming a journalist, Wallace had traveled throughout the East Blue. There was no country in the East Blue he had not visited.

Yet among all those places, he could find no second country like his homeland, the Kingdom of Goa, where even residents of the same city could be subjected to such layered discrimination.

“Disgusting.”

Even though the view before him was clean and bright, Wallace could not suppress a look of revulsion.

But that expression quickly turned into one of astonishment.

“Is that Uncle Borgkin and Father?”

Wallace looked in surprise at the assembled nobles waiting at the harbor.

“And... the king?”

The white-haired old man, dressed in finery and surrounded by the crowd, was the current king of the Kingdom of Goa.

As the legitimate son of an upper noble house, Wallace had naturally seen this old king in his youth.

He knew all too well that the old king possessed nearly every flaw of the nobility: arrogance, ignorance, conceit, and obstinacy.

And yet at this moment, the old king stood at the harbor with a look of utter deference, waiting to receive someone.

When he saw the banner of the dazzling golden greatsword on Wallace’s small boat, the old king even waved excitedly in this direction.

“Are they waiting for Lord Galen?”

Wallace muttered in astonishment.

“When did Lord Galen gain such standing?”

One must know that, with the crippled noble mindset of the King of Goa, he would absolutely never treat any commoner differently, even if that person were a tyrant ruling over a region or a powerhouse capable of standing against ten thousand.

Wallace disembarked in a daze, and immediately saw the old king’s exceedingly kindly smile.

“The boy from the Michael family, it has been a long time!”

The old king patted Wallace’s shoulder in a genial manner, leaving him stiff as a plank and utterly forgetting the noble etiquette he had not used in ages.

The old king was not the least bit angered by Wallace’s rudeness; instead, he spoke even more warmly.

“A young talent like you is just the right match for my daughter!”

“Huh?”

Wallace did not show the expected look of being honored beyond measure. Instead, his expression grew even more bewildered.

He instinctively turned his gaze toward his father and Uncle Borgkin, only to receive from both elders a pair of meaningful looks in return.

In a daze, Wallace finally understood why the family had tricked him into coming back.

But something even more sudden happened.

With a look of deep respect, the old king asked, “Has that... Lord Galen still not arrived?”

Such a deferential tone, such a lofty title—Wallace almost thought the arrogant king before him had been possessed by him.

At a complete loss, he could only tell the truth:

“Lord Galen went to Windmill Village to catch up with Vice Admiral Garp. He’ll arrive at the royal city afterward.”

“Catching up with Vice Admiral Garp?”

The old king frowned slightly.

Though Garp had come from the Kingdom of Goa, he never gave the kingdom’s nobility the slightest courtesy, and would not even approach the royal city by a single step.

What was even more laughable was that, in the eyes of nobles like the old king, no matter how strong Garp was, no matter how high his status, he was still a commoner beneath them.

But for reasons known only to himself, the old king still forced a turn of thought:

“I see...”

“With Lord Galen’s standing, it is only natural that he should have ties to the higher ranks of the navy.”

Wallace still had no idea what was going on, so he muddled through this dreadful social occasion in a state of complete confusion.

Only after his father had escorted the king back to the royal city did Wallace finally find the chance to rush up to Uncle Borgkin and ask, “Uncle Borgkin, what is the meaning of this?”

Borgkin smiled without speaking. After a moment, he said, “You should understand by now what the family summoned you back for, should you not?”

“A contest for the right to marry the princess?”

Wallace ground his teeth. “I have no interest in that!”

“Whether you are interested or not, the family’s plan has already begun.”

Borgkin shook his head gently.

“The things you couldn’t understand just now were part of the plan.”

“What do you mean?”

Wallace asked, perplexed.

But Borgkin continued in an inscrutable tone:

“A good merchant must know how to use information as a weapon.”

“Asymmetrical information, even false information, can play a remarkable role in trade.”

“Enough of that!” Wallace said disdainfully.

“Isn’t this just spreading rumors? What exactly did you do?”

“Nothing much.”

Borgkin smiled faintly.

“I merely took the story you told me and, through a few discreet little methods, passed it along to some drinkers and women who can’t keep their mouths shut.”

“A story? What story?”

Wallace was even more baffled.

“The story of that Lord Galen.”

Borgkin’s smile grew even more enigmatic.

“For example...”

“He has only the name Garen, while his surname remains mysteriously hidden.”

“Even treasures passed down through generations, treasures that most royal houses of great nations never get to lay eyes on, are in his hands nothing more than weapons to be thrown at will.”

“He doesn’t care at all for material things; five million bellies of treasure wouldn’t even be enough for him to buy a toilet.”