The East Blue's Marine branches each had clearly defined jurisdictions, and the duties assigned to them by Marine Headquarters were limited to keeping their own waters safe.
So whenever a case occurred outside their jurisdiction, the branch Marines could righteously dump it on their friendly counterparts.
Without orders from superior officers or the lure of enormous profits, these branch Marines, lacking any sense of justice, would not readily cross jurisdictional lines to enforce the law.
However, because the local Marines lacked sufficient military strength and had to consider political implications, all Marine bases in the East Blue had been established around the territories of World Government member nations.
This ultimately led to one result:
Beyond the territories of World Government member nations, in lawless zones beyond the reach of branch Marine jurisdictions and beneath the notice of Headquarters Marines, countless pirates would always settle down and even directly claim dominion over the land.
The territory of the Krieg Pirates was precisely such a lawless place, a notorious pirate nest in the East Blue for many years.
Yet no Marines had ever come here to suppress the pirates, because the Krieg Pirates were nowhere near as weak as Garen had imagined:
A large pirate crew with over a thousand members could no longer sustain itself through robbery alone. Its greatest source of income was managing territory and ruling the people.
For a normal nation, having military personnel make up five percent of the total population already counted as reckless militarism.
Yet the Krieg Pirates possessed more than five thousand full-time professional fighters, which meant Krieg controlled population resources on the scale of one hundred thousand.
Combined with dozens of islands in that lawless zone and territorial waters stretching hundreds of miles, Admiral Krieg's power and status were no less than those