Captain Nemo stood there with a stiff expression for nearly half a minute before finally forcing a bitter smile. "This subordinate thought that since it was a space city built inside an Enlightener fortress, it would at least be, at least..."
"At least a little sacred, elegant, majestic, and dignified?"
Captain Nemo nodded vigorously. "This place is really, really..."
"Really living up to the stereotype of a smuggler and pirate hideout?"
Captain Nemo continued nodding. "And it also lives up to my stereotype of marauders. No, wait, even marauders wouldn't go this far. These pirates, these gangs—spit! They're bandits, plain and simple. Spit! Worse than bandits! Spit! Worse than marauders! This subordinate has seen Unity Fortress, and it was much cleaner than this."
Most of that ancient fortress was concealed beneath the rocky body surrounding it, but the parts that occasionally came into view still maintained the dignity one would expect of the Enlighteners.
Yu Lian thought Captain Nemo was being a little unfair. The marauders had occupied Unity Fortress for less than half a year, while the pirates had occupied and managed Great Freedom City for several hundred years.
If you could call it "management."
It was like giving a slovenly, lazy slob who never did housework and had no basic housekeeping skills a sprawling 300-square-meter mansion with a garden and a swimming pool. Maybe he could keep the place reasonably tidy for the first few days after moving in, but old habits died hard. Expecting a fat slob to trade his laziness for thrift was about as likely as expecting him to find himself a real, three-dimensional wife.
Sooner or later, the mansion would become an impassable trash heap. It was only natural that a sacred Enlightener relic would turn into a slum.
All in all, expecting gangsters