Chapter 142: Taking Orange Town Away (33)
Chapter 141: Taking Orange Town Away
"Then what gave them the right to boss you around and casually take away the fruits of your hard work over the past year?"
Leo suddenly raised his voice and asked.
"If all this came from their protection, then they failed at their duty long ago. Arlong has been here for five whole years, and they never even came to ask whether you were safe. Now they shamelessly want to levy new taxes on you. They have already lost that right!"
Everyone nodded, and quite a few agreed with Leo.
In Cocoyasi Village, where there was neither nationalism nor any sense of national identity, most people thought very simply: their relationship with the Marines was transactional. They paid money, and the Marines protected them.
But that trust was not easy to build, while destroying it was very simple. Colonel Nezumi's collusion with Arlong had brought immense suffering to the people of this sea. At a time like this, if the Marines wanted to regain the trust of Cocoyasi Village's people, they would likely need either tax exemption or a great deal of time to rebuild it.
And Leo had taken this opportunity to wedge himself between the Marines and Cocoyasi Village's villagers, giving them another choice.
Smoker and Hina saw through Leo's intentions, but they were so furious their teeth itched. The rotten elements of the Marines clearly represented the entire Navy, just as local government policies were always reported by foreign news outlets as representing the whole country. Every failure and mistake by the local Marines represented the World Government and all Marines.
Now that the local Marines had done something wrong, it should not have been a major issue. They only needed to identify the