A Petty Bourgeois's Confession

A Petty Bourgeois's Confession

"I'm petty bourgeois. Do you know what that means?"

"It means someone who never has to worry about food or drink, whose life is better than most people's. Someone who does a little easy work every day, reads the news, points at the government or whatever displeases them and curses indignantly, complains about meaningless things, neither exploits others nor is exploited by others, and simply has abundant supplies and time to squander things others can only dream of."

His words struck the Empress as strange, but when she thought of the wealthy lives those people led on the Sabaody Archipelago, she understood a little. There really were people like that in this world. Perhaps the World Government officials and Marine families in Mary Geoise lived that way as well.

"Then the Celestial Dragons took a liking to me." Sitting on the floor, the man casually yanked a cushion off the bed and placed it beneath himself, lifting himself off the icy floor. His casual manner gradually made the Empress frown.

Then she leaned back, and at some point, a Pink-patterned Great Snake shot out from behind the curtain. Its body formed a sofa, allowing the Empress to sit down comfortably.

His eyelid twitched. He had known this great snake from the manga, but he had not expected it to be so fast or so huge—nearly twice his own body length. As for its speed, it had already appeared behind the Empress before his eyes could even follow it.

The top-tier combat power of this world was even stronger than he had imagined.

He gave a hollow laugh. "As fellow slaves, you should know, right? There are always some slaves who can win their master's favor. Slaves like me. Slaves like you."

The Empress's expression turned cold. For her, the days she had spent as a slave were an untouchable taboo, something that could never be exposed. Yet this man seemed to have cast life and death aside; there was not the slightest attempt to conceal anything in his words.

Perhaps because they had both been slaves, perhaps because there were only two people here, the Empress said nothing. She merely listened quietly to the man, her expression cold. Deep in her heart, perhaps there was some resonance—the resonance between fellow sufferers in hell.

She had never spoken of it herself, but those feelings truly existed. Now, they were being voiced through this man's mouth.

"So, our treatment was slightly different from that of other slaves."

"We were 'a little' freer."

"That 'little' gave me quite a few opportunities."

"I didn't dare eat a Devil Fruit, because it was too easy to counter. Not only would Seastone leave me completely powerless, but at a critical moment, I wouldn't even be able to jump into the sea and escape."

"I obediently played the role of a favored retainer. Sometimes, I even thought it might not be so bad to keep living that way. After all, compared to ordinary people in the Four Seas, I didn't have to worry about the threat of pirates or extortion by corrupt Marines. I had no strength to begin with, so I didn't need to train. I truly lived better than most people in this world. It seemed like continuing that way wouldn't be so bad."

The Empress snorted disdainfully. Though she had also been the most beautiful among the slaves, she had two sisters who were not beautiful at all. So she knew better than anyone what happened to slaves who fell out of their masters' favor. If not for her protection and pleas, her two sisters would likely have been discarded and separated by the Celestial Dragons long ago.

That kind of favor was far too illusory. The Celestial Dragons were like children, except their attention spans were even shorter than ordinary children's. The Empress had first caught their eye because she was cute, but they soon grew tired of her. Looking for entertainment, they brought out three Devil Fruits and made the sisters eat them.

Then, very quickly, they grew tired of that too...

His way of thinking was pitifully childish, nothing more than self-deception in hell.

Sure enough...

"But because of something, I lost their trust... and then..." Pain appeared on his face, and veins bulged on the back of his hand. Clearly, it was anything but a pleasant memory.

The Empress did not gloat, because she remembered her own experience. When she had first been favored, had she not also been happy? But once she was rejected in the end, she had been tossed aside like a piece of used trash.

His pain flashed past in an instant. That feeling had been etched into his bones. More importantly, it shattered his foolish fantasies and made him completely resolute, ready to fight.

"Then I escaped. Somehow, I drifted to this island and met you." He raised his head to look at the Empress, his eyes filled with passion. Unlike those vile men who lusted after her body and were turned to stone, there was something different in this man's gaze.

"What are the Shichibukai?" After a moment of silence, the Empress suddenly asked.

"The Shichibukai are a system I heard the Celestial Dragons mention while speaking with the World Government." The black-haired man smiled at her.

"Since Pirate King Roger died, the World Government has been unable to suppress the ever-growing number of pirates. So they came up with the idea of recruiting powerful pirates as their thugs and lackeys, using pirates to deal with pirates. That is their plan." The black-haired man's words made the Empress sneer. "Who would be the World Government's lackey? Have they lost their minds?"

"But what if they exempted you from bounties, allowed you to pillage legally, and guaranteed that your territory would be legitimate and free from Marine attacks?" He rested one hand on his knee and extended his fingers one by one. Those points alone slowly changed the Empress's expression.

"So what? My Amazon Lily is in the Calm Belt. Would I fear a Marine attack? Their terms hold no appeal for me!"

She folded her arms across her chest, utterly disdainful of the Marines.

"But what if the World Government has already developed Warships capable of sailing through the Calm Belt?" The man raised a fourth finger, the smile on his face deepening. After leaving the Celestial Dragons, the taste of freedom truly was intoxicating. More importantly, he could finally act without restraint. His many intelligence advantages made certain matters exceptionally easy to handle—such as dealing with the Empress before him now.

She only frowned, falling silent in thought. Clearly, the Calm Belt was the foundation upon which the Kuja Pirates survived. Once the Marines possessed Warships capable of crossing the Calm Belt, the pressure on Nine Snake Island would increase drastically. The Kuja Kingdom would have to choose between submission and fighting to the death.

There was no third path.

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