A Fun Time: Frauce Kingdom 4.2 (ch. 13)

I never gave much thought to the disparity between social classes. I grew up hearing terms like ‘middle class,’ ‘working poor,’ or ‘one percenter,’ but… what did that even mean? I grew up pretty reasonably, I would say. We had enough money for food and utilities, I could get something cool like a game console every couple of years, but we never had the money to hop on a world cruise or anything. I didn't think we were poor, but we probably weren't rich.

So, it was pretty handy that Frauce put their disparity on full display. Just shoved it right up in your face and rubbed it in so it was impossible to miss -- there was the swanky district for the rich people, which also happened to give them a great view of the poor district so they could mock and spit at them. The middle district was noticeably poorer than the rich district, but still way better off than the poor district, something that they took an excessive pride in. It was a real ‘Well, we're not nobles, but could you imagine being poor? Lol. Lmao, even.’ mentality. With the poor people being a far distant bottom rung, despite being the largest part of the population by half.

The lessons on the “evils of capitalism” were about as subtle as a brick to the face and a kick to the balls.

“The social elites stand idly by while our nation, our people, are under siege by a most loathsome pirate! Do you think that the Queen goes without her daily bread?! No! The nobles dine lavishly every night, and their scraps would be enough to feed us all -- and yet, here you are. Starving! Forced to feast on a banquet of rats merely to survive!” A man with a very fluffy collar and a very fake looking powdered wig proclaimed, shaking his fist to the sky above. The crowd that surrounded the box he stood on were all roaring their agreement, which drew others in just to see what the fuss was about.

The guy looked like someone had drawn him from a description of a colonial era European from someone who had seen a picture of one, once, about a decade ago. But, more notably -- the guy didn't look like he was starving, not like the people he was preaching too. Wasn't fat or anything, but he didn't have the hollowed cheeks and sunken eyes that some people in the crowd had. The people who suffered the kind of hunger where you put so much effort into getting food that you ended up burning more calories than you gained, if you got to eat at all.

“Yet, it is not as if trade ships do not reach our shores! They still visit the other districts with hulls laden heavy with foodstuffs! Why is it that the other districts purchase enough food to fill their bellies twice over, yet you find yourselves with nary a crumb?!” He questioned and the crowd gave their answer. “Greed! It is base greed and apathy to your suffering! Queen Ban Dedessinée can't imagine your plight simply because she has never gone hungry! She can't imagine the pain of comforting your starving child, pleading to you for something to eat, and having nothing to offer them!”

“He's good at riling people up,” I noted, looking down at the guy from the railing I leaned on.

“He knows how to run his mouth,” Nami agreed. She had been a little surly since the bartender slipped her that note that I pretended not to notice. Not sure what was going on there, but it was weighing heavily on her mind. “He's making it sound like there's no fish in the ocean or bread in a bakery.”

There were. Only the price tags attached to them were outside of what most could afford. There was already some violence happening to the fisherman and bakers -- some assaults and some property damage as their goods were stolen. It reminded me a bit of the Irish Potato Famine. Ireland had produced enough food to feed the island, yet instead of that food going to the people that had to eat grass just to keep away the hunger pangs, it all went to the British, who shrugged their shoulders and said ‘skill issue.’ Then a blight hit and things got worse.

“This can't go on!” Momo was the one who was getting most worked up about the issue. “We must do something!” She looked at me expectantly, and I nodded without looking away from the guy on the box.

“The whole situation reeks,” Nami voiced. “Even if the rumors are true about the Sea King, the Navy should have been here weeks ago. Frauce Kingdom isn't some random island with a single village. They can't just ignore a pirate planting their flag and terrorizing the coasts like this.”

I glanced at her from the corner of my eye, “You think someone’s in on it?”

“I don't know,” Nami admitted. “To do something like that, they'd have to be really high up. Even if someone is stopping a call to the Navy from going out, word still spreads by word of mouth. Something is going on here -- it's just a question of what and why.” That more or less echoed my own thoughts.

“Well, I'm guessing we'll get a couple of hints when we take down Ganzack,” I said, and Momo visibly relaxed at the prospect. “Any idea how we would get started on that?”

“I can ask around for rumors -- how he operates and where he likes to strike,” Nami immediately offered, and that told me she had an ulterior motive. Which wasn't a bad thing, necessarily. She seemed like she had her own stuff going on. She stood up when she saw my nod, but I stopped her with a hand.

Not because I didn't want her to go, but because someone else was coming.

Down the street from the crowd, I saw a line of guardsmen wielding clubs appear. They rushed into place until they were about three rows thick. Then I glanced the other way to see that another group had formed up there as well, blocking the exit. A shrill shriek of a whistle rang out, and that seemed to startle the man on the box, who suddenly looked around and there was a flicker of fear across his face.

Nami snorted at the sight. “Sloppy -- his watchers either got bribed or bagged,” she said.

“This is… they're just protesting. Peacefully,” Momo muttered, her lips becoming a thin line. I could see the internal debate warring within her. In the end, this wasn't some modern society where protesting was a right. The people below could very well be breaking the law at the moment, and breaking up the protest could be well within the legal rights of the local monarch.

But there was a difference between legal and right, even back on Earth. And Momo was being confronted by that fact.

The man on the box shouted something, but it was lost in a sea of noise as the crowd noticed the guards, and they were greeted with a volatile mixture of fear and anger. There was another shriek of a whistle before the trap started closing in. Momo was increasingly uncomfortable, her body tensing as if she were ready to spring into action. I was a little more… ambivalent?

In the end, something like police brutality was a modern concept. Before the modern day, police and guards beating the piss out of people was just the standard treatment.

I had prepared myself for it far more than Momo had. I accepted it -- this wasn't my world, and I couldn't expect it to be beholden to my morals. However, I could and did find it distasteful when the two crowds started to clash and one protester was immediately brained by a beat stick and went down like a sack of rocks. With a sigh, I pushed myself off the railing I stood on, getting ready to jump down into the fray.

I couldn't care less about the legality of it -- I wasn't going to watch a bunch of people get brutalized because they were rightfully pissed off that food was being deliberately kept out of their hands. The guy on the box may have been riling people up, but that didn't mean he was wrong about the situation.

Only, as it happened, I didn't need to get involved.

“OUT OF THE WAYYYYYyyyy!” I heard someone shouting at the top of their lungs as they zoomed right by me like a bullet fired from a gun. They smashed into the line of guards at one end of the street. They carved a line right through them, sending themselves into a tumble until they crashed into a stall at the end of the road. I blinked at the display, then again when the figure pushed away the rubble and dust.

A dark red sleeveless shirt, a pair of blue cut off shorts and sandals. With a hand, they reached back to a straw hat that was tied in place around their neck to set it on his head, looking back at the guards and protesters who stared at him blankly.

“Ah…” He started, blinking back at them. “I missed? This isn't the treasury at all!” He protested and I barked a laugh.

Seems like someone interesting just showed up.

Whatever his aim had been, he’d managed to shift the situation on the guards. The protesters, once the shock wore off, seized the opening and spilled forth through it and started to overwhelm the guards on that side. I saw the guy on the box hop down, a few people immediately went to him and they began shoving their way forward to the exit. Momo breathed a sigh of relief while Nami watched on, her gaze as sharp as a hawks.

“I think we found someone who can give us a bit more information about what Ganzack is doing. We can shadow them if you don't want to get involved,” Nami offered, and my gaze slid to Momo for a moment, but she looked indecisive.

The whole situation was messy. Messy and complicated in a way that told me Ganzack was just dredging up underlying issues that were here long before he showed up and that defeating him wouldn't necessarily make everything better. The people who made the decision to let their kingdom go hungry while they ate cake would still be calling the shots. But it was a question of scope of responsibility.

We were just bounty hunters. Fixing a kingdom's fundamental social issues was a fair bit above our pay grade, and I can't imagine the World Government would be too keen on us aiding a budding rebellion.

In general I liked to jump headfirst into things, but even I knew better than to dive right into the pool of needles, blenders, and chainsaws that was politics. Especially when the ramifications wouldn't just be felt by me, but the entire crew.

“We’ll shadow them,” I decided, scooping Nami and Momo up, earning noises of protest from both of them before I jumped off the balcony. People rarely looked up -- if spy games and films had taught me anything, then it was that. I flew up into the air, high above the city, but not so far that I could lose track of the box guy. Even more so when Momo produced a pair of binoculars for us to look through.

Being so high up gave us a pretty solid view of both the guy fleeing, as well as the protest that was slowly becoming a riot beneath us. The protesters were winning with the guards starting to flee, but it wasn't exactly a controlled retreat.

I smelled trouble, even before the box guy reached his apparent destination -- a warehouse near the river that split the island into three. Heading down to the warehouse in question, I landed on the rooftop to peer through a skylight to see box guy and a few goons moving a large shelf, revealing…

“A secret passage? Cool!” I observed, seeing a staircase that led down. I'm guessing beneath the river and over to the other parts of the kingdom.

Though, in hindsight, I probably shouldn't have been allowed on a stealth mission because they all immediately looked up at us. They froze like deer in headlights, so I gave them a friendly wave. Meanwhile, Nami facepalmed with a pained expression.

It was precisely that moment when I felt something hit me in the back of the head, sending me flying into the warehouse through the skylight. I righted myself easily enough, flipping through the air and landing lightly on my feet. My attacker landed just after me in a three point stance. However, I wasn't at all prepared to see who my attacker was.

“Ippo?!” I blurted with wise eyes, seeing a familiar Silverback Gorilla standing tall before me. “You're here?! Haha! You learned how to sneak attack, huh? But that still doesn't mean you're a match for me!” I said, putting my fists up and getting ready to throw them.

Sure, I had plenty of questions about how exactly Ippo managed to get here from where we left him behind on Skull Island. But, those questions were entirely unimportant in comparison to the fact he was here and he looked like he was itching for another rematch.

However, he wasn't the only one in the warehouse.

I heard a shrill girlish shriek from a guy- whoa. I think I found one of Pinocchio's descendants -- his nose extended a solid six inches straight out from his face. It was so distracting that I nearly missed the guy with moss green hair and three katanas at his waist. Long-nose pointed at me, “Intruder! We've been compromised! Run! Run for your lives!”

Mosshair was far more relaxed, “Ippo. You know this guy?” He asked, making Ippo nod eagerly.

I shot the two a grin while Momo was reassuring Nami, who looked like she was having a mini panic attack on the ceiling at the sight of Ippo. “We go way back! I washed up on the island he used to live on and we fought every day! I offered ‘em a place on my crew, but he wanted to go his own way. Names Kaine!” I introduced myself, sensing that the tension was shooting way down even as box guy was struggling to calm himself at our abrupt arrival.

“Zoro,” Mosshair introduced himself. Then he jabbed a thumb at Longnose, who was clutching box guy as they both trembled with fear. “Ussop.”

“Nice ta’ meetcha,” I replied before my eyes slid back to Ippo, who was practically vibrating in excitement for a rematch. “So, you're part of Ippo's crew then?”

“He's our navigator!” A new voice informed, causing both Momo and Nami to yelp as they were joined by the boy that we saw earlier. He wore an impossibly broad smile as he peered down from the busted skylight, chuckling to himself. “You're his friend, right? Ippo talked a lot about you!” To that, Ippo seemed a little bashful, confirming it.

The information got a blink of surprise from me as Strawhat dropped down from the skylight. “He's your navigator? How… does that work?” I asked, looking between the four man crew.

Strawhat laughed.

Zoro grimaced.

Ussop started to weep.

Ippo puffed out his chest with pride.

Right. It didn't. Well, Ippo managed to get here from Skull Island, so maybe he knew what he was doing. Probably. Hopefully.

“W… who are you people?!” Box guy finally found his voice, his gaze darting between us. I kinda already introduced myself, so I scratched at the side of my head while Strawhat gave a megawatt smile.

“I'm Monkey D. Luffy! I'm gonna be King of the Pirates!” He announced with good cheer and that made me go still, just a little bit.

“Ah… I'm a bounty hunter? Sorta? It's a gig until the guy with the funny hat recognizes my greatness and makes me a vice admiral without all that chain of command nonsense.” Now I was looking at Luffy with a bit more suspicion. “You got a bounty?”

There was an expression of absolute devastation that appeared on Luffy's face as he turned away from me. It was weird. This world didn't exactly have a baseline that I would call normal, but Luffy's expressions were exaggerated beyond what felt normal even then. “No… b-but I'm going to get one! Soon! That's why we're here!” He protested, pretending that he wasn't on the verge of tears. I felt a little bad. That was clearly a sore spot for him.

“Well… if you don't got a bounty, then I'm not going to be picking fights with Ippo's friends. And if he's friends with you, you can't be that bad,” I decided, ignoring a stern look from Momo. She couldn't deny my logic, however. Ippo was an exemplary judge of character, after all. “All bets are off when you do get one, though.”

“I can't wait!” Luffy replied with a boyish grin, hooking an arm that was a little too long around Ippo's shoulders.

“Who are you people?!” Box-guy blurted again, this time at his wits end. Fair, I guess. We did kinda ignore him after we dropped in on him. “Why are you here? What do you want from me?! Did the Queen send you?”

“I just wanted to ask you a couple questions about Ganzack, Mr…” I started, crossing my arms as I looked at the guy as he and Ussop extracted themselves from each other's death grip.

“Maximilien Robespierre,” he introduced himself with the general self importance I would expect from a man dressed as he was. His name was entirely too long, though.

“Max,” I decided with a nod and Max grimaced like he had just found dogshit on the bottom of his shoe. “You look like a guy who knows things about things. Among them Ganzack and his operation.” I watched his reaction carefully and I saw about what I expected. Much like Ippo, I was an excellent judge of character. And all evidence to the contrary, I did, in fact, have a brain and I even used it sometimes.

Suffering was the bedrock of revolution.

People who had enough to eat, a place to sleep, and enough money to pay for some amusement didn't revolt. People that felt like they weren't the bottom of some totem pole didn't rebel. They might not be happy. They might not even be content. But picking up a gun and risking your life to upheave the status quo was infinitely more difficult than doing nothing and hoping the bad times were a storm that would pass over.

Hungry people revolted. Angry people rebelled. The people who felt like they were the butt of a cosmic joke, who couldn't swallow the inequality any longer, rose up against whatever was keeping them down.

I could see it in Max's eyes even as he plastered on a timid, if relieved, smile -- he didn't want Ganzack taken out of the picture just yet. Not when he was the perfect catalyst for stoking rebellious fervor.

“I'm here for a treasure map!” Luffy cut in, reaching into his vest and pulling out what looked like half of a map. “Some old guy told me that you're queen had it! So, I was gonna ask if she could give it to me so I can get the buried treasure!”

“Buried treasure?” I echoed, my interest immediately rising. Of course there would be buried treasure in a world full of pirates! How foolish of me to forget that!

However, as Nami touched down after Momo secured a rope from the ceiling, she had a far more intense reaction. “You're after Bluebeard's treasure?”

“Who?” Luffy asked, tilting his head but didn't react when Nami waltzed up and snatched the treasure map from his hands. There was a certain intensity to her gaze that told me that whatever this was, it was something personal.

“Captain Bluebeard. He was an infamous pirate a hundred something years ago who terrorized East Blue for decades.” Nami informed, her eyes searching the map and I perked over her shoulder to see what the fuss was. It looked… like a map. Bunch of lines, some islands, and what looked like a charted course, only the destination was missing. And I was mistaken about it being split in half -- it was split into three parts. That much was confirmed when Nami flipped the map around to reveal a single word written on the back.

‘Wenches.’

“The Navy never caught him, though. He simply vanished one day, along with all of his crew. Most people figured that he had been sunk either by the Navy, other pirates, or a storm.” Nami continued, passing the map back to Luffy, who had stars shining in his eyes. “But then a treasure map was found that allegedly led to the vanishing island where Bluebeard buried his treasure. It came with a story -- that Bluebeard had died on the island and that he wished to be buried with his treasure. Half the crew wanted to follow his last wishes but the other half wanted to take the treasure for themselves.”

Luffy leaned in, “And then?!”

Nami leaned back, “And then pirates do what pirates do. The crew slaughtered each other over what to do with the treasure. In the end, there were only three men left in what had been an armada of twenty thousand pirates across more than a hundred ships.” To that, I couldn't stop the low whistle that escaped me. That was one successful pirate. “For some reason, they each took a piece of the treasure map that led to the island- the reason changes every time based on which version of the story you hear. In some it's because they still couldn't agree on what was to be done with the treasure, and in other versions, the three survivors came from the side that wanted the treasure to be buried with their captain. And in others…”

As Nami trailed off, both Luffy and I leaned forward but it wasn't her that finished. It was Max who spoke with a sigh in his voice, “And in others, what was left of the crew became convinced that the treasure was cursed. It drove their captain and crew mad with greed so they would slaughter each other. The three survivors alone managed to escape. But not for free. The treasure desires blood, so they had to lead a path to it, so it may once more be fought over. The three did so, but split the map into parts and told their stories to serve as a warning for anyone foolish enough to come looking.”

I was foolish enough. A cursed buried treasure?

“Cool,” I muttered, getting excited.

“It's an old story,” Nami dismissed the curse. “And there are plenty that sell fakes claiming to be original pieces. The only one that people are sure is real is the one in Frauce's treasury.”

“Something that has brought our fine kingdom no end of difficulty,” Max sniffed. “Enterprising pirates such as Ganzack, or yourself, often come searching for that piece of the map.” So, is that what Ganzack was doing? Blockading the island to negotiate for the map piece? “While the curse is fabricated, the greed is very much real.”

To that, Nami snorted. “There are so many fake pieces out there that even if the treasure is real, there's no way to find it. Most want the map piece to sell it for a mint to the idiots that think they can find the treasure.” She said, casting a very pointed look at me and Luffy, both of us wilting.

“Quite right,” Max agreed, his gaze bouncing between everyone. “However, it seems that it is possible that we can all aid one another in each other's… endeavors.”

Nami snorted, “You mean your rebellion?”

Max scoffed as if he was personally insulted, “I am no revolutionary,” he said, sneering the word. “They are little more than anarchists who come to perfectly stable kingdoms and introduce instability for their own agenda! I am a reformer! I love my county and I would see it unshackled by centuries of tradition that have stifled the ability of our people to thrive on a global stage!”

Hm.

I didn't trust him. I didn't really have any evidence for it -- he was saying all the right things, doing the right things, and I couldn't deny that he was taking risks to change whatever it was he was trying to change. However, it felt so… artificial. It felt like I was listening to a character speak rather than a person.

“Uh huh,” Nami echoed, believing him just as much as I did while Momo visibly perked up upon hearing what he had to say.

“I don't really know about that reform stuff, but I don't care so long as people get to eat again. And I get my map!” I didn't have any issue with that, I thought to myself as Luffy shoved his third of the map back into his vest.

Getting involved in the affairs of kingdoms wasn't something I would do on a whim, but as it was, this was the best path forward. Once Ganzack was removed from the picture, then I could reevaluate what came next on our path.

Yet, from the corner of my eye, I couldn't help but to notice that Nami's eye lingered on Luffy, exactly where he had stashed his map.

And I couldn't help but wonder if that path would lead to buried treasure. I suppose it depended on who had the last piece of the map and where they were.

…

“A bounty?! A bounty?! What did you two even do- excessive property damage?!” Rin Tohsaka exclaimed, looking down at the wanted posters in her hands. At least until Megumi snatched hers from her grip with stars shining in her eyes and a look of pure joy on her face.

“Witch of Annihilation! That's perfect! I'm wanted Dead or Alive!” Megumi said, holding up her wanted poster while striking the same pose as the picture. A vein throbbed at Rin's temple as she forced herself to take a breath. Then another. And one more to be sure, because otherwise, she might start wringing Megumi's little neck. “Death Stroke is a pretty good one too, Saeko!”

“Thank you,” Saeko said and Rin twitched. “Though, I do wonder where they got the photo. I-”

“What. Happened.” It was not a question.

Megumi shared a look with Saeko, “Pfft. Someone is jealous that they don't have a totally awesome nickname.” She said in a faux whisper while Saeko, the almost always reliable Saeko, offered a thin but pitying smile.

“Ummm…” Rin heard and she glanced over at the two who had provided the wanted posters. The pink haired one looked absolutely terrified, clutching a guitar case to her chest while the older black haired one was sweating bullets. They were seated at the same table after Rin dismissed their blatant lie, but now Rin wasn't sure what to do with them. “We-we are deaf and blind, you k-know? S-so you d-don't need to k-k-kill us!” The pink haired one said, visibly on the verge of a panic attack.

“No one is killing anyone! No- strike that. I might be killing Megumi,” Rin amended when the girl turned up her nose in Rin's direction. To think, she had been ecstatic when she’d learned of Megumi’s Magecraft. She had no magic circuits to speak of, and she didn't even understand the difference between Magecraft and True Magic. Then she learned that the idiot refused to learn anything but ‘explosion magic’ as a matter of principle. “What. Did. You. Do?”

“It's not my fault! I told you, Crimson Demons like me need to unleash our explosion magic once a day or we die!” Megumi proclaimed as she slapped a hand on the table, “How was I supposed to know that the mountain was supposed to be sacred, huh? That's not my fault! They should have marketed it better!”

Another vein throbbed as Rin massaged her temples, “Do you even understand how this complicates our situation? You've made us outlaws!” Though, perhaps it was only a matter of time. If anything, perhaps she should be grateful that it took Megumi this long to blow up something of cultural importance. She’d had too much faith in the self proclaimed ‘Crimson Demon.’

“It's fine, right? We were already going to rob the palace for that map piece, so we would have gotten bounties anyway!” Megumi protested and Rin clenched her eyes shut.

She could not murder her crewmate. She should not murder her crewmate.

In front of so many witnesses.

“Would you mind shouting louder? I don't think the people in the palace heard you!” Rin hissed and Megumi scowled before she took in a deep breath. She was about to start shouting out of spite before Saeko placed a gentle hand over her mouth. That got Megumi to pout.

“We should have been more careful,” Saeko admitted. “Megumi grew weary of unleashing explosions into the sea and wanted to destroy something solid. It was my mistake for enabling her, and not foreseeing any future complications. You have my apologies,” Saeko offered with a bow of her head.

A sigh escaped Rin, “I suppose it's good you went with her. I don't even want to think about what she would have destroyed if you hadn't been there.” To that, Megumi protested, but her mouth was still covered by Saeko.

“However, there are now other concerns,” Saeko noted, before she turned to the two girls, whose blood drained from their faces. “It would seem our intentions have been revealed.”

It might be enough to call off this harebrained scheme altogether, Rin hoped, but she knew better. Their ‘captain’ was every bit as whimsical as Megumi -- it was why the two got along so well. And once they got an idea in their heads, they were committed to it, no matter how objectively stupid it was.

The last island they visited -- the one with the mountain that Megumi blew up -- had an old man who passed along a quarter of a map with some story attached to it. Regardless of how absurd it sounded, it was enough to convince their captain to set sail to Frauce with the intention of stealing their map piece and just… hoping that they would stumble across the final piece at some point.

Only now they were here, their initial plans had to be scrapped because their captain was wanted.

And now there were two people who overheard their plans to steal from the local monarchy.

“W-we’re still deaf?” the pink haired girl tried, shaking like a leaf. Rin honestly felt a bit bad for them -- it wasn't their fault that Megumi had a big mouth.

“We can't just let you go,” Rin sighed. That was too big of a risk. Worse, she couldn't even smooth it over with some hypnosis. The Od of this world was far more powerful than she was used to, so it was possible that there could be unintended consequences for the girls. “Instead… instead, you'll be coming with us. We’ll hold you for the time being, but once we’re done, you'll be free to go. I promise,” Rin offered.

Both girls' expressions fell and, as one, they spoke.

““Why does this stuff always happen to me?””