"Say, what do you think is on the other side of the sea?"
It was late at night at the Pentos harbor.
Player Iron_Pumping_Superman gazed into the distance.
"There might be an invisible wall on the other side of the sea," player Moon_Fang_Heaven_Piercer looked at him grumpily.
"So you asked me to take time off work just to watch the scenery with you in a game?"
Iron_Pumping_Superman withdrew his gaze from the horizon and patted his friend on the shoulder.
"Brother, do you want to try completing a hidden quest?"
Hearing this, Moon_Fang_Heaven_Piercer was visibly stunned and asked blankly, "What hidden quest?"
"You and I are both new players, and we aren't rich like those pay-to-win whales. So, if we want to have a blast in this game, we have to find another way, right?" Iron_Pumping_Superman said with a mysterious look.
"Stop keeping me in suspense! If you have an idea, spill it!" Moon_Fang_Heaven_Piercer was getting impatient. Who wanted to be a random passerby if they could be a big shot?
"Do you remember the main quest from the cutscene?" Iron_Pumping_Superman said slowly.
"Yeah, help Vi-bro restore his kingdom. What's hidden about that? Why, did you get a nuke out of a Black Iron Chest yesterday?" Moon_Fang_Heaven_Piercer was confused.
"Heh, not exactly," Iron_Pumping_Superman chuckled lightly. "I just have an idea."
"What idea?" Moon_Fang_Heaven_Piercer looked around, making sure no one else was nearby, and asked in a whisper.
"Cross the sea and kill that Usurper, Robert."
If words could kill, Iron_Pumping_Superman's statement would be a fatal blow. Moon_Fang_Heaven_Piercer froze, his mouth hanging open in disbelief.
"No, dude, are you saying the two of us should go assassinate the game's final boss?" After a long pause, Moon_Fang_Heaven_Piercer looked at him as if checking for a fever.
"Final boss my ass. The game setting isn't high fantasy or cultivation. What are you afraid of?" Iron_Pumping_Superman pulled a small transparent jar from his chest, filled to the brim with a green liquid.
"Damn it, with this stuff, who can survive getting burned? Give me a straight answer, are you in or out?"
Seeing the item in his hand, Moon_Fang_Heaven_Piercer suddenly understood. "Good lord, I was wondering where you got the guts of a bear. So you have the good stuff! Quick, tell me, how did you hook up with those pyromancers?"
"It has nothing to do with those pyromancers. This stuff is practically useless to the natives—they're too scared to use it. That's why you can get it from Black Iron Chests. With this, as long as we get close to the Usurper and self-destruct, I refuse to believe there won't be a hidden reward for killing him!"
Iron_Pumping_Superman put away the jar and turned his gaze back to the other side of the Narrow Sea.
"But how are we going to get there?" Moon_Fang_Heaven_Piercer scratched his head, looking at the sea with worry again.
"Hmph, look at you. It's obvious you've never hopped a train..." Iron_Pumping_Superman tilted his head up, looking like a mastermind strategy genius if only someone would hand him a feather fan.
"Stowaway?"
"Sigh, how can you call it stowing away when players do it? It's borrowing..."
---
At the same time, the intelligence chief Mouse_Is_Duck, who hadn't logged off for two days, was recalling the intel that the Court Eunuch had posted in the group chat.
"Hiss... why didn't I think of using the screenshot function like that?"
An inconspicuous feature that players used purely for taking pictures—wasn't that the ultimate spy tool?
Spies in those thrillers had to use micro-cameras to take pictures secretly, but as players, they came with one built-in!
Ah, I can't believe I didn't think of that. Sigh!
Mouse_Is_Duck smacked his lips, looking as if he had lost eight million dollars.
Looking around, many of his subordinates had already logged off, their characters currently "sound asleep." Mouse_Is_Duck shook his head and decided to pick a few sharp ones tomorrow to make good use of this function and send them out as spies.
I'm a dignified intelligence chief, yet I haven't gathered any useful intel these past few days. All I've done is arrest people for fun. If this keeps up, I really will become a Gestapo chief in name only.
His subordinates, those bastards, were more than willing, but he didn't want to be that little bespectacled Himmler.
Just thinking about how that brat Flying_Bat had been urging him lately to equip the brothers with black capes, big peaked caps, and red armbands made Mouse_Is_Duck angry.
What kind of nonsense is that?
---
In Viserys's room, the fireplace crackled.
The three dragon eggs lying quietly inside showed no sign of wanting to hatch.
Daenerys cupped her face in her hands, looking a bit discouraged.
It's true. Ser Jorah said they are just fossils.
But Viserys said that one day they would break out of their shells, and House Targaryen would have dragons once more.
Looking at her brother, who was frowning in thought at his desk, Daenerys subconsciously chose to believe him more.
Viserys drummed his fingers rhythmically on the table, looking at the list in front of him with a headache.
He had only recently discovered that tax collection in Pentos wasn't controlled by the Magisters directly. These idiots had actually implemented a Tax Farming system, outsourcing tax collection.
So, even though Pentos was now his territory, Viserys still had to split the annual tax revenue 50-50 with these tax farmers appointed by the previous regime.
"Fck. It's my money! They take three million, and I only get one million! Am I supposed to thank them too?"
Viserys suddenly remembered a line from the TV show Ming Dynasty in 1566, spoken by the Jiajing Emperor.
Damn it. He really wanted to order Mouse_Is_Duck to lead his men and give these tax farmers a "Night of the Long Knives" right now.
Unfortunately, he couldn't touch these people yet. If he killed these tax farmers, Viserys literally couldn't find a large group of grassroots talent with prestige in the countryside to collect taxes for him.
Without prestigious locals to help collect taxes, the farmers in the Pentos countryside would absolutely hide their grain from you. They simply wouldn't pay.
The saying "Royal Power stops at the village gate" was exactly this.
He couldn't just send players to slaughter farmers because they hid extra grain and paid less tax.
If Viserys remembered correctly, the late Bourbon Dynasty in France on Earth also used a Tax Farming system.
While this system had its merits—short-term fiscal stability and low collection costs—at the end of the day, it was because the government was too weak to go into the countryside and tax the peasants directly.
And Pentos had clearly already enjoyed the benefits of short-term fiscal stability. Now, he, the new ruler, had to bear the bitter fruit of the tax farmers' corruption.
In his memory, the collapse of the Bourbon Dynasty was partly due to these tax farmers acting as parasites.
To maximize profit, these tax farmers squeezed the populace, over-collecting taxes and piling on miscellaneous levies, which intensified social contradictions. That was likely one of the reasons why the old Parisians eventually guillotined their King.
The most important thing was: the people were suffering, taxes were being over-collected, and damn it, I'm not seeing the money!
This was what Viserys couldn't tolerate. If these tax farmers were just extorting the people and then splitting it 70-30 with him (him getting the 70), maybe he could tolerate it.
At worst, the people of Pentos would suffer a bit, and Viserys would take the blame. Most dynasties in this world were probably just as rotten anyway.
But the key was that these bastards planned to split it 30-70 with him—him getting the 30! Who the hell can tolerate that?!