"You are good."
"You have made great progress."
"At this critical moment, you are still watching a fourteen or fifteen-year-old girl, who, under the coercion of her mother, reluctantly strings her bow and shoots arrows on the battlefield!"
Merka tightly grasped the baseball bat, paying no attention to the blood trickling down his forehead and dripping onto his right arm.
He raised the baseball bat in his hand, gently sweeping its direction across everyone present.
He slapped the broken TV and exclaimed loudly.
"Look at this flawless silhouette."
"Are you comforted in your hearts?"
"Are you longing for a savior?"
"Are you waiting for a savior to emerge and rescue you from tyranny and dictatorship?"
"But this poor girl, can't even save herself now!"
"She can't even decide what to eat for lunch, and is tormented by countless nightmares when she sleeps! Yet you pin all your hopes on her!"
Merka's aggressive brows slightly raised.
His gaze swept over the people in the tavern, finally landing on a woman sitting in the corner, wearing a beret.
Merka pointed the bat at her, shouting loudly.
"Come here. You were sitting there just now, and I heard every word you said clearly."
"Did you say that Oedipus is actually not bad at governing, it's just that Arcadia is about to become an empire, which you find hard to accept?"
"I have some newspapers here about the recent constitutional reforms. Come and read them."
Merka set aside the bat, pulled out a stack of black and white newspapers from his pocket, and spread them out in his hand.
The woman with the beret seemed afraid of this Merka. Sweating, she stood up from her seat, trembling step by step toward the center of the tavern.
She picked up the newspaper from Merka's hand, lips moving slightly as she spoke even softer than a moth's cry.
"Import tariffs adjusted to..."
"I told you to read loudly!"
Merka interrupted the woman, harshly tapping the back of her hand over the newspaper, scolding sternly.
With this sudden touch, the woman seemed as if a needle had pricked her thigh, and she instantly became alert.
"Today! Import tariffs on electronic products raised to three hundred percent, and seventy percent of all ports will be closed! To prevent external infiltration..."
"Listen, listen!"
Merka interrupted the woman.
"Her Majesty Oedipus, who stands high, believes that Maria is targeting her because of external infiltration, because Maria is plotting against the supreme leader!"
"And this has become our fault!"
"Some of you may think, how is that possible? Oedipus is a reformist, but the reformed constitution will ruin us!"
Merka's face darkened, raising his hand into the air and clenching it with force, as if grappling with an invisible devil.
"If Arcadia loses foreign aid, we won't even be able to make a colored glass tile! Children won't afford white paper for learning! Girls won't be able to buy foreign dresses! Boys won't buy toys! And adults won't even have plates to eat on!"
"We will regress into uncivilized barbarians in the eyes of foreigners, only capable of fighting and farming!"
"Don't you understand?"
"She is going to destroy us! Crush us!"
"She is not a reformist at all! She is a dictator, a monarchist, a damn terrorist!"
"To maintain her rule, she no longer wants wars like in Tempe City! She is willing to set back Arcadia's development by ten years, fifty years, one hundred years!"
"But who is the real culprit behind all this?"
"Who has brought us to this plight?"
Merka forcefully raised his hands in front of his chest, his chest filled with a burning flame, angrily rebuking.
Under the dim light of the tavern, his passionate speech made spittle fly, veins bulging slightly on his forehead.
Many in the audience were moved by the fervor, starting to become restless and agitated.
"It's you!"
"You bunch of cowards below the stage, advocating appeasement, sacrificing surrender!"
"Bunch of good-for-nothings! Oedipus, this snake, has extended its fangs to your heads, and you still want to negotiate with it!"
As Merka spoke, the entire tavern erupted, filled with a sense of mission and aggressiveness. They roared, shouted, and cheered loudly around Merka.
Meanwhile, Stein leaned against the wall at the back of the tavern. Her eyes revealed a hint of bewilderment as she looked towards the center of the tavern where the passionate and sharp-tongued Merka stood, licking her lips.
"Resisting this oppression, pulling down the selfish bastards who think they are high and mighty from the throne, isn't that our responsibility as citizens of Arcadia?!"
"So what are you waiting for!? Are you waiting for a fourteen-year-old girl to come and redeem each of you!?"
"You are wrong! You are wrong!"
"The citizens of Arcadia are not just the nobility, but also have courage, wisdom, and magic!"
"Let us also go and save the nobility ourselves!"
"Let us rescue our new Empress Turing from the hands of traitor Oedipus with our own hands!!!"
