[Arc] [Tequila Wolf Conquest] The Rotten Lie of Tequila Wolf

There's a soothing solace in servitude. The luxury of toil without the burden of freedom—yes, it is a burden; the simplicity of labour without the challenge of command; the comfort of bondage without the adversities of autonomy.

Life sure was easy for the workforce of Tequila Wolf, just as sure as it was hard for its administration. The stray glare from the dregs at the crack of a well-deserved whip, the insolent remark spoken out-of-turn after a demand for obedience—it was tough being Warden of a nation full of criminals.

Society's gears were powered by long-established hierarchies. To challenge them was to question nature itself. The celestial dragons rightfully held the reins to the world, and by their grace, at Tequila Wolf, the Warden was sovereign.

At least on most days.

A transponder snail cried out a few rings in an opulent office. Authoritative portraits of the office holder hung on all four walls of the room. One depicted him with a sword in hand pointed to the heavens, leading a charge against an armada of evil, while another had him seated on a throne as decorated with the corpses of villains as his uniform was with their blood.

"Stop," the Warden said to a seemingly empty office before answering the call. There was only him at his desk and no one else in sight.

"Great Warden Auschwitz speaking," he said to the receiver as the transponder snail adopted a stern face.

[npc=wgov]"Good evening, sir. We've just been informed that Rear Admiral Charlemagne will be visiting us in two days."[/npc] A thin and sharp moustache danced above the Warden's snail's lips as it spoke. [npc=wgov]"We were also informed that Rear Admiral Ayugai will be joining him. He was recently promoted and transferred to the East Blue and has been assigned his own command."[/npc]

A cold drop of sweat gleamed on the Warden's pale forehead. It quivered as nervously as the hand holding the receiver. "Very well," he said, "Consider me informed." The transponder snail slipped back into its dreams once the Warden hung up, its moustache no longer dancing.

The Warden shuffled his chair two feet away from the desk and spoke to the empty office once again, "Leave."

He waited for the door to close before breaking down. "Not him again. Why do I, a Great Warden, have to prostrate myself before some jumped-up slave? Why must I concede to these pathetic dogs?" He asked himself, assaulting his varnished mahogany desktop with a heavy fist.

A vision of an olive-skinned monster bathed in crimson wielding a spiked iron club shimmered before his eyes—a ghost from a memory burned into him from the day The Golden Ogre of Tequila Wolf was born. That was why.

His place in society may have been built atop a complex of bureaucracy, but what good was power in the face of those too strong to subjugate? The only tool one had against such forces was deception. A lie just convincing enough to keep the monster placated. Such was the rotten lie of Tequila Wolf.

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