Sabaody Archipelago, Island 60, at the entrance of the Marine Base.
Sephiroth pushed the bubble cart containing the corpse, the faint scent of blood still lingering. Upon arriving at the entrance of the Marine Base, he removed the eerie smiling mask from his face, revealing a tired yet calm expression.
Seeing this, the two soldiers guarding the entrance immediately let him in without a word. For the past four months, Sephiroth had frequently come to the Marine Base with pirate corpses to collect bounties. The on-duty soldiers had come to recognize his disguised face, and his presence had now become part of their routine.
After a brief exchange of pleasantries with Lieutenant Luther, the chubby lieutenant in the morgue who always seemed busy, Sephiroth ascended to the fifth floor, heading towards Vice Admiral Kizaru's room.
"Yo! Little brother, it's you again!" Kizaru greeted him with his characteristic lazy tone, his feet propped on the desk, while his right hand casually picked his nose.
"Hello, Vice Admiral Kizaru!" Sephiroth nodded, his voice hoarse, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.
After clearly seeing the contents of the document, Kizaru put on an exaggerated expression of surprise and said in a drawn-out tone, "How terrifying~! This time you actually defeated a Supernova Pirate with a 150 million Berry bounty!"
"..." The young man's eye twitched slightly, but he still held back the urge to complain. Kizaru always had a cynical attitude, making it impossible to guess what he was thinking—whether he was truly surprised or just being mischievous.
"By the way... Little brother, besides coming to collect bounties, haven't we met somewhere before...?" Kizaru asked, his tone sounding like he was trying to recall something vague.
Sephiroth's hoarse voice replied, feeling a bit guilty, "Perhaps we happened to cross paths on a certain street?" Coincidentally, when Kizaru returned to Marineford Headquarters to report on his work, the two had indeed met face-to-face twice... Could I have been recognized? A small worry crept into his mind.
"Perhaps?" Kizaru scratched his head slightly in confusion, as if he recalled something, yet as if he remembered nothing at all. His confused expression seemed genuine, or at least convincing enough.
After waiting for the other party to sign the document, Sephiroth resolutely turned and left, heading to the finance department to collect his bounty. He thought it over and decided to temporarily put the alias of Bounty Hunter Roronoa Zoro on hold. Otherwise, if his alias were exposed, it would surely cause a lot of unnecessary trouble for both the Marines and the underworld forces.
Sabaody Archipelago, Island 71.
Outside a large villa, one of Umbrella Corporation's properties, a group of bodyguards in black suits stood guard, three layers deep inside and three layers outside, holding firearms. Their vigilance indicated the importance of this villa.
In the study on the villa's second floor.
Sephiroth, wearing a white suit, a white mask on his face, and his hair still dyed green, leaned back on the sofa, crossing his legs, and looked at Tesoro across from him. "I'm going to tell you something..."
"Boss, what do you wish to say?" Tesoro asked, his eyebrows raised slightly.
"For certain reasons, I plan to temporarily stop being a bounty hunter. From now on, you'll have to take care of your financial matters yourself."
Hearing this, Tesoro was stunned for a moment, but he didn't ask why. He simply nodded and began to report, "Yes! No problem! Boss... The company is now on the right track, capital flow is normal, and it's in a stable period."
"Oh! That's right...!" As if he had thought of something, Tesoro's tone suddenly became a little more serious. "Thanks to the pirates you've hunted and the treasures you've confiscated over the past four months, you've acquired a total of nearly ten billion Berries, which has drawn the envy of many. Recently, I've heard rumors that seven Supernova Pirates seem to have formed an alliance, wanting to unite to deal with you and steal your money... Their combined force is over a thousand people, truly a formidable power! The most sensible choice for the boss is to stop now."
Hearing that, Sephiroth's eyelids couldn't help but twitch slightly. He hadn't expected that he was already so hated by pirates. But, could he be blamed for this? He was just a bounty hunter who wanted to make money! Those dead pirates... if anyone was to blame, blame Roger!
Thanks to the Pirate King Roger who used the One Piece as bait before his death, the Great Pirate Era began. This caused the number of people going out to sea to become pirates to increase rapidly every year, exhausting the Marines and making them unable to contain it. In desperation, the Marines could only adopt the method of greatly increasing bounties to attract more civilian forces to deal with the pirates. This was similar to Whitebeard starting the Great Pirate Era for a second time before his death at the Summit War. The Marines immediately raised bounties significantly, and after a few years, the Marines would rebalance the bounties of new pirates.
The more pirates, the higher the average bounty. Conversely, the fewer pirates, the lower the average bounty. In fact, the Marines also played some small tricks on the wanted posters. In the Four Seas, the existence of pirates with bounties over 100 million Berries was rare, even non-existent. In the first half of the Grand Line, there were more pirates with bounties over 100 million, but almost none with a billion. As for the second half of the Grand Line... Bounties under 100 million were just small fry. If your bounty wasn't over a billion, you didn't even qualify to call yourself a Great Pirate!
For pirates, the higher their bounty, the greater their fame, and the easier it was to develop their own strength. Therefore, they subconsciously sought to increase their bounties. Besides murder, arson, and plunder, the easiest way to increase a bounty was to defeat pirates with higher bounties than themselves... This simple and direct, yet most obvious, small trick played by the Marines was very effective, causing large ripples in the pirate world and resulting in mutual slaughter among them.
"This is the last of the funds, 340 million Berries..." Sephiroth first placed a large box on the table and opened it. The box contained towering stacks of banknotes.
Then, he took out a small wooden box from beside him, placed it on the table, and opened it.
"Also... I hope you can eat this Devil Fruit."
"What kind of fruit is this...?" Tesoro picked up the pumpkin-shaped fruit covered in golden patterns, looking a little confused as he examined it.
"It's the Goru Goru no Mi Paramecia type. Eat it, and you can directly control and melt gold. Once you develop it to its awakened state, you can even freely control gold dust and temporarily assimilate other objects, turning them into gold."
Hearing these words, Tesoro was somewhat moved, his eyes flashing with interest. However, he still hesitated and said, "This fruit... is it... is it too expensive?"
"I think this fruit is quite suitable for you..." Sephiroth looked at him with a serious gaze. "After all, as the second-in-command of Umbrella Corporation, if you don't have strength, how will you earn respect in the future? Having a good business mindset isn't enough! Ultimately, this world still relies on strength to speak..." Sephiroth sighed softly, and he couldn't help but murmur to himself, 'Sure enough, "blackening strengthens threefold, whitening weakens seven points" is the eternal truth!'
Tesoro hadn't experienced the pain of losing loved ones, nor did he have dark memories of being enslaved, so he seemed a bit lazy in his training. Sephiroth had told the other party about the training methods for the Navy Six Styles and Haki, but under his guidance, Tesoro had only reached the level of an ordinary Marine soldier in Marineford after four months of training. However, thinking about it again, this was also normal. In a sense, the current Tesoro could be said to be at the peak of his glory, both his career and love life booming, having reached the pinnacle of his life. If Tesoro wasn't killed a few times, Sephiroth estimated the other party wouldn't even have the idea to train to become stronger...
"I understand, Boss!" Tesoro nodded, determination radiating from his eyes. He picked up the Goru Goru no Mi, and took a bite...
The extremely unpleasant taste immediately turned his face green, his expression morphing into one of disgust. "So disgusting..." he hissed.
"Eat it all! I heard that if you eat it all, the fruit's initial effects will be better..." Sephiroth said with a mischievous smile, enjoying his friend's slight suffering.
"Oh...!" Hearing that, Tesoro could only force himself to swallow the Goru Goru no Mi bite by bite, enduring the immense nausea. After eating it, he drank two cups of bitter coffee to wash away the lingering taste in his mouth.
After a moment, having recovered, Tesoro straightened his posture and said to Sephiroth after careful consideration, "Boss, I've recently been thinking about expanding the Company's entertainment industry... However, the entertainment industry giant in the Sabaody Archipelago, the Pleasure Quarter, has an unclear relationship with the World Government. I'm currently hesitant whether to compete with them in this industry..."
Hearing this, Sephiroth's cheek twitched slightly, and he immediately spoke to dissuade him, "I suggest you don't take too big a step. The Pleasure Quarter's influence is spread throughout the world. Besides the Sabaody Archipelago, there are Pleasure Quarters on other islands and even at sea. The reason it can flourish is because it's incorporated into the World Government's CP0 organization. The Pleasure Quarter is used by them to gather information. We cannot compete with them at present... If you don't want to be suddenly crushed by CP0, I advise you not to force competition with them in the entertainment industry."
"CP0... Heavenly Dragon Shields... I didn't expect them to be involved in this kind of industry..." Tesoro's heart pounded, his face looking a bit grim, and he couldn't help but murmur to himself, "That was close!"
"Boss, if we don't interfere in the entertainment industry, the arms industry will temporarily face development hurdles... Currently, we are arms intermediaries, wholesalers, and retailers. In the future, if we want to further develop and advance, we can only expand the industrial chain and have our own weapons factory to gain more profit. That way, our arms industry will no longer be limited to the Sabaody Archipelago alone, but can expand to other islands." Tesoro explained, his eyes gleaming with new ambition.
"Oh!? What are your thoughts on building a weapons factory?" Sephiroth asked, interested.
"Hehehe...! This is a plan I hope to implement in the next one or two years." Tesoro smiled broadly, turned, and pulled out two blueprints from his office desk drawer, placing them in front of Sephiroth. One was a rough sea chart of the first half of the Grand Line, and the other was a map of a specific island.
"What's this...?" Sephiroth looked at the blueprints with an inquiring gaze.
Tesoro immediately explained, "This is a map of the island of the Sardo Kingdom, and this is the estimated location of its sea territory. It only takes about five days to sail from the Sardo Kingdom to the Sabaody Archipelago. Since it can only be reached via a permanent timber route, its security and secrecy are higher than ordinary islands, and the country is quite poor. If we build a weapons factory there, it will be much easier in terms of personnel recruitment, and with Stella, the princess of the Sardo Kingdom, we will gain a lot of convenience..."
Under Sephiroth's half-smiling expression, Tesoro's voice became softer and softer until he finally stopped, a little embarrassed. "Ahem!... Okay! Boss, I admit that I have some selfish motives in this plan. If you don't like it, we can change it," Tesoro said with a somewhat awkward expression.
"Your plan sounds very good and very feasible... Just do what you said!" Sephiroth didn't blame the other party. Young people in love were always blind, and Tesoro was clearly influenced by Stella, his beloved, and wanted to do something for his lover's country. As long as it didn't harm the Company's interests, he didn't want to interfere. Furthermore, Tesoro's plan was indeed very good. It could develop the Company and also help the Sardo Kingdom, a win-win situation that Sephiroth couldn't refuse.
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