"Hiss... whew!"
In the bustling central plaza, Beckman held a cigar between his lips and slowly exhaled a stream of smoke.
For the first time in his life, the fingers holding the cigar trembled beyond his control.
He had just lit this cigar on that nameless island in the East Blue, only to put on a calm front.
But now, not even half an inch of it had burned away, and they had already crossed thousands of kilometers, standing at the entrance to the Grand Line.
"We're... already in Reverse City?"
Beckman looked at the steel buildings towering into the clouds, at the neon billboards flashing in midair, and at the crowds coming and going. His eyes were filled with bewilderment, as though he had seen a ghost.
"Even by the fastest ship, it should take at least three days and three nights to get here from that island..."
"Can... can a person really do something like this?"
Standing beside him, Hongo also raised his head like a country bumpkin and let out a sigh.
Fortunately, he had surrendered early, so there wasn't much for him to worry about.
Being on the same side as someone like this... he had to admit, it really made him feel safe.
"No."
Beckman took a deep breath and shook his head bitterly.
"I can't even imagine it. No matter what kind of space-type or teleportation Devil Fruit user it is, it's absolutely impossible to bring several living people across half the world in an instant without any startup at all."
"Even a special Fruit like the Door-Door Fruit requires preparation before activation. Besides, my arm was coated with Armament Haki just now. In theory, Devil Fruit abilities shouldn't affect me."
As one of the few S-Class powerhouses on the sea, he knew all kinds of strange abilities like the back of his hand.
If he had to swim from that deserted island to Reverse City, he had enough stamina, but he'd still have to spend several weeks in the sea.
But Rosse had merely snapped his fingers, and they were already here.
Only after personally experiencing this miracle did Beckman truly understand how terrifying Rosse was.
He even began to wonder whether, even if Luffy awakened Nika's destiny as Shanks hoped in the future...
Could he really stir up even the slightest wave before a true monster beyond all standards like Rosse?
"Beckman, where do we go now?"
Hongo looked around blankly.
They were standing on the crowded central avenue.
Passing around them were well-dressed businessmen in suits, neatly dressed civilians, and occasional formations of government army soldiers.
As for the two of them... one wore a tattered cloak and held a cheap cigar in his mouth.
The other was covered in blood, looking like a beggar who had just crawled out of a morgue.
In this bustling city full of a sense of the future, they looked completely out of place, like two savages abandoned by the times.
In truth, the Red Hair Pirates had been to Reverse City before.
Back then, however, they had come as pirates, obediently paid the expensive transit fee, hurriedly resupplied at the docks, and slipped away. They had never seen what the city itself looked like.
"Don't worry. Just wait."
Beckman put his hands back into his pockets. Though he was panicking inside, he still maintained a calm appearance.
"Since that man dumped us here like trash, it means he definitely arranged someone to receive us. If I couldn't even figure that much out, I wouldn't have the nerve to call myself smart."
Sure enough, less than half a minute after Beckman finished speaking, a tall, thin figure wearing an outrageously flashy yellow-striped suit and a large coat with the word "Justice" printed on the back condensed out of nowhere before them like a dazzling golden flash.
"My! My!"
The newcomer pushed up the amber sunglasses on the bridge of his nose, both hands in his pockets, the corners of his mouth curling into an extremely punchable grin.
In a leisurely tone with more than a hint of teasing, he drawled,
"Isn't this Mr. Ben Beckman, the brain of the Red Hair Pirates with a bounty of one billion? How did someone as dangerous as you suddenly end up looking like a lost little rabbit on the streets of Reverse City, our World Government's city? So scary~"
Hearing that unmistakably irritating voice, Beckman spat at his side.
He turned his head, narrowed his eyes at the man, and the muscles in his cheeks twitched slightly.
"Tsk... Fleet Headquarters' greatest fighting force, Admiral Kizaru. I must have quite the reputation. I never expected someone of your level to come greet us."
"My, my, an admiral is right. But in today's World Government, I can't really be called someone important."
Borsalino shrugged with a grin, looking so lazy that he seemed ready to fall asleep standing up.
"In the World Government, this old man is just a miserable second-tier clearance worker."
"Oh, and this isn't the battlefield anymore. Just call me Borsalino. If nothing unexpected happens, the two of us might even end up working in the same department," Kizaru yawned.
He had originally been trimming his fingernails in his office when Rosse suddenly gave him an order to come receive two lost lambs and show them the world.
It sounded troublesome at first, but after thinking it over... since he was already here, he might as well use the reception as an excuse to apply for a few days of paid leave from headquarters and spend the time wandering around eating good food.
Why not?
"Come on then, you two country pirates."
Turning around, Kizaru jerked his chin toward a large convertible sports car that had just stopped by the roadside.
"I'll take you to get cleaned up and changed. Then I'll show you what Reverse City is really like."
"Then we'll gladly accept."
Beckman let out a breath and didn't stand on ceremony.
Since the World Government had gone to the trouble of treating them like this, what choice did they have besides accepting it?
Borsalino snapped his fingers.
The vehicle parked by the roadside let out a faint hum, and its streamlined silver door silently slid upward.
"This thing..."
Holding his cigar, Beckman looked the wheel-less steel vehicle floating above the ground up and down, raising an eyebrow.
"It's a bit like the bubble cars in the Sabaody Archipelago."
Mechanical vehicles were rare to Beckman, but not completely unfamiliar.
After all, he had roamed these seas for most of his life and had seen all kinds of strange ancient weapon ruins.
The last time they came to Reverse City, there had been shuttle cars at the docks.
But this one was clearly on a completely different level.
Its alloy shell was smooth enough to use as a mirror, the dashboard was a holographic projection, and its hovering technology produced no engine vibration whatsoever. Everything about it felt futuristic.
"Tsk! You people really know how to live. I have to say, this ride is really comfortable."
Beckman casually sat down in the spacious back seat.
As his body, stained with blood and sand, sank into the soft white seat, the contrast was so great that he couldn't help letting out a self-mocking chuckle.
Compared to this, their pirate ship, which pitched through storms and left their backs aching against hard wooden planks, was nothing more than a primitive dugout canoe.
"My, my, this is only the lowest-spec four-seat government model. Nothing special. If we're talking comfort, the one I use in Mary Geoise has a wine cabinet and even drives itself. That's much more to my liking."
Grinning, Borsalino opened the driver's door and sat down.
He didn't even fasten his seat belt. He simply lazily rested one hand on the semicircular steering control.
"Sit tight, you two."
Hummm!
Without giving Beckman or Hongo any time to prepare themselves, the rear of the vehicle suddenly blasted out a plume of blue plasma.
"Holy! This speed!"
The silver hover car shot forward like a real flash of light, instantly tearing through the air and forcing its way into the flow of traffic.
The terrifying acceleration hit them at once.
Hongo, sitting in the passenger seat, didn't even have time to cry out before he was pinned firmly against the backrest.
"Sorry~ Sorry~ I'm used to moving at the speed of light, so I always end up flooring it without thinking."
Looking ahead, Borsalino still spoke in that same irritatingly casual tone.
Holding the steering control with one hand, he weaved through traffic at breathtaking speed.
"But even if you fly out, it doesn't matter. I'll turn into light and catch you right away. You definitely won't die from the fall."
"You call this driving? Can ordinary people really handle this speed?"
Watching the buildings and streets flash by outside the window, Beckman couldn't help gritting his teeth.
As an S-Class powerhouse, his dynamic vision easily kept up, and he had no trouble keeping himself steady.
But this speed was completely unreasonable.
The hover car was already moving far faster than Yasopp's full-speed sprint on land.
It was hard to imagine that a mass-produced machine powered only by energy could normally outperform the physical burst speed of one of the sea's strongest fighters.
'Machines... Are actually faster than people?'
"You think this is fast? Looks like you've never been on an airplane."
Borsalino chuckled and glanced at Beckman's shocked expression through the rearview mirror.
"When those things fly through the atmosphere at full cruising speed, they're much faster than I'm driving right now."
"They can reach any corner of the world in no more than ten hours."
"And the best part is that even an old farmer who can barely lift a hoe can sit back and ride one comfortably."
"Ten hours? Across the whole world? That's ridiculous!"
Beckman's face tightened, and the fingers holding his cigar clenched.
"Not really. There still aren't many civilian routes yet. The main reason is that pilots take a long time to train, and we have to put civilians' safety first."
"There, look up. That's an airplane."
Screech!
Without warning, Borsalino slammed on the brakes.
The hover car traced a perfect arc by the roadside and came to a smooth stop.
At the same time, he casually pointed toward the sky outside the window.
Beckman and Hongo felt their stomachs churning. They had only just caught their breath when they immediately followed Kizaru's finger and looked up.
At the same time, a deep, terrifying rumble rolled across the sky.
Less than a hundred meters above them, a silver-white steel beast tore through the clouds, dragging two long white trails behind it as it climbed proudly into the sky.
It was enormous.
Its outstretched streamlined wings were comparable in size to a small Sea King.
"A piece of steel that huge... is actually flying? And at that speed..."
Beckman's mouth hung open.
The sharp eyes that had always been so calm were now filled with unconcealed shock.
Plop!
He had even forgotten to bite down.
The cigar in his mouth simply slipped from his lips and fell toward the carpet inside the car.
Whoosh!
A golden flash flickered through the cabin.
Before anyone realized it, Borsalino had already caught the still-smoking cigar between two fingers. Grinning, he stuffed it back into Beckman's gaping mouth.
"As for the speed, around two thousand kilometers per hour. Since it's a civilian aircraft, it really isn't that fast."
Borsalino put his hands back into his pockets and casually added,
"If it's a World Government aircraft, it'll easily exceed four thousand kilometers per hour."
"You're kidding... That's absurd..."
With the cigar stuffed back into his mouth, Beckman swallowed hard.
In the short ten or so seconds they had been talking, that massive airplane had already become nothing more than a tiny black dot before disappearing beyond the horizon.
With the eyesight of an S-Class powerhouse, he could accurately estimate its speed.
Even if Shanks chased after it with everything he had, he wouldn't catch up.
Even if Dragon came, all he could do was watch it fly farther and farther away.
But now Borsalino was telling him there were things that were twice as fast?
The key point was that the facts were right in front of him.
He couldn't find a single word to argue back.
At this moment, every rebuttal seemed utterly powerless.
Precisely because it was true, Beckman felt despair.
He finally understood what Kizaru had meant by reaching any corner of the world within ten hours.
What did that mean?
It meant that while the Red Hair Pirates were still sailing wooden ships across the sea, worrying about avoiding storms and coating their ships to travel underwater... the World Government had already stopped using ships altogether and simply flown instead.
In just a few hours, they could accomplish what took the pirates an entire month.
The two sides weren't operating on the same level of efficiency at all.
They weren't even living in the same era anymore.
Compared to them, they were practically primitive people.
"How many of those things flying in the sky do you have now?"
Beckman stared at the back of Kizaru's head, his voice frighteningly low.
He vaguely remembered Borsalino casually mentioning earlier that there weren't many of them yet.
If there were only a handful, then perhaps the strategic threat was still manageable.
"Oh, you mean civilian airliners?"
Borsalino scratched his chin and answered casually.
"Right now, around ten thousand of them are flying around the clock. The largest can carry about three hundred passengers."
"Sigh! Compared to the billions of people living under the World Government, that's still far too little capacity. People are always complaining that there aren't enough planes."
"But..."
Kizaru's lips curled into a broad grin, revealing a mouthful of white teeth.
"I heard the three new aircraft factories are already in full production. More than a hundred brand-new passenger planes roll off the line every day now. In another year or two, all you'll have to do is look up, and you'll see these things filling the sky."
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