I had just finished a drink with Dragon, so why in the world did he decide to defect right then?
Looking at the fanatical expression on Dragon's face—a look that screamed of a great enlightenment where one would march forward even if thousands opposed him—Kane opened his mouth to speak. His throat felt tight and blocked, leaving him unable to utter a single word of protest.
How did this guy's brain even function?
Kane knew he had clearly written the words "cowardly slacker who just wants to avoid work" all over his face. Somehow, in Dragon's mind, that had been automatically translated into the image of a far-sighted genius operating undercover in the enemy camp.
"Dragon, listen to me. You have really misunderstood the situation. I was just talking nonsense because I had too much to drink," Kane said, making one last desperate struggle to fix the mess. He held his hand out, frozen in mid-air as he searched for the right words.
"Drunk talk?"
Dragon shook his head, a vivid and genuine smile appearing on his angular face. It was a look Kane had never seen on the man before.
"In this world of intoxicated dreams and death, only the most sober person alive would dare to claim that the truth they speak is merely drunk talk."
"Kane, there is no need to test my resolve anymore. I am certain."
The sea breeze howled around them, ruffling Dragon's long black hair, but it could not shake his will. At that moment, his determination was as hard as a rock.
Under Kane's horrified gaze, Dragon took a deep breath and snapped into a standard military salute.
The movement was crisp, sharp, and seemed to carry the physical weight of a thousand pounds.
"Comrade Kane!"
Dragon kept his voice very low. It sounded a bit raspy because of the salt and the wind, but every word was powerful and carried the weight of a sacred vow.
"It is just as you taught me. A single spark can start a prairie fire. Rather than pruning the withered leaves on a decaying tree, it is better to sow entirely new seeds. I have made my decision. I am leaving right now."
"N-Now?" The cigarette in Kane's hand almost slipped through his fingers.
Big brother, are you actually for real?
Kane had certainly wanted the man to stir up some trouble so he could farm a few disruption points, but wasn't this level of efficiency a bit too high? His father, Garp, was sleeping in the cabin right behind them. At this rate, Dragon was going to give the hero of the Marines a cerebral hemorrhage.
"Time waits for no one."
Dragon turned his head to look at the pitch-black night hanging over the vast sea. His gaze seemed to pierce right through the darkness to see some unknown dawn waiting on the horizon.
"Every minute and every second spent in hesitation is nothing but a desecration of true justice. This uniform..."
He reached out and grabbed the white coat of justice resting on his shoulders. It was a garment that represented the high honor of a Marine field officer.
Rip!
The pure white coat was violently torn away and tossed onto the wooden deck. He discarded it like a heavy shackle, making a complete and final break with his past self.
"From now on, I will no longer be the Marine known as Monkey D. Dragon."
Dragon took one last deep look at Kane. His eyes were filled with gratitude, deep respect, and a firm sense of understanding.
"Teacher, please take care of yourself. I leave the task of dismantling the internal corruption of the Marines to you! Your safety is vital to the future of our revolution, so please, protect yourself at all costs!"
"I, Monkey D. Dragon, hereby swear! I will overthrow the corrupt rule of the Celestial Dragons and create a New World where everyone is equal! When we meet again in the years to come, it will surely be at the moment of the world's great transformation!"
Kane's mouth twitched frantically. Being addressed as "Teacher" made his entire scalp tingle with fear. He could already see the Gorosei chasing him across the four blues with a massive bounty on a wanted poster.
I didn't even teach you anything! I just recited two small paragraphs from the introduction of a politics textbook from my past life!
A thousand potential arguments finally turned into a single, defeated sigh that escaped Kane's lips. "Take care..."
It was over. He wouldn't be able to clear his name now even if he jumped into the middle of the ocean to wash away the guilt.
Dragon nodded his head heavily and said nothing more.
At that exact moment, a strange and sudden gust of wind swirled up from the surface of the sea. Dragon's figure became a blur, and he leaped onto the gunwale like a ghost before jumping off into the abyss without any hesitation.
Splash.
The sound of the splash was small and vanished into the waves in an instant.
His figure quickly merged into the dark sea. Using the wind and the natural currents to speed away toward the unknown distance, he looked like a true dragon finally breaking free from the shallow water to swim toward his own vast world.
Kane leaned his weight on the railing, staring in the direction where Dragon had disappeared. He held a cigarette butt that had long since gone cold, standing bewildered and lost in the wind.
He really just... left?
The very next second, the system interface in Kane's mind, which had been silent for a while, suddenly erupted with a blinding, golden light.
[Ding! Detected that the host has completed an Epic-level World-line Change event!]
[Discipline Judgment: Through deep ideological enlightenment, the host successfully incited the defection of Monkey D. Dragon, the son of Marine hero Garp and an outstanding officer of Marineford. This caused him to abandon the Marine camp and embark on a path of total opposition to the World Government!]
[This action caused Dragon to leave the Marine ranks much earlier than scheduled and established a specific revolutionary manifesto. This caused the birth of the Revolutionary Army to be moved forward and its threat level to rise exponentially!]
[Nature Judgment: Extremely malicious! Highly subversive! Fundamentally changed the world structure!]
[Discipline points +50,000!]
[Discipline points balance: 95,200!]
[Obtained special title: Revolutionary Godfather (Equip effect: When negotiating with anti-government forces, affinity +200 percent, opponent's IQ -10 percent)]
"Holy... crap..."
Kane stared at the numbers that had suddenly skyrocketed on his display panel. His breath hitched in his chest for a long beat.
Fifty thousand points!
He had worked himself to death in the Elite Camp, beating up his classmates and extorting money from Germa, only to scrape together a few tens of thousands of points over a long period.
As it turned out, in just one single night, with a few bottles of wine and a few pieces of stolen political nonsense, he had directly earned fifty thousand points.
"Is this the true value of playing politics?" Kane muttered to himself. He felt that the 300,000 Berries he had just won in the card game instantly lost all of their charm.
But he quickly forced himself to calm down.
Wait a minute.
This felt good, sure.
But Dragon had actually run away.
Who was going to be the one to clean up this massive mess?
If Garp woke up tomorrow morning and found his son was gone, and then a quick investigation revealed that Dragon was last seen chatting with him... "Hiss."
Kane sucked in a sharp breath of cold air and looked down at his own small, youthful frame.
Although his Storm-Storm Fruit was undeniably strong, in front of a man like Iron Fist Garp, he would probably be treated as nothing more than a punching bag.
"No, I have to destroy the evidence and keep my own hands clean!"
Kane's eyes sharpened as he looked left and right. There was no one around to witness his actions.
He quickly picked up the white coat of justice that Dragon had thrown onto the ground. He took out a pen he always carried with him and scribbled a few lines on a conspicuous spot on the lining of the coat.
Then, he kicked the coat into the arms of the Boatswain in the corner, who was currently sleeping like a dead pig after too much rum.
Immediately after that, he quickly cleaned up the empty wine bottles on the ground and even blew the bit of cigarette ash on the railing into the sea.
After doing all of this, it looked as if nothing had ever happened on the deck of the ship.
Kane stretched his arms nonchalantly, yawning with a lazy look as if he had just gotten up in the middle of the night to use the restroom. He wobbled slowly toward the cabin.
"The moonlight is so nice tonight, truly perfect for sleeping. As for where Dragon went? How should I know? I'm just a new recruit who just got on the ship today."
Kane returned to his hammock and forced himself to close his eyes. He fell into a light sleep, accompanied by the thunderous, rhythmic snoring of the surrounding Marine soldiers.
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