"What did you just say? Say that again!"
Marineford. Fleet Admiral's Office.
The current Fleet Admiral, Kong, had just received a call.
And whatever he heard on the other end instantly sent him into a rage.
The moment he hung up, he barked, "Summon everyone immediately. I have something important to discuss."
…
"Admiral Sengoku, do you know why the Fleet Admiral called us in this time?"
"Oh? Sakazuki, you got back pretty fast. But no, I don't."
"Yaaah…"
"Borsalino, this is a meeting. Wake up."
"So scary…"
…
A moment later, Kong entered the meeting room and tossed a newspaper onto the table.
"Take a look. This was printed this morning."
Everyone present was at least a Vice Admiral, so naturally, none of them had trouble reading the paper at a glance.
They quickly scanned through the article.
Sengoku was the first to speak.
"This time, the Marines have been utterly humiliated."
Sakazuki snorted coldly. "Scum like that should be completely exterminated."
Borsalino scratched his cheek lazily. "Pirates these days are really this scary?"
Kuzan yawned.
Kong swept his gaze across the room.
"Speak. What should the Marines do about this?"
"A pirate crew openly raised their flag and sailed out from a harbor under Marine protection. Hundreds of soldiers and multiple warships failed to stop them. More importantly, the other side didn't fire a single shot from beginning to end, yet still walked away from a heavily fortified port."
Sengoku adjusted his glasses and said, "Fleet Admiral, I've already looked into this Myriad Worlds Pirates crew. They appear to be a newly established pirate crew. At present, only three members are confirmed, and the only one whose name we know for certain is the captain, Kurogane Ren."
"However, after investigating the incident in detail, I don't believe they escaped because of overwhelming strength. Their luck was simply too absurd. One warship ran aground, another lost control due to mechanical failure, and that was what allowed the pirates to get away."
He paused, then continued.
"As for this Kurogane Ren, I already had him checked. Half a month ago, during the fighting on Taki Island, he defeated a pirate with a bounty of twenty-two million beli. So he does have some level of strength. There are also rumors that he was the one who killed Skunk Jerry, who carried a bounty of seventy-five million."
"But there's still no hard proof regarding Jerry. That part remains under investigation."
Kong looked at Sengoku.
"Your recommendation?"
Sengoku held up five fingers.
"I believe the Marines should not issue an excessively high bounty. His true strength is still unclear, and the impact of this incident is already bad enough. We cannot encourage this kind of thing."
"However, what he did has dragged Marine dignity through the mud. So we should dispatch Headquarters personnel to capture him. Ideally, a Vice Admiral."
Kong nodded once.
"For the operation against the Myriad Worlds Pirates, send three Vice Admirals. Make absolutely certain there are no mistakes."
Then he asked, "And the bounty? Sengoku, what do you think is appropriate?"
Sengoku kept his hand raised.
"This much."
"Approved."
"Agreed."
…
"Captain, come look. You made the paper."
The second he heard that, Ren rushed over.
He also wanted to see how high the Marines had set his bounty.
After all, he had sailed off right under their noses.
He snatched the newspaper and immediately saw the front-page headline.
It was about the incident where he had calmly sailed out of the harbor in full view of the Marines.
Those shameless reporters had even used the title:
The Shame of the Marines
And to make it worse, some bastard who must have witnessed the whole thing had written out the entire sequence in detail, including exactly how the Marines had failed to stop him.
Ren read through it.
Not bad.
The writing was actually pretty decent.
After appreciating the glowing coverage of his own heroic performance, he turned to the important part—
his bounty.
The first thing he saw was the nickname the Marines had given him.
Lucky Ren
Ren's face twitched.
I'm clearly a terrifyingly powerful man, and they gave me a nickname like that?
But after thinking about it for a moment, he had to admit it did make a certain kind of sense.
The reason he got away so cleanly from all those Marines really had been thanks to luck.
The problem was—
the one with the absurd luck wasn't him.
It was his ship.
Still, that wasn't the real issue.
So he looked down at the actual bounty amount.
And the next second—
he flipped.
"Which damn idiot in the Marines set this number?!"
Because at the start of the bounty line, there really was a five.
But it wasn't fifty million.
It wasn't even five million.
It was fifty thousand.
Fifty. Thousand. Beli.
Far away in Marineford, Sengoku rubbed his nose and muttered, "Did Tsuru think of me just now?"
Meanwhile, on the deck of The Lucky, Ren was hanging over the railing, half-crying and half-cursing.
"Shameless... despicable... useless... incompetent…"
…
New World. Whitebeard Pirates. Moby Dick.
"Hahahaha!"
"Pops, look at this! This Lucky Ren guy only got fifty thousand! Is this bounty supposed to kill me with laughter?"
"Hahahahaha!"
Whitebeard raised a massive bowl of sake, drank deeply, and said, "Marco, don't underestimate this Ren. He's definitely not simple."
The Whitebeard Pirates immediately turned toward him.
They all understood what that meant.
For the old man to say someone was "not simple" was already enough to prove that the target had something special.
Because the one saying it was Whitebeard—
Edward Newgate.
One of the strongest men in the New World.
Big Mom Pirates.
"Mom, look at today's paper!"
Big Mom glanced at it lazily.
"Fifty thousand? Nothing worth caring about."
Beasts Pirates.
"Bring me more booze…"
"King-sama, Captain Kaido is drunk again. Should we still keep bringing him alcohol?"
"Keep going."
King glanced at Ren's bounty poster and muttered only one word.
"Waste."
Then he ignited the newspaper in his hand and let it burn.
…
Grand Line, first half. Red-Haired Pirates.
"Boss, let's recruit this guy! His luck seems pretty good! We've had rotten luck lately. If he joined us, maybe things would start going our way!"
"Hahaha!"
Shanks looked at Ren's face on the paper and asked, "Beckman, what do you think? Should we bring him aboard?"
"No."
Shanks blinked. "Why not?"
Beckman took a drag of his cigarette and answered calmly, "He embarrassed the Marines in public. The Marines won't let that slide. Don't be fooled by how low his bounty is. They only did that because they want to keep this incident from escalating. I guarantee they've already dispatched a large force—real powerhouses—to hunt him down."
"So I don't think we need to go out of our way to recruit him."
Shanks sighed regretfully and shook his head.
"What a pity. I just hope his luck stays as good as it seems."
Then he grinned and shouted,
"Alright, everyone! Party time!"
"OHHH!"
And just like that, Kurogane Ren made his first appearance in the newspapers and drew attention from across the world.
But at this point, most people only saw him as a lucky little pirate.
No one could have guessed that in the future, he would rise to become one of the five strongest pirates in the world.
At that moment, Ren and the others had already arrived at the next island.
The reason they made it there so quickly had a lot to do with Martha's modifications to the ship.
With electrically driven propellers, The Lucky was several times faster than ordinary sail-powered vessels and wasn't restricted by wind direction.
After landing, Ren and the others discovered that the island seemed completely uninhabited.
He planned to replenish food and drinking water, inspect the ship, and wait for the Log Pose to recharge before continuing to their next destination.
But before heading off to explore the island, Ren made up his mind to use the two remaining Character Summoning Cards.
Because during the voyage, he had already thought things through.
The Marines would never let him go after the humiliation he had caused.
Martha and Xu Nian were more than enough against ordinary Marines.
But if powerful Marine officers showed up, the two of them would be in real danger.
So Ren wanted more strength.
More people.
And more cards on the table.