"Captain, where should we head now?" Shirakawa and the others had deliberately picked up speed on their way back, so they reached the ship in no time.
"Riddel, where's your hometown?" Shirakawa had appeared in this world out of thin air. Salar, Jora, and Yuristin were all from the Grand Line; only Riddel came from the Four Seas, and the Four Seas happened to be Shirakawa's destination this time.
"Captain, my home is in the West Blue. I entered the Grand Line from the West Blue too."
"Is that so? Then our goal is the West Blue. We'll take you home," Shirakawa said, only half serious.
"Captain, what did I do wrong? Why are you sending me home?" The moment Riddel heard the words "take you home," he completely panicked, his eyes instantly turning watery as he looked at Shirakawa.
"Haha, I was just joking. How can you not even recognize a joke?"
"Oh, so that's what it was." Riddel's heart finally settled, and he let out a deep sigh of relief.
"In that case, Captain, can we just not go to the West Blue?" Even saying that, Riddel was still a little scared.
"Fine. Let's go to the North Blue instead."
Truthfully, Shirakawa had wanted to go to the North Blue for a while. Universally acknowledged as the strongest of the Four Seas, the North Blue naturally possessed its own unique and extraordinary qualities. Over there, some of the high-bounty criminals could even rival pirates from the Grand Line.
"Captain, why do we need to go to the North Blue? Aren't things fine here on the Grand Line?"
Even as Riddel questioned Shirakawa, his hands never stopped moving. He swung the ship around and began heading straight toward the Four Seas.
"Because we've done something huge, so we need to lie low for a while."
Another reason Shirakawa chose the North Blue was that the Marines' influence there was the weakest. As the roughest and most chaotic sea, the North Blue was a tangled web of competing forces; the local Marines couldn't gain any real advantage there.
"What huge thing?" Riddel asked with keen interest. In the short time he had been away, he felt like he had missed a whole lot.
"You'll find out in a few days. For now, we have to push the ship's speed to the limit. We need to reach the North Blue as fast as possible."
"Understood, Captain. Leave it to me."
Riddel thumped his chest, looking like the picture of reliability.
Three days flew by. Even though Shirakawa and his crew sailed at a blistering pace, it was impossible to go from the Grand Line all the way to the Four Seas in just three days. However, the exploits of Shirakawa and the others had already spread across the entire world. When Riddel learned what they had done, he was utterly shocked and also a little regretful that he hadn't been there; otherwise, his own bounty would definitely have gone up too.
Shirakawa and Jora's bounties had already increased, and even that new face who had no bounty before now carried an enormous one.
Silver Pirates Captain, Adolf K. Shirakawa: Bounty 500,000,000 Belly.
Two-Sword Style Swordsman, Ural Jora: Bounty 250,000,000 Belly.
Gun Fighter, Yuristin: First bounty 70,000,000 Belly.
Master of Disguise, Salar: First bounty 80,000,000 Belly. Probably because Salar was the main culprit behind the Count's death, his bounty ended up ten million higher than Yuristin's.
Still, no matter Salar's or Yuristin's bounties, both were a bit low for their actual strength. With their abilities, they could easily shoulder far higher rewards.
Thus, the total bounty of the Silver Pirates reached 1,080,000,000 Belly. Anyone capable of annihilating the Silver Pirates would become fabulously wealthy overnight; the World Government might even kick in a generous bonus on top of that.
Just as Shirakawa had predicted, the Marines were absolutely furious. An elite Marine branch wiped out in a flash was no small loss for them. Commander-in-Chief Kong issued a direct order to hunt down and bring every last member of the Silver Pirates to justice.
"That brat Shirakawa seems to have gone a bit too far this time." That was what Roger said when he saw the news about them. Even as the undisputed rulers of the New World, they had never done anything like this.
"Maybe they had their reasons this time," Rayleigh remarked. He had seen the reports too and offered Roger an explanation.
Rayleigh didn't really feel that what Shirakawa had done was too extreme. There was a reason they called him the Dark King, after all.
Roger was a pirate with a generous and forgiving heart. There were things he couldn't stand, but there were also things he would tolerate. Yet the things Roger could stomach weren't always things Rayleigh could swallow. Acting when the time called for it—that was Rayleigh's style. Anything Roger was unwilling to handle himself got passed to Rayleigh. Put simply, Roger basked in the freedom of the voyage, while Rayleigh cut down anyone who dared stand in Roger's way.
"But this time, Shirakawa really did go overboard. Doing something like this is sure to put him in mortal danger. The Marines have probably already put out a kill order on him." Roger spoke with a sigh, genuinely unsure whether Shirakawa could pull through this crisis.
"Relax. He's a man who walked off our ship. He won't be that fragile."
Rayleigh offered comfort, but deep down, he was just as worried. Because Shirakawa's move had undoubtedly jabbed the Marines' most sensitive nerve. And the sheer scale of Shirakawa's troublemaking shocked even them. In such a short time, he had pulled off so many major incidents and his bounty had skyrocketed to 500 million in the blink of an eye. A pirate whose bounty hit 500 million had already stepped one foot into the ranks of the great pirates, becoming a figure that most on the seas would fear.
"Hahahahaha! Shirakawa, I never imagined you'd pull something like this. This is right up my alley!"
That was Douglas Bullet's reaction when he saw the reports. After leaving the Roger Pirates, Bullet had fully unleashed his true nature, running wild across the New World. By this point, the New World had been thoroughly turned upside down by him. He even went as far as to challenge Whitebeard. Though he ultimately lost, that clash made Bullet world-famous on his own terms, finally shedding the halo of the Roger Pirates. He became a completely independent great pirate: the Demon Heir, Douglas Bullet.
"Salar… actually became a pirate?"
Seeing Salar had become a pirate, every face among the residents of Ragar Island showed disbelief. They could not wrap their heads around the fact that the ever-smiling man who always radiated such warmth was the very culprit behind the Count's murder.
Meanwhile, Lane, captain of the island's self-defense force, took Salar's bounty poster to his mother's grave and spoke. "Salar's new life has begun. Though I imagine this new life is already full of hardship. Please, watch over him from heaven and keep Salar safe."
/-\
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