"Captain John is dead?" Ren was somewhat surprised.
Although he knew this guy hadn't survived to decades later, this kind of sudden death still caught Ren off guard. It gave him a feeling that a legend was coming to an end.
The Rocks who once dominated the seas had fallen, and now his top officers were also beginning down the path of destruction.
John was just the first—later there might be Silver Axe, and even more. In this sea where the future had already been changed, even Wang Zhi, who survived until Luffy set sail, might die early.
"That guy lost a leg in that war a few years ago, and we've been targeting him these past few years too. It's not strange that it would come to this," Yukiko said. Mentioning John, she could still feel the scars on her back that had already healed throbbing faintly.
"It's just a pity I can't take revenge personally."
"Is that the guy who hurt Yukiko-neesan and Shutenmaru?" Molly had heard about what happened back then. She had originally wanted to take advantage of this trip to sea to go find trouble for that guy together with Yukiko and Shutenmaru—she didn't expect him to die early.
"We still need to wait and see whether this is really true. Right now, Captain John's territory has already gathered the attention of the whole world," Yukiko said.
It wasn't strange for John to die. His power was thin now, and he was carrying great treasure. There were plenty of people who wanted to make a move on him. The question was that he died too suddenly.
There hadn't been any news of the Navy making moves recently, nor had any great pirates made a move against him. Even having lost a foot, John's strength was still among the best on the sea—he wouldn't die that easily.
"You suspect it's a trap?" Ren somewhat understood Yukiko's concern.
"Yes." Yukiko nodded.
John possessed the treasure he had accumulated over the years, and with his poor development in recent years, many people already had their eyes on him. He knew better than anyone that his former "companions" from the old days might actually be the ones who hated him the most.
He was like a bloody bone with meat—countless beasts wanted to come take a bite!
Under these circumstances, his original plan to retire with his treasure was simply impossible. The final outcome would definitely not be a good end. In this situation, it was only natural for him to take some special measures to protect himself.
Faking his death might be one of those measures.
"How strange. If he's afraid of dying, why not just give up his treasure and find someone to protect him?" Molly didn't understand. She liked money too, but compared to that, the lives of her loved ones were more important.
"For John, giving up his treasure is harder than giving up his life," Ren smiled. Human desire has no limits. In this world, there were plenty of people who died miserably holding onto treasure they couldn't protect.
John was just the most famous among them.
Because his treasure was simply too much—so much that even the World Government was tempted.
"But in this case, wouldn't it just attract even more people's attention?" Molly asked. She didn't really understand all those complicated things, but she knew that if things continued like this, perhaps every force on the sea would be watching him.
With that many eyes watching, even if Captain John wasn't dead, in the end, death would be the only outcome.
"That's true, this part doesn't quite make sense." Ren sighed, then said, "For now, we can only speculate. But if we want to get involved, we need to be prepared for all kinds of unexpected situations—only then can we be foolproof."
"If it's really like the rumors say, then John's death is far too suspicious."
Suspicious was an understatement—it was practically unremarkable, as if he just suddenly dropped dead one morning. And it probably wasn't other forces either.
If other forces had done it, they would definitely have tried their best to suppress the news until they obtained Captain John's treasure.
Ren remembered that in the original story, Captain John was killed by his own subordinates because he was too greedy and wouldn't share his treasure with them.
That same possibility existed now. And having lost a leg, John's authority had likely been affected as well as his strength—the possibility of being taken out by his subordinates was quite high.
"In any case, let's find someone to gather information first," Ren said.
"I've already put Shutenmaru in charge of that," Yukiko had arranged everything in an orderly manner. Currently, she had only sent Shutenmaru, but as a captain in the Fatui, Shutenmaru also had several squad leaders from the advance team under him.
These people alone could form a pirate crew whose combat power wasn't inferior to John's pirate crew.
In the past few years, Shutenmaru's strength had improved considerably. If he and Gairo worked together against John now, they definitely wouldn't be in as sorry a state as before.
"Leave that side to Shutenmaru for now. Deploying large numbers of troops would also make it easy for other forces to target us," Ren said.
He hadn't originally planned to get too involved in John's affairs—at least for now, he was still in a wait-and-see attitude. If that John guy really wasn't dead, he wouldn't mind sending him on his way.
As for Captain John's treasure, although Ren was interested, in the original story, this guy's treasure remained just a legend even decades later. Buggy apparently obtained Captain John's treasure map at some point, but whether it was real was hard to say.
However, Molly was clearly very interested in this matter.
"Shutenmaru has already set off? I want to go see too." She laughed like a simpleton. If not for the fact that Molly's face became enchantingly beautiful when she transformed into an Oni, Ren would sometimes suspect she had eaten the Tibetan Fox Fruit.
"He left yesterday," Yukiko spread her hands.
"Eh, what a pity..."
"If you're interested, I'll go take a look with you," Ren said, seeing how interested she was. "Captain John was a dignified man in life. If he doesn't want to be dignified, I'll make him dignified!"
"But if you go, won't it attract too much attention?" Yukiko worried.
"That's simple—just change my face," Ren said casually.
"Full Body Reception—Great Mouth True God's Soul!"
A purple magic circle lit up at his feet, and immediately after, Ren's appearance completely changed.
His facial features didn't change much, but his hair turned white. His face didn't transform into something like a wolf god's, but his eyes became sharp, and his ears appeared to be pointed.
[
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