Chapter 110: The Destruction of the Peterman Base
"One Berry?"
Peterman shot to his feet.
The smile vanished from his sharp, narrow face. His pointed lips trembled slightly, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop with his expression.
"You're joking, aren't you?"
There was already a threat in his voice.
If these people were customers, he would treat them as customers. If they were here to cause trouble, then they would never walk out of this room alive. The Peterman Base had not been built on courtesy. Anyone foolish enough to disrupt his business would be fed to the darkness beneath Sabaody.
The subordinates who had been standing by the curtains began moving.
Slowly.
Silently.
Like dogs circling prey.
Axel, however, remained seated.
"It was a joke," he said unhurriedly.
The tension in the room loosened by half.
Peterman's face eased. His lips curled again into that thin, oily smile.
"Guest, please don't make such jokes. They're bad for business." He sat back down, forcing a pleasant tone. "Now then, what kind of goods do you need?"
"Didn't I already say?" Axel replied. "All of them."
Peterman's brow furrowed. "But didn't you just say that was a joke?"
"The joke was the price."
Peterman stared at him.
Axel smiled. "One Berry was the joke."
"I see." Peterman's expression brightened again. "Then would you like me to calculate an approximate price for you? Rest assured, we conduct honest business here. Every item is clearly priced. No one will be cheated."
That last sentence was nonsense, of course.
A customer this fat did not swim into one's net every day. If Peterman did not carve a few extra layers of flesh from him, he would be insulting the profession.
Axel tilted his head. "I think you misunderstood me."
Peterman paused.
Misunderstood?
He turned to one of his subordinates, as if asking for an explanation. The subordinate only shook his head, equally lost.
Peterman's face darkened again. "And what, exactly, have I misunderstood?"
"I said one Berry was a joke," Axel said calmly, "because I'm not paying even that."
His smile widened.
"But I'm taking every person here."
For a brief moment, the room fell dead silent.
Then Peterman's gaze became vicious.
His eyes swept over Axel, Issho, Hawkins—and finally Eli.
No wonder Eli had been so quiet since entering. The usually talkative guide had barely dared to breathe.
So this was it.
They had come to make trouble.
"Hold them down," Peterman snapped. "I'll call for reinforcements."
"Reinforcements?" Axel said. "You won't have the chance."
From the moment they stepped into the base, Axel had felt it.
The pressure beside him.
Issho had been restraining himself the entire time.
It was not killing intent in the ordinary sense. It was heavier than that—like standing in a room where the air had been sucked thin, where every breath dragged against the ribs. The only reason the base was still standing was because Issho was holding back for the sake of the people locked inside.
Otherwise, the whole building would have been crushed flat long ago.
Peterman gave the signal.
Issho stood.
The old swordsman did not shout. He did not posture. He simply rose from his seat, and in that instant, the room changed.
A low, invisible force spread outward.
Before Peterman or his men could even understand what had happened, they hit the floor.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Bodies slammed down one after another. Muscles spasmed. Bones creaked. The floor groaned beneath them, cracking into spiderweb patterns under the unbearable weight.
Peterman's face was smashed against the ground. His pointed mouth bent awkwardly under the pressure, and pain tore through him from every direction. He tried to move, to crawl, to breathe—but his body would not obey.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his men.
They were pinned down as well.
Some had already stopped moving.
That sight crushed the last bit of hope in him.
With what little strength remained, Peterman forced out a broken plea.
"Please… spare… me…"
Issho did not answer.
For him, justice toward the innocent and justice toward evil were not the same thing.
His justice could be gentle. It could be patient. It could kneel before wounded civilians and apologize for failing them. But when it faced those who bought and sold human beings, who locked people in cages and called them merchandise, mercy no longer had a place at the table.
The pressure increased.
Peterman's voice vanished.
A few moments later, the master of Grove 8's human trafficking den was dead.
Axel sensed it even with his eyes closed.
Peterman was gone. His men were gone.
He felt no joy.
No pity either.
Only a quiet, complicated weight in his chest.
When he had first come to this world, Axel had believed life was precious. He had hesitated to kill. He had treated the taking of a life as something distant and heavy, something that should be avoided whenever possible.
But the sea had taught him.
The Red Line had taught him.
Nobles who crushed commoners for sport. Pirates who slaughtered villages. Traffickers who chained children like animals. Men who smiled while selling the suffering of others.
Over the past year, Axel had seen too much to remain the same.
Life was still precious.
That was exactly why some people could not be allowed to keep taking it.
Letting evil go was not kindness. In this world, sparing monsters often meant handing them another knife and sending them back into a crowd.
Perhaps that answer was not absolute.
Perhaps one day, experience would teach him a better judgment.
But for now, Axel understood Issho a little more than before.
The Peterman Base fell quickly after that.
With Peterman and his core men dead, the rest of the organization collapsed like a rotten beam. Those who resisted were suppressed. Those who tried to flee were caught. The cages were opened, one by one.
The people inside stepped out slowly, as if they had forgotten what freedom felt like.
Some cried.
Some stared blankly.
Some collapsed the moment their shackles were removed.
Hawkins disappeared for a while, then returned with Peterman's hidden treasure. Somehow, his divination had even led him to the concealed valuables buried around the base. Peterman had been suspicious by nature, and most of his accumulated wealth had never been entrusted to anyone else.
That wealth now had a better use.
Many of the freed captives were residents of Sabaody. Others had been brought from different islands. Axel distributed enough money for travel and warned them not to show their Berries openly. Then he told them to leave the lawless zone as quickly as possible.
Once the last cage was emptied, Issho stood in the center of the ruined base.
His hand rested on his cane-sword.
"A place this sinful," he said quietly, "has no reason to exist."
Eli, who had witnessed the entire destruction of the Peterman Base, swallowed hard.
No reason to exist?
The base had already been destroyed, hadn't it?
What else was this blind man planning to do?
Issho stepped forward.
His cane-sword slid from its sheath.
A purple ring of gravity burst upward from the blade and shot straight into the sky.
For one breath, nothing happened.
Then the heavens burned.
High above Sabaody, the clouds split apart as a massive fireball tore downward, wrapped in flame and smoke.
Eli's eyes bulged.
His mouth opened, but no sound came out at first.
Then panic finally found his throat.
"M-Meteorite! A meteorite is falling! Run!"
He stumbled backward, nearly tripping over himself in his desperation to flee.
Axel caught him by the back of his collar.
"Don't run," Axel said. "It's safer here."
"Safer?!" Eli's voice cracked as the air grew hotter. The descending meteor painted the grove in a blazing orange glow. "That thing is falling on us!"
Axel held him in place. "Mr. Issho called it down. Running around will only get you killed."
Eli froze.
His wide eyes slowly shifted from the burning sky to Issho's calm back.
Called it down?
That thing?
The meteor roared closer, dragging a tail of fire through the sky.
.....
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