Bacchus Island. The Outer Port District.
Unlike the humid, blood-scented primordial interior, the port was a den of gilded debauchery. High-end restaurants lined the cobblestone streets, their chimneys belching the aroma of expensive spices and seared fats.
"Make way! Move it or lose it!"
Buggy, sporting thick sunglasses and a look of pure misery, strained against a heavy tow rope. Behind him, a flatbed cart groaning under a hundred barrels of premium rum rattled over the stones.
"Back when I was with Captain Roger, I was a legend! Now? I'm a pack mule for two East Blue brats. It's a tragedy. A theatrical tragedy!" Buggy grumbled, wiping sweat from his brow with a detached hand.
Carina, walking ahead, didn't even look back. She wore a sleek trench coat, her fingers flying over the beads of a small abacus as she haggled with a spice merchant.
"Sixty percent of market price. Take it or I walk," she said, her voice like cold silk. "These 'Primal Herbs' neutralize the acidity of ancient beast meat. Aside from lunatics like us who actually go into the mountains, no merchant ship touches this stuff. You want it to rot in your cellar, or do you want my gold?"
The merchant, pale and sweating, nodded frantically to close the deal.
Standing nearby, Sabo adjusted the brim of his top hat. Having grown up in the high society of the Goa Kingdom, he had a surgical eye for "distorted prosperity." He saw the waitstaff and laborers—indigenous people dressed in crude skins, chained to kitchen doors like livestock, their eyes hollow and branded with a black mark.
"This island's wealth is built on filth," Sabo murmured, his gaze darkening.
"Profitable filth," Carina added, tucking her abacus away. "I did some digging. The island is run by 'Gourmet Predator' Truff. 85-million-Berry bounty. He's an Ancient Zoan user who turned this place into a black-market hub for World Nobles. He captures the interior's beasts, tortures them for 'flavor,' and sells the misery to perverts with deep pockets."
Sabo's knuckles whitened around his staff. He loathed nothing more than those who trampled on life to please a corrupt crown.
Just as they turned to head back to the Eclipse—
"GET OUT OF THE WAY! ARE YOU BLIND?!"
A roar shattered the street's rhythm. A squad of guards in black uniforms, riding domesticated velociraptors, tore through the crowd. Merchants scrambled; several slaves who were too slow were trampled into the dirt, coughing blood as the riders ignored them.
The leader, a scarred man with a wild boar skull tattooed on his chest, cracked a spiked whip.
"Faster! The Baron's main hunting party is already in the mountains to take the Primal Kong alive! If we're late with the supplies, it's our heads!"
The scarred man steered his raptor straight toward Buggy's rum cart.
"Hey! Red Nose! Dump that junk in the gutter! You're blocking the Baron's Guard!" The man lashed out with his spiked whip, aiming straight for Buggy's face.
Buggy stopped. He didn't flinch. He slowly adjusted his sunglasses, his mouth twitching with a decade's worth of repressed pirate fury. He'd been a porter all day, and now some bottom-feeder wanted him to dump his precious cargo?
"You blind pig," Buggy hissed. His fists, armed with Sea Stone knuckles, clenched with a metallic snick.
"This is the Eclipse's rum!"
"BARA BARA HOU!"
Before the whip could land, Buggy's right hand detached and shot forward like a cannonball. It left a blurred afterimage in the air, connecting squarely with the scarred man's face.
CRACK!
The man's nasal bone disintegrated. He was launched off his raptor, hurtling through the plate-glass window of a five-star restaurant.
The street fell into a deathly silence.
"You... you attacked the Baron's men?!" The remaining dozen guards drew their flintlocks, their faces twisted in shock.
"Telling us to pour money into a gutter? You've got more guts than your Baron," Carina chirped, having already retreated to a safe distance to watch the show.
"It seems your master forgot to teach you manners," Sabo said, stepping in front of the cart. He ignited. His right arm became a pillar of dazzling orange-red flame.
"FIRE! KILL HIM!"
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Lead bullets whistled through the air, passing harmlessly through Sabo's logia body.
"A Logia?!" the guards screamed, their bravado evaporating.
"Since you love hunting so much," Sabo said, spinning his alloy staff until it formed a blinding ring of fire. "Let's see how you like being the ones on the grill."
"FLAME BURST!"
A massive dragon of fire erupted from the staff, incinerating the center of the street. The guards and their raptors didn't even have time to scream before they were reduced to charred husks.
Sabo walked over to the scarred leader, who was twitching in the restaurant ruins. He stepped on the man's chest. "You said the main hunting team is in the mountains? Targeting the Primal Kong?"
"Cough... you're dead..." the man wheezed, blood bubbling at his lips. "Lord Truff... he has 500 elites... and poison gas bombs... you won't leave this island..."
Sabo applied pressure, knocking the man unconscious. He looked toward the towering canopy of the interior, his brow furrowed.
"An 85-million bounty Ancient Zoan, 500 poachers, and chemical weapons?" Carina asked, joined Sabo. "The Captain is in there alone. Won't he be in trouble?"
"Trouble?"
Buggy, now back to pulling his cart, rolled his eyes. "The only thing that should be worried is that pig Baron."
He pushed up his sunglasses, a flicker of awe in his eyes. "He's provoked our Captain. The 'ecology' of this island is about to be violently reshuffled."
Sabo smiled, adjusting his hat. "Let's get the supplies back. If I know our Captain... he's already found exactly what he's looking for."
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