Chapter 14:

Swarming In

One Piece: The Black Ledger

New chapter is live.

Settle in, take your time, and let's see what waits in the dark 🖤

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In barely half a month, news that Mad Hatter Town would auction a Devil Fruit had spread through most of the West Blue.

Pirates hungry for power swarmed toward the town.

The captains who had already prepared to enter the Grand Line were especially determined to take it.

What did a Devil Fruit mean?

Those veteran pirates, ready to step into a new world, understood it more deeply than anyone.

The Marine branches across the West Blue also caught wind of the news.

However, every Marine branch faced the same problem: moving enough troops quickly. Knowing about the situation did not mean they could act.

This was the West Blue, not the Grand Line.

Leaving aside questions of priority, the waters of one of the Four Blues were far wider and more scattered than the route through the Grand Line.

That meant the West Blue branches had to spread most of their forces across different regions to protect the civilians under their jurisdiction.

Gathering those scattered forces was not impossible. Den Den Mushi communication could carry orders quickly enough.

The problem was timing.

The worse problem was the constant threat of pirates.

Unlike the Marines, pirates did not have to stay in one place and maintain order. They rarely worked together, but they all shared the same instinct. They could move freely from one profit to the next.

If there was profit to be made, pirates would descend on the opportunity in droves.

By the time the Marines arrived, the pirates would flee without looking back, then sail toward the next place where profit waited.

Under those conditions, recklessly moving troops would only give pirate crews elsewhere more freedom to do as they pleased.

Compared with the threat of any single pirate crew, numbers were what made pirates in the Four Blues such a headache for the branch Marines, and what separated them from pirates on the Grand Line.

Of course, because of differences in local culture, temperament, and geography, the number of Marines in each jurisdiction varied.

Aside from the corrupt or ineffective officers in some branches, some better-staffed regions organized their surplus manpower into mobile units. Their main duty was to hunt down roaming pirates.

Those mobile Marine units, free to operate across branch jurisdictions, often terrified pirate crews.

They were effective, but they only treated the symptoms.

What could such units really do against a lawless place like Mad Hatter Town, whose roots ran deep?

It was like a sheriff with a gun walking into a den of ten thugs.

Because of the gun's deterrent power, the ten thugs might surrender despite their numbers.

But if a sheriff with a gun walked into a den of a hundred thugs, the result was obvious.

To break that balance, Marine Headquarters would have to send a force capable of overwhelming the town.

A disturbance caused by a single Devil Fruit was not enough for Headquarters to move on that scale.

Even if the West Blue branches could not launch an effective strike against Mad Hatter Town, their eyes and informants were watching it closely.

Being unable to act did not mean doing nothing.

Mad Hatter Island. Mad Hatter Town. Mad Hatter Auction House.

As its name suggested, the building looked like a tall top hat laid sideways on the ground.

The first and second levels formed the brim. They covered the largest area and served as the main auction venue.

To increase capacity, the auction hall had been designed in the rough style of an opera house.

In that sense, the second level could be considered part of the first.

Above that, each floor grew smaller as the building rose.

Naturally, the room on the top floor belonged to the owner of the auction house.

As the highest point of the building, the room was decorated in a glaring display of wealth. Everything about it smelled of a man desperate to show he had money.

One wall facing the town center was a full pane of coated floor-to-ceiling glass. In front of it sat a set of ornate deep-red lounge furniture.

The Devil Fruit to be auctioned in ten days rested on the table, placed on a layer of soft cloth to emphasize its value.

On the main sofa sat a broad, middle-aged man in a red suit, his hair slicked back and a cigar between his teeth.

This was the auction house owner, Lucius Ralph.

"One wave of the hand, and those wolves and jackals lose their minds." Ralph leaned back in his chair. His eyes were cold and black, almost stripped of normal human feeling. "That is the charm of a Devil Fruit."

Across from him, another man sneered. "Then it was worth all the trouble I went through bringing it back from the Grand Line. Simply moving it to another market multiplied its value several times over. How many deals like that exist in this world?"

Ralph lowered his eyelids and looked through the smoke at the man's proud face. He did not bother correcting him.

In this world, there were many good deals.

Ralph knew the markup had less to do with the trade itself than with how he had positioned the sale.

Ralph crushed the glowing end of his cigar between his fingers and said lightly, "Starting price: one hundred million. Final sale price should exceed one billion."

"That much?"

The man was startled. Clearly, he trusted Ralph's judgment.

Ralph glanced at the Devil Fruit on the table. "The real giants of the West Blue underground have no interest in this fruit. But the five major gangs all want it. That means the only people capable of buying it will be one of them. Do you understand what that means?"

Without waiting for an answer, he continued.

"It means that as long as the bidding remains normal, the price will keep climbing until it reaches the limit they can endure. Of course, that assumes no one uses dirty methods behind the scenes. As for the pirates rushing here, most of them are just here to fill seats and hand over money."

The man's interest grew.

"Then who do you think is most likely to take the fruit among the five major gangs?"

"Capone 'Gang' Bege."

At Sol's weapons shop, half a month had passed.

After half a month of rest and good food, the gauntness had disappeared from Corvin's face.

His sickly pallor was gone, replaced by healthy color.

Once he removed the bandages and looked in a mirror, he discovered something unexpected.

Apparently, he was handsome.

At the same time, he finally found his second target.

The neighbor.

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