"Two servings of grilled meat!"
"Four seafood pastas, extra spicy!"
"Is the Sand Lizard ready yet?!"
Everyone knew that mealtimes were the busiest hours in a restaurant. Up front, the waiters slapped order slips onto the wall one after another while shouting to the kitchen for dishes to be expedited.
The chefs in the back answered in unison, quickening their hands. Although the fan overhead whirred loudly, it did little to suppress the heat and flames rising from the stoves.
In such a noisy, chaotic, and bustling environment, if there was anyone who seemed even remotely quiet, it would be the young man silently washing dishes in the corner.
He had a youthful face, with sharp and handsome features. His medium-length, wavy hair was parted in the middle and tinted a greenish-gray hue—resembling the wasabi served with sashimi.
Whether it was due to the kitchen's oppressive heat or the fact that he had been washing dishes nonstop for nearly five hours, beads of sweat trickled steadily down his forehead.
Yet his movements never faltered. Each time a stack of bowls and cups came in, he would rinse them swiftly, then slot them one by one into a distribution tray.
He repeated this process every day, all the way until 10 p.m.
Originally, the dishwashing shifts were split between two people—morning and afternoon—but after getting used to the work, he volunteered to take the whole day to earn extra pay.
He had no choice. Other than gambling, there really wasn't anything else he was good at.
But it was also because of gambling that he had suffered a brutal lesson last year—he was nearly captured by human traffickers and sold into slavery. And yet, that misfortune also led him to meet a girl he was willing to risk everything for.
"Just wait. I'll definitely buy your freedom."
He had no idea how many times he had repeated that sentence in his heart, but each time he felt exhausted, it gave him the strength to keep going.
At that moment, faint gunshots echoed from outside.
No one in the kitchen was alarmed. They simply continued their work as usual.
After all, this was GR24—lawless territory.
But slowly, a few people began to sense that something was off. The gunfire was too concentrated, too persistent. It didn't sound like a simple skirmish between a few thugs—it was starting to sound like a full-on firefight.
[Bang!!]
Suddenly, the restaurant's wooden door was kicked open by a large, burly man wielding a long blade. He stumbled in, panting heavily, and shouted toward a table on the left.
"The Marines are here! They're coming for us—run!"
"What?!"
"Why the hell would Marines come here?!"
The dozen or so people at that table all stood up. Some of them shouted suspiciously, "This is a lawless zone! You must be mistaken! They wouldn't chase pirates all the way here, would they?"
These men were thugs working for a slave-trading company. They occasionally took on side gigs like kidnapping for extra cash.
"I'm telling the truth!"
"The Marines are raiding all the slave shops, slave companies, slave markets—I even heard the slave auction at GR1 was attacked too!"
Seeing that his comrades didn't believe him, the man's already terrified expression grew more frantic. Then, with the gunshots growing louder outside, he gritted his teeth, turned, and ran off—leaving only one sentence echoing in the restaurant: "Believe me or not, I've warned you! Don't regret it when you're caught!!"
Now the dozen men looked at each other in shock. The next moment, they bolted out of the restaurant like a herd of startled boars—leaving the other diners utterly speechless.
But what no one realized was that the loud voice from earlier had already echoed into the suddenly quiet kitchen in the back.
[Crash!]
All at once, the sharp sound of a porcelain plate shattering rang out, and a blur of greenish-gray dashed out of the kitchen, completely ignoring the head chef's angry shouting. In the blink of an eye, the figure had vanished.
"Stella! Stella… Please be okay, Stella!!"
Seventeen-year-old Tesoro sprinted madly toward a slave shop in the GR28 district, the staccato rhythm of gunfire ringing in his ears.
The entire lawless zone, including District 0 and District 10, was being swept clean by the Marines in a full-scale purge.
This was nothing short of a small-scale war.
At the shoreline of GR24, five ships with plain white sails were moored at the dock. Well-dressed men and women in business suits hurriedly ran up the gangplanks under the protection of armed personnel. Their faces were all painted with varying degrees of panic, tension, and fury.
"Damn it! Damn that bastard Dragon! Damn the Marines!"
Doulas stood on deck, gnashing his teeth and cursing furiously as he looked back at the island.
"Where the hell did these bastards get the guts to do this?! These operations belong to royal families and noble houses across the world!"
A noblewoman in an opulent blue gown looked at him worriedly and said, "This must be an order from the World Government. Otherwise, the Marines wouldn't dare act like this."
"Impossible!"
Doulas shouted, incredulous.
"Even the Celestial Dragons come here regularly to pick out merchandise! There's no way the World Government would allow something like this to happen!"
"No, no, no—this has to be Dragon acting on his own! Abusing his position just because he's Garp's son!"
"Yes, yes, that has to be it! Definitely!"
As if he had suddenly uncovered the truth, a cold smirk spread across his face.
"Just watch—once the higher-ups catch wind of this, those Marines will be dealt with. And when that happens, we'll be back in business like nothing happened."
"But that bastard Dragon… he's done for. Completely finished. He has no idea how terrifying the forces behind the slave industry really are. No one can protect him—not even Garp!"
...
Gesor clutched his musket tightly, using the corner of a building as cover to block the bullets flying wildly outside. Every so often, he would lean out to fire a shot at the Marines on the other side, only to be forced back immediately by a new volley of bullets.
Panting heavily, sweat soaking his back, he didn't even bother to wipe it away. Instead, he quickly scanned the surroundings. Upon seeing that many of their own men were still alive, he let out a breath of relief.
Thankfully, this area—though devoid of ordinary civilians—was home to a dense network of slave cells. In such tightly packed urban combat, even the Marines wouldn't find it easy to break through.
"Harlan!"
"Harlan!!"
At that moment, Gesor spotted a familiar figure and shouted at the top of his lungs—anything quieter would've been drowned out entirely.
"What is it?"
The man named Harlan crouched behind a cargo crate. He pulled a grenade from his waist, yanked out the pin, and threw it with all his strength.
A second later, a loud explosion echoed out. Whether it actually hit anyone was uncertain, but at the very least, it had succeeded in halting the Marines' advance.
"Any word from above? When are our reinforcements arriving? Or when the hell are we pulling out?!" Gesor yelled as he continued exchanging fire with the enemy.
"Nothing!" Harlan shouted back. "Not a single reply!"
"Looks like we've been abandoned. We need to find a way out."
Gesor didn't react with anger to this realization. He'd spent half his life as a thug-for-hire—this kind of thing had happened to him more than once. So his first reaction wasn't rage, but figuring out how to survive.
"Wait—the keys!"
He suddenly turned his head and looked toward the terrified slaves huddled inside the nearby cells. A glimmer of hope lit up his face as he shouted again at Harlan.
"Spread the word—now! Anyone with keys, open the slave cells. If they don't have keys, break them open, shoot the locks if you have to. Let them all out! Drive them toward the Marines!"
Harlan paused for two seconds, then quickly understood what Gesor intended. He was planning to use the slaves as decoys, shields—and living bombs.
Those Marines had clearly come to rescue the slaves, so they wouldn't dare shoot them. And given their sheer numbers, unleashing them all at once would create chaos and delay the enemy's advance.
Every slave wore a black metal collar around their neck. If they ran too far from their designated area, the collar would automatically detonate—with a blast comparable to two conjoined cannon shells!
That chaos would buy the abandoned thugs just enough time to escape.
Cruel? Without a doubt. But Harlan only hesitated for a moment. His will to survive ultimately won out. Gritting his teeth, he pulled a Den-Den Mushi from his pocket and relayed Gesor's orders.
The order spread from Den-Den Mushi to mouths, from mouths to ears. Soon, most of the remaining thugs had heard the plan. Their faces lit up with excitement, and they turned toward the slave cells with mocking grins.
"You lot aren't worth selling anymore, but you sure as hell can still be useful. Squeeze out what value you've got left, trash!"
One by one, the locked cell doors were forced open by various means. Some slaves bolted out without a word. Others, however, refused to move, shrinking back in fear.
They weren't stupid. If they hadn't been wearing explosive collars, they might have dared to make a run for it. But with those collars on? It was better to wait for the Marines and hope for a proper rescue than charge into chaos.
Unfortunately, with lives on the line, the thugs weren't about to negotiate.
"Not coming out? Then I'll just kill you all now. Either you die here—or you die out there. Pick one!" As he finished speaking, he shot a male slave in the forehead.
"AAAAAAHHHH!!"
Women screamed. Panic spread like wildfire. More and more people fled their cells in terror. Even those who still had their wits about them found themselves swept up in the crowd, forced to flee with the others.
In an instant, the streets of GR27, GR28, and GR29 were flooded with terrified men, women, and children—all with pitch-black iron collars locked around their necks.
...
"Colonel Elric, what do we do now?!"
A lieutenant stood frozen in disbelief, staring at the chaos erupting around them. But Colonel Elric himself was at a loss—judging by the way the slaves were behaving, it didn't seem like they were in any state to listen to reason.
[Whoooosh—whoooosh—whoooosh—]
Just as the fighting Marines began hesitating due to the sudden flood of slaves, and their attacks started to slow, a strange sound began to echo high above the red trunks of the Yarukiman Mangroves.
A series of faint green whirlwinds suddenly appeared in the sky—and the wind rapidly grew stronger and louder. What had begun as mere gusts started merging, building into the scale of a full-blown hurricane.
Then the green-glistening gales surged forth like a tidal wave, sweeping out in all directions. They swallowed the fleeing slaves and the thugs trying to make their escape.
Within this raging sea of wind, even the Marines had to fight to stay upright—
Colonel Elric raised one arm to shield his face from the wind while using the other to catch a fellow Marine who had nearly been blown away. Planting his legs firmly into the ground, he burst out in an exhilarated laugh.
"This is Vice Admiral Dragon's ability!"
In his line of sight, slaves were immobilized where they stood, held fast by the swirling winds. They couldn't fall, nor could they move. Streams of green air whipped around them violently. Meanwhile, the thugs were lifted into the air by the whirlwinds, screaming in panic as they spun uncontrollably. One after another, they passed out mid-air with eyes rolled back.
And then—Monkey D. Dragon emerged silently from the storm, expression cold and stern as he gazed down at the entire slave market from above.
"Detain all hostile individuals!" he commanded.
"Locate the keys and remove the collars from all captives. Separate them by gender for now and keep them contained. No free movement until government personnel arrive to make proper arrangements!"
With each order Dragon gave, the force of the wind diminished.
And just like that, the chaos began to settle.
The slaves—disheveled by the wind and still wearing those cold, iron collars—froze in place. Not one dared move an inch.
The thugs, meanwhile, lay sprawled on the ground foaming at the mouth. Some had passed out entirely, others were dazed and groggy, but none had any fight left in them. The Marines easily cuffed them without resistance.
"Stellaaaaaa!!"
Just as the final gunshots faded into the howling wind and the turbulence began to calm, a thunderous voice tore through the air.
Everyone instinctively turned toward the source and saw a teenage boy—sixteen or seventeen—sprinting across the square toward a blonde, blue-eyed slave girl.
"Tesoro—!"
The girl's face lit up with emotion as she watched the boy race toward her. Her arms flew open in anticipation. But when she tried to run to him, the residual winds still swirling around her wouldn't allow it.
"Whoa—what a stunner. With looks like that, she should've been auctioned off at the main hall, not locked up here," someone murmured in awe.
Indeed, Stella's beauty stunned more than a few people. Even in a thin, sleeveless blue vest, her figure and charm remained undeniable.
High above, Dragon saw the touching reunion unfolding and allowed a faint smile to surface on his face.
Just a heartbeat before Tesoro reached her, Dragon lifted the wind barrier around Stella—granting his silent blessing to the lovers' embrace.
And in the next moment, the two reunited souls held each other tightly, kissing passionately amid the fading winds.