Chapter 34: Revolution?
Without Nereus, if Dragon had followed the original timeline, he would have pointed his gun at his superior officer, demanding they evacuate the innocent civilians on the island.
This was the reason why Dragon was thrown into an underground detention center immediately after returning to Marine Headquarters.
Regardless of the reason, in an army, threatening a superior officer with a gun was a severe crime.
As for ambushing a Celestial Dragon with a tranquilizer gun and escaping with the infant Shanks and a treasure chest (which contained baby Buggy and Roger's straw hat in some theories, but here it says Shamrock? Or maybe just escaping with Shanks is the main point?), that wasn't actually the main issue.
It wasn't that the incident wasn't serious, but rather that no one had noticed him at all. The Celestial Dragon hit by the tranquilizer was one of the most useless ones and couldn't even find the attacker.
Marcus Mars took Shamrock away, and because Whitebeard's attack turned the area into a speed bump, there was no time to check on Dragon, nor did anyone pay attention to a nameless grunt like him.
Actually, even if they had noticed, in a sense, it wouldn't have been a huge deal. After all, Garp directly attacked Saturn and the Imu possessing him head-on.
Garp didn't know who Imu was, but Imu certainly knew who had attacked them.
Despite this, Garp was still promoted as the "Hero of the Marines" for propaganda purposes.
Now, Dragon's status was simply that of a Marine soldier missing in action during the God Valley Incident. Such soldiers were everywhere.
On a battlefield swarming with monsters, ordinary soldiers were just numbers. Being classified as "missing" simply meant no corpse had been found yet.
"Work under you?"
"Is that strange? I have quite a few humans under my command. Although we are of different races, everyone gets along quite well."
"No, I mean... doing what..."
"Haven't you already guessed it? Your Marines constantly shout about 'Justice,' but whose Justice is it, really?
Ultimately, this 'Justice' is just a pretext.
No thinking required, just obey orders. Personal thoughts are only obstacles to the will of the army. If I recall correctly, those are your regulations, right?"
"How do you know these things?"
Nereus's words felt extremely familiar to Dragon. His squad leader had lectured him with the exact same words back on God Valley.
It was the same during boot camp. In a sense, Dragon was a very unqualified recruit for the Marines.
"By knowing your enemy, of course. From another perspective, that statement isn't entirely wrong. Soldiers do need to obey.
But a qualified army should at least know what it is fighting for, rather than using 'Justice' as a fig leaf.
The Marines obey the World Government, and the World Government serves the Celestial Dragons. If the cancer that is the Celestial Dragons isn't removed, the situation of the Marines will never change.
Young Marine, one last question: How many of your Marine higher-ups do you think are completely ignorant of what happened just now, and how many know everything perfectly well?"
The moment the fig leaf was torn away, far more than one problem was exposed. Nereus's question echoed constantly in Dragon's mind.
[Yeah... how many people in the Marines...]
[The higher-ups definitely know about this. The order for this mission came from Headquarters. Fleet Admiral Kong...]
Because his father was Garp, Dragon was familiar with the Marine higher-ups. Since its inception, the Marines had operated under the Three Admirals system.
Adhering to the principle of "quality over quantity," if strength standards weren't met, the Admiral position would remain vacant to avoid embarrassment from defeat.
The most critical point of the review process was strength. Even if they were "weak," they had to be weak only relative to other Admiral-level combatants.
Of the current Three Admirals, one had retired due to old age, and one had been killed by Rocks. The only remaining active Admiral was Kong alone.
[Dad... no... he wouldn't...]
The Marines weren't lacking suitable successors. It was generally believed that Zephyr, Sengoku, and Garp would take over as the future Three Admirals.
As current Vice Admirals, these three were already the pillars of the Marines. If his own father also knew about God Valley...
Dragon shook his head, trying to shake that chilling thought out of his mind.
"The rule of the Celestial Dragons has lasted too long, so long that too many people think what they do is inherently reasonable. You saw the soldiers on God Valley, right?
They don't think helping the Celestial Dragons carry out this massacre is wrong. If a big tree just has a few bugs, removing the pests will restore everything naturally.
But if the entire foundation is rotten and the inside has long been hollowed out, maintained only to keep up a shiny appearance, things are much more complicated."
Nereus seemed to be talking about unrelated topics, but the implication was very clear.
"At the very least... the rule of the Celestial Dragons must be broken... but their strength..."
Dragon used to think that Celestial Dragons were all useless trash who only knew how to show off and demand protection.
But today made Dragon realize that Celestial Dragons had their own strong fighters too.
If not for Whitebeard's casual strike, that Celestial Dragon who could spit lasers would have definitely killed him.
"That's the World Government, which has developed for hundreds of years. I didn't say you have to storm Mary Geoise immediately. If you want to accomplish something, it always takes time to develop.
Although results won't be visible in the short term, doing something is always better than doing nothing. Think about it slowly, young man."
Social forms and class rule are not immutable. Rotten things are destined to be discarded. If one shrinks back for fear of the chaos caused by change, the world would remain in a primitive social stage.
Because his own world (previous life) had countless pioneers, Nereus could understand these things better. But on this sea, the World Government's rule could be considered deeply ingrained.
Coupled with that powerful military force, many people couldn't even conceive the thought of resistance. For Dragon, the door to a new world was opening.
...
Night fell.
Darkness shrouded the sea. Many people on the ship had already fallen into a deep sleep; life on the run brought them both mental and physical stress.
There were also many who stared blankly at the pitch-black sea surface. They were the lucky ones who left that island alive, but many had died there, including their friends and family.
"Babel, go rest for a while. I'll take the helm."
"Big Bro, I'm not tired yet."
"Go. I'll call you to take over later."
At this stage of strength, not sleeping for a few days and nights wasn't difficult, nor was fighting for that long.
But appropriate rest was also a way to maintain peak condition.
Although Nereus's ability didn't fear the sun, he could unleash stronger power at night.
Plus, he could recover stamina by drinking blood, so he often took the night watch during operations.
Late at night, people would occasionally wake up screaming from nightmares, taking a long time to calm down before lying back down.
Watching this scene on the ship, Dragon stayed awake all night. Nereus's words seemed to have clarified something for him ahead of time.
The word "Revolution" was gradually appearing in Dragon's mind...
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