Jaya's harbor was a mess of sound and color.
The Oro Jackson was moored at the outermost pier. Rayleigh had picked that spot on purpose. It was convenient for a quick departure and far enough from the most chaotic zones of the port.
Even so, noise crashed over from all directions. Merchants shouting their prices, drunks arguing, women calling for customers, and from somewhere in the distance, the muted roar of cheering from an arena.
"Five days," Rayleigh said to the crew gathering by the gangplank.
"Everyone back on board before sunset on the fifth day."
"Anyone who is late..."
He grinned, and there was something dangerous in that smile.
"I will take it as you choosing to stay on Jaya."
The crew laughed and scattered into the streets.
Shanks dragged Buggy off toward the arena to try their luck. John took a team to buy gunpowder and cannonballs. The head chef marched straight for the food market with a handful of young helpers in tow.
Bullet was the last to leave the ship.
He did not go with anyone. Alone, he walked deeper into the harbor district.
Jaya was larger than he had imagined.
The port was only the tip of the iceberg.
The streets were crowded with every kind of person. In less than five hundred meters, Bullet saw at least thirty different pirate flags and five or six different underground trading guild crests.
There were even a few men in Marine uniforms who were clearly not proper Marines anymore, likely deserters or traitors.
The stalls were what drew the eye most.
Organs of Sea Kings floating in formaldehyde. Ancient weapons, rusted but still radiating danger. Bottles of suspicious liquids in every color. And there were even… slaves.
Bullet stopped in front of an iron cage.
Inside were seven or eight people, men and women both, all wearing shackles, all with empty eyes.
The stall owner was a one armed brute. When he saw Bullet pause, he hurried over with a salesman's smile.
"Hey, kid, see something you like?"
"This woman, she is from a noble family in the West Blue. Educated, can play music."
"Only five hundred thousand Beli."
Bullet did not reply. He only stared into the slaves' eyes.
In his Observation, their "aura" was so weak it was barely there at all.
Long term loss of freedom and dignity had withered their life force almost to nothing.
"If you are not buying, then move along."
The one armed man saw Bullet still silent and waved impatiently.
Bullet looked at him once.
Just one look. He did not release Conqueror's, only simple eye contact.
But the cold killing intent in those scarlet slitted eyes made the man's hair stand on end. He stumbled back two full steps and did not dare say another word.
Bullet turned and walked away.
He did not free the slaves.
Even if he did, it would not matter.
On an island like Jaya, you could save them today and they would be dragged back into chains tomorrow.
Unless the entire system was destroyed, saving one or two made no real difference.
But he memorized the stall's location.
If he had time before leaving, he would not mind "dealing with" that owner on the way out.
He continued inward. The streets grew narrower.
Buildings on both sides leaned in until they almost touched, leaving barely enough space for two people to pass shoulder to shoulder.
The light was dim. The air smelled of mold and cheap tobacco.
This was Jaya's "junk district."
Every stall sold strange old things.
Broken navigational instruments. Faded charts. Journals with half the pages missing. Rusted swords. Piles of documents in languages no one could read.
Bullet stopped at a book stall.
The owner was a thin old man with cracked lenses in his glasses.
He was hunched over a thick leather bound volume, squinting at the pages in the dim light.
His stall was buried under paper. Some were intact books, some were loose manuscripts, many were rubbings and copies.
"Look all you want, everything is cheap," the old man said without looking up.
Bullet crouched and began to sift through the papers.
Most of it was worthless trash.
Cargo lists from some long sunk ship. Torn pages from a pirate's diary. Menus from old banquets.
But when he lifted the stack at the bottom, his hand stilled.
It was a rubbing.
The material was unusual, not normal paper, but a kind of flexible leather parchment.
The edges were charred, as if it had been pulled out of a fire.
The sheet was about half a tabletop in size, but the pattern printed on it was incomplete. Only a rough layout could be seen.
What drew the eye most were the characters.
They were not any script used in the world today.
Harsh strokes, sharp corners, every symbol like overlapping geometric shapes.
Bullet had seen Poneglyphs a few times aboard Roger's ship.
He could not read them, but the unique forms and layout of those characters were burned into his memory.
The writing on this rubbing was seventy percent similar to Poneglyph text.
But not quite the same.
The Poneglyph's script was more regular and solemn.
These characters were more careless, more free, like some kind of shorthand or variant.
"Old man, how much for this one?"
Bullet held up the rubbing.
The old man looked up through his cracked lenses, squinted at it, then lowered his head again.
"That thing, huh… junk from the South Blue."
"If you want it, five thousand Beli."
For an ordinary person, five thousand was no small price. For Bullet, fresh from a share of the spoils, it meant nothing.
He did not bargain. He simply paid.
The old man took the money, then gave Bullet a slightly surprised look.
"You are not going to ask what it is?"
"You said it was junk," Bullet answered calmly.
"It is junk."
The old man grinned, revealing three yellow teeth.
"But even junk has a story."
"That piece came from a scholar family in the South Blue. Supposedly their ancestors specialized in ancient scripts."
"Then disaster hit. Their household scattered, and this rubbing ended up in my hands."
A scholar family.
South Blue.