Sabaody Archipelago, District 28, an unnamed auction house with no signboard.
After coming out of Shakky's Rip-off Bar, their group came straight here.
Because Vane's luck was pretty good, they happened to run into an auction today.
Although it wasn't some large-scale auction, it was said there were quite a few good "goods," and the flyers openly advertised premium slaves.
"Really brazen, huh."
The group entered the auction house. There was no obstruction at all—no one cared who you were. As long as you could pay, even pirates would be served.
The small auction hall was dimly lit, with only the auction stage bright enough.
Goods need light to be displayed, and ugly faces are best hidden in the dark.
"Welcome, welcome! Welcome everyone to our slave auction!"
A man with a hairstyle like a loudspeaker walked up to the stage holding a microphone.
"Our slave auction has recently gotten a batch of really great goods! No matter what you buy them for, they're all very durable!"
"Hahaha! This old lady just wants durable slaves!"
A woman with a waist three zhang wide couldn't wait to wave the placard in her hand. She was a rich woman who came to auctions often, and every time she bought strong slaves to take back. Those slaves usually didn't last three months.
"Lo lo lo— I'm buying slaves too. Finally made it here, and we've lost quite a bit of manpower."
This was a pirate captain. They had also made it through the first half of the Grand Line, but their manpower losses were pretty severe. Here in Sabaody Archipelago, slaves were a very good way to replenish personnel.
Most were bought with money, and a small portion by other means—for example, Law once used his Devil Fruit ability in the hands of the Celestial Dragons to save a man who looked a lot like a gorilla.
"Looks like everyone's really looking forward to this! Then I won't waste words—please bring up today's first lot! An excellent pirate sailor…"
The first person dragged onto the stage was a dark-brown-skinned pirate sailor. His exposed skin was covered in many vicious scars that showed off his once-proud battle record.
"Let me go, I'll never be a pirate again!"
Becoming a slave was even more terrifying than being caught by the Marines. Unfortunately, the people here just watched him excitedly and paid no attention to his pleas.
Everyone being auctioned had an explosive collar around their neck. If any slave tried to damage the collar, it would explode on the spot—at this distance, for an ordinary person, that meant certain death.
His best outcome was to be bought by a pirate captain, so he could go back to being a pirate. But many pirate captains wouldn't even remove the explosive collar, instead keeping it as a means of control.
In any case, he'd still be at the bottom of the crew—just a bit better than being bought by those rich people and nobles to be a slave.
"The starting bid for this one is 800,000 Belly."
The price was a bit lower than expected. In the West Blue, such a strong pirate slave would definitely start at over a million… Then again, Sabaody doesn't lack pirates, and it's one of the main hubs of the slave trade, with all kinds of slave-hunting teams.
Slaves here were a bit cheaper than in the West Blue.
"One million Belly! This strong man is mine!"
"One million one hundred thousand Belly!"
"One million two hundred thousand!"
Obviously, strong men were very popular and were being fought over.
That captain was bidding the fiercest—clearly he really needed people.
In the end, the pirate sailor was sold to him for 1.9 million.
"More, I want more! They're all mine, Brownbeard's!"
Brownbeard? That name is actually pretty good—Blackbeard, Whitebeard, they're all ruthless types… Brownbeard sounds like some third-rate small fry.
His first appearance was as background dressing when Kid entered the New World, and the next time was on Punk Hazard as one of the test subjects. His bounty seemed to be around 80 million Belly.
That bounty in the first half also counted as a big pirate.
After that, several more people with pirate backgrounds appeared, and all of them were bought by Brownbeard. This made those rich people very dissatisfied.
"Damn pirates! The Marines should just arrest them all!"
"Exactly. These Marines are really useless—how can they let these pirates in to compete with us for slaves?"
Just at this moment, a commotion came from the entrance of the auction house.
A group of people ran in and lined up in formation.
"The Rosward family—Saint Garlos has arrived at the auction!"
Very soon, a slightly pudgy Celestial Dragon with green hair, wearing a spacesuit and a bubble helmet, made his entrance.
Celestial Dragons! A group who call themselves the descendants of gods—actually just the descendants of the nineteen families who once fought the Ancient Kingdom and won.
Strictly speaking, there should have been twenty. The twentieth family is the current royal line of the desert kingdom Alabasta. But no one knows why Princess Nefertari of that time gave up becoming a Celestial Dragon.
"Saint Garlos?"
"A Celestial Dragon—and it's that one who really loves torturing beautiful women."
This Celestial Dragon, with three clumps of green hair on his head and a clearly receding hairline, loved buying beautiful women to take back and torment. Destroying beautiful things made him feel excited.
Saint Garlos waddled to the front seat: "You lowly commoners, today I'm in a good mood, so I won't require you to kneel!"
At auctions, this was one of the rare moments of "kindness" from Celestial Dragons. In other places, if you saw a Celestial Dragon and didn't kneel, you'd very likely be killed.
And people who knew the inside story didn't dare resist—attacking a Celestial Dragon would get you hunted down by a Marine Admiral.
"Continue the auction!"
The auctioneer had seen Celestial Dragons many times—after all, they were major clients here—but even so, he got nervous every single time.
If you caught a Celestial Dragon's eye the wrong way, they really would kill without batting an eye.
"T-Then let's continue."
"The next lot is a combined lot: ten musicians from the White Dove Music Troupe! Each of them is a musician proficient in their own instrument. Buy them and you can enjoy elegant music every day."
After selling pirates, they started selling people with special professions. Musicians were indeed rare—especially being sold as a full troupe. That was even rarer.
"The starting bid for the music troupe is 8 million Belly! For 8 million Belly you won't lose out and you won't be fooled—what you'll get is a music team that performs just for you alone!"
This time, the opening of the auction was a bit quiet. Everyone was waiting for the Celestial Dragon's reaction. If a Celestial Dragon made a bid, they wouldn't be qualified to raise their placards at all.
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Pls Drop some Power Stones
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