"What kind of technique is this?"
The Old Heavenly Master stared at the massive cloud of smoke ahead with great interest as he asked the question.
"This world's power system. It's called Armament Haki."
As Is spoke, he dispersed the Armament Haki coating from the Fairy Magic Wand before handing it back to the Old Heavenly Master once again.
The Old Heavenly Master hurriedly waved his hands with a benevolent smile.
"Forget it. Such a magical artifact is wasted on this old man since I don't know how to use it. You should keep it instead. Though I am rather interested in the power you mentioned."
Since the Old Heavenly Master refused the Fairy Magic Wand, Is could only toss it back into storage.
After all, he himself had no use for the thing either.
"It's good to be interested. These abilities are all extremely practical powers of this world. Even if you don't use them often, having more skills never hurts, right?" Is said with a shrug and a smile.
The Old Heavenly Master nodded in agreement.
"Let's head back first. Someone will explain the details of this world to you later."
Stretching lazily, Is was already preparing to return.
"Looks like this old man isn't the only one who has experienced something so miraculous."
"You're right, Old Heavenly Master. To be precise, you're the seventh. Before you, there were already six others from completely different worlds," Is explained casually.
The Old Heavenly Master grew even more interested.
He wanted to see exactly what kinds of abilities and techniques people from those different worlds possessed.
Meanwhile, at Marine Headquarters—
Inside the Fleet Admiral's office.
The current Fleet Admiral, Kong, tightly gripped the latest newspaper while deeply frowning.
Nearby sat Sengoku, who had recently become a Marine Admiral, staring directly at Kong.
As for the other side—
Garp, who had once again refused a promotion, sat there completely unconcerned, happily stuffing snacks into his mouth.
Bang!
Suddenly, Kong angrily slammed the newspaper onto the desk.
The movement startled Garp so badly that he immediately stopped eating and looked over suspiciously.
"What happened?"
Sengoku was the first to ask.
Kong did not answer immediately.
Instead, he shoved the newspaper toward Sengoku while saying irritably,
"Look. Just look at this."
Without hesitation, Sengoku took the paper and swept his eyes across the front page.
"The World Government's Lie — The Roger Pirates Set Sail Again!"
Sengoku quietly read the headline aloud.
Beside the title was a photo of Roger and his crew standing proudly before their ship with swords raised high while their pirate flag fluttered in the wind.
"Roger?!"
The moment Garp heard that name, his interest was instantly piqued.
He tossed his snacks onto the table before rushing over and snatching the newspaper from Sengoku's hands.
"The Roger Pirates weren't they destroyed by the Rocks Pirates? What the hell is going on here?"
"Exactly. Why are there suddenly reports about Roger again? Could it be… fake news?"
As soon as he said that, Sengoku quickly denied his own speculation.
"No. It's probably not fake."
"Those news agencies wouldn't publish fabricated stories like this. But…" Kong's expression darkened. "This report will have an extremely bad impact on the World Government."
"There's nothing we can do." Sengoku sighed helplessly. "We've never been able to locate the headquarters of those news agencies. Even when we do find traces of them, they relocate almost immediately."
Previously, the World Government had even attempted to contact the news organizations directly, offering them money in exchange for suppressing stories unfavorable to the government.
But unsurprisingly, they were flatly rejected.
Their slogan was simple—
To deliver the world's most truthful, fastest, and most accurate news.
Garp tossed the newspaper back onto the desk before grinning widely.
"Looks like the seas are about to become lively again. Not bad though. Better than having all this strength with nowhere to use it."
To Garp, the Roger Pirates setting sail once more wasn't worrying in the slightest.
If anything—
He looked excited.
Kong and Sengoku both shot Garp exasperated looks.
They wanted to say something, but ultimately swallowed the words back down.
After all, they understood Garp perfectly well.
Anything said to him simply went in one ear and out the other.
…
New World, a certain island.
The World Government itself did not react too strongly to the newspaper.
But the moment Rocks saw the article—
He exploded in fury.
"Edward! You'd better give me an explanation for this!"
Rocks violently slammed the newspaper onto the table while glaring coldly at Whitebeard.
After all, during the previous battle, Rocks had specifically ordered Whitebeard to hunt down the injured Roger Pirates.
Since Whitebeard never mentioned the matter afterward, Rocks had assumed Roger and the others had been successfully killed.
Yet now—
The newspapers were reporting that the Roger Pirates had resumed sailing.
"My apologies, Captain Rocks. I did follow your orders and pursued them," Whitebeard said slowly.
"They escaped aboard a small boat, and I used the Tremor-Tremor Fruit to sink them beneath the sea. I even observed the area from shore for quite some time before leaving."
"I truly didn't expect them to survive."
Hearing that, Rocks felt so furious his head nearly spun.
Because from the current situation, it seemed the Roger Pirates had escaped largely unharmed—
While his own side had completely collapsed.
"Damn it! Damn those Celestial Dragons! Damn Roger!!!"
"At this point, there's no use saying more," Whitebeard replied calmly. "Captain Rocks, we should focus on accelerating our search for the Three Ancient Weapons."
Although Whitebeard disliked the atmosphere within the Rocks Pirates, he still treated Rocks fairly well.
At the very least, he had not abandoned him and left.
Meanwhile, Golden Lion had already begun planning the creation of his own pirate crew.
At this very moment, he was searching across islands in the New World for suitable companions.
Of course, a major reason for this was because he believed Rocks had died.
And now—
Even if he learned Rocks was still alive, returning would already be difficult.
Back at the Holy Land Mary Geoise—
Is had already returned to the castle alongside the Old Heavenly Master.
◇ I'll be dropping one bonus chapters for every 10 reviews. comment
◇ One bonus chapter will be released for every 100 Power Stones.
◇ You can read the ahead chapter on P@treon if you're interested:
patreon.com/c/GojoSP