East Blue, aboard a pirate ship drifting across the sea.
Though it was a pirate ship, it flew no pirate flag.
Over the past year, life had become harder and harder for East Blue's pirates.
Simply avoiding capture by Demacia Company was already a blessing. How could they still dare parade around under skull-and-crossbones flags like before?
With the industry's prospects looking bleak and room for survival shrinking, many pirates had even packed up and disbanded, each going home to turn over a new leaf and find work.
But thieves, one of the world's oldest professions, would never be eradicated.
There were plenty of people unwilling to work honest jobs, people who wanted to steal and rob just enough to survive. Quite a few pirate crews still stubbornly clung to life in the cracks of East Blue.
The Alvida Pirates were one of them.
"This business is getting harder and harder."
A weary gloom appeared on Alvida's freckled, pudgy face, the look of someone exhausted from trying to make ends meet.
Before her lay a small pile of assorted goods:
Clothes, food, books, and a small amount of gold, silver, and valuables.
The stolen goods were a hodgepodge, and there was not much of them.
Alvida had taken them from a passenger ship not long ago with her subordinates.
That passenger ship had looked rather shabby, clearly not the sort of target with much profit to squeeze out.
But with Demacia Company's defensive network becoming denser by the day, Alvida could no longer pick and choose her targets as she had before. She could only rob whatever she came across, then flee for her life afterward.
"Boss Alvida!"
One of her subordinates rubbed his hands together, his face flushing as he said,
"B-Boss, the brothers haven't had any income for