At the docks of Bayram, Capital of Generosity, a single-masted sailboat lay quietly moored while seven or eight men dressed as dockworkers continuously carried water, food, and various seafaring necessities into its hold.
Generally speaking, such a small sailing vessel was not suited for shipping or trade. Whenever one saw a ship like this, it was either a pirate procurement vessel or an adventure ship intending to become pirates. In experienced Bayram, most merchant fleets that noticed small independent sailboats would wait for them to leave before putting to sea. Merchant ships had sufficient firepower as well, but no one wanted to gamble on whether bad luck would get them hit by a cannonball in a naval battle.
Yet the situation today seemed different. The entire dock was exceptionally busy, not because all the merchant fleets departing today were particularly confident, but because there were no merchant fleets here at all.
For Bayram, infamous as the "City of Pirates," this was an exceedingly rare sight. Yet ever since that incident in early April, it seemed to have become a trend throughout the Sunia Sea.
Especially in Bayram, a place where supposedly everyone had some connection to pirates—whether they were pirates, pirate descendants, people who did business with pirates, or their descendants—the bustle had at one point rivaled the scene when Roselle's Great Secret Treasure was revealed.
No, it was even crazier than that!
After all, Roselle's Great Secret Treasure still needed to be sought out, while the Ghost Empire had truly appeared before everyone's eyes this time.
The encounter between the Death Announcer and the Future in the Beluga Whale Sea, along with their discovery of the Ghost Empire, had transformed what had once been merely a maritime legend into a real and reliable treasure.
Furthermore, the subsequent rumors concerning