Stained canvas hung above the alley, crisscrossing overhead and blocking out most of the light from the Hanging Lantern Vines.
A man in a khaki overcoat and matching top hat stepped into the darkness. He lowered his head slightly and looked at the watch-shaped Den Den Mushi on his wrist.
"Understood."
Two seconds later, a deep male voice came from the other end of the Den Den Mushi.
Then the call ended.
The man in the overcoat closed the cover of the watch-shaped Den Den Mushi, pulled down his sleeve, and concealed it from view.
"Using a Devil Fruit as the prize for the competition..."
The man's muttering echoed through the alley.
His voice was hoarse, with a slightly feminine sharpness to it.
"It's going to get lively."
The man in the overcoat raised a hand to press down the brim of his hat and looked back toward the tavern.
Only a few people knew that the person behind Dick City's coliseum was actually the king who lived in the royal capital atop the whale's head and rarely came down to Dick City.
However, whenever the monthly Coliseum Competition was held, that king was certain to attend.
This time, to make the competition even more lively, the king had even put up a Devil Fruit as the prize.
On top of that, he had established a prize pool of fifty million Beli.
Such generous prizes had indeed attracted quite a few outsiders.
In just about a week, the pier reserved for people from outside the island was almost completely filled with ships.
One had to understand that within the open whale's mouth of Leviathen Island, the largest area was the U-shaped harbor.
Even so, the huge harbor still couldn't handle the steady stream of ships arriving from outside.
The outsiders