If Maud had not come to this world.
The one who stopped the war would have been the Straw Hat Pirates.
The one who defeated Crocodile would have been Straw Hat Luffy.
But he had come.
The result had been predetermined, but the process had changed somewhat.
In a sense, the one who had stopped the war was Maud.
And the one who had personally killed Crocodile in the end was also Maud.
However,
under Maud's maneuvering, the one who had knocked Crocodile down and safely rescued Alabasta's king, Cobra, had indeed been Straw Hat Luffy.
But the World Government clearly would not acknowledge the fact that a group of rookie pirates had resolved the Alabasta crisis.
Nor would it acknowledge that Crocodile had used the authority of his Shichibukai status to carry out this Nation-robbing Plan.
To cover up these facts, this phone call had been made.
A Shichibukai actually wanted to steal a country?
Oh, it's fine.
We'll have the other Shichibukai eliminate the threat.
Presumably,
to the World Government, the fact that Maud, another Shichibukai, was also in Alabasta was unquestionably a wonderful thing.
As long as they fabricated the story that Maud had worked with the Marine Headquarters under the World Government's orders and successfully stopped Crocodile,
they could subtly erase some of the negative impact brought about by the Shichibukai status.
After all that maneuvering,
they merely wanted to tell the world one thing.
That was—look, everything is under control.
Maud found it amusing.
Naturally, he did not want the World Government to get its way.
After all, he was not a Marine who could only obey orders blindly.
Smoker did not know what Maud wanted to do.
What he could be certain of was...
Maud's words made him very uncomfortable.
Yet he could not