The Emperor's Seat Beneath My Buttocks Begins to Burn

Dusk.

Red clouds swirled across the horizon.

Chaos had been gone for ten days.

One day earlier.

Kuma had slipped into a state of complete inactivity without warning. He wasn't even interested in mahjong anymore, like a neutered teddy bear who'd lost the will to live.

All he did was lie around.

Just like Chaos, Bonis, and Baccarat before him, it meant Kuma would spend the next six months this way.

Maybe it wouldn't take six months. Maybe it would. Or maybe it would take even longer.

It was hard to say.

If nothing unexpected happened, Crocodile, Archino, Enel, and Ivankov would be sealed away and turned into sloths in that order.

Maybe tomorrow, maybe a month from now. The timing was completely unpredictable.

The buzz around the Enies Lobby incident and the Explosion Sea border incident was still growing.

The aftermath of the clash between the Whitebeard Pirates and the Richest Group at the Explosion Sea border had only just begun, especially after the Whitebeard Pirates suffered a crushing defeat.

Rumors claimed Whitebeard had been badly wounded, and that only a handful of the crew remained.

This had attracted the attention of countless pirate crews and other forces. The Blackbeard Pirates, one of the Four Emperors, and the Beasts Pirates were making a major play for the Whitebeard Pirates' territory. Seeing that Whitebeard hadn't come out to stop them, many forces that had been waiting on the sidelines had started making their move too.

The Red-Haired Pirates were doing their best to stop them, but it was a drop in the bucket.

The Whitebeard Pirates were already in disarray, and their problems were getting worse by the day.

Meanwhile,

the Navy had held two meetings, both focused on investigating the Richest Group.

For instance, how had Gild Tesoro emerged