Special Spoils

Arlong and Willy had returned with their "supplies." They'd brought back gunpowder, food, and liquor, but hadn't bothered with fresh water.

Seeing Sig with a few injuries, Arlong curled his lip. "What happened, Makoro? Couldn't protect the 'noncombatant'? Hahaha..."

Because Sig was a half-breed, the guy had never liked him.

"I was down in the hold, stopping the Marines from breaking in. Besides... Little Fei got hurt because Boss Jinbe gave him a little guidance," Makoro said, unruffled.

Sig's full name in this world was Siegfried. "Fried" also sounded like "Fei," so Makoro was relatively considerate toward Sig when addressing him.

But for some reason, Sig always found this guy even more unsettling than Arlong, who discriminated against him, or the overbearing Willy!

However, Sig's ability to read microexpressions was somewhat limited when it came to Fish-Men—the stranger their appearance, the greater the limitation. Makoro was undoubtedly one of the stranger-looking Fish-Men.

"Tch!" Arlong hadn't been picking on Makoro in the first place. When he heard that Boss Jinbe had personally given Sig pointers, he clicked his tongue in displeasure.

"Really? Then Little Fei might become really strong! Little Ke, you'd better work hard so he doesn't surpass you!"

Hachi had always been friendly toward Sig, since he was the one who'd rescued him. "Little Ke" meant Kuroobi, though only Hachi called him that.

"Hmph." Kuroobi snorted disdainfully.

Just then, Fisher Tiger leaped back from the warship and brought aboard some special "cargo."

He had a small document case tucked beneath his left arm and a Marine Rear Admiral who'd lost the ability to fight under his right. The officer was the commander of the two fleets, with shoulder-length curly hair. As soon as they reached the deck, Tiger tossed the curly-haired Rear Admiral down.

"Tell me! What's this about?" Tiger slammed the document case down in front of him, scattering the papers inside.

"W-what do you mean? You're still trying to steal classified Marine intelligence? I won't—" The curly-haired Rear Admiral tried to put on a brave face.

Before Arlong and the others could teach him a lesson, Tiger grabbed him by the collar and said, "Why hasn't the plan to wipe out the Two-Headed Wolf Slaver Squad been acted on?"

That's right—Tiger had gone through their mission files.

"We... Of course it's because capturing you takes priority! If it weren't for you, we wouldn't have been delayed from wiping out this illegal slaver squad," the curly-haired Rear Admiral said matter-of-factly.

His words were hardly a cause for guilt. Instead, they made the flames in Tiger's eyes burn all the brighter. Just hearing a little of it, Sig already felt that his performance as one of the Wrathful People had advanced considerably.

"What if the slaver squad has already sold the slaves to Mary Geoise?" Sig sneered.

The curly-haired Rear Admiral's lips moved, but he stubbornly said nothing. Capturing escaped slaves took priority over hunting down slavers, and he still had the nerve to blame someone else...

Bam—

After throwing the curly-haired Rear Admiral down, Tiger punched him in the face—or rather, just above it. He stopped his fist a centimeter from the man's face, but the force of the punch still knocked his nose crooked and loosened his teeth.

The way Tiger gritted his teeth and panted showed that this was the result of him restraining his anger as much as he could.

"Where's the Eternal Pose for their destination?" Tiger asked, eyes wide. Then he added, "I'll only ask once!"

Since the mission files were aboard the ship, the officer must have already been assigned the mission. The Eternal Pose should be here too.

The curly-haired Rear Admiral, bruised and swollen, shakily pulled an Eternal Pose from his clothes. Afterward, Tiger was about to throw him overboard.

But Sig quickly stopped him. "Boss Tiger! He already knows we're going after that slaver squad. We can't let him leave alive!"

Tiger paused at that. Arlong chimed in, "So what if he knows? If they dare ambush us, all the better! I haven't had my fill of fighting!"

Tiger clearly wasn't looking to make things worse. He tossed the curly-haired Rear Admiral back onto the deck. "Take him below and lock him up! Listen carefully: once we've dealt with the Two-Headed Wolf, we'll release you... Until then, don't test my patience!"

Even with the risk of being exposed, Tiger still clung to his principle of not killing.

The reason was simple: Tiger had understood from the start that freeing slaves meant resorting to plenty of extreme violence...

With slavery legal among the Celestial Dragons and in many World Government Member States, freeing slaves meant becoming even more ruthless than the slaver squads!

To keep himself from losing his way, Tiger had set a firm "no killing" rule for himself and the Sun Pirates.

The Sun Pirates had sunk twelve warships and won a great victory, gaining a fair amount of supplies—and the whereabouts of the notorious Two-Headed Wolf Slaver Squad!

Now Tiger intended to carry out the mission the Marines they'd just sunk had been assigned.

According to intelligence, the Two-Headed Wolf Slaver Squad's next target was Machu Picchu Island. They'd also obtained its Eternal Pose from the curly-haired Rear Admiral...

"It isn't far from here. The journey should take about twenty days. If the sea is on our side, we'll still make it in time," Jinbe said after looking over the rough map in the files.

Maps of the Grand Line were only good for a rough look. Extreme weather and chaotic magnetic fields meant that only Eternal Poses and Log Poses could be trusted there; the usefulness of cartography was severely limited.

The map could only give them a vague idea of the distance, enough to estimate the voyage and how long it would take.

According to the intelligence in the files, on the night of February 12, the Two-Headed Wolf Slaver Squad's ship would meet up with slavers from its various branches at Machu Picchu Island, then disappear into the sea with the slaves aboard... After that, they'd sell the slaves at Sabaody Archipelago or somewhere else.

"The sea will be on our side." After saying that, Tiger went to the bow and sat cross-legged atop the sea bream's head.

He clearly wasn't in a good mood, but they'd just won a battle, so Tiger still celebrated with the crew, forcing himself not to spoil the occasion too much.

Fish-Men could drink seawater to survive, so they had no need to store fresh water. But there was still plenty of rum aboard, and whenever they "restocked," they emptied their enemies' liquor stores too.

Not to preserve fresh water. They just... liked to drink!

As for food, the Fish-Men among the Fish-Man Race ate anything, whether fish or meat. Mermaids didn't eat fish or meat, but they did eat shellfish. The Fish-Man Race had always wanted to make this clear: Fish-Men were people, not fish, and shouldn't be treated as animals!

Sig wasn't very good at fitting in—or, more accurately, most of the Fish-Men aboard had some reservations about half-breeds, so he didn't quite fit in. Still, Hachi pulled him along to drink with the others.

It was a celebration, after all, and no one went out of their way to give Sig a hard time. After Hachi egged him on, Sig started singing along.

The songs he'd sung for the Celestial Dragons at Mary Geoise clearly weren't suitable here, and Sig didn't know any Fish-Man Island folk tunes. So he sang one of the longest-running and most overplayed songs on the sea...

"Yohohoho, yohohoho...

Bring Binks' Sake to you.

Like the sea breeze, free as you please, ride the waves..."

As the party gradually grew livelier, the tension eased. Only Arlong kept making snide remarks—but he was just mocking Sig for not sounding manly enough when he sang.

Even Arlong wouldn't use anything related to Sig's "experience as a slave" to reopen his wounds. Those weren't just Sig's wounds; they were a deep, painful wound for the entire Fish-Man Race.

"Listen, everyone! Today I went swish-swish, swish-swish..." Hachi's face had gone from pink to flushed as he drank, and he gestured wildly while bragging to everyone.