Special Spoils of War

Arlong and Willy had already returned from "restocking," carrying gunpowder, food, and liquor onto the ship, while freshwater was left untouched.

Seeing Siegfried with some injuries, Arlong curled his lip and said, "What's Makoro doing? Couldn't protect the 'non-combatant'? Hahaha..."

Because of his mixed-blood heritage, this bastard had always looked down on Siegfried.

"I was stationed below deck to intercept any Marines trying to break into the hold, and... Little Fei got hurt because Jinbe-sama gave him some pointers." Makoro replied without any temper.

Siegfried's full name in this world was "Siegfried," with "Fried" also being a homophone for "Fei," and Makoro was relatively friendly toward Siegfried in how he addressed him.

Yet for some reason Siegfried couldn't quite pin down, he always felt that this guy gave him an even more uncomfortable vibe than Arlong, who discriminated against him, or the overbearing Willy!

However, Siegfried's ability to read micro-expressions was somewhat limited when it came to fish-men—the stranger their appearance, the greater the limitation, and Makoro was undoubtedly one of the stranger-looking fish-men even among their kind.

"Tch!" Arlong hadn't been aiming his words at Makoro anyway, and upon hearing that Jinbe-sama had personally given Siegfried pointers, he clicked his tongue in displeasure.

"Hey? Then Little Fei might end up really strong in the future! Little Ke, you'd better work hard so he doesn't surpass you!"

Hachi had always been friendly toward Siegfried, after all, he was the one who had rescued him, while "Little Ke" referred to "Kuroobi," though only Hachi called him that.

"Hmph." Kuroobi snorted dismissively.

Just then, Tiger also jumped back directly from the warship, bringing along some special "cargo."

Tiger had a small box tucked under his left arm, and under his right arm, he carried a Marine rear admiral who had already lost his combat capability—this was the commander of the two fleets this time, a man with shoulder-length naturally curly hair. As soon as he returned to the deck, the curly-haired rear admiral was thrown to the ground.

"Speak! What's the meaning of this!" Tiger slammed the small file box in front of him, scattering the documents inside.

"Wh-what meaning of what? Are you trying to steal the Marines' classified intelligence too? I won't—" The curly-haired rear admiral tried to put on a brave front.

Before Arlong and the others could teach him a lesson, Tiger grabbed him by the collar and said, "Why hasn't the elimination plan for the 'Two-Headed Wolf Slaver Squad' been carried out here!"

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

"We... of course because arresting you had higher priority! If it weren't for you, it wouldn't have interfered with our mission to wipe out that illegal slaver squad." The curly-haired man said matter-of-factly.

This statement clearly wasn't going to inspire guilt; instead, it made the flames of rage burn even brighter in Tiger's eyes. Siegfried, overhearing from the side, already felt that his progress in playing the "Wrathful People" role had taken a huge leap forward.

"And what if the slaver squad has already sold the slaves to Mary Geoise?" Siegfried sneered.

The curly-haired man's lips twitched, but he stubbornly said nothing—the priority of capturing runaway slaves was higher than hunting down a slaver squad, and yet he had the nerve to blame others...

Bam—

After dropping the curly-haired man, Tiger punched him in the face—well, just above the face. Stopping his fist only a centimeter away from the target, the force of the punch still sent the man's nose askew and knocked out some teeth.

Judging by Tiger's gritted teeth and heavy breathing, this was already the result of him restraining his anger as much as possible.

"Where's the Eternal Pose for the deployment?" Tiger asked with wide eyes, adding, "I'm only asking once!"

Since the mission file was on the ship, it meant he had already been assigned a mission, so the Pose should be there too.

Bruised and swollen, the curly-haired man tremblingly pulled an Eternal Pose from his chest. Tiger intended to throw him overboard afterward.

But Siegfried immediately stopped him: "Tiger-sama! He already knows we're going after that slaver squad. We can't let him leave alive!"

Tiger paused at this, while Arlong said from the side, "Let him know! If they dare to set an ambush, I haven't had my fill of fighting yet!"

Tiger clearly wasn't as reckless as that. He tossed the curly-haired man back onto the deck: "Take him below and lock him up! Listen, after we've dealt with the 'Two-Headed Wolf,' we'll let you go... Until then, don't test my patience!"

Even with the risk of exposure, Tiger still held firmly to his principle of "no killing."

The reason was simple: Tiger understood from the very beginning that freeing slaves would require a great deal of aggressive, violent measures...

In a world where the Celestial Dragons' slaveholding was legal, and many World Government member nations also permitted it, liberating slaves meant being even more ruthless than the slaver squads!

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

Having sunk twelve warships, the Sun Pirates had achieved a great victory, obtained various supplies, and... the whereabouts of the infamous Two-Headed Wolf Slaver Squad!

Now Tiger was going to carry out the mission that the Marines he had just sunk were supposed to execute.

Intelligence indicated that the Two-Headed Wolf Slaver Squad's next target was Machu Picchu Island, and he had also obtained the Eternal Pose for Machu Picchu Island from the curly-haired rear admiral...

"It's not far from here, about twenty days' sail. If the sea is on our side, we'll make it in time." Jinbe said after looking at the rough map in the documents.

Maps in the Grand Line were only good for a rough idea, because the extreme weather and chaotic magnetic fields rendered cartography nearly useless—only Eternal Poses and Log Poses could be trusted.

It could only give a vague sense of distance to estimate travel time and schedule.

The intelligence in the documents showed that the Two-Headed Wolf Slaver Squad's ship would arrive at Machu Picchu Island on the night of February 12th to rendezvous with various branch slavers, then disappear into the sea with the slaves... before selling them off at Sabaody Archipelago or somewhere else.

"The sea will definitely be on our side." Tiger said, then walked to the bow and sat cross-legged on the head of the sea bream figurehead.

It was clear he wasn't in a good mood, but having just won a victory, Tiger still celebrated with his crew, forcing himself not to show too much of his gloom.

Although fish-men could sustain themselves by drinking seawater directly, eliminating the need for freshwater storage, the ship still carried plenty of rum—when "restocking," they would also empty out the enemy's liquor supply.

Not for preserving freshwater, but... because they liked to drink!

As for food, among the Fish-Man Race, fish-men had no dietary restrictions on fish or meat, while mermaids didn't eat fish or meat but would eat shellfish. This was also something the Fish-Man Race had always wanted to make clear—they were humans, not fish, and shouldn't be treated as animals!

Siegfried wasn't very sociable, or more precisely, most of the fish-men on the ship had some prejudice against mixed-bloods and weren't very friendly toward him. Still, Hachi dragged him along to drink anyway.

Since it was a celebration, no one deliberately gave Siegfried a hard time. After Hachi stirred things up, Siegfried even started providing accompaniment for the celebration.

The songs he had sung for the Celestial Dragons in Mary Geoise clearly weren't suitable here, and Siegfried didn't know any ditties from Fish-Man Island, so he sang the most enduring and overplayed tune on the seas...

"Yo-ho-ho-ho, yo-ho-ho-ho..."

"Binks' Sake, to you I bring..."

"Like the sea wind, free and wild, riding the waves and breaking through..."

As the gathering warmed up, the distance between them shrank considerably, with only Arlong making a few snide remarks—though just poking fun at Sig's singing voice for not being manly enough.

Even Arlong wouldn't use anything related to "slave experiences" to reopen Sig's wounds; that wasn't just Sig's scar, but the Fish-Man Race's shared, searing pain.

"Let me tell you, today I went swoosh-swoosh, swoosh-swoosh..." Hachi's face had shifted from pink to flushed red from the drink, waving his arms as he bragged to everyone.