A few minutes later, the main force, having noticed that the hidden sentries had lost contact, swiftly arrived at the scene. However, the place had long since been emptied, leaving only corpses to tell the tale of what had happened.
"Captain, we just received word. The last people they encountered were the Straw Hat Pirates."
"Damn it, did they get away?"
The samurai captain held no goodwill toward the Straw Hat Pirates, who had repeatedly committed crimes within the country. He roared angrily, "Split up and search! They can't have gone far!"
Wano Country's unique terrain and sea conditions turned every voyage into a near-impossible undertaking, a matter of life and death with slim chances of survival.
There was not even a single ship in sight along the shore. Unless the Straw Hat Pirates could burrow underground, there had to be some trace of them.
And then...
They really did burrow underground!
Walking through an Underground Tunnel that had been abandoned for who knew how many years, Ron seemed to come to a realization.
"I see. You already fought them, then? So, did you find any useful information?"
As soon as he spoke, the four fell silent.
"No."
"Hm?"
Ron turned back curiously to look at Nami. She seemed... afraid?
"We found nothing at all..."
Sanji took over at that point and slowly explained, "More precisely, we never even got to see the real targets. Not Oric, the Celestial Dragon rebel with a 10 billion Berry bounty from the Government, nor General Kurozumi of Wano Country, Kurozumi Orochi, nor Kaido, leader of the Beasts Pirates."
"Before we could see any of them, one person stopped all of us. Kin'emon and the others risked their lives to cover us, and only then did they manage to get us out."
Bang!
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