The Beginning of Chaos

Crack—

A Den Den Mushi was crushed to pieces in Doflamingo's hand.

Several veins bulged on his forehead.

His expression was furious, yet he laughed.

He had never encountered a Marine so brazen.

His first thought was that the Marines were targeting him. There was no other reason they would dare face him with such arrogance.

Had the Marines discovered what he had been doing?

The first person who came to mind was a wrinkled old woman with graying hair.

But he wasn't entirely unprepared.

As for the surname Lux...

It didn't carry enough weight.

Doflamingo tugged at the strings extending from his fingers. A white string snaked out and bound a white Den Den Mushi that was dozing nearby.

"Vergo..."

—

A Den Den Mushi sat in front of Buggy, too.

It belonged to Major Arrow.

He was waiting.

Who would be the first to call?

Different people, with different degrees of urgency, would reveal different things.

If the call came from Rear Admiral Sicily, the base commander in District 66, panicking and cursing, that would mean the entire Marine Base was involved in human trafficking, not just Captain Diouf. But that wouldn't exactly surprise him.

Or perhaps a call of condemnation would come straight from Marineford.

That would mean that, in the Marines' eyes, a Shichibukai mattered far more than the justice they claimed to uphold.

How quickly the call came depended both on how Doflamingo and the forces behind the noble families and wealthy merchants reacted, and on how unified the voices within the Marines were.

Buggy hoped the phone wouldn't ring just yet.

The implications would be all the more interesting.

"Stir up a little trouble, disrupt the established order, and everything descends into chaos."

"And I'm the embodiment of chaos."

Buggy wore a somewhat sinister smile.

But his actions were righteous. There was no question about that.

So it was perfectly reasonable for him to direct Jacques, Arne, and the others to collect what he called the price of justice from the captured nobles and wealthy merchants.

Unless they wanted to see their own faces splashed across the next day's headlines.

Well, a few had protested that this was extortion.

But the Slave Collars still hidden in the Human Auction House soon silenced them.

As former slave owners, they understood better than anyone what those things could do.

Their lives were now entirely in someone else's hands.

The terrifying explosives, powerful enough to blow them to pieces, were fastened around their necks.

They had never thought they couldn't one day be enslaved by something like this. But compared with the power to toy with other people's lives and trample on their dignity, that threat had been easy to ignore.

And now...

That threat was right in front of them.

It broke through their defenses more easily than any words or bloodshed could.

It was the first time in Jacques's life that he had seen so much wealth.

Five hundred million, or six hundred million?

Beli were piled higher than a man in front of him, and he had no control over how fast his heart pounded.

"You can take half."

Buggy made no attempt to curb their greed.

Greed would make them useful tools in his hands.

Besides, he wouldn't deny that such wealth stirred something in him, too.

But what excited him more than the wealth itself was what he could do with it.

"Now we've got the startup funds for the game again, don't we?" he murmured to himself.

It seemed the thing he'd been waiting for had come to pass. While the Marines swept through the entire Human Auction House, his Den Den Mushi had remained silent.

But it was absurd to think that Doflamingo and the families of the nobles and wealthy merchants would do nothing.

They had to have connections within the Marines.

Yet those connections hadn't had the effect they should have.

"Thank you!"

Inside an iron cage, a pitiful-looking female slave gazed at Buggy with tearful eyes.

His white uniform was the brightest light in her gray life.

"Thank me for what?" The light looked puzzled.

"I should warn you: in about half an hour, this place will be engulfed in flames."

"Before that happens, I suggest you hurry and save yourself."

Buggy had never planned to rescue any slaves.

What he meant to do was tear away the respectable veneer of the employment agency and expose the shameless filth and darkness beneath it.

Especially under the guise and banner of such righteousness.

What he wanted to see was the order breaking apart.

Because that was the beginning of chaos.

"?"

The female slave's rescued-at-last expression froze in an instant, then she understood.

He didn't intend to open her cage.

Her fate hadn't changed in the slightest.

Her gaze swept over the Marines in the auction house. Their eyes had been full of longing, but when they met her gaze, they all looked away.

At least for the moment, their loyalty to Buggy was off the charts.

It couldn't be helped. He'd simply given them too much.

"How am I supposed to save myself?"

At least this Marine officer didn't look greedy.

That was the only consolation she had. Then she really did begin to think about how she might save herself.

Her body?

No. How would that be any different from being a slave?

Then what could she do?

As the female slave pondered how to save herself, Buggy headed backstage without another thought.

Behind the large red curtains on either side of the stage was a passage just wide enough for an iron cage to pass through.

Two distinct grooves ran across the brightly tiled floor.

Farther in, the passage turned several times, each bend fitted with a gate.

It was worth noting that these iron doors, clearly built to prevent slaves from escaping, had ultimately become the dead end that trapped Disco and his accomplices.

Beyond the last thick iron door lay the holding area where all the slaves for sale at the Human Auction House were kept.

Buggy suddenly stopped.

His expression turned intrigued.

There wasn't a crowd of slaves with bowed heads and vacant eyes, waiting for salvation from him, the righteous Marine.

There was only a hole about two meters across.

Beyond it, he could see a few towering mangrove trees and neon bubbles rising into the air, as if they were greeting him.

"Looks like I won't get to see that old friend."

Buggy murmured to himself.

He returned to the stage.

Buggy thought he ought to share the good news with the female slave.

How should he put it?

Congratulations, you're now the only slave who needs to save herself.

Because all the other slaves had already escaped.

It was hard to imagine what was going through the female slave's mind when she heard the news.

But judging by her nearly blank expression, the blow must have been severe.

The blow seemed to spur her into action.

The female slave stood up, her gaze resolute.

She revealed a diamond-shaped shard of glass in her left hand.

She neatly cut off her waist-length hair at the nape of her neck.

She held the long, smooth hair, like a ponytail, in her hand.

Then she held it out to Buggy.

"Swan. My name is Swan."

This was her pledge of allegiance.